Utah John

I'm pretty sure the NFLPA agreement is that draftees salaries are predetermined. All in dollars, not in property. This is going nowhere. Williams won the Heisman last year. This year there are at least two QBs in the PAC-12 alone who are better. Wiliams is by no means a lock on the first overall pick, or to be the first QB taken. Chicago has the first two picks next spring, unless it or Carolina starts winning, and may still be clinging to Justin Fields as the future, in which case either they'll trade one of those picks, or not picks a QB at all.

I counted 12 error plays in the first half, three in the third quarter, and only one in the fourth. The Bills were shut out in the first three quarters, scored at the beginning of the fourth, and then again later in the fourth. I'm guessing there's both correlation AND causation going on here.

I don't think the NFL will ever go to full-time officials. All these officials come up through HS and college ranks while holding down regular, full-time jobs and careers. You're gonna tell some person who's in the middle of a long and successful career on the outside, where they're making most of their income, to step away and focus on prepping for the next game, all week long? It's hard to see what they'd be doing all that time, and it's even harder to see many people accepting that. Does anyone think they'd be able to slide back into their other career after the NFL is through with them? And they probably LIKE their main jobs and won't want to stop doing them. So full-time refs is probably not the solution. But there are so many cameras catching all the action. Put half a dozen trained refs, not necessarily ready to be on the field but experienced at the college level, watching a dozen video screens, with controls to focus in on particular plays and actions, at every game. College refs will probably be happy to take the gig, make some money, and get noticed by the NFL for possible on-field jobs in the future. Their direction: When you see something, say something. If Davis gets punched in the face and loses the ball, let's not award the ball to the Jets, let's penalize Okereke for unsportsmanlike conduct and let the Bills keep the ball. Thanks for pointing that out. I missed it completely during the game.

There are 2-3 first downs every game just sitting there, waiting -- no, begging -- for Josh to run up and take them. But Zoloft Josh is turning down those opportunities, and throwing into coverage instead. And the defenses know he isn't going to run. So they stick like glue to the receivers and ignore Josh. What he needs to do is start taking those running opportunities, to force the defense to respect that. THAT'S what's needed to get the receivers some space; except for Diggs they don't seem to be able to do it on their own.

FWIW, even if 99 wasn't caught punching Brown, the NFL will review the tapes and see what's what. Hefty fine if he really did punch Brown in the face -- also possibly busted fingers if he wasn't careful where he punched -- and a slight chance of a suspension. The message I learned after that brawl, when the Giants got 3 UCs and the Bills got 1 and they all offset, was that if there's a brawl, go for it, big time. Don't actually punch anyone, which if seen will get you ejected, but definitely gang up on a single opponent and bury the poor guy. As long as there's a single UC penalty on the other side, it's time for some NHL action. There were missed calls favoring both sides, all through the game. I think the final play was perfect -- just enough contact to disrupt the play, not enough to draw a flag, and plenty to put the Giants and their fans into a mental tailspin.

The question ought to be, if the Bills don't make the playoffs this year, should McDermott be fired? If they play as poorly going forward as they did the last two games, they're going to struggle to finish above .500. Losing White, Milano, and Jones hurts the defense but the defense is still playing better than the offense, which can't blame the lousy O line of yesteryear for their struggles. And Josh looks like he's playing well, protecting the ball, hitting open receivers, and running with success but only when necessary. So what's left? Gimme a D, gimme an O, gimme an R...

By this time every year, we realize that the preseason strength evaluations of the various teams and divisions, are all hit or miss. By the time we play a team later in the year, they could be better or worse (injuries) than they are now. Just play the games and don't worry about it. That's what we heard the Bills say about sport science, but I've never seen anything other than that. I'd like to know how many sports and how many games are the basis for their conclusions. Show us the data, please.

Fournette was still playing at a high level last season. Maybe the Bills suspect he's now fallen off the cliff, like Dalvin Cook appears to have done, but it's worth bringing Fournette in to kick the tires.

He meant melee.

True. The article I posted a link to only talked about how many sacks each team's defense was getting, not how many its offenses were giving up. For three out of six games, our offense was tremendous. For the other three, it was terrible. We had the same O line for all six. I think it comes down to defensive personnel and defensive schemes on the part of the opponent, and whether our OC is putting our guys into positions to succed.

Defenses are having more success getting QBs down. https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/sacks-per-game Compare 2022 with 2023. Almost every team is getting more sacks per game this year than they did last year.

So what's reasonable to think about the offensive struggles? The Bills looked so good against the Raiders, Commanders, and Dolphins. The Commanders and Dolphins both have good defenses and yet the Bills offense strafed them. The Bills go to London. They have only a couple of days to jerry-rig an offensive game plan, then head to the UK way too late and are up against a rested team that's had a full week to analyze the Bills' offense and figure out how to interfere with it. So the Bills offense is crap. The Bills travel back, and lose a day they would ordinarily have to prepare for the Giants. Their HC didn't have a week to prepare to play the Bills -- he's had a year and a half of thinking about it. Look at all the comments Daboll has made about the Bills -- complimentary to everyone except McDermott. There's something bad going on between them. Daboll really really wanted to win last night. He's been obsessed for a 18 months. Stuck in traffic, ponder how to confuse Josh. Sitting on the can, think about defensive line adjustments against the plays he crafted and then passed on to Dorsey. Mowing the lawn, figure out how to disguise DB alignments. Other teams take notice. Their DCs analyze what the Commanders and Dolphins did and why that didn't work, and they analyze what the Jags and Giants did and why that DID work. So strap it on, Dorsey. You need the full 50 gallon size bag of tricks -- the little grocery sack you've using won't cut it.

Sure, most of the time we do win big. But sometimes we get caught up in the moment and play down to the other team's level. I don't know why.

Daboll still has a very clear understanding of the Bills offense and clearly used that information. His former underling, currently his replacement, has added some new things but the basic structure is still what Daboll put in place. I'm less concerned about the Bills struggles last night than I am about whether other teams will analyze what Martindale did with Daboll's information. Dorsey is going to have to think up and install new components for the Bills offense, during the season and not during preseason or training camp when that work is usually done. I am not convinced he's up to that. The Bills dominant team in games 2-5 this year was beautiful but will be a distant memory by the December. One or two more serious injuries and the wheels will officially be off. The Bills better buckle up and win the games they are supposed to win, because any more cheap losses and they could fall out of a playoff position completely.

Does anyone know if Boogie Basham was active for the Giants in last night's game? I never heard his name mentioned.

Was it smart? Probably not. Will the rest of the Bills love him even more? You betcha. He's as tall as the linemen, though not as heavy, and he doesn't think anyone can push him or his teammates around.

The biggest blunder is one the Bills make a lot. It's called, playing down to your opponent's level. The Bills rise up to beat Miami convincingly, then seem to lose focus against weaker teams. In college, you can get away with this since even top teams have really bad teams on their schedule. In the pros, not so muich. Look at the Eagles and 49ers, who both lost to patched up teams with real problems. So the Bills aren't the only high-level team to have this problem, but it's the factor that separates the top teams from the rest of the good ones.

But who's gonna trade for him with that contract? Let's not forget Charles Clay. Better yet, let's.

ANY other Bills QB loses this game. Put Kelly into this offense and it doesn't work. Kelly had Thurman, Andre, James, Don, Keith, Kenneth, Pete. Josh has Diggs and a lot of other guys who are pretty good but no match for the early 90s Bills.

Great guy, not quite as great a player. I've seen him playing for the Vikings and he gets run over too much. Definitely not the second coming of Kyle Williams.

Maybe the people who stand up just want to stretch, or make sure they can get their bag out of the overhead. Both legitimate reasons. For starting new threads, not so much.

Oh great. The PJ's are back. Look, Bills, if you can't keep up with the laundry just tell us.

Let's try another experiment. We'll hold an NFL commissioner under water for 10 minutes and see what he says later.

Logan Thomas

About Elam -- Any thoughts that he stunk the place up on purpose, so the Bills can't get anything for him in a trade? Probably not. I think we all saw why he's been a healthy scratch.