Utah John

Also working against the Dolphins is the fact that they won't have the opposing team sitting in the baking sun while they're in the shade. The same thing that happened to the Bills last year caught the Broncos last Sunday. If the Dolphins expect the Bills to be too wiped out to play well, they could be a little too overconfident. What's the over/under on sacks of Tua? (It would be bad form to ask for the o/u on Tua concussions, wouldn't it?)

The worst part of Thursday night football is the damage it does to the players and coaches. They have a regular schedule for game planning, healing injuries and bruises, coaching up the plays for the game, etc during the week for Sunday games. Monday night screws it up to an extent, but Thursday is just too far out of the healing/coaching schedule. I don't think ANY of the players prefer Thursday night games to a steady dose of Sunday at 1 pm local time.

We lived in California for years, and I agree about the nice early start times. Later we moved to Alaska, another hour west, so the early games started at 9 am our time. That was almost too early. That said, if "the biggest benefit to the west coast is that MNF/TNF are done by 8:30pm" that's not really saying much about the west coast.

Even better, stick with Nathan Peterman and use the Josh Allen pick on a defensive lineman no one's ever heard of.

Not mentioned in the NFL.com quote was how many yards Cook has. I looked it up. It's 267. That averages to 89 per game, which would put him over 1500 for the season. And he got his 267 yards on 44 carries, which is 6.07 yards per carry. All this without any really long runs. He's getting close to ripping one for 75 yards, which will make his stats look even better.

Let Josh be Josh.

I think it's Poyer's turn, or Rousseau's. So far we've had highlight games from Milano and Bernard, Floyd and Oliver and Jones got sacks, and Hyde and White got picks last game (and White had the kind of game we remember him having all the time). This defense is loaded with players, and it's hard to tell which ones will pop up with special plays in any given week. But for a safety playing against Miami's receivers, or a pass rusher against Tua, I'm expecting either Poyer or Rousseau to be the star this week.

Peter King has indeed been a Bills supporter over the years. I think what's going on is that the sports media have decided not to feature the Bills after the great but disappointing season last year. (The NFL itself has a little more integrity -- Josh Allen OPOW last week, and Bernard DPOW this week). Matt Milano had an incredible interception against the Raiders, and it didn't show up on any of the highlight chatterboxes for week 2. I think Bills and Raiders fans were the only ones aware of that play. Giving the benefit of the doubt, maybe the media are just trying to find new stories and new angles. The only story about the Bills over the offseason was Stefon Diggs' supposed unhappiness. So now the Browns have finally shown signs of life, and it's time for Peter King and others to give them some attention. Maybe that's all it is.

More to the point, our O line gave up zero sacks to the vaunted Commanders' D line with four 1st round draft picks. Allen often had all day to pass and had very few pressures. Our O line, all across the board, is shaping up to be, well, not really a strength, but not a liability any more. Brown is part of that. (Two much better guards are the biggest reason.)

Interesting perspective. My impression of Daboll was that he was actually good at making adjustments during the game. Probably it was more a case of him having a lot of plays ready to go, and he just went to the ones that were working.

Another obvious tell is that there's a room full of other diners, and no one is paying any attention to Josh.

Tackling, too. And falling down. And blocking. Any kind of contact, really.

A word of advice. NFLST is now working OK for me, but I went through some real struggles getting it set up during the preseason when ST showed some bonus games. Do everything you can ahead of time to shake out the bugs. And Tremaine Edmunds will be in position to watch them both. Russell Wilson's stats for the Dolphins game were actually good. Their O was just overshadowed by the incredible collapse of their D.

Speaking of delegation: McDermott has figured out how to be a good HC, and I think he's probably delegated some of THOSE duties to others so he could do a good job as DC as well as HC. It seems to be working. It could turn out that if the Bills lose a few more games they should have won (e.g., the Jets) the team will start to question the current arrangement, and McD might not be in a strong position to address the situation, not with his DC duties eating up time. But for now, I'm happy.

I think it's McDermott's work as DC. Gone is Frazier's passive D that relied on Edmunds' size and speed to limit the damage, and waiting for bad opposing offenses to screw up. McDermott is attacking, and other teams haven't figured out how to respond. McD was an excellent DC in Carolina, and I suspect he was frustrated during Frazier's tenure. And he finally took action, easing Frazier out in the nicest way possible.

The biggest problem with getting Daboll back is that he'll be trying to leave again. Some team will give him a second chance as HC, and by then Ken Dorsey will also be gone. I suspect the Bills looked at the Raiders and Commanders as easy wins, not worthy of showing everything the offense could do. This week, everything comes to the fore. Let's hope so, anyway.

All your points about the historic nature of the Jets SB III win are valid. In fact there's some evidence that that SB was handed to the Jets through officiating and intentionally poor play by the Colts, so the Jets could win and the balance between the leagues would seem better. That said, Namath's good years were only from around 1967-69. His knees were injured so badly, and the Jets roster grew so much weaker, that he was no longer as effective. The point being that he had only about three really good years. Most QBs in the HOF have much longer periods of success.

Amazing how the hype about the Jets evaporated with a single sack by Leonard Floyd. Rodgers is still a good QB but (even before the injury, of course) he's not elite. All the great players the Jets are said to have, except for Rodgers, are still there. If the team could collapse like this just from a single player's absence, it wasn't that great to begin with. I'm sure the Jets are ruing their decision to let Mike White go to the Dolphins. White would be starting now.

The 1999 team's defense WAS great. Bruce Smith was still playing (for the Bills), along with Ted Washington and Sam Cowart, and it was just dominant. I recall telling a co-worker before the playoff game between the Bills and the Titans that the winner was going to the Super Bowl because both teams had such good defenses. I was right, and I think I would also have been right if the Bills had just covered the final kickoff like professionals. The offense was generally good, too. We had Andre Reed AND Eric Moulds. We had Thurman Thomas, Antowain Smith, and Jonathan Linton (whom we've forgotten about but who was pretty good). The O line was good, with John Fina and Ruben Brown. Unfortunately, we didn't have a dominant QB, and Ralph Wilson forced Wade Phillips to play the wrong one. This led to a defensive struggle throughout the entire game, because the Titans also had excellent personnel. The Bills had a SB-quality team, and I think probably would have won the SB if they'd made it there. Agreed. But don't overlook the other side. The Bills offense has been running in second gear, which has been good enough to win two games. I'm assuming that Dorsey has a long list of plays he's held in reserve, that will let the O dominate the Dolphin's D. Check the Broncos stats. Russell Wilson had a good game, which was just overshadowed by the collapse of the Denver D. The Bills have a considerably better O than the Broncos do, with more weapons and a better O line. And a better QB of course.

Regarding playing 1 pm games in Florida cities, particularly Miami, in September: I think there's a case to be made to OSHA that those games should not be allowed. Seriously, putting the visiting team in the direct sun while the home team is in shade, is going to get a player killed eventually. It's one thing to have a home team enjoying a better locker room, but the field conditions should affect both teams equally. A cold day, a wind day, or a snowy day (or all three) in Buffalo affect both teams equally. To the point of this thread, it's great that Bills fans travel well, but the travel would make even more sense when it turns cold in Buffalo (November) while the rest of the country is still warmer.

Yeah. He clearly had given himself up and was not trying to advance the ball. That could have been a really bad turn of events if the Bills hadn't been able to push the ball out from the goal line. Could have been a safety, or could have resulted in a punt from the back of the end zone.

In the fourth quarter, the Bills broke the will of the Commanders. That's not supposed to happen with professionals, but you could see the entire Washington offense, particularly Howell, just shrinking in anticipation of the abuse they knew was coming immediately after each snap. After that, it was sharks in the bloody water. Fun for us to watch and a warning shot to the rest of the league's also-rans, but shocking to see the Commanders fold like that.

Too many attempts to run Cook up the middle. The Commander's D line is above average (not as good as advertised, though) yet Dorsey kept trying to get Cook through the middle. And the red zone futility is going to kill them against strong teams. I don't see Josh as the problem. I think it's Dorsey.

Moss wasn't a good fit for the Bills. And the Bills were a terrible place for Moss to spend his career. Our offense was completely wrong for him. Wrong O line personnel, wrong schemes, wrong focus. We didn't need a power back to gain three yards at a crack running between the tackles. We have Josh Allen to hit short throws, or scramble downfield, when we need three yards. We need the RB to be a quick, dangerous runner who forces defenses to spread out of respect for the edge. This year we're seeing Cook get around the corner and downfield for 20, on plays where Moss or Singletary get caught and lose 2. And we're seeing more openings across the middle because defenses have to be spread a little more. I got to be a big fan of Utah football when I lived in Salt Lake City, and I particularly admired Moss and was happy the Bills drafted him. I thought he played with the same intensity and drive that we saw from Freddie Jackson. I think that's the guy the Colts now have. Good for Moss to find a place where he fits, and good for the Bills to finally have the RB they needed to begin with.

Milano's interception against the Raiders was amazing. Certainly a highlight play. Except for the NFL which ignored it when putting together their highlight plays of Week 2. What's going on? Have they decided that someone else is the flavor du jour, and it's time for Milano to fade into the background? Maybe in this QB-centric league, the PR machine can focus on only one LB, and that's Micah Parsons (who really is exceptional, don't get me wrong) -- so Mr. Milano can take his flowers and go stand in the corner. I hate seeing that. Milano makes great plays every game, TFLs or sacks or great one-on-one open field tackles. He deserves great recognition. I'm just glad that the contract he signed will keep him on the Bills for years.