Utah John

A call to consolidate and focus our mojo karma, or something, onto the KC game. Da webster is not wrong about priorities, but there's no cost to hoping for all three key games to go our way.

He'll maybe never play with the sustained physicality and relentlessness that one might want out of such a supremely talented athlete Or maybe he WILL play like that. His career has been a continuous year to year improvement. There is no sign that that's coming to an end, no sign that he's hit a ceiling. He's going to get paid, and I hope the Bills are the team to do it. Neither of our LBs get a lot of sacks or interceptions, and unfortunately those are the metrics that lazy Pro Bowl voters look at. But they are both doing exactly what Frazier wants them to do. When healthy, our D is a complete unit working together, like none I've ever seen. The absence of Edmunds OR Milano in particular games this year has shown how valuable they both are.

What are everyone's thoughts on the Poyer interception being overturned? I think he had full control of the ball as he got both feet down, and then proceeded out of bounds. Then he moved the ball but never lost control of it. If he had tossed the ball to someone after getting out of bounds, having gotten both feet down and made a football move by taking two or three steps, wouldn't that have been enough for the interception to stand? I've seen receptions by WRs where they catch the ball in bounds, then immediately put it down or toss it to the ref.

Yeah but it could also be 8-4, or 8-3-1 if Josh doesn't hit Diggs at the end of the Detroit game. That one was too close. All three losses were in winnable games but you have to take the result, win or lose. Both Singletary and Davis dropped two passes, each. It's no wonder Josh just looks for Diggs. Wasn't Knox in the pattern, somewhere? Is he just not getting open? Nicely done graphics.

Absolutely. He does make some difficult catches but any NFL WR should make them too. And he doesn't seem to be getting open. On his TD catch, that would never have happened if the Pats DB hadn't decided to walk away from Davis before the play was over, and go have some Ovaltine to get warm.

I'm reading the comments from Pats fans in response to a Boston Globe article that basically says the Pats suck, they didn't fix anything that the playoff shellacking last year revealed, and that the lousy Pats teams from previous years are now once again on display. My favorite comment from one of the Pat fans: "Yes, that last drive was terrible. Once they got to the red zone, it felt like they had at least a ten shots at scoring. The Bills and refs were essentially saying, "Here, let's try that again." Woeful." With about 5 minutes to go, the Pats needed three scores to win, and they had a 3rd and long. I told my brother they should kick the FG now and then get on with the onsides kick. Instead the Pats floundered around for three more minutes of game time, and then ... kicked a FG. At that point even a miracle onsides kick recovery was too late to save them. Which they didn't get anyway of course.

The Bills offense is stuck in second gear because their Offensive Coordinator has used up all his innovations, and the rest of the league has caught on It was Josh plus Daboll that made the Bills offense so deadly the past couple of years. Now it's just Josh being asked to be a hero every game.

Yes, he missed an EP. That was after kicking more than 100 straight successful tries. And the Bills won the game. Got to cut the guy at least a little slack. The missed FG against the Jets, now, that's another story. That hurt.

Don't forget Fred Jackson.

Crowder was playing very well prior to his injury. When healthy he's probably the team's best slot receiver.

I think the fact that the Bills signed John Brown, when they already have a full set of healthy WRs, is a pretty good clue they know they're not going to sign OBJ. On one hand I think OBJ would bring more talent and possibly a win in a game we'd otherwise lose. Maybe, maybe not. But he'd be super expensive against the salary cap and would probably cost the Bills one of the key defensive players now coming up for contracts, which would hurt more for years to come. If the Bills were really hot and were looking deficient at WR, then OK try to get OBJ. But the Bills are not hitting on all cylinders and it's unlikely OBJ will make enough of a difference to overcome the struggles since the bye week. OTOH Smoke could be here today and for the next few weeks, and then be gone, without any lingering financial hit.

About the seeding in the playoffs last year, and the supposed tanking in the final regular season game: By finishing the regular season with a loss to Cleveland, the Bengals finished 10-7 (4th seed), while the Bills finished 11-6 (3rd seed). This put the Bills against the 6th seed, New England, and the Bengals against the 5th seed, the Raiders (boy you can go bad quickly in this league). When both the Bills and Bengals won, we had to go to KC for the next round while the Bengals went to Tennessee. Was that the best thing for the Bengals, and the worst thing for us? We had beaten KC in KC last year during the regular season, but we had lost to Tennessee in Tennessee. Why was this necessarily a bad thing for us? This was not, on paper, a shrewd move on their part. Maybe they thought they lined up better against the Titans, who knows, and then they figured they'd have to beat KC which seemed doable since they'd beaten KC in the next to last regular season game. But if we had beaten KC, the AFCCG would have been in Buffalo. I would have thought the Bengals would have preferred to play New England and then KC, and then hopefully hosted the AFCCG against us, assuming we'd beat the Raiders in Buffalo and then pull out the upset of the Titans in Tennessee.

Jackson is a good backup. He is not a good starter. But he has had to start due to injuries, and he's clearly the weak link and is getting targeted a lot. Give him credit for keeping his head up and trying hard to keep the Bills afloat until the starters return.

KC is better now that they don't have Hill? Hmmm.

Last year was THE year, and three of the main coaches blew it against KC. The special teams coach didn't order a squib kickoff, and Frazier didn't handle the 13 seconds at all reasonably. Can't put the 13 seconds, or the game, on the offense. But overall it was McDermott who didn't step in at any point to get the Bills ready. With their best chance gone, I've been just watching this season with the expectation that they'd be a good strong team. The defensive injuries have been enormous, and the rookie OC has been figured out. There are too many plays this year where the opponent defense is just waiting for the play they know is coming. They still have a very strong roster, and their DC is outstanding. So they'll be competitive in every game and win twice as many as they lose. For decades on end, either of those accomplishments would have seemed like a miracle. Enjoy what we have and approach this year as if the Bills are one of the top teams, but just accept that this was their year to get all the injuries at once that they didn't get the previous couple. All the pre-season hype was about the team they started the year with. That team isn't available anymore, and the injured players aren't coming back fast enough to get things right. As for getting rid of McD, you have GOT to be kidding. How on earth do you think that makes the team better? This is his first HC job and he's steadily improving year on year.

Twister. Left hand on the white line.

He would deserve it but there's no way it happens. He doesn't have enough interceptions or sacks. The lazy sports media just looks at those two stats.

Wilson has the rookie wobbles really bad. Sitting him down is the best thing for him. Don't ruin him like many other talented rookie QBs do. Let him learn.

I'm not sure at all that Hamlin has the cover skills needed to play the role that Frazier wants for the team defense concept. But he's not the weakness of the current defense. The 3rd string CBs are what's letting other teams move the ball. We really need White back for the late season and playoffs.

There are four good NFC teams: SF, Minn, Dallas, Philly. Who's the best? I don't know. Could be SF but Philly is still looking excellent, thought the NFCE is a dog fight and could hurt both Philly and Dallas. Let's see who gets key injuries the rest of the way, or a bad luck loss that costs them a seeding position. So McDaniel has done well, yes, but the Dolphins have been piling up very good players for a few years now. Trading Tunsil to the Texans for high draft picks has worked out well. Tua has finally figured things out. And with Waddle and Hill, they can score. Comparing this year to the past couple of years shows that the previous coach wasn't that good, and also shows that Hill is a very dominant player.

This is the main point. He's not consistent, and he's not reliable. The Bills offense needs to stay on the field, and when Davis drops 3rd down passes that would move the chains, and the Bills have to give up the ball, that hurts both the offense and the defense.

I haven't watched any of the Lions games this year. I figured, why bother? They've been bad forever. So they've won three games, which is good, congrats, but do they have any good players? I know their QB is Goff, the guy the Rams tossed aside for having a rag arm. What else do they have?

I think McDermott is coaching mid-season games to challenge his team and get them ready for late-season and postseason games. The Bills hadn't run a 2-pt conversion try all year, and he wanted to put them into a challenging situation so they're prepared for it when they need it. They were playing an inferior opponent, the Bills had a good lead, and McD experimented a little. Good for him. This was the right time and the right place and the right opponent.

I think there's a problem on both sides of the ball, that other teams have figured out what our DC and OC will do in a given situation. Frazier built a superb defensive machine, and when everyone is on the field it's dominant. But it requires A or A+ players at many positions, which wasn't a problem last year but now there are C or C+ players in multiple positions. So Frazier is keeping things simple, and the other teams no longer fear the unknown when they venture downfield. This is no criticism of Frazier, who's not letting the D collapse or be unprepared. It's just that Frazier can't be full-Frazier with the tools he has at hand. We have the opposite problem with a similar result on offense. Ken Dorsey spent the offseason dreaming up new plays and formations, and he shot his wad by the third game of the season. Now he's running the same things over and over, and the other teams have figured out the route combinations, the frequency of which plays get called in various situations, and Josh's personal tendencies. Now they're sitting on routes and our guys are not getting open. Our offense problems are not due very much to injuries (though boy wouldn't Crowder help, running from the slot), they're due to inexperience and lack of creativity on the part of our OC.

Can we please forget about Beasley? The Bills saw his capabilities dropping away last year, so they didn't bring him back (and brought in Crowder to replace him). Beasley got a shot with Tampa Bay earlier this year and lasted about one game. He just hit the wall and had to hang 'em up. Good player, just got to the end of the road. Can't criticize the Bills for the Crowder signing, which looked very promising before he got hurt. What really hurt the Bills front office was McKissic backing out of his contract. That is why the Bills spent a second on James Cook and traded a seventh for Hines. The Cook pick could have been another WR, another OL, or some other position of need. (Good news, Cook looks very good, probably better than McKissic, so in the long run maybe this is in our favor. But this year's team could have been better with McKissic plus another high draft pick.)