BADOLBILZ
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Posts posted by BADOLBILZ
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2 hours ago, Casey D said:
Behind a paywall, but an interesting read. His basic take is that the Bills receiver room, while still not great, has evolved into something serviceable. Davis, Shakir and Shavers have settled in as the prime trio, with Shavers being the Hollins from 2024. Palmer should be the 4th when healthy, and then the issue is who is the 5th, Cooks or Coleman. Buscaglia feels Cooks brings better complementary skills than Coleman, so Coleman most likely to sit if Bills go with the usual five receivers.
Room will need overhaul in 2026, but this group might be good enough for the Bills to be a force in playoffs.
I think it's misleading to say that Buscaglia is saying the WR room is improved. Just that they've evolved.
Shavers is playing the Hollins role as a blocker but he's not "the Hollins from 2024". He has had little impact at all in the passing game compared to the big plays and TD's Hollins made. Gabe has been anemic in the passing game. How they use him has definitely evolved and I am not sure that's a good thing because I don't want to see that ham-handed SOB running slants to turnover town. Palmer hasn't even been available. Coleman isn't better. I don't think improving was what he was getting at.
The WR's in total had a pathetic 69 yards receiving in a 39 point performance Sunday.
Essentially the Bills are attempting to win without needing WR's to do much of anything in the passing game.
They are just out there blocking or occupying defenders for the most part. A lot has been made with regard to opposing defense's playing man coverage on the Bills punchless WR corps but one way to "evolve" is to counter tactics. They can intentionally run defenders deep and leave huge swaths of field for Josh to tuck and run.
So they are still pretty worthless as playmakers but they can still contribute tactically to a potent offense.
If Kincaid stays healthy they might be able to get away with it in a league where there are no great teams. We can hope.
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3 hours ago, R.O. said:
He definitely has talent, as he was supposed to be the #1 WR coming into his draft year.
No idea where you came up with this notion but it is very false.
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2 minutes ago, Ned Flanders said:
Yes sir!
This should fix their starting pitching problem.
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When he gets back to jumpin rope you'll know he's close
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Yeah if he'd been healthy I think they are probably the #1 seed.
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45 minutes ago, dollars 2 donuts said:
no, it wasn’t in haste.
Cook could run for the 3rd all time highest rushing total in franchise history, which is a pretty big deal.
I’m responding to what people didn’t understand and what I was trying to say.
My main point hasn’t changed at all. I didn’t misstate it and it wasn’t in haste. It was just some people took it as me stating Cook is better than OJ, which I never did.
Yeah, like I said you just made the mistake of trying to put Cooks season in context of ypc to add gravity to it.
Kinda' like that famous post Alphadawg created where he tried to tell us how we didn't realize how great Khalil Shakir was and threw in a nugget telling us that if you projected his 2023 yards per target figure over 100 targets that Shakir would have had 1360 yards. Of course, he forgot the context of Shakir being the 4th option in the passing game and the impact of teams doubling Diggs. So the next season plays out with Shakir now as a top 2 option in the pass game and no Diggs...... Shakir actually got exactly 100 targets and had like 800 yards. 😂
It just wasn't necessary if you just want to say "that's a lot of yards" as opposed to being like "I'm just sayyyying" that this is the 3rd greatest season by a Bills RB.
I get that people want to find joy in the numbers of today but we don't have to compare very different era's to do that. Just look at where Cook is relative to his peers. He's got a good chance to leading the NFL in rushing. That would be a great accomplishment for a guy who wasn't perceived to be in that category as a rugged RB1.
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11 hours ago, Buffalo716 said:
I think that Rushing attack was very good also
I also think gillisllee was a very scheme specific runner.. he wasn't somebody who had the ability to run in any system or any blocking scheme consistently
He was like a two trick pony for his Gap power scheme... But he did both of those at an extremely high level ... He had a few looks that he really really excelled on
He wasn't the same runner in a zone scheme
Yeah Gillislee was a great fit in those Roman/Kromer offenses that ran a lot of inside zone and gap.
They didn't have an athletic enough OL for outside zone. As evidenced when Dennison came in in 2017 and the run game efficiency fell off a cliff. That style also fed back into the bad habits that got McCoy traded. Habits he broke after his disappointing 2015.
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9 minutes ago, dollars 2 donuts said:
I hear ya, but my main point (lost, my bad in not being clear) was not comparing OJ and Cook, but just that it was a great season by Cook amongst all the 33 rushing seasons in Bills history.
Yeah I just think that in your haste to make a comparison to Bills RB seasons of years past you inadvertently illustrated just how little context your point had.
Cook is having an exceptional season but Josh Allen(the franchise's all time rushing TD leader) is one of the greatest force multipliers for RB's in the running game in the history of the NFL.
The Bills organizational identity to this point in their history is clearly running the ball.
It's the one area where the standard is HIGH.
Cook and this offense is the latest iteration.
They are averaging .7 yards per carry above league average. Same as the 2015 NFL leading rushing offense(which didn't even HAVE a 1,000 yard rusher).
But the 2016 NFL leading rush offense averaged a ridiculous 1.2 yards above average and had McCoy putting up 5.4 and also Gillislee leading the NFL in ypc(5.7) and 3rd/4th down conversion %.
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57 minutes ago, NeverOutNick said:
I don’t talk a lot of smack about Taron because even though he’s not having a great year he hasn’t forgot how to play, and this is the time of year he steps up. I’m betting Taron is going to silence doubters this week
I wouldn't rule out that he's forgotten how to play. He looks lost at times out there. He's had a ton of concussions in his career but he usually(remarkably) cleared protocol and was back out there the next week. It's not just the bad shoulders and aging wheels he has been the antithesis of the heady player he used to be.
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8 hours ago, dollars 2 donuts said:
However, don't think of it as games as much as carries.
OJ ran for 1,503 on 290 carries. Cook has 1,308 on 249 attempts.
If...IF you were to grant James his 5.3 yards per carry average over 41 more attempts it would put him at 1,525 yards on 290 carries.
Where you took a wrong turn in this comparison is that the league yards per rush was 4.0 in 1975, 4.1 in 1976, 3.8 in 1977 etc.. and fluctuated in those ranges for many years thereafter.
Nowadays that number is all the way up to 4.4 yards per carry.
WAY easier to run the ball in the NFL today.
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5 hours ago, GunnerBill said:
On 1) the tape supports him playing better after the bye, it isn't just the fact that (you are not wrong) teams were just charging all over us. As for passer rating - PFR and PFF have slightly different numbers but per PFF he gave up over 100 passer rating 4 times in the first 6 weeks and only once since. His performance was on a steady upswing post the bye then the last two weeks he has been brilliant.
On 3) I agree, but I do think there is a legitimate question that people can ask about whether he is overpaid for the skillset he has. That is different than the "he is invisible" or "he has been a slug" type criticism which isn't fair. He is playing well. What they are expecting of him is not necessarily in line with his skillset.
Yeah we don't disagree I just think the cumulative performance was bad until a couple of weeks ago. He dug a deep hole with his terrible first couple months. But it is how you finish in the NFL which is why I haven't been willing to throw dirt on this team all season.
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8 hours ago, GunnerBill said:
It isn't true he was bad for 11 games. He has played 12 games this year was very bad for the first 6 but since the bye Benford has been playing well. It is only the last two weeks I think you can say he has got back to the sort of level he was playing at last year where he was one of the best half dozen outside corners in football. But he has played well his last 6 games.
I don't know what the reason was for the slow start, and those summising it is linked the head injuries are not being unfair.
I agree with you on Rousseau btw. I think he has had a good year. The issue with Rousseau is the expectations a lot of people have of the type of player he will be have never really stacked up with the reality. And then there is a fair question about where his contract slots him in when you look at defensive ends across the league... he is probably paid like a player that he isn't quite in reality too. But in terms of him playing his position, being assignment sound and actually causing more disruption than probably shows up on the stat sheet I think it is his most consistent season as a pro. He has played better this year than when he got 8 sacks last year. Sometimes that is just how it goes.
1) Bad for 6 and better for 5 is how you have a "bad" 115 passer rating against going into week 13. I think there was a premature rush by some to point out that he wasn't giving up much yardage after the bye........when the team itself was leading the NFL in least passing yardage allowed......largely because they were getting trampled so easily on the ground. He's gotten back to himself and may even be leveling up even in recent weeks.
2) Yeah certainly appeared that he was playing tentatively.
3) Contract slotting is really just a GM/agent tool. Contracts are first and foremost about timing. I think you have to judge a player on their performance relative to their peers and how that relates to the highest aav at the position. It's simpler and also very imperfect but more genuine because you don't have to exclude players with less than 4 years experience and players who are over performing their poorly timed contracts etc. etc. That's why I never use slotting to support or discredit a player but will use PFF.
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1 hour ago, The Jokeman said:
That Jets game is what made me not jump on the Flutie hype train.
Yeah both Jets games that year. Belichick figured him out pretty quick. Make him throw from the pocket.
21 minutes ago, BRH said:That was the game when Flutie's carriage turned into a pumpkin.
Yeah those are the REAL deflating losses. When you realize your team has a fatal flaw. The Fitz home loss to the Jets after their fast start was another one of those games. They forced Fitz out of the dink and dunk and using the middle of the field and he couldn't handle the big boy throws. That season fell apart after opponents saw that tape. And with Flutie the year after teams employed the Belichick D on him and that's why the offense struggled in 1999.
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There isn't any reason for anyone to "apologize". Benford was bad thru 11 games. The eyeball test showed his coverage wasn't good, the physicality wasn't there and statistically he had an abysmal 110-115 passer rating when targeted. The argument that he wasn't bad was just that he hadn't given up a lot of yards in recent weeks.......but the Bills haven't given up yards in the air all season. They were #1 in the NFL in that regard but we all know they are not the most dominant coverage unit by any stretch.
I suspected Benford rung his bell again very early in the season and was playing tentatively. The Benford criticism is different that the Rousseau criticism because the tape shows Rousseau doing his job well. The tape wasn't kind to Benford (or Bernard). Hopefully Shaq Thompson manages to stay healthy for at least a couple more weeks so Bernard can be healthy when he returns to the lineup. And then maybe he starts making plays again too.
I will say though.......one of the more frustrating defensive plays of the game involved Benford and took place after the Bills called that defensive timeout with the Bengals at 3rd and 4. The Bengals split the back out wide and Benford came off of Jamar Chase and took a couple strides out wider to cover the back and Cam Lewis dropped down on Chase. That lead to an easy pitch and catch conversion to Chase. And it wasn't a bang-bang switch.......it was a failure in slo-mo. Benford has to identify what they are doing there and not leave the All Pro for Lewis to cover.
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Because they aren't very talented on defense.
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The Bills have had similarly deflating one game swings in the standing. There have been multiple. For instance, the 1998 team with Flutie Magic seemed to have the division and a bye lined up for them with 2 games left. The Bills hosted the Jets in a de facto AFC East championship game. They lost a close game and fell to 3rd place in the division.
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19 hours ago, dave mcbride said:
Great breakdown. I know folks like @HappyDays and @BADOLBILZ are quick to blame Gabe Davis, but man, on that INT vs Pitt, it was just a terrible read by Allen. Davis did nothing wrong. And I think it’s a bit rich to blame Davis for “dropping” a 70 mph bullet pass that probably traveled 7 yards in a fog-of-war scrum vs Tampa. Not one NFL receiver is catching that, and the blame for him not keeping his feet in bounds vs an elite boundary corner in Stingley, who had established sideline control on that play, seems way off too. That struck me as a no-chance play regardless of the receiver given how good the coverage was. And trust me, I am not a big defender of Davis.
I think I know WHY you think I blamed Gabe.......but I didn't. Allen even admitted post game that the look dictated that he should start his progression from the left. It was a pretty egregious mental error by Allen.
And I heard Chris Simms say that Gabe Davis should have finished his route and assured it was incomplete........but my question is why are they throwing Gabe a slant?
They never used to throw slants to Gabe.
Because he has those two very bad hands......the turnover potential is too high.
3 seasons ago I literally watched them try to make him big-slot-versatile in camp......something they had tried before and abandoned.......and then watched him be thrown a quick slant from Allen for his first chance in preseason and the perfectly thrown ball bounced off his hands for an interception. That was the end of that.
He's NOT a possession receiver. Deep balls and comeback routes. That's all he has ever been useful for in the NFL and even that combination turned sour when defense's started putting CB1 on him and doubling Diggs.
But this room is so bad that they've brought him back and are using him like he is this long-lost reliable possession receiver that he'd never been.
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22 hours ago, finn said:
I admit I avoid the Patriots' games and so shouldn't comment on their performance. My animus toward all things related to the Pats* was showing there. But what gives you away in turn are your absolutes, as in your claim that the Bills' anemic passing offense is "all about" the wide receivers and nothing to do with Joe Brady, which I think is ludicrous. We see what we expect to see. That might apply to me, but it also might apply to you.
Here's the thing.........you are just GUESSING from the perspective of a ball watcher. You don't even have a detailed explanation of what Brady is doing wrong. Yours is an argument that someone who just listens to the game on radio could make.
The people who do make specific but basic criticisms often point to "WR screens". Dink and dunk plays are the low hanging fruit of complaint. NOBODY likes them in the moment. Not even when they are going for big gains.......which they have numerous times. Same goes for most run plays.......nobody wants to see them until after the game when hindsight and remorse set in. So as soon as these types of plays fail it looks like a calamitous call.
Then we have the more intense criticism that the Bills WR's aren't asked to run more diverse routes. "Why are they running mesh again" or "why did they stop running choice routes?". The answer to these questions is that they have a combination of middling to BAD WR talent.....AND.....in a feeble attempt to try to address the talent problem...... they've brought in mistake-prone players like Elijah Moore and Gabe Davis.
The combination of no talent and unreliable talent has eroded Allen's confidence. The lack of conviction has impacted his mechanics. Subsequently his ball placement is all over the place. He's a decidedly worse passer because the bottom has fallen out of this WR corps.
This isn't the top 3 WR room the Bills had in 2020.......this group started out near the bottom and got worse with Palmer out much of the season. Nobody has stepped up. Why people think this team should still average 30 per game and never punt when they have zero presence downfield in most games is ridiculous but predictable. We got spoiled and the narrative of "everybody eats" made it seem that talent wasn't a factor. It is THE reason.
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3 minutes ago, RobbRiddick said:
Wow, I've only just realized Slay was on the sae team as Rudolph
It's a swell time to go claiming for a worn out Slay
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2 hours ago, finn said:
"All about" is pretty strong. Look at the Patriots game, when Brady benched his best skill player in crunch time, or the Houston game, when he did nothing to protect Allen against a fierce pass rush, or his failure to do anything with Moore or Samuel, who both put up much better numbers with their former teams.
You could say Coleman is a bust--or you could say Brady has failed to tap his potential. You could say Samuel sucks, Shakir is limited, Shavers does nothing, and Moore was a wasted signing--or you could say all of them would thrive with a coordinator who figured out how to use them, not utterly give up on him, as Brady appears to have done. How many screens to Shakir behind the line of scrimmage will it take for you to agree that another coordinator could do better? How many back-shoulder throws to Coleman, endless mesh routes, stupid gimmick plays, and utter lack of deep shots, except for that one to Palmer--one!--in the Atlanta game?
No argument that this WR corps is awful, but what would a good coordinator like McDaniels do with it, given that he didn't have much more than that to work with when he was coaching Tom Brady? Heck, look at what he's doing now with a group of receivers that, on paper, aren't much better than the Bills have: a fading Diggs, a journeyman in Mack Hollins, and a promising but often-struggling rookie in Kyle Williams? Yet they're 10-2, with a quarterback, line, and set of running backs that are not as good as what the Bills have.
No, Brady is the problem. Swap receivers with New England, and I guarantee you McDaniels would do as well or better with ours and Brady would do as badly or worse with theirs.
1) Kyle Williams is the receiver you cite behind Diggs and Hollins?
The fact that you don't know who Kayshon Boutte or Pop Douglas are basically tells me that you don't actually follow NFL football.
Boutte has become one of the best deep threats in the league. His ascent started prior to McDaniels arrival.
Douglas is an electric slot/gadget guy. Another guy who was impactful prior to McDaniels. How could you not remember him when he used to be the only guy with juice in that WR corps in years past?
Very impactful, dynamic, inexpensive, starting caliber players with complementary skills who are trending toward getting paid handsomely when their FA comes.
What really gives your angle away is that you know who their 5th or 6th receiving option is(Kyle Williams).......likely because he was in the draft last year and you probably start paying attention to draft eligible players after the season is over.
There is no comparing their WR corps to that of the Bills. Even if the Bills had the health that they have had in NE. If Allen had that group and a healthy Hunter Henry instead of an absent Dalton Kincaid then Allen is likely in the process of repeating his MVP performance.......and then some.
2) As for the old argument that Tom Brady had no pass game options.........he had a HoF TE in Gronk and a very impactful, dynamic player in Julian Edelman(much better than anyone the Bills currently have at WR) for a lot of those seasons in question.
When it started getting to the level of how bad the Bills receiving talent is THIS season....specifically 2019....that's when Brady's production fell off dramatically and the next season he went to Tampa Bay and his career was revived thanks to a bunch of excellent receiving options.
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3 minutes ago, DapperCam said:
I think Brady is the problem, and the offense is operating well under its potential. We can’t even pass the ball with the best QB in the league. There are talent issues at WR, but a good OC can do things to work around that. The Texans game tape was absolutely brutal. Spamming mesh and leaving our tackles on an island while Allen got beat up.To bring this back on topic…the offense should put up 30+ on this Bengals defense.
You guys are so caught up with diminishing the issue at WR. This WR corps is a disaster.
Their best outside option is a WR3 type in Palmer and he's been out or hobbled for half the season. Their starting slot is Shakir and he started the season with a high ankle sprain and has had other injury issues additionally. With those guys healthy it's already the most punchless WR unit in the league........but in practice it's been even less effective due to injury.
And one of the things these shell defense's have exposed is a new axiom that people who don't value WR talent are going to hate..........that the downfield passing success is a WR stat.
In a league where you don't see a lot of downfield separation and officials allow a lot of contact at the catch point.......the success is largely coming down to the quality of the WR. Much like we've come to understand that sacks are more of a QB stat than an OL stat......we will come to understand that the quality of the WR matters most in downfield success.
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1 hour ago, finn said:
There's the rub. Brady did wonders at LSU with Burrow, Chase, and Justin Jefferson, which a dead rabbit could do wonders with. Give him merely an MVP quarterback, a solid set of tight ends, and one of the best lines and running backs in the league, he doesn't do so well. Poor guy! How can anyone expect him to thrive without two All-Pro receivers also?
You just described the personnel of a team that could lead the NFL in rushing. Which they do.
What you failed to note was that it's not about not having two All-Pro WR's.......they literally have the worst WR corps in the NFL and the solid TE's that are available most weeks are primarily just blockers. The one TE who is a matchup problem for a defense in the passing game is Kincaid and Brady has made great use of him in the rare instances that he is available this year.
The Brady hate is about the receivers sucking. There is no margin for error. In the past Allen could heave a prayer downfield or......more often.......buy time and make otherwise ineffective play calls look good. He did it all the time for Daboll and Dorsey.
Now a bad play call is dead in the water for lack of playmakers. So it seems like there are more of them. There are probably LESS because they have to lean into what works at the expense of balance.
Add into that Allen is having a poor season as a decision maker and in terms of consistency with ball placement/accuracy. Now some of that can be a factor of the disjointed passing game keeping him out of rhythm but it still comes down to the talent at receiver.
I mean if you would have told me in August that they would have to elevate wrong-way Gabe Davis AND have to throw slants to him.......when they were deathly afraid to do so the first time he was here because his hands are so bad.......I could have told you the WR position was in shambles. Getting rid of the interception-factory that was Gabe in 2022-2023 was a key reason that they were able to reduce turnovers in 2024.
The Bills inconsistency offensively is all about these bummy WR's and the inability of Kincaid to stay on the field.
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1 hour ago, jlatas said:
he's had productive seasons elsewhere before the Bills. I love my team but you cant help notice that WR performance has suffered since Brady took over. From Diggs on down...
Elijah Moore has NEVER had a positive impact on any offense he's played in at the NFL level. You are looking at bulk stats. Look at his horrendous 44 passer rating when targeted and 8 interceptions last year with the Browns. For contrast sake, Dalton Kincaid has a 155 passer rating when targeted this season. Moore has always been awful in the NFL.
That's why the league left him blowing in the wind in free agency despite being young and fast and putting up some yardage numbers. And it's why he just had to take a practice squad job even though teams are desperate for WR depth this late in the year and his remaining salary is a pittance.
If the Bills can't make use of him in a system that was intentionally dumbed down to prevent turnovers.......I can't even fathom how a team could use Elijah Moore in a system where he is going to be asked to make significant adjustments to his routes based on coverage/leverage. I just think it's hopeless for him at this point.
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1 hour ago, CA OC Bills Fan said:
I hope you're right that the issue is that Moore isn't good not that Brady doesn't know how to use him. I've been believing Brady doesn't know how to run a passing offense and Jerry Rice in his prime would never have a pass more than 2 air yards.
The primary issue with the offense is that the Bills have the league's worst WR corps.
The second greatest issue has been Kincaid being unavailable. When targeted he's been absurdly impactful (155 passer rating when targeted) and IMO they may still be the #1 seed in the AFC.
But the fact that a never-great player like Kincaid can tip the scales illustrates how Brady(and Allen) have just had a very small margin for error as a result of these things.
The Pittsburgh game was interesting in that fans got to see Allen make an egregious pre-snap mental error that lead to the interception that was targeted to Davis and then got to see him turning down wide open....but longer throws....in favor of more ball-safe options.
When you have to win on the ground and don't have anyone who can bail you out downfield on 3rd and 11's after a running back mades a bad decision or an OL gets a false start.......you REALLY can't afford to turn the ball over. That's the primary difference between the offense this year and last year. Last year they had guys like Cooper and Hollins who teams had to respect in Cooper's case........or be surprisingly burnt by in Hollins case. And they didn't turn the ball over.
Even then, when they faced better teams in the playoffs they couldn't pass the ball effectively. That's a personnel issue not a coordinator issue.
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Darius Slay claimed on waivers by Buffalo
in The Stadium Wall
Posted
Not an option now but still a month in the season. We will see what he is thinking after the holidays are over and the reality that he's now a stay at home dad sinks in.