BADOLBILZ

Morse is very similar in style to Eric Wood. Wood was terrible in the power run game under Marrone. Might as well have been wearing skates on the field on run downs. The switch to the inside zone attack under Greg Roman resuscitated his career. With less physical, athletic lineman you want them to be blocking the edges of defenders instead of trying to push their whole body weight off the LOS.

He's been bad this season, but in fairness this OL allows free rushers at an alarming rate. And elusiveness is not his game. At all. He's a power runner who is good at blitz pickup and not bad in the passing game. That is why he keeps getting snaps. My issue with him is the same as last year. As the season went on he started to anticipate penetrating defenders and got tentative to the holes and left yardage on the field. While it's hard to blame a player for that considering how bad the OL has been.........that's a sign of an ordinary RB. But put him on TN and he would be their #1 RB right now.

The OL is the majority of the problem. Put these backs behind the OL in NE or TN and they would produce fine. Najee Harris is a talented RB. Pittsburgh expended a $30M-per-year-position-type draft pick on him. He's rushing for a ghastly 3.7 ypc this season. Because his OL isn't good. By contrast......Devin Singletary is getting nearly a full yard per carry more than him and is basically a career 4.7 ypc RB on over 400 career carries. Not sure how one can watch the Bills OL allow defenders to slash cleanly into the backfield play after play and somehow think that it's not an offensive line issue.

For the most part they are built right. The OL has just had a very, very poor year.........including some guys who were excellent last year.........and subsequently the offense has struggled. The defense is built to play with leads so they are a little lighter than ideal to play opposite a too often low scoring offense(but still very effective). And the coaching on offense this season has left a lot to be desired. But no, it's not like they have holes all over the lineup and no depth or a ton of players who don't fit.

After tonight.........Cam Heyward can never say that he never quit on the football field. That first half was very enjoyable bad football by a tired Steelers team and a Vikings team that lost to the Lions 4 days ago.

I'm not one for the false bravado like the OP has produced here. But the reality is that McDermott's consistently said that his primary message is that it's the teams that stick together thru the long season that play well at the end. Additionally..........they are pretty healthy and lower mileage as a team for being 12 games in. So it wouldn't surprise me at all if they play much better down the stretch and in the playoffs.

The first step is understanding that this is not going to be the case. Can a different RB help a little? Sure. We've seen instances where the Bills RB's have made bad decisions and mistakes with their assignments. But it's not anything close to 50/50. Nobody is running for 270 yards with a bunch of OL they just picked up off the street..............TN just did it a week ago against the Patriots with 2 veteran street free agent RB's. It's at least 90% about the blocking. The Bills best hope is that they get back to full health at OL and they make adjustments. Like, as Eric Wood has suggested, going to more inside zone. But giving Williams some more snaps at the expense of Moss? Why not. Moss has been lousy.

1. If you are comfortable drafting an interior OL in round 1 you are either an idiot GM with brassy balls or you better be damn good at stealing players at key positions in the draft. 2. The Colts have won no playoff games since drafting Nelson (1 pick before Josh Allen, might add). They also can look forward to setting the market(by A LOT) for Quenton Nelson at around $25M per year this offseason or letting their team leader go into his walk year. And also not having a second round pick for the right to pay Carson Wentz $28M next season. Oh, and their former #1 overall draft pick LT is also a FA they might want to get done so that Wentz doesn't get snapped in half next season. Having the highest draft pedigree OL in football is one way to do it........but don't see it as a great strategy, IMO.

Marv had a winning record versus Shula but also was upset a number of times by his Dolphins. And Shula still won the AFC East twice at the expense of Marv. So it wasn't anything resembling the domination that Shula had over Buffalo in the 1970's. The Bills longest win streak versus Shula was 6 games....and that was in the 80's.......before the SB run. There was never any real threat of them hangin' 20 straight on Miami. Just like Shula.......whom they were 3-0 against in the playoffs.........the only avenue the Bills have to get over on BB is to beat him in the playoffs.

What are you talking about? I'm talking about adding an immediate stud to the interior OL..........not drafting one in the top 3 rounds and waiting for them to develop like most OL do. And LAC drafted a stud offensive tackle in round 1. Otherwise didn't draft another OL until round 5. No idea what your rationale is here.

You don't fundamentally alter sound draft strategy to fill needs. They are in this position because Beane did that in 2019 by drafting Oliver, Ford and Singletary for need. You could make an argument at the time that Oliver was the best player on the board and a pass rusher. Ford and Singletary were both the purest form of drafting for immediate need over BPA at more valuable positions. They literally drafted Cody Ford to fill a perceived need and in the process undermined the smart work they did in finding value late the previous year in Wyatt Teller. That was an unfortunate NUCLEAR type of accident. But it underscores my point.........you treat the draft as a big picture solution. Finding interior OL help should not be a long term problem. By having QB/LT/CB1/WR1 and possibly Pass Rusher 1 all addressed with draft picks and reasonable contracts they have positioned themselves to be able to justify paying a Brandon Scherff or Laken Tomlinson type in UFA to give them a big matchup winner inside. And those players "should" be available because their teams haven't filled their premium needs inexpensively like the Bills and will have a hard time justifying paying interior OL with their bigger needs.

That's a recipe for a coach-killing Reggie Ragland & Cody Ford kinda' yield. You don't draft low ceiling players at lesser positions early to fill immediate needs. And this year ESPECIALLY..........center, RB and DT are all light on higher quality talent in the rounds you put them in. You'd be lucky to get a Devin Singletary quality RB in round 2 in this draft.........it's not a great class.........but even if it were a good one it's still a waste of equity for that position. The Bills need to address their immediate interior OL issues in UFA or via trade. The OT, WR, CB classes look pretty good which is always good when premium talent positions like that are well stocked. Gotta' get them when they are hot. Might be the deepest TE class in a long time and pass rusher is pretty deep again. All the woe we feel about the interior OL pales in comparison to being light at premium positions.

This isn't really how you solve a "now" problem at a positional area that is known to take a long time to develop like offensive line. See how much drafting two promising young pass rushers in round 1 and 2 has helped the Bills immediate fortunes in that area. Not much. Pass rusher is a long term play. You address pressing issues like this in free agency or even via trade. Pro personnel moves. Fortunately, guard is a position that is usually fairly well stocked in UFA. Spend the $10M-$15M per on a very good guard.............then save your premium picks for players at positions who are going to be commanding $25M-$30M per year at the end of their rookie deals. That's how you fill needs and win at the salary cap game.

I'm for benching Moss and incorporating Williams. For most of last season the OL wasn't blocking it up well for the run either and eventually Moss in particular started anticipating missed blocks and it really slowed down his decision making. Would-be 8 yard runs were turning into 3 yard runs. It was very evident in that finale against the Dolphins when Moss was leaving yards on the field and enter Williams and he just ran hard to where the hole should be and it paid off. They aren't blocking it up well enough for Williams to get much done......certainly not against Tampa........but it's time for Moss to grab some pine, IMO.

Singletary is fine running the ball. Career 4.7 ypc on 415 carries. His fumbling has just been out of control this season. I doubt all of them will be gone next season but there will be changes. But put these RB's behind some more OL talent...........and switch to more inside zone, pin and pull blocking like they used prior to McDermott getting here and we could see an instant transformation to a consistently excellent run game. Easy to forget that the a line with Wood and Glenn was seen as unredeemable garbage under Marrone with his man-blocking, run CJ Spiller up-the-gut style..........Eric Wood was so bad in that system that even he thought he might get cut by the team..........but a year later they added Incognito and two scrubs in Miller and Mills and then lead the league in both rushing and big plays on offense (with an incredible amount of long runs). And that was also the season when LeSean McCoy missed every gotdamn hole and played like a JAG.

Pay a little closer attention. The worst hit Allen has taken all season was an impossibly stupid play where Breida ran right past a blitzer he was responsible for. Then he had a play last week that he blew in the red zone by going in motion to the wrong side of the field. Then against NE he just forgot how to physically accept a handoff. That's an exceptional amount of egregious mental mistakes for the few snaps he's played. There is a difference between improperly executing assignments and missing them entirely. It's discouraging because he is a really explosive player with his hands on the football and a good fit for an outside zone team.

On the flip side.........the Bills have beaten the Patriots two of the last 3 games. This year they made the mistakes to lose the home game to the Patriots...........last year the Patriots outplayed the Bills in Buffalo and they made the unforgivable mistake at the end and the Bills won. But if you want to let what happened from 2000-2019 bother you NOW........then have at it. It's a self inflicted wound though. They aren't ever settling the score with Belichick in the regular season. Anyone old enough to remember Shula domination should know that.

Here lies Casey. A dismal 7-5 record in December of 2021 was da' last straw.

Other teams runnin' bax miss holes all the time too. Behind a good run blocking line, where the hole will be is often a pre-snap read for a RB...........for the Bills, it's all post snap because they rarely execute their assignments as they are drawn up. Moss is too slow for outside zone for me. I wouldn't have him out there. Singletary is clearly their best back. Breida is the most explosive but it's now abundantly clear why he was available so cheap in UFA. He's really dumb. One mental error after the next. That's why he's bounced around and played sparingly in Miami and Buffalo despite that talent.

Well.......that's obviously not the case. Fan support thru the drought says it all about the willingness of fans to support the team thru thick and thin. Bills fans are rabid fans of the team.........but maybe not as understanding of the league as they need to be yet. The dominant team doesn't just go away so you can have "your turn" to win for a decade and a lot of people are mad because it's not that way. As supportive as Bills Mafia is..........understanding the NFL as a whole isn't a strength yet because the Bills haven't been in contention enough for the past 2 decades for many fans to feel compelled to follow the entire league closely enough to understand that it's not going to be "easy" just because you have a QB now.

As usual, you are wrong. Most long term successful regimes still lead thru fear and cutthroat personnel management and at the very least the HC's keep players a bit more at arms length than Sean McDermott. And relying on fear really helps Belichick stay on top of his X's and O's because he's not dealing with everyone's feelings and headspace every day. McDermott has his hands full now just managing his teams mindset. Especially now that they have such familiarity with him and feel comfy and cozy with all the continuity they've had. It's not an accident that they might be the most inconsistent football team the NFL has seen in the past 40 years (as DVOA suggests in addition to the eye test). As I've said though........Arians was dealing with very similar issues in Tampa last year.........but they got hot in the last 4 weeks of the season and went on to win the whole thing. One of my concerns is a coach like Arians really started to be perceived as a slam dunk great coach at his SECOND full time NFL HC job. When he left Arizona his style wasn't getting it done there anymore. When he went to Tampa it was like "hey, he won with Arizona for chrissakes" and then he basically had the old Marv Levy "if you get a reputation as an early riser you can sleep til' noon" thing going on where he could do little wrong despite flat out sucking early on there. Hopefully McD and Beane can figure out how to reign things back in before they have to go somewhere else to get the most out of their teams again.

Nah. Sorry, Casey. When I was growing up the old men used to say things like "once a man, twice a baby" to describe their moodiness and "once I hit 60 better find someone else to operate this machinery, etc.." because they were self-aware of their increasing tendency to lose their patience quicker. Not sure when we stopped realizing that was natural. I think you actively gotta' fight that tendency to get emotionally upset or resign yourself to less stressful activities.

I think he knows it's the offensive line. There is more top end OL talent coming out than top end RB talent as well so that is probably for the best to help prevent something regrettable like drafting a RB in round 1. I see them making their biggest FA focus adding a very good offensive guard. And tend to expect an offensive tackle in round one and Dawkins being kicked inside. No question they need better results from their coaching and they need to find more talent later like they did with Teller. If McD chooses to shake up the OC and OLC positions he should be able to pull some decent talent because he is pretty secure in his position and has the elite QB to make good coaches look great, IMO.

I'm not sure why people that "age out" have to have these grand announcements here on TSW. Most of my father's generation that used to go to games religiously are sippin' Coors lights on the golf course down south when the Bills are playing now. None of them put back of hand to forehead to tell us why and remind us of the context. Some people can stomach the ups and downs of following sports teams when they get older........a lot of others don't have the patience for it any longer. Good luck in fan retirement.......but please people..........writing your own Bills obituary is super Lampy.

Last week NE allows 270 yards rushing to guys TN picked up off of the street. Last night NE runs for over 200 with a couple RB's who'd look like trash if they were running behind the Bills OL. Today some Bills fans are blaming RB's for the team's lack of a consistent running game. It's not like this is happening in the NFC west...........these are teams that the Bills are competing for playoff position with that are putting up big yardage numbers without talented RB's. Dumbest response ever is to use a high pick on a RB to address the issue. Some knucklehead was lamenting not trading up for Najee Harris..........the dude's running for a pathetic 3.6 ypc on the season. Give it up already, the jury weighed in and went home like 20 years ago. Block it up and the yards will come.