hondo in seattle

I agree. I respect the 2025 Pats. If the Bills beat them with good performances on both sides of the ball, I'll happily reevaluate the current state of the Bills. And, yeah, Philly looks beatable.

Brother Dollars, thanks for the kind words! I don't think Fergy passed for more than 3,000 yards his first 6 or 7 years with the Bills. But he played a long time and eventually had a couple of productive seasons. But in the beginning, it was all OJ, all the time. And since our D was usually poor, the entire game plan of the opponent was SLOW OJ DOWN. If they could do that, they'd win. Well, in 1974, we were invited to play on Monday Night Football (a big cultural phenomenon back then as you might recall) for the very first time. Our opponent would be the Oakland Raiders who were good enough to get several MNF games and had won them all. This was, btw, the first and only Bills home game I would see in person at the Ralph. OJ was off to a good start, though frustratingly he seemed close to breaking one but hadn't yet. And then he got hurt right before half if I recall correctly. The game was basically over. We couldn't win without OJ. But Fergy threw a 13-yard TD strike to Ahmad Rashad with 13 seconds left to win the game 21-20. As it unlikely as it seemed at the time, it was Fergy, not OJ, who was the hero of our first MNF victory. Although I'm glad to see Allen rising ahead of him on the passing yards list, Fergy will always hold a hallowed place in my old heart.

A man can dream, can't he? But my rational, pragmatic mind tells me that we're not winning out. We've been too inconsistent this season, and we're too banged up right now, to believe winning out is a realistic scenario. We started the season 4-0. But since the hospital beds filled up and Brady lost his juju, we've been a mediocre 5-4 team. I'm hoping for a 3-1 finish but, given the trend, 2-2 might be more likely.

Dollars, my good gentleman adventurer and fellow warrior poet, I'm appreciating what Cook is doing but you can't compare him to OJ for a few reasons. Let's start with the quarterback. Clearly the defenses we face today fear Allen far more than they fear Cook. So we see, for example, teams line up in a two high shell and then put a spy on Allen. Teams don't put spies on Cook. I'm sure they respect his talent but he's not their primary worry. OJ's usual QB was Joe Ferguson. Fergie eventually became a good QB but in his early years, his job was simply to give OJ the ball. For example, in 1973 when OJ ran for 2,000 yards, Ferguson passed for less than 1,000 despite starting every game. Defenses were fully, entirely keyed on OJ with spies matching his every move. And they still couldn't stop him. Now let's look at defenses. Nowadays, most teams use the 4-2 as their base defense. In the 1970's, the 4-2 was called a "pass prevent" defense and was only used, reluctantly, at the very end of halves. Most defenses then, including the "Purple People Eaters" and the "Dallas Doomsday Defense," used the 4-3 and were intensely focused on smothering running backs. LBs back then were not the quick, rangy guys of today with good coverage skills. They were freaking lunatic killers like Dick Butkus, Mike "Mad Dog" Curtis, Jack Ham, and Jack Lambert who hit you like a freight train and counted any day they hospitalized a back a good one. DEs were different, too. Forget today's sack artists with superior bend, spin moves, and ballet-like grace. The DEs of the 1970s were hulking giants who pounded the snot out of RBs and made them cry. Cook is a good back, and I like watching him work. But he wouldn't achieve the stats he's attaining now on the 1970s Bills versus 1970s run-first defenses.

"4 - Receivers - Two games in a row now where the receivers are almost non-existent." Considering how useless our wideouts are in Brady's offense, maybe we should run a 14 alignment.

I don't know if I'm ready to fire Beane but if I had to terminate one of the two: it would be Beane. Easy decision. Everybody worries about wasting Allen's prime. I give credit to Beane for drafting Allen, but the rest of the roster tends to be rather middling. We've never had a SB roster since Beane arrived so I'm not sure why so many call for McDermott's head on a platter. Yeah, McDermott's made mistakes and has flaws, but the fundamental issue is we need a better roster.

That play looked ugly until it wasn't. It's 4th down. We really, really need to convert but Allen faces pressure quickly and starts scrambling. #92 shadows him and Allen can't juke him. Suddenly Allen stops with his feet parallel and in that awkward position he throws to Shakir who's surrounded by Bengals in the endzone including #44 who's directly in front of Shakir allowing no apparent window whatsoever. I hated every moment of that play until Shakir caught the ball. I don't know how many QBs could have made that throw under those circumstances but it's not many.

Mine too. She complained that the neighbors could hear me yelling. But our neighbors are football (49ers, Raiders) fans, too. They know the deal. And I didn't need Next Gen Stats to tell me how much the game changed on that play.

I think the concussion protocol is imperfect and needs refining but is better than the days when coaches/trainers gave concussed players smelling salts and sent them back in the game with a pat on the back. A work in progress.

This is exactly my list of game balls.

I just had to look this up. "The University of Georgia had a standout linebacker named Robert “Happy" D*cks, who later became a physician — specifically a neurosurgeon... He was an All-SEC linebacker and played in the 1969 Sugar Bowl against Arkansas..." His unusual name led to one of the most famous sports headlines ever written: "DOGS TO PLAY C*CKS WITH D*CKS OUT" referring to the Georgia Bulldogs vs. South Carolina Gamecocks without Happy in the lineup. The original headline lacked the asterisks since the usage was legit, not profane.

Considering we are, frustratingly, a better running team than a passing team, a good blizzard could be an advantage.

It seems a little weird for a head coach with SB aspirations to choose two first time coordinators to run his offense and defense. And, yeah, hopefully they learning as they go and continuing improving. But look at KC in comparison: HC: Reid. A creative offensive guru, his track record speaks for itself. DC: Spags. Some say Spags, a former head coach, is the best DC in the league. Romo says he needs to be in the coordinator HOF (if there was one). OC: Nagy. Nagy, the NFL Coach of the Year in 2018, is known for creativity and QB development skills. Reid/Spags/Nagy might be the most talented, intelligent coaching triumvirate in the league. I like McD as a head coach but I don't think McDermott/Babich/Brady is in the same tier. Hopefully, they'll get there.

I see your point, but I do think coaches play a role in tackling and gap integrity. Somebody on the Bills mentioned that the Bills D recently changed the standard from 'practicing until they got it right' to 'practicing until they couldn't get it wrong.' This is what made Vince Lombardi great. He wasn't brilliant at Xs and Os but he coached his guys up until they executed his limited playbook flawlessly. And that's been a strength of the McD defense in the past: superior communication and execution. It hasn't been a strength this year, though it seems to be improving. I acknowledge, though, that there are players who, no matter how much or well you coach them, will screw up come gametime.

I agree with the basic premise. The injuries have been hard to overcome. Some of the injured players, to be honest, are barely missed. But guys like Oliver and Bosa are different because their backups don't come close to them. I also think that the roster wasn't all that great to begin with. So losing key guys becomes especially problematic. But I believe as well that there have been games when the offensive game plan was just plain bad. Brady doesn't seem to know how to scheme a downfield passing game (and, yes, I do cut him some slack given the WRs he has to work with). And some of his play designs seem unimaginative and his play calls predictable. On the defense side, I have some complaints about the coaching, too. Some games we stayed mostly in 4-2 despite being gashed on the ground. It seemed like moving to 4-3 with Shaq on the field would have been a better decision. And other games we just didn't tackle well or maintain gap integrity - which means our players haven't been coached up well enough to execute at a high enough level. I'm not ready to tar and feather Beane or our coaches just yet. But I'm not giving them any medals either. Still, I like @T master's positivity - it's a refreshing and much-needed counterbalance to some of the over-the-top criticisms on the board.