fridge

Well said.

They went 9-7 in 2002. The only time Belichick finished less than .500 with the Patriots was his first year there.

barking up the wrong tree

Ten years from now, when he's out of the league, I hope the in-season EJ Manuel thread count will drop below 5.

It would be wild for someone to think this is the reason to dislike Richie Incognito's personality.

I thought we got decent pressure last game. Washington is a fine DT. He's had a limited role, but he's had a few really nice plays. I can't believe we scratched him last week, especially after the couple big plays he made in the Denver game.

Be still, my beating heart.

This study did a horrible job defining trap games and used too wide of a data set. Trap games are not meant to be studied imperically. Teams on a high are capable of overlooking their opponent. It happens all the time, at nearly every level of sports. It's not very quantifiable, but I refuse to believe they don't exist. I do agree that the term is over used, but for some upsets it feels like the perfect description for the situation.

I've never been a Tyrod hater. I want him to do well. It's actually the Tyrod "lovers" that I think live in a world of delusion. Tyrod has gotten the job done the last couple games, more from the mistakes he's avoided than the plays he's made. It helps having the best scoring defense in the NFL. As a final note... I'd pick a game where we get more than one offensive touchdown before chest bumping about the QB. He's been fine, but please let's just get a consistent season together before running around anointing anyone.

One of the weirdest things in recent years is watching Bills fans drool over the failure of EJ Manuel. I'm starting to wonder if he actually just slept with all of your wives.

First player in all of Bills history to kick two 50 yard field goals in the same game... ...then does it again the next week.

Yikes.

Nice research! I'm hopeful that we've got ourselves a diamond in the rough. I would love to see him get some playing time...just maybe not against the Falcons.

This is what he did in Carolina on the Panthers' final drive. He clearly waited to see their formation and personnel before calling a timeout. I had no problem with it but people thought he somehow was unaware of the clock and was letting time go for no reason. This is one of those things where I'd prefer to do it like last week, when you have the luxury to do so.

The Dareus hate is starting to sound personal to some of you.

The only reason I'm not optimistic about this game is because it's on the road in their new shiny stadium. As for the Saints comparison, I think the only difference is that we fielded Thad Lewis that game and were 10.5 point underdogs. We're fresh off a big win and coming in with our regular starting QB and we're still 8 point underdogs. It just goes to show how much more touted this Falcons team is than that Saints team.

Tyrod played well. I still want to see us get out of our three and out parade that we get into at times, but he played well.

So we're going to lose the game with four cracks at the end zone?

Yes, I do. The term has become synonymous with loosening up your defense. They didn't literally run a 3 deep safety formation, but they backed up their coverage. The CB out wide on McCoy was 15 yards off of him. It was mentioned on the broadcast that Carolina played off the line and stopped blitzing on the final drive. The point I'm making here is that had the Panthers stuck to what they were doing, and stayed in attack mode it's likely we wouldn't have even gotten the ball that far...hence Ron Rivera kept us in the game. No need for the incivility.

I agree that it's weird, but I remember Orton calling a few audibles. I don't know if he was restricted for any reason other than coming in on short notice. Regarding EJ, he was definitely restricted, and it was a huge issue during his rookie year. He answered this question that offseason and I remember people starting to think Hackett was more the issue: Q: Tell us about the plays you’re running. Were you able to change the plays last year? Do you audible now? A: Well, there’s never been a time where coach has said ‘No, you can’t audible.’ I was able to audible, but a lot of times I just haven’t needed to. I know in the running game, Coach [Hackett] has us checking in and out of plays, run to pass, pass to run. All of these things have come with my maturity within the offense. Q: Will you have more freedom this year? Or did you have all the freedom you needed? A: I think so. I think Coach Hackett is going to put everything on my plate that we need to win. I don’t think we will be limited at all in terms of play calling, but at the end of the day it’s all about execution. You can go out there with 20 plays, if you execute those plays well you’re going to win the game. Football’s not that hard, you just got to execute and make plays. Q: Are you more likely now to say “Coach, I don’t like that play.” Or “Coach, maybe that’s not a good idea” with certain plays? A: Well, I would never say something was a bad idea, but I think it’s just about having rapport with your coach. Sometimes, there’s going to be plays that I don’t like, and I’ll tell him. I know there are a few plays that we came into this week in minicamp, I wanted them to be clean, I wanted to have sharp reads, and I told him, “Hey, I don’t like that play.” and he took them out. Q: How much different will it be when training camp starts? Will there be plays that won’t be there that he didn't like? A: I think so, a lot of the plays we put in are new, so some new formations or those kind of things, to throw some wrinkles at a defense, instead of them just looking at us as a vanilla offense, running this way then that way, giving defenses different looks is going to help us. There are still a few things that we’re playing around with, but of the things he’s put in I like them a lot. Source

Three different OC's have refused to let Tyrod call an audible... It's not like Dennison was restricting Peyton Manning from changing plays at the line.

Three different OC's have refused to let Tyrod call an audible... It's not like Dennison was restricting Peyton Manning from changing plays at the line.

Absolutely. If anything, the only reason we moved the ball in the final drive was because they switched to a prevent defense.

I didn't catch it this week but was he doing that breathing thing he's always doing?

I think he's referring to the Buffalo Bills 2000 - 2017