mjt328

It took some time, but Sean McDermott finally got the D-Line he needed to make this defense elite. The addition of Von Miller and emergence of Greg Rousseau is forcing teams to focus extra blocking attention on passing plays. And Daquon Jones is the 1-Tech DT that we were all hoping Star Lotulelei would be on a more consistent basis. This is allowing both Tremaine Edmunds and Matt Milano to wreck havoc. And it's a beautiful thing.

Exactly how deep is a team supposed to be at WR? Sometimes I think the expectations for Brandon Beane are ridiculously unrealistic. Nobody in the league carries more than 6-7 receivers on the active 53-man roster. We went into the season with 6 guys making the initial roster, 1 guy on IR and 3 guys on the practice squad. No GM in the NFL can have a perfect contingency plan if we suffer injuries to 4 of our top 6 players at a single position. Especially when we are also forced to deal with multiple injuries on the defensive line and in the secondary. Most of the people who follow the NFL believe the Bills have the deepest roster in the entire NFL. But I keep hearing a chunk of our fanbase say that he didn't do enough to address the RB, WR, TE, OL and CB groups. I'm sorry, but we can't have All-Pro talent at every starting spot, along with starting-caliber vets all the way down to our second and third string.

It was a terribly called game on both sides. It started with the missed PI on our first drive, when Isaiah McKenzie was hit before the ball arrived. I can't really complain about this one much, because Jordan Poyer got away with an almost identical play later in the game. So I guess it evened out? As mentioned, the Ravens got away with tons of blatant offensive holds all throughout the game. Several on very key plays of the game, where they ended up converting long passes. But then you had the ticky-tacky offensive PI called on Mark Andrews, AND the awful roughing the QB call on the final drive. There were probably 2-3 plays where both teams had legitimate arguments of the refs screwing them over on important plays.

In 2020, Gabe Davis filled-in regularly for John Brown and did great. In 2021, Gabe Davis filled-in regularly for Emmanuel Sanders and did great. In 2022, Gabe Davis played the first game healthy and did great. The problem is not Davis. Our offense started struggling after the first drive of the Miami game. We stopped throwing downfield, and all of our routes suddenly seem jammed up about 10-15 yards from the line of scrimmage. This is causing problems with our WRs getting open, and Josh Allen is being forced to squeeze the ball into very tight spaces, almost throwing multiple picks in the last two games. It shouldn't be surprising that our issues coincided directly with Jake Kumerow getting injured (on the second drive of the Dolphins game), and then us forcing Davis back into the lineup before he was really ready. My guess is that Davis was only supposed to be an emergency backup in Week 3 until the Kumerow injury. Now he's on the field, but he's not going deep, he's not getting open, and suddenly seems to be having drop issues (which makes sense if he's too mentally focused on the injury). We no longer have a deep outside threat, and it's causing problems. I'm sure the Bills would have loved to sit Davis for a few weeks and let him heal, but with serious injury issues at OL, DT and CB, they just didn't have the bodies to do that. If the injury report looks better this week, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if we call-up Isaiah Hodgins from the practice squad. As mentioned before, the problem with OBJ is that he isn't going to play until Thanksgiving. We need help now.

Bills are not a running offense. Bills are not a balanced offense. They are a pass first, pass second and often pass third offense... only using the running game to keep defenses off balance. When they do run, it's often a read-option where the QB has the ability to pull and take the ball himself. I think defenses tend to cheat towards the RB in these situations, meaning that Josh Allen more often than not ends up the runner. The few times we do see a typical handoff to the RB, the coaching staff likes to have a committee approach. Devin Singletary easily has the best vision of the group. He's also elusive and good at making people miss. The problem is that he's not very fast, not exceptional as a pass-catcher, and not big enough to grind tough out the tough yards. So even though he's by far the most productive guy, he's also got a limited skill-set. The coaches haven't given up on Zack Moss, and really want him to end up the goal line/short-yardage guy. They are also trying to gradually sprinkle James Cook into the mix, because he's got a lot of upside on passing downs.

Well, you don't have to worry about Miami being 4-0 anymore. Our defense is constructed very well for shutting down Lamar Jackson, and did a pretty good job slowing him down in our last two meetings. The biggest concern for the Bills are the injuries, but things do seem to be trending in the right direction. It's possible all the O-Line starters will be back, along with Ed Oliver. The secondary is still pretty banged up. But I think the front 7 and Taron Johnson will be more important in this matchup. Baltimore's defense does not look like one that can slow down our offense.

I don't know why people keep saying the Dolphins "barely had the ball" and that was the only reason for their low stats. They had the ball 8 times. We had the ball 9 times, and two of ours were stopped by the clock expiring. Out of those 8 possessions, the Dolphins had 4 punts and 1 safety. On those five drives, they accumulated a grand total of 63 yards. The first touchdown was a gift. They needed to go exactly 6 yards to score, after the strip-sack. The third touchdown was after a blown coverage, where we had them on a 3rd-22. So in all, the defense gave up one long/sustained drive all day.

The main reason we don't have a successful run game, is because we have the NFL's top offense without it. Even on Sunday (which was easily our worst offensive game of the year), we had 497 yards. Out of the 9 times we had the ball, we drove into scoring position 7 times. Our only punt was on a 30 yard drive that took us to midfield. We only use the run game to keep teams a little off-balance. And for the most part, it's working very well. As a team, we are averaging 4.7 yards per carry. Tied for 9th in the NFL. If you take out Josh Allen's rushing stats, that drops to about 4.2 ypc. Which would be 19th in the NFL, just a shade below the New England Patriots (who are considered one of the league's best teams on the ground). Don't forget the ridiculous injuries to the O-Line too. Spencer Brown missed almost all of training camp and preseason, then went out early in the Dolphins game. Rodger Saffold is new to the team and missed a good chunk of it too. Mitch Morse has been injured for two weeks now. His backup Greg Van Roten replaced him and got hurt too. Ryan Bates got a concussion this week too. Tommy Doyle was forced to play out of position to replace him, but then tore his ACL. It's kind of unfair to criticize the blocking, when this unit has barely gotten a chance to play together yet.

That wasn't my intent. I may have been quoting your post directly, but I really was generalizing all the hot takes blaming Sean McDermott/Leslie Frazier for Sunday's loss. It was a close game. I'm sure they were thinking about the Dolphins possibly getting into field goal range, with an underneath throw. Plus if they played too deep and let up a big chunk, it's not uncommon for teams to go for it on 4th down. Seeing as how the Dolphins have Tyreek Hill, I'm sure they were also thinking about him burning them on an underneath crossing route in the playoffs. There are reasons for them playing the coverage they did.

There has never been a football game, where the losing team looked back and said... "Well, we did everything perfect and still got beat." In every single close loss, you are going to be able to look back at a handful of plays that would have changed the outcome. A blown timeout. A dropped pass. A missed block. A missed tackle. Etc. Etc. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. If there actually WAS a recurring theme in these close losses, maybe we could point to something the Bills could fix. But that's the thing. All of these close losses are due to different issues: The narrative the entire summer was about how clutch Josh Allen was in the AFC Divisional Playoff, and the NFL needed to change overtime rules because of it. He literally won the game twice, only for the defense to fall apart on three consecutive drives to lose in overtime. This game literally disproves Colin Cowherd's ridiculous take that Allen "gets tired and makes mistakes" at the end. This loss was due to bad pass defense the entire game (but mostly the end) and miscommunication on the kickoff, not squibbing it. On Sunday, it was the defense who totally stonewalled the Dolphins at their own goal line. Allen missed the touchdown to Isaiah McKenzie, which would have put us ahead. This is probably the only time in the last two seasons you can point to Allen and say he "made a mistake" that cost us at the end. Regardless, he still helped us drive back to midfield. But McKenzie failed to get out of bounds, costing us the chance to kick a field goal. Before that, we had the overtime loss to Tampa Bay. The offense rallied and scored 17 points in the 4th quarter, but did nothing on the first possession of overtime. Then it was the defense who failed to tackle the receiver on a crossing route. This was really gets shared blame by both sides, but the final play comes down to our coverage and failure to tackle. Then we have the wind bowl against the Patriots. Problem here was not having a rushing offense to counter the bad weather. Defense played strong all game, minus one big run. We drove into the Red Zone at the end, but couldn't get a TD. There wasn't a particular "mistake" that cost us at the end. It was just very tough to throw. Then we have the Jags game, where our offense was pathetic all day. Problem here was everything on offense, but mostly the O-Line. Defense was great all day. We had a chance to drive the field at the end, but another sack killed the final drive. Titans Monday night. Offense drives down to the goal line at the end. Allen scrambles for the first down, but is marked an inch short. O-Line which had been good most of the game, got blown up on one play. We fail on fourth down. Problem most of the game was defense, but on the O-Line if you are only counting the final play. Steelers opening day. The Bills should have lost by more than one score. They were down 10 in the closing minutes, then kicked a field goal and prayed for an onside kick. Problem in this game was the O-Line and a blocked punt.

A coaching staff should be judged on the overall body of work. Not cherry-picking certain plays that succeeded, and others that didn't. All while looking in 20/20 hindsight. Part of play-calling is knowing your own strengths/weaknesses. Part is knowing your opponent's strengths/weaknesses. Part is knowing the game situation. Part is trying to outsmart the guy on the other sideline. It's not an exact science. Sometimes you guess wrong, and the other team makes a play. As a whole, Sean McDermott/Leslie Frazier have fielded a Top 5 defense for 4 straight seasons. During that span, the Bills have had arguably the best past defense in the entire NFL. They have turned UDFA and late round picks into solid CBs, and no-name free agent signings into All-Pros. We are lucky to have them.

That's why it's such a lazy take. People literally use everything as an example of poor coaching. If players make mistakes. They weren't focused, and it's the coaches fault. If players just play bad. They weren't prepared, and it's the coaches fault. Any play call that doesn't work is stupid, and they should have done the opposite thing. Our defense made Tyreek Hill invisible on Sunday and pretty much shut-down the Dolphins offense, with a secondary consisting of rookies Kaiir Elam, Christian Benford and Ja'marcus Ingram at cornerback, along with Jaquan Johnson and Damar Hamlin at safety. Everyone figured they would put up 30+ on us, and they needed a strip-sack to hit 21. It was a very impressive performance. But the only thing I'm reading is the one play where we got burned. Because like I said... Lezlie Frazier should have just done the opposite thing of what he did.

Blaming coaching is the absolute laziest take a sports fan can have. Defensive backs fail to knock the ball down on a Hail Mary? It's the fault of the coaches! Receiver jukes around instead of quickly dropping to the ground with 9 seconds left? It's the fault of the coaches! Challenge a play that probably won't get overturned? It's the fault of the head coach! Don't challenge a play that probably won't get overturned? It's the fault of the head coach! Every time a play call doesn't work... they were being too conservative. Or too aggressive. Or too predictable. Or they should have just stuck with what they usually do best. The last two weeks, everyone was praising us and saying we are totally unstoppable because of #17. This week we are clueless idiots because we rely too much on Josh Allen carrying the offense. If a player commits a penalty or makes a mistake... it's always because the coach didn't have them prepared or focused. Because of course, it's the coach's job to remind the millionaire who has been playing football his entire life not to jump offside or hold on a crucial drive. Now the armchair geniuses are criticizing Leslie Frazier for the 3rd-22. Because he didn't bring enough pressure. Even though the Bills had the highest pressure rate in the entire NFL with hardly any blitzes through two weeks AND had a totally inexperienced secondary. Of course if he blitzed and got burned, we would be hearing how stupid he was to leave our backup DBs alone against the fastest WRs in the league on such a crucial play. I'm even reading some comparisons to 13 seconds, even though this time we got beat over the top... which is exactly the opposite of what happened in the playoffs.

Not against ODB. But he isn't expected to return until at least Thanksgiving, and I would be surprised if he signs with anyone until then.

The biggest problem with all these injuries, is that our schedule is very top-heavy. We get Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Kansas City... then finally our bye and Green Bay. By the time we finally get a break and a chance to get healthy, it's very possible that we will be .500, a couple games behind Miami in the AFC East, and behind on tiebreakers with the Ravens and Chiefs. I have no doubts that we can still win 11-12 games. But it may be too late to get homefield at that point.

I've been watching this sport for almost 30 years, and they say this about EVERY SINGLE running quarterback at some point. If Tom Brady throws the ball 50 times, and then hands it off 10 times...nobody talks about him accounting for OVER 80 PERCENT OF THE OFFENSE!!! OH NO!!!! But if Josh Allen throws the ball 40 times, hands off 10 times and runs 10 times, then he's overused.

The problem is, we only have the cap space for maybe ONE significant move. Right now, we are getting extremely thin at WR, OL, DT, CB and S. Which position do you want to address, here in the first month of the season? What if you go after a DB... and then Stefon Diggs goes down for the rest of the year. You are going to wish you had saved the money for Odell Beckham. Most of our injuries fortunately seem short-term, so hopefully we will be back to somewhat full strength in a month or so.

Just stop. They put more resources into the defense, because we have a Top 3 quarterback who raises the level of everyone around him. However, the Bills have invested big contacts in Stefon Diggs, Dion Dawkins, Mitch Morse and now Dawson Knox. Our offense has been Top 3-5 each of the last two seasons, and started the same this season. One punt in the first two games. They had another nearly 500 yards yesterday. The big problem was finishing drives with touchdowns. If the third-string center doesn't cause a bad snap before halftime, that's three more points. If Gabriel Davis doesn't drop the touchdown... followed by the blocked field goal, that's another three or seven points. If Josh Allen doesn't double-clutch and throw the ball into the ground, that's another touchdown to McKenzie in the 4th Quarter. This offense was absolutely devastated by injuries, and gassed by 100 degree temps. Yet they EASILY could have put up 30-35 points with just a couple bounces going their way.

I'm not blaming anybody. I've never seen an NFL team as ravaged by injuries as I witnessed yesterday. There was a point we had about 20 guys down, and it was absolutely shocking that we kept the game that close. Losing Mitch Morse prompted multiple bad snaps, costing us at least 3 points. It also forced us into shotgun later in the game, which limited us in the Red Zone. Then we lost Spencer Brown to heat stroke. Then our backup center Greg Van Roten. Then Ryan Bates. One more injury and we would have been playing a Tight End or Fullback at one of the Guard/Tackle spots. And that's just the O-Line. It was clear Gabriel Davis wasn't anywhere near ready to play, and probably should have sat. On the first drive, we lost his backup Jake Kumerow to an ankle injury. That pretty much destroyed our ability to stretch the field. Then Dawson Knox got hurt. As the game wore on, Stefon Diggs and Isaiah McKenzie were constantly going down. On much of the final drive, Josh had nobody to throw to but Quinton Morris and the running backs.

Each stadium offers its own level of homefield advantage. For some teams (such as Buffalo), that edge comes from weather. Our hometown players get used to the snow and wind, while the visiting domed/warm-weather teams often struggle to get acclimated. They say that Seattle was built to amplify sound, making it incredibly difficult for visiting offenses to communicate. Denver's stadium is at a higher altitude, which results in lower oxygen levels and causes visiting teams to get gassed more easily. At the Meadowlands, stadium officials were known to open the tunnel doors when visiting teams were kicking and close them for the Jets/Giants. Normally these types of things don't bother me. But what I saw yesterday was definitely on a different level. There were dozens of players going down with heat stroke, heat related illness, etc. I've never witnessed that in a football game before. Coaches and players have often talked about the heat-advantage at the Dolphins stadium, but this seemed remarkably unsafe. Not sure if there is a solution though, other than make Miami play in the later time slot during the early part of the season.

Regardless of the injuries, I do think the Bills win this game. Our offense has been unstoppable since this end of last year (including the playoffs). And even before that, there is nobody they have beaten-down as bad as the Dolphins. That includes a game where pretty much ALL of our players were backups, and Miami needed a win to get into the playoffs. With that said, if the defense manages to hold them under 20 points... it may be their most impressive game yet. I've stated the Dolphins/Tua are getting more praise than deserved. But I'm not sure I've ever seen a game where the entire starting secondary and most of the interior defensive line are out the same week.

My understanding is that PUP players must be moved to the active roster after 21 days (3 weeks), or they cannot play for the rest of the season. Everything we've heard is that Tre White's recovery is going well, with no known setbacks. He is now also 10 months removed from the ACL surgery, on an injury that usually takes 9-12 months to come back from. So even if he's trending towards a longer recovery, he should absolutely be back before season's end. Bottom line, you can be certain that White will be activated from the PUP list to the roster after the Dolphins game. When he actually comes back to game action is another story. Once his rehab is 100% complete, it's probably going to take him some time to get back into NFL game shape. He could potentially be back for the Ravens game. But the Bills may want to be extra careful, and either hold him out for a few more weeks or gradually ease him back in. If I'm the coaching staff, I probably don't want to rush him out there to chase around Lamar Jackson after just one week of practice. The Steelers game may be a good starting point to get him a few snaps. Then he can be ready to roll against the Chiefs. Another realistic scenario is them just waiting until after the bye week, and bringing him back against the Packers.

I can only think of two reasons a player would want a second opinion from a doctor: 1. The doctor gave him really bad news (season or career ending), and he wants to see if another specialist can fix the injury with less missed time on the field. 2. The doctor said everything was good to go, but he still feels like something isn't right physically and wants to double-check. It's hard for me to imagine a player getting a good report from the doctor, feeling great physically and still saying... "I need to miss practice this week and go get another opinion." Hopefully I'm wrong. But the vague way Sean McDermott apparently shut-down media questions about Hyde's absence yesterday also seemed really odd. My first thought was that something more serious was going on, and coach didn't want to talk about it. And that was before news broke about Hyde getting a second opinion. Of course this is all speculation, and maybe I'm just fearing the worst news. I'm getting post-Thanksgiving vibes, just like I did after we destroyed the Saints...but couldn't completely enjoy it, because of the coming bad news about Tre White's knee.

Just hope we aren't in the same boat as the Ravens come kickoff. No Tre White. Probably no Dane Jackson. Possibly no Micah Hyde.

The Bills just want a running game that can keep defenses honest. Where we ran into trouble last season, was when teams dropped 7-8 defenders... but we still couldn't generate more than 2-3 yards per carry.