BringBackFlutie

From the article: "Zoë, a French bulldog tasked with providing emotional support, is spreading joy among the team with her infections smile and fun-loving personality." Yikes.

The Chiefs just weren't prepared. They spent the first week prepping to play the Bills!

Lol. Touche.

Speak for yourself. I want 5.

All of me thinks he deserves it.

He will or he'll be cut. You understand the offense we run, right? Sigh. Yep. Lol.

Exactly. I'll get like 100 bucks in my wallet and say "oh, this is gonna last me a while for when I'm anywhere that's cash only." Then I inevitably get drunk and spend it on tips or something.

That last sentence is key. I'm not sure I get the premise of the thread. Are we supposed to be underdogs all the way to the Super Bowl? What about the next year? Would no one pick a Super Bowl winner to win the next season? Are we only allowed to be good one year?

Holy god, dude. This is super long and nerdy- even for a guy that loves punters. Must've been hours of typing. Go get a hand massage (not from me, although I'm super good at that sort of thing) or something.

...not to be confused with the whine on these boards.

Totally. I can actually enjoy the defense in peace and quiet over there.

Well, if the Bills' coach is from the panthers and I'm a Bill's fan, and my best friend is a panthers fan and you're a panthers coach...that's some crazy stuff. It's full circle now. The Bills are actually just the panthers, and vice versa.

I think the hope is that Josh progresses during those 3-4 years to the point that you then can spend less money trying to surround him with top-level talent, and spend the extra money extending that window from 4 years to 15.

@Logic

So you like, "it just was," over rules? Meh Not me.

Lol. You're an idiot. Respond.

Wait wait wait...so are we saying that anyone that must convince McD of their opinion must go to the mat?

Completely agree. I was just thinking this on my way into work. I drive 25 minutes, and I hear about 5 minutes of Howard and Jeremy, and I don't get to hear them finish any of their sentences. It's unbearable.

Like, mimosas? Screwdrivers? MANmosas!? Don't tell me, you're one of those people with an Insta account, just for your food...

...I see what you did here.

@Logic

I tend to agree with most of your post- especially about the getting in rhythm early piece, and I've thought that as well. We NEED more short passes to start- and not on obvious passing downs. Pass to set up the run-type plays. And I do think we call bombs too early. Josh is not in rhythm yet. But as for the above quoted portion...oh dear. Terrifying.

There's so much more to the deep ball than go routes, and there's so much more than dropping dimes over the shoulder on said routes. When a WR flashes on Allen, rather than run a straight go route, he hits them fine. There are other routes that could be called deep. Even still, when the WR is one-on-one with his man, and can get a step on him on the go route, it doesn't mean that he's wide open, and it doesn't mean that it should take a perfect pass to hit him. The WR (and chemistry with said WR) has a lot to do with it. Only look as far back as Tyrod Taylor with Sammy Watkins/Percy Harvin, and without. When he didn't have either, I didn't see him complete one deep throw. When he had them, he had the highest percentage completion and highest rate of deep balls in the league. Also, if Allen can set his feet, he actually has shown an ability to drop it over the top, but he needs some time to gain the consistency and a little more feel for the rush. This is not all to hate on Daboll or defend Allen, by the way, but to say that Allen must make the deep throws on specific plays is a bit too simplistic to me. I think there are multiple things that Allen, his WRs, and Daboll can do to get the ball deep and make the defense pay. Allen's ability to hit a go route in stride is 1/3 of that equation, but nobody is working on the other 2/3 to try to win right now, and give Allen more time to work on his portion. Lastly, on the topic of Josh Allen and go routes- I've got a holiday bonus for you, since shipping across the country is rather pricey: The interesting thing, is that the book on Allen has been written since last year, and everyone that can, has blitzed the hell out of him since then. It looks like he's not fixing that weakness, as defenses keep blitzing. Now...watch the games. Last year, he was weak against the blitz because he didn't know his reads, and blitzing him frequently caused him to bail the pocket (sometimes even when you didn't blitz) and make bad throws. At the beginning of this year, he stopped bailing the pocket so much, stayed in, and tried to force the ball, with sloppy footwork, into tight windows- not knowing who was the open guy behind the blitz- and throwing picks. Now, he's staying in the pocket, reading where to get the ball (in this case, the go route), and missing the WR on a throw with the same sloppy footwork. As I previously mentioned, Allen has shown an ability to drop a ball over the top, here and there, when he executes good form and sets his feet. However, his form is often sloppy, as he short-steps or throws off his back foot when the pocket starts to close in front of him. I'm not sure if he needs to trust the room in front of him, or if he needs to sidestep, or take a smidge less time to make the throw, but the footwork needs to be cleaned up to complete those throws. That would be the NEXT thing to fix, in, apparently, a multi-part solution to beating the blitz. It's hard to see, in these blitz-heavy games, that he's fixed so many of those parts already, but that's because he hasn't fixed enough of them to beat the blitz yet. By the same token, we CAN see that he's fixed a lot of those parts when he's not being blitzed. He rarely bails the pocket and scans the field. He reads the right throws and changes plays according to alignments and knows how to beat different concepts, and, when not against the blitz, has cleaned up his footwork a lot. We get this pattern where it looks like he's grown, but he hasn't, but he has, on a game to game basis. However, actually, all of the growth is there, but isn't always apparent when you factor in that game's variables, and his next goal as a QB is painfully identified. ...So as you said, non-linear. Case in point. ??

You make an interesting point, and it certainly seems that way, but I thought one of the things about Daboll is that he tailors the offense to the opponent, and that's why we don't necessarily have an identity. That's probably true, but it fails for a few reasons that I'm going to guess at. This leads me to your other point about maybe Daboll just shouldn't call the plays, since he's obviously not great at tailoring his plays to the defense in-game. I do think his game-plan, overall, is originally tailored to the opposing defense, but not adjusted. To further your point, I think it's that the game-plan itself is composed of plays that don't really fit his personnel. If Josh Allen isn't good at throwing the deep ball, or it's windy, just install all the OTHER cover 0 beaters out there. Lastly, my point is, that there seems to be a fundamental issue with his planning- his inability to take personnel into account causes him to call games from a play/scheme perspective, rather than a match-up perspective. This offense is very much predicated on match-ups, and, other than Josh throwing incomplete to Brown at the end, I didn't see the propensity to exploit match-ups, and this offense simply doesn't work without it. That may lead back to the point of in-game adjusting. If Singletary's lined up on a safety every play, keep throwing it to him, even if it doesn't work for a play. If he's just killing them in the run game, regardless of men in the box, because they're susceptible to his running style, keep finding ways to get him the ball. If Knox is lined up on a smaller CB, get him a quick slant and let him run over DBs, while the LBers are all blitzing. But it's like none of these things are recognized, and it's just a one-dimensional view of "they line up in this package, or show blitz on this down, we run this play to beat it." You have to combine that with an understanding of how your personnel match up with their players and how your personnel execute the plays you're choosing in the first place. To be fair, though, I'm sure a lot of the exploiting match-ups issue is on Allen pre-snap.

Right so we all lament the missed deep throw on that one, which would've ended in, at least, a field goal, but there are SO MANY other ways to exploit those deep routes that are HIGHER percentage. I don't know if that's comforting or frustrating, though. On one hand, it's not like this game of pinning our hopes on Allen making one very specific, very low percentage throw (which will smooth out, but never be perfect, over time). On the other hand, that's an easy thing to read that he and Beasley should be getting by now, ESPECIALLY if the plan A strategy for that game was to get over the top. There's just so much that broke down on offense that didn't need to, DESPITE the missed over-the-shoulder throws (we're now down to what, 2 overthrows and 2 drops, if you consider this one miscommunication?). It's maddening. It's not that I don't think it'll be fixed, either. It's just that I want it to get fixed soon, and at this point I think Josh Allen's head is spinning with everything he's absorbed this year.