Bleeding Bills Blue

He's a backup QB at this point. Not high end, but not bottom of the barrel. He doesn't have a plus arm, or plus athleticism, nor is he pinpoint accurate. He does have the advantage of having bounced around a ton of different systems (Philly, Zona twice, Chicago, SF, cincy, and now buffalo). It's not good necessarily for his absorption of offenses at the time, but at this point he almost has to be flexible because he's been around the block. He's seen a lot of different defensive systems in practice, and practiced a lot of different systems at QB. He just hasn't played a ton of games, and when he has he hasn't looked good.

Remember when we traded them tyrod taylor for the first pick of the 3rd round?

I mean - they felt good enough about teller to bring in - Long, Feleciano, and Spain at Guard. That was pre-draft... and they drafted Ford who is projected to start at RG. So legit he was 5th string guard basically at this point.

The issue isn't whether they can do it. The long snapper has to spend a lot of time on the special teams field with the kicker and punter (hence punters traditionally holding for field goals). You wouldn't be able to get the necessary practice time and instruction if your center were constantly snapping to the kicker and punter. If he's unlikely to be active on game days (no ones going to have 5 running backs active out of 45 players), I'm not sure how important special teams is. May be more important should dimarco get hurt to have a special teams running back there.

Since Dimarco plays special teams he's really here as more likely some kind of insurance against shady/gore etc getting injured. He likely wouldn't be active on any game days unless people are injured. I also think there's a chance he doesn't stick and we keep an extra developmental lineman, DB, or LB that we don't think will make it to our practice squad.

He's signed through 2020 currently. If everything goes well with Allen, I'd probably extend him beyond next season. I'm not messing around with QB. Allen's gotta be the guy... but Peterman and derek anderson started games for this team last year and were both absolutely stinking awful. That's the state of backup QBs around the league. You find a guy you can trust, keep him.

Alexander is good. He was legit playing SAM, DE, and even some DT. DE's don't get nearly the same number of tackles as LBs, considering they rush the passer on pass plays while LBs are traditionally in coverage. 4th on the team in tackles, 2nd in sacks, chipped in 2 picks, 3rd on the team in TFL. I don't recall ever seeing him like completely burned, or completely missing tackles in games last year. Here's what PFF said about him - no bias. Alexander, an NFL journeyman with positional versatility, earned a career-high 85.7 overall grade playing a mix of edge defender and off-ball linebacker with the Bills a year ago. He’s now recorded 30 or more pressures in three consecutive seasons, and his grades against the run and in coverage in 2018 were both above 79.0. The soon-to-be 36-year-old is a bit of a Swiss army knife now more than 12 years removed from going undrafted in 2005.

I think they're better than you are giving them credit for. They forced a lot of turnovers, and considering buffalo gave the ball away a ton weren't exactly set up for success. 2nd fewest yards in the NFL 2nd fewest yards per drive 3rd fewest yards per play 4th in first downs allowed Top 10 in takeaways Top 10 in 3rd down% Where they sucked as red zone percentage on both sides of the ball. That is the greatest area of weakness on the defense though. Our offenses terrible amount of giveaways, terrible punting and kick coverage, also gave Buffalo the worst starting field position on defense in the NFL.

They do have good LBs. Hightower, Collins, Van Noy, Roberts. They're not all-pro but that's a pretty good LB unit.

I think the reasons we moved mccarron were A - He was outplayed by peterman, and allen was probably a bit ahead of where they thought he would be B - The offer was good C - He's kinda... not good. Now Peterman was a disaster and it forced Allen in - and we were forced to make all sorts of weird moves to eventually move on from Peterman mid-season. Absolute botch job there... But i honestly don't think we would have won more games with McCarron starting. I can't make the same call with Barkley. He won his only game here last year, has been a professional, and has owned his role without taking 1st team reps. It's kind of everything you want in a backup.

My Assumption is yeldon/murphy. I think based on the depth chart yeldon probably locks up the rb4 spot assuming healthy. Murphy is playing for a job somewhere else, and honestly having watched him last year I think he has a shot.

I guess i see where you're coming from - but i live in Tonawanda. I wouldn't become a fan of another team unless they got rid of the bills. And then i'd probably go browns... I'm a tribe fan and i hate the steelers.

I think I'd take the kicker out of it. 1 play from the 5 - 1 point. 1 play from the 10 - 2 point. It shouldn't be a guaranteed 1 (mostly guaranteed after they pushed it back), or essentially a slightly better than 50/50 proposition for 2. A double double tastes fine - then you realize its like 5 creams and 5 sugars.... not exactly healthy for your waist-line.

They need as much cap space as possible should they extend zeke and also to possibly extend dak and cooper. They'll need to roll over as much as humanly possible. Theyd just sign marcus murphy for league minimum at this point. If I'm Buffalo I'm not trading Zay Jones for a 5th round pick in 2020... He seems to be a process guy and will do what is asked of him to play. We're also in win-now mode. When you factor in that we have like nothing other than a couple of rookies at tight end too... our pass catchers are near the bottom of the league. They just aren't probably rock bottom anymore.

I mean - Bell should still be good. He also hasn't played in a game since 2017, and skipped the preseason. I always put very little into QB performances during preseason as no one is blitzing and the coverage isn't disguised very well. This means i put very little into both Allen and Darnold's preseason performances. I just look at the guy coaching that team and don't think he's a very good head coach. I guess he could surprise me, but I don't see it. This doesn't mean they can't beat us week 1 at home either. Pretty evenly matched up - i just think in the long run Gase isn't putting this team over the top.

Yep - a bunch of rookies looked really good too. But once the bullets fly, and teams blitz and confuse you, it becomes a whole different ball game.

I'm hoping the future is providing me with options for how I want to watch. I can use the original camera, or the higher up field view camera, or the behind center camera... etc. I don't think there should be a single way of watching football - and I hope they move towards an app or something that lets me: A- Watch in 4K B- Lets me watch any game that is playing at that time, including in-market games C- Lets me choose from available camera's If it takes Ads on Uniforms and more on the field to make this happen I'm for it. The TV money that comes pouring in off the contracts, and the Sunday Ticket through DirectTV would need to be offset, but an annual fee of some kind would cover that. You could even give a discount to season ticket holders, pre-pay vs. monthly etc. I don't think you would eliminate the NFL on CBS/FOX etc, but you're giving a premium service to customers - and you would have a lot of them.. people love their football. Streaming seems to be the way of the future, yet Sports leagues continually jump back in with the networks and their money guarantee. WWE is kind of the only true hybrid, taking the network money and then also creating a streaming option for their customers.

I agree pretty much across the board - Terrible GM and Bowles didn't have it. I just worry that Adam Gase doesn't either - his time in Miami was not a success and he's never been the offensive guru that he claims to be. Not to mention we played Miami the last 2 years in week 17, and not only did the team seem checked out - so did Gase. The list of candidates they interviewed was incredibly uninspiring, but they didn't get Mike McCarthy so I guess that's a positive. I also hate the position they put their GM in, not letting him factor into the coaching search/roster building as he was hired months after FA and the Draft.

That is gonna take at least a year - if he wanted to make THIS team he should be focusing on being a gunner on special teams.

i think i would have rather they just played a CFL style game.

Turnover differential is like the most common predictor of success, but Here are the top 10 teams in fewest sacks allowed: Indy, NO, NE, Pitt, KC, Car, Balt,Chicago, LAR, Denver, LAC Going by yards NO, Indy, NE, Balt, Pitt, KC, Chicago, LAR, LAC, Tampa bay Seems kind of important - and upgrading the o-line isn't the only thing that's going to limit it.

I'd do it. Plenty of cap room and its an upgrade. He's held the ball for a long time for a good kicker. I will say this though - buffalo punters always have a lower average because its so windy in that stadium in the fall. Someone who can consistently get fair catches, kick to his coverage, and punt well enough out of bounds is all i ask for. He doesn't need to be johnny hekker.

It's an attribute that doesn't seem to ding QBs, just offensive lines. It's typically a result of holding the ball too long. Scramblers do tend to have higher sack rates and a lot of it can be offset with running ability - but sacks are like holding penalties... basically drive killers.

Darnold had some really strong games, and some stinkers. Both Allen and Darnold had 4 sub 50% comp% games. Darnold went over 300 once, Allen did not. Similar INT%. Both sub 7 YPA. Both had poor rushing games (Buffalos rushing offense is propped up by Allen's scrambles). Darnold did have 2 games over 75% comp, and and 6 over 60% - Allens not touching him there. I'd give edges to the Jets in oline and receivers though. Anderson is better than anybody we had, Enunwa too probably. We didnt dump benjamin and holmes until halfway through the year.

Yep - after splitting 1st team reps in camp with 2 (!!!!) other QBs in camp with a QB coach in Culley who we can all agree is probably not super well versed in the nuances of the position... he wasn't put in a position to succeed. He had to figure it out on his own - now he gets all the reps and has a QB coach who at least PLAYED the position. I don't know much about Dorsey, but personality wise i'm not sure he was a good fit with Newton.