Bleeding Bills Blue

It's week 18, i'm saying we might be 1 game back going into that game. Win would get us the division.

My guess is 11-5 miami and buffalo 10-6 for the division. Miami has NYJx2 (I guessed 1 loss of the two), KC, Dallas or Baltimore. That would put them at 11-5 going into week 18. Buffalo has @Cincy, @Philly, @KC, Dallas Home. I don't expect they lose all 4 of these games, but the above scenario would have buffalo winning 1 of these 4. I think they beat denver home, NY home, LA on the road, NE home. Looks to me like the playoff teams look like this in some order AFCE - Miami and Buffalo - Jets could be sneaky 9-8 or something but i see them fading like last year. AFCN - Baltimore seems to be the best team here so far. Pittsburgh will fade with limited offense, Cleveland likely will as well. Hard to string W's together without scoring points. Cincy seems to be the hot choice but their schedule is a load - Bills, @ ravens, @jaguars, @chiefs - plus another game against the browns, 2 vs. pittsburgh. There's like no way they're running through that schedule without a couple L's. Between the in-division stuff, I'd say 1 team comes out of this division. AFCS - Jaguars and likely no wildcards because these teams are all flawed in some way. AFCW - KC is the best team here. Chargers are my last-in wildcard pick. Schedule has broncosx2, LVR, NE, the jets, the packers. Just winning the games they should win there would get them to 9 wins. Sneak in a W over detroit, baltimore, buffalo or KC would get them to 10 too.

I do feel like when we were winning big - we were playing with attitude on both sides of the ball. It's a tough way to play sustained all year, but that's what you want to be as a wildcard team going into the playoffs. If we want to play physical on offense we have guys for it both passing and running the ball- Allen, Knox, Kincaid, Fournette, Murray, Davis. We also have speed and quickness with Diggs, Cook, Shakir, Harty. Defensively - 8 man rotation of guys who have ability to create havoc - hopefully Joseph can let the LBs make some plays. Back end we have smaller LBs but bigger corners and adding douglas is just another player who will hit you. We will miss tackles, and we will give up some chunks - but make them earn it. If you don't think a team like that is dangerous come playoff time... I'd say you are wrong.

I think he's hurt all the time too.

Defensive line isn't too bad. Most of what you have to know is gap integrity, and a 1T has a pretty clear gap. Other than that its "see the ball, get the ball". Stunts/twists are possible? But i doubt he'd be too heavily involved in those types of plays as they really brought him in to be stout at the interior point of attack.

I feel like its really hard to get a ton of non-clean up sacks as a 1T. Not only do you have to likely split a double team, but you're right in the QBs face and he's likely to try and escape since its the first thing they'll see.

I thought he had a nice game when we played miami a few years ago. I know it was 28-6 at half, but it was nice when he dropped that deep ball in a bucket to gabe just to stick it to the fins.

Why would you have a practice squad QB that you don't trust to play though? If they're bad.... get someone else?

1 - Confidence definitely looks shattered at the moment. Shutting him down for an ankle also gives him a chance to get his head on right. 2 - Rounds 3-5 I'd like to see a nose tackle. I'd also like DQ brought back as he has been really solid here. 3 - Dress him - first off the bench, let him get his feet under him here before we inevitably throw him to the lions den

Yeah he stinks. Phillips isn't much better at gap control, but at least he has quickness to split the double team from time to time. I'll take a negative play once in a while over nothing. Poona seems to just get moved.

If you're healthy enough to practice, you're healthy enough to play.

I don't think any of our corners have supreme ball skills, and all get hammered on back shoulder looks. But Benford and Jackson do a better job on shorter stuff keeping it in front of you, wrapping up, and timing catch point disruption. Elam's not getting his head around at all, he needs to play tighter, but i don't think McD trusts him to do so without getting penalties. Akers tore his Achilles 7/20/2021 and was active again on 12/25/2021. That's considerably shorter than any ACL injuries I've seen for a skill position player. Closest i can think of is Peterson who tore his ACL/MCL on 12/26/2011 and returned to start 9/9/2012. Only reason I'd like to see tre back is the likelihood of losing hyde. Having 2 new faces in the secondary isn't ideal.

Depends where tre is at with rehab. They'd still have Douglas and Benford, plus whatever with Elam. They'd save about 6M by cutting tre, but you have to factor in how much of that can be spent on another corner. If you replace him with a draft pick - the majority of that money can be used on another position of need like WR or DE. If you pay a vet, you're probably looking at less than half of the cap savings. Also you want to factor in that rehab for achilles is quite a bit shorter than an ACL and he may be back in time for minicamp/training camp. It's tough to want to trust a player coming off two major injuries over a 3 year period entering his age 29 season. If he can get back to where he was though, he is so much better than anything you could get with that 6M in savings.

They really have their hands tied, his contract is guaranteed and theres 2 full years left. Trading him next year gets you out of guaranteed base, and you have less of a bonus burden you can spread. Jackson (UFA) gets replaced on the roster next year by douglas, white is back (depending on the draft direction he could be a cap casualty), you have benford, and then Elam. I would suspect one of the late picks at least is used on a corner to either push elam off the roster, or at least potentially find a project who projects as a better fit in what we do. Elam likely gets every chance to make an impact and the team in that scenario, and if he doesn't they can try and trade him. His contract next season would be 2yr 4.5M for the acquiring team. This is pretty much the going rate for a depth corner, and he offers more portential and long-term upside than a 30 year old ronald darby for example (darby got 1yr 1.7M this past year). We wouldn't see much here other than a pick swap in a trade as his value is cratered though. We man-match quite a bit though, and we were trying to create some pressure and muddy the reads. Bail coverage is fine, but he was giving up a ton of space and not closing. He seems to lack confidence at the moment - he was playing really safe.

Yup - if you line up in 11 with kincaid (borderline 4WR set)... if they show blitz, you almost have to use cook for blitz pickup. I like that too - not to say that its been entirely murrays fault. Offensive line has to do a better job making that little crease to fly through.

Knowing that Zac Taylor does a good job with game scripts, i do wonder how much the bye has an effect on them. With Burrow they're 3-0 coming out of the bye week. Last season they didn't lose a game until the afc championship after their week 10 bye. I don't know that they'll have that same level of run missing some of the pieces they had on defense a year ago.

He gets to play opposite Bosa again, they have a bunch of rotational pieces too so i don't think he's going to play as many snaps.

Payne and Allen inside, sweat opposite him. Young should be feasting and he just isn't.

Sweats been a better player, and hasn't had the injury issues.

Well its a late 3rd (possibly our comp pick for edmunds - doesn't seem clear anywhere), for Douglas and a 5th (also not clear if this is their early 5th, or their comp pick in the 5th).

Love a pick coming back in this too

Looks like 9M next year actually. 6 and change is base salary that can either be deferred (if you only want to keep him for 2024), or can be extended to lower the cap burden in 2024.

Possibly, or that allen doesn't trust his eyes.. could be a play calling issue there too.

My assumption is zone - try and show some blitz looks on 3rd downs. Thought allen had a nice game with the blitz playing more spread out as we did against TB. Cincy has some beef up front that we've had trouble with in the past so getting the ball out quick and getting in rhythm will be key. With knox out again i suspect we'll see more of the same spread looks. Buffalo needs to figure out how to run the ball better in this one. I expect we'll try to get more to the boundaries with cook and WR RPOs outside, as they're stout up the middle.

After 2 air yard pass to boyd that goes for 5 yards... Here's a guy that just gets it. Perfect throw, perfect pass. First ballot HOF stuff.