RunTheBall

That’s definitely true but I never cared about what the talking heads thought about the Bills. Most of the members of this board (definitely not all) have more informed opinions on the state of the Bills than national guys or even most of the thin skinned “content creators”.

That lasted about 2 weeks before the Bengals players started doing their usual “let’s manufacture some made up slight against us” stuff. Hey it worked, I just thought it was in poor taste.

We love Dalton/Boyd. Cinci is a poverty franchise with dirty players and garbage fans

Ravens looking like best team in the AFC right now. Great defense, great running game, Lamar playing well. They are going to be a force if they keep up this level of play.

I want some of what you guys are smoking. This defense is decimated. Epenesa is the only DE not nursing an injury. Floyd has been injured, Rousseau should have been put on IR with that foot, Von is still coming back. Lawson is meh. Jonathan sucks. Jones is out, Oliver has been playing well minus last week, Joseph looked good with 1 day of practice which makes Settle (sucks), Phillips (sucks), and Ford (sucks if he’s even active) look even worse. Our linebackers may be Williams (sucks but is a rook with potential) and Dodson (sucks period). DBs are probably Douglas (good trade) and Dane Jackson (great game last week) Rapp (meh so far but maybe has something) and Poyer (if he can play) or Hamlin (sucks but I’m glad he’s able to play) or Lewis (idk wtf this guy does). Denver can run the ball. If we can’t stop them without bringing a safety down in the box this game will be tight. Offense needs to carry the team and Denver can’t stop the run - if we can’t run against Denver the season is over. Their linebackers suck in coverage - Kincaid and Cook should feast but Dorsey doesn’t’ know how to run the ball or throw to Cook. Their CBs are meh. Surtain will be on Stef and he should still get smoked. Their #2 and slot DBs are not good. If Gabe can’t get separation he should be cut. Shakir should feast. If I were the OC I’d come out in heavy sets to start, smack them in the mouth with the run and play action, then transition to 11 personell when they get out of the 2 high and/or bring a safety down into the box.

Been saying this all year, McDorsey neutered Josh running and it killed this offense and his mojo. When you have a mustang, you have to let him run. That and a better running scheme than shotgun draws. I’d like to see them come out with a fullback and beat the hell out of Denver with some power. Then open it up a little but set the stage early that we are going to be physical. Denver sucks against the run. If we can’t run on this team we can’t run on anyone. Time for this team to get pissed and start bullying other teams on O instead of the other way around.

Allen is being asked to do too much, as usual, and it’s affecting him mentally. He looks burned out already and I think that’s because most of Dorsey’s plays are “Josh go make it happen”. I spoke to an ex OC who you’d all know and he mentioned that Andrew Luck once told him something very interesting. Andrew told him that when the game plan was such that 25 plays turned into him making something happen and was solely on him to do so, that he got mentally fried. That’s from one of the most intelligent/cerebral QBs to play the game. I think that’s where we are with Josh, I think he’s mentally burned out. The OC also said from his stand point it looks like the plays are selected out of a hat with no flow or continuity from one play to the other. Buffalo has no identity right now. Take it for what it’s worth. None of this is groundbreaking or anything we haven’t seen. I just thought it was interesting to have those opinions echoed by a guy who really knows his stuff.

Now that is something I had never considered - that looking vanilla is something you want it to look like to an armchair coach/GM like myself. Makes sense given there are multiply post snap reads/options that can be implemented on each play. Unfortunately, you are shifting my opinion to this is more of a player execution issue than a pure Dorsey issue (although I’m sure it’s a mix of both). Damn, I really like when I can hate on one guy for all our problems. Ahh well… hahah

All that matters is the W but if they emerge with some sort of offensive consistency I think that will give them some confidence moving forward. I disagree that they gain nothing because even with a squeaker win they buy some time to get right. I’m of the opinion that they are likely to miss the playoffs but I hope I’m wrong and want them to keep the window open as long as possible. If we lose this game I think it’s likely things spiral.

I don’t have a problem with Murray calling a meeting and don’t think it reflects on the team leadership. He’s a respected veteran and although I doubt it will really amount to anything, at least someone is doing something recognizing the season is on the brink. I think this Denver game is the inflection point of the McD led Bills. If we win, we have more time to right the ship. If we lose, I think the wheels blow off the bus and this is going to get ugly.

Thank you for the write up, this is fascinating stuff and really helps me understand what’s going on. For such a complex offense, it sure does look vanilla though. Maybe that’s why some guys can’t get on the field or are invisible when they do, they don’t have the head for it. Seems to me the burden is on the players to figure out the coverage pre snap, then adjust their routes post snap using 1-4 options depending on where they are when they hit their decision point, then be on the same page with Josh at that decision point. Yikes! Takes a lot of the burden off Dorsey to outsmart the DC. Instead, he has such a complex offense with man/zone beaters built in to most plays that he can say “Hey, if you guys just did these 5 things correctly pre and post snap the play would have been a success”. That’s a lot to ask on every play especially when the explosive plays are taken away and we have to march down the field.

We have a very complex offense that is easily predictable and looks vanilla. That’s a HUGE problem and it’s all Dorsey in terms of the scheme. Josh’s problem is that he refuses to take the open short stuff. If he did that early, he gets in a rhythm and then the deeper stuff will open up as the defense adjusts to take away what’s working. The problem is this offense doesn’t seem to scheme against an opponents weaknesses. Dorsey just says “this is who we are, stop us” and teams have been doing that pretty regularly over the past 5 games. There are other issues - the lack of running game, Gabe Davis sucking again, Harty not being used at all, etc. I think one of the biggest issues was the huge emphasis in the beginning of the year of Josh running less. That was asinine, the guy needs to run to be his best. He’s not as good as Mahomes/Burrow at pre and post snap reads. He needs the threat of the run to open things up more for him. Bottom line - It’s year 6 for Josh and he should have evolved by now to take what the defense gives him until it opens up what he wants to do (intermediate/deep shots). Why he refuses to do that idk because when he does, he’s nearly unstoppable.

I don’t agree with this at all. How can you say nothing positive can come out of this game? I have lowered my expectations considerably for this team. We aren’t a Super Bowl contender right now and are only in the hunt. If we win, we are still in the hunt and have more time to right the ship. If we lose? Season is essentially over. So even thought I expect them to likely miss the playoffs, I’d still like to be proven wrong. Possible positives - 1) we win 2) Josh shows he can play a turnover free game and hasn’t lost his ability to read defenses 3) McD uses some kind of magic or duct tape to field a serviceable defense 4) The offense shows some sort of identity that we can grow from going forward. This is an inflection point in the season. I think they will either start to put it all together and go on a run or more likely, the wheels are going to come off. Hope it’s the former but I expect the latter, mainly because I’m very down on the coaching, both McD and Dorsey.

As much as Gabe sucks, that pick was 100% on Josh. Horrible throw, even worse decision to throw it in the first place. He locked on that match up pre snap and never glanced at a wide open Cook and open Kincaid on the other side. Josh's ability to read the field and decision making have both regressed this year. Why that is, idk. He's capable of elite play.

The only quick move that can be made to improve this team this season is to fire Dorsey and try someone else at play calling. Won’t happen. Do I think it will work? Probably not. But, you can’t keep rolling this same garbage offense out there week after week and expect different results. A huge problem on both sides of the ball is predictability. It’s gotten to the point where you can hear the other team’s players call out our plays on tv! How many times in the post game do you need to hear the opponent say something along the lines of “we knew exactly what they were going to run”. I mean come on, how many of you armchair coaches can call our plays pretty consistently? I know I can. It’s so pathetic it’s laughable. And please stop with the Davis is a good WR talk. He’s DEAD Jim. The guy runs 3 routes, you hear it all the time. He completely disappears. He had a good game last week because DBs were playing 12 yards off him and Dorsey actually used his pea sized noggin for once and had Gabe run some trend breaking routes (basically anything other that a deep route). The problem is as soon as teams start giving Gabe only 7 yards off the line his entire route tree is covered because he gets ZERO separation when he can’t take 6 seconds to ramp up to top speed 60 yards down field. Stop. Davis is done.

In no world are we an elite team. This is just pure coping mechanism after another brutal loss. Missing the playoffs is a real possibility, and I’d say likely given how this team has looked recently. After 9 games, teams show you who they are. What is the Bills identity? I have no idea. Josh isn’t playing elite this year, I don’t care what the stats say. He’s not reading the field nearly as well as he did the last couple years and he was never on the level of Mahomes or Burrow when it came to pre and post snap reads. He made up for it with his athlelticism, which has been neutered by McD and Dorsey, and his competitive drive which seems to be a shell of it’s former self. What we are seeing is just how much garbage on this team he’s covered up over the years with his previously consistently elite play. I hope Josh catches on fire and we go on a winning streak but that’s all we’ve got, hope. We are hanging our hopes on 3 out of 9 games where the offense put it together and looked playoff worthy. That’s not good enough.

They aren’t getting rid of Knox or Miller. Von isn’t even a year out from an ACL yet. So we are going to cut him, eat the cap hit, then he goes to another team healthy? That’s not happening. Knox is a bit overpaid and undervalued here. I think once he’s healthy he could be a solid 1b TE going forward. His skill set is completely different than Kincaid’s and I think they compliment each other. Unfortunately Tre is done. Love the guy, my heart breaks for what he’s had to endure but unless he takes a huge pay cut, he’s not coming back. Mentally IDK if he can bounce back from 2 season ending injuries not to mention he’s getting older and what those injuries do to his speed/athleticism

I’m actually quite relaxed now because my expectations for this team have completely changed. Expectations - Reality = Disappointment. That’s not by choice, I’ve enjoyed thinking we were a Super Bowl contender the last few years but I can’t deny what I see with my own eyes. This team isn’t close to Super Bowl caliber in its current state and it goes beyond injuries. They will be lucky to make the playoffs. There is something wrong, something missing in this team and IDK what it is. It’s easy to blame coaching, idk if that’s some of all of it, and I wonder if McD is losing the locker room because outside of Diggs, I’m not seeing much passion or fight from these guys. It’s like they don’t think they can win anymore. I don’t expect this team to make the playoffs. The games from here on out are nearly stress free. If they somehow turn it around I’ll be pleasantly surprised and enjoy the ride!

This team is toast. If they don’t win the Division (can’t believe I’m even saying that, given how bad they look), they are going to miss the playoffs. For the first time since before the drought I didn’t finish a game and crashed in the 3rd. No way I’m wasting the entire next day exhausted for that garbage product. I didn’t even need to check the score to know they lost. It’s obvious the Dorsey/Josh combo does not work well enough to win consistently. I think Dorsey sucks, he needs to go after this season, but Josh has definitely regressed. He does not see the field nearly as well as he has in the past. IDK why, I’m just an armchair coach/GM, but there is a complete disconnect between what Josh wants to do/is good at, and what offense we are actually running. Defense hasn’t done anything to help the offense with a complete lack of turnovers. Still, with the injuries and being kept together with duct tape they are still giving the offense a chance and the O craps the bed every time.

Very solid move. There is nothing to dislike about this. Good zone corner, will start sooner rather than later, hates to lose. Cost the equivalent of a 4th, that’s not a lot for a starting CB. I love Tre, I don’t think he’s coming back. He was a head case after the ACL now has a second season ender never mind he’s getting up there age wise. This gives us some CB insurance for a couple years while either Elam wakes up or we develop another CB.

This is a zero risk move to fill a void at RB. I love it. Guy has a nasty streak, has a lot of playoff experience, can block and catch. What’s not to like? That he’s going to take some reps from Murray at some point? Signing a guy to the practice squad does not prevent us from making a move at DT/LB/CB/WR if there is a move to be made.

I’m sure it’s the Bills homer in me but I ALWAYS feel like refs consistently spot our guys a 1/2 yard short of where it should be on many plays yet the opposition gets spotted at the absolute positive limit of what they looked like they gained.

I’ll take the W even though it left a nasty taste in my mouth. Great to see old Josh back, the offense looking viable, and Shakir/Kincaid/Davis showing up. I have huge issues with the mental coaching errors that almost cost us the game: 1) 3rd and goal shotgun run from the goal line 2) Rushing that 2nd and 1 play at the end of the 3rd, hoping for a penalty and taking a sack 3) McDouche taking yet another useless and hurtful defensive timeout (that play was going to be blown up) Get any of these easy coaching decisions correct and the game doesn’t come down to a Hail Mary that they should have caught because it was defended so horribly WE ARE ON TO CINCINNATI

I like McDaniels. I like Tua. I HATE the Fish it’s a real weird situation. I am rapidly putting their douche bag fans above Pats* fans in terms of hating them, but there are only 3 or 4 dozen Pats* fans left so I guess Miami Fans are now the most hated in the league in my opinion.

Just get the W. Don’t care how. Go Bills!