fergie's ire

In the immortal words of NSYNC: bye bye bye

I almost wonder if that's been the plan all along. If they activate him just before the bye he can get some coaching and practices that are less game plan focused. Seems like a good week to work on getting him up to speed.

Agreed. Part of the problem might also be schematic. Bills have been getting quick pressure, but if receivers aren't facing tight coverage, that doesn't help. The QB can always dump it quickly to an open receiver. If you want to have an aggressive defense, the corners need to be aggressive and play the receivers tight from the line. It might mean getting beat deep occasionally, but if it also leeds to turnovers and short possessions, you can live with that. Of course, it would help to have at least one corner with speed which is why Hairston is so important, and his injury is why you probably want at least one more.

I think that's probably true...but they also only have 8 IR to return slots for the year and I think they've used two. I'm guessing they hope to use a couple when Hairston and the suspended players come back. I think they want to do everything they can to make sure they are stocked up for the post-season.

Eligible after the 6th game...so after the bye.

What I found odd, is that a couple of years ago, he was very critical of Josh turning the ball over too much. He even said something along the lines of "I understand that he is taking chances and that he can complete many of these throws that nobody else can, but still, he turns the ball over too much for my liking." I think that's a fair criticism...but really odd coming from Warner. He was part of the greatest show on turf, and Mike Martz actually said that he told his QBs not to fear throwing interceptions. He wanted them to throw fifty fifty balls down field, knowing that with their receivers it was more like 75/25. It seemed odd for a coach to say "I don't care if my QB throws an interception," but even stranger for that QB to later saying he doesn't like seeing QBs turn the ball over.

A Kevin Spacey of meatheads?

He did look fine....but then I think I saw Babich with a Tonya Knocker.

Ah nice! And given that, I was able to backtrack to stats for last year. They are at 26 percent...which a quick scan tells me they are high-middle in blitz rate. (Atlanta and Detroit lead the league in the mid 30s.) Last year they blitzed 19 percent...so a pretty sizeable jump.

Thanks....but I think it might be beyond me. I saw individual totals and then a team total at the bottom. But then is that total number of blitzes or total number of blitzers? In other words if they send Taron and Bernard on one play, is that two bitzes or one on their total? Plus I wanted a comparison to last year, so a blitz percentage for the year would be helpful...I know that could be figured out from this information...but that is too much math for my brain.

I grew up a few miles from the campus and it was always fun to go to games....and hey, when I was a kid they had Big ED...Ed Marinaro (future star of Hill Street Blues). He was robbed, robbed I tell ya, of the Heisman Trophy.

I agree...but I don't think the Bills coaching staff cares, and good for them. The Patriots used to do this where they would work on stuff in September as if it were pre-season. Often, they would lose a game early in the season and look bad in some close wins. Media and wishful opposing fans would trumpet the end of the Patriot era...and then they were great come December and January. McDermott said that he sat Codrington because he wanted to look at Samual and Strong. I think players are being sat who COULD play but want to heal them up. It's almost like load management. The focus is on winning in the playoffs not winning now. They're doing that and still undefeated? That's awesome. If they can keep it up until the bye, they will be in great shape.

Yes, I have been trying to find stats on blitz rates...this year vs last. Seems they are doing more, but for some reason fans don't seem to notice a difference. It might be because those blitzes are not getting home. I even remember someone on this board posting that he wishes Bills would blitz corners like other teams do. Well, I remember that Tre blitzed Tua...and whiffed. I also seem to remember that there were several corner blitzes that were effective vs the run against the Jets. The Bills are doing these things. It's just that they are bad at them and they are often out of position (particularly against Baltimore). The hope is that they will learn and get better throughout the year. The bye will help...as will getting players back. So WILL they get better? Hard to say and it might be really bad if they don't, but I don't think the Bills are playing it safe and doing the same old thing, which I appreciate.

Ahhh, beating George Seifert's record. I always remember George Seifert because as a kid I was a huge Cornell football fan. Seifert was fired as coach after two years with a record of 3-15. Who knew he would go on to such great things at the NFL level?

You could be right....except who is going to win that division? The Steelers? They looked good this past Sunday, but, before that, I had not been impressed even in their wins. And will Rodgers hold up? So if not the Ravens and Steeler, what? The Bengals look dreadful without Burrow. The Browns?

It may have been the execution, particularly Van Demark's, but to me this was a bad call. It's 4th and short and so the defense is mostly worried about Josh or Cook up the middle. That is where the surge is going to come from. So, if you want to run a trick play to catch them off guard, you want to run away from where the pressure is. The Moore touchdown against the Jets is a good example. I haven't rewatched it, but at the time it did not look like one player blew the play up but like there was a giant traffic jam right where Shakir received the ball.

Yeah, I'm always skeptical of easy/hard schedule talk in the NFL. Often teams nobody expects to be good have a great season and sometimes perceived good teams fall off, often because of injury. Cincinnati is a good example of the latter this year. Also, some teams are good at one point of the year and not so good at another. If we'd played LA at this time last year they would have been considered a bad team, but at the end of the year they were probably one of the four best. However, what I find interesting this year is that, so far at least, everything is breaking our way. I can see several teams that some people thought MIGHT be good (Bengals, Texans, Steelers, Patriots...even the Dolphins) and they all are trending worse. Do we see any team on our schedule that is trending better than we expected? (One game is not a trend, Carolina.) I don't see it. Things can change but so far the luck is on the Bills side.

Agreed. He is better at looking for them. He reads coverage better and looks to hit the short pass with easy yardage early in his progression. Phase one Josh would hold on to the ball forever looking for the deep shot. Phase two Josh would look for the deep pass but if it wasn't there would reluctantly take the checkdown. Now, in phase 3, if the defenses warrants it, he will look for the sure 5 to 7 yard gain first. I saw some All 22 analysis that showed that in the Dolphins game there were some receivers open deep but Josh never made it that far in his progression because he'd already seen he had the short pass. Now, if the defense takes away the short, I hope Josh will read it and go deep, and though it hasn't happened a lot, it has happened enough that it suggests he will. For example, there was the shot to Coleman (I think against Jets) down the sideline where Coleman had beaten his man deep, and would have been a deep pass but the defender grabbed him for DPI.

Agreed. In fact, if I understand the rule right, I think Allen was short. The announcers kept talking about where his knee hit, but the rule says he is down where he "begins his slide." I take it to mean that he is down the second he kicks his legs up in a sliding motion...before he lands. I also seem to remember the rule was changed because Peyton Manning did like a Kung Fu kick where he went flying like 4 yards in the air in a sliding motion before he landed because he knew that defenders couldn't hit him once he was sliding, but could gain a bunch of yards before his slide landed.

I've been having the same issue. Hate to see a division rival gain momentum, but Patriots have not looked very good, even in their win. That said, clearly the Steelers had Super Bowl expectations. I never thought those expectations were realistic...but still, seems like a team that if things come together could compete with the Bills in AFC so I'd rather see them taken out of the mix. It's kind of tie, but the tiebreaker is that I can't stand Rodgers...so I'm going Patriots on this one.

I remember last year when Poyer said Josh was the best and Tuanon went crazy. This year even Tua is pretty much like "No kidding. That guy's AWESOME! Wish we had a quarterback like him."

Question: In order to save time, would you allow people to only watch 2 games if one of them was the Browns 6-3 game?

Yes, the Dolphins have poor play and injuries on OL, but how about that defense? When the Patriots took a knee just before half, it was the first opponent's drive in their two games that did not end in points.

Some of the fins fans who are still delusional are hailing the return of the deep ball connection between Tua and Hill after the Patriots game. There WAS a long completion, but if you saw it, it was emblamatic of the kind of play in that game on both sides of the ball. Hill Patriot DBs bracketing him front and back. Tua threw up a ball that looked like a punt. The defender in front of Hill stayed in front and didn't make a play on the ball. The DB trailing completely lost the ball (and Hill) and just ran past him...leaving Hill open to catch the ball. It was one of the ugliest deep ball plays I've ever seen.

Interesting. Maybe they have mended fences or maybe it was just rumors. Still....feels both parties have moved on.