msw2112

I'm a huge football fan. I like to watch as many regular season and playoff games as I can, even some of those terrible Monday and Thursday night matchups. I knew the Pro Bowl was this weekend, but I didn't know what time, what channel, etc. and I made no attempt to even find it. And today, the next morning, I don't feel as if I missed anything. I suppose it was nice to find out (from this board) that a Bills special teams WR caught a TD.

If he doesn't win the Super Bowl, he's borderline. If he wins it this year (or in the future), he's in for sure. The guy has had great success with 2 different franchises and led both to many division titles, playoff appearances and now the Super Bowl. There's no question he knows how to create and run an offense as well as anyone in the history of the league. He also comes across, at least to me, as a good guy.

Clowney undoubtedly has a ton of talent. I just don't see him as the type of personality that fits in with what the Bills are trying to build. They don't want another Marcel Dareus situation. Big FA contracts can really hurt a team in the long run. I think that Beane will be thrifty in FA, like last year, and save that cap space to re-sign his own who will be up in the coming years: White, Milano, Allen, Edmonds, Hyde, Poyer, etc. If he does spend big dollars on a FA, I believe it will be a guy with big talent who has also has a positive injury history (meaning very few) and demonstrated high-character and leadership skills. Having said that, those types of guys don't hit FA very often.

Although the cop was probably doing the job he was assigned to do, he could have been good-natured about and not acted like a douche. He looks like a dork on a power trip. That aside, there's just no excuse for what Beckham did. In the aftermath of the LSU victory, he: hit a cop in the butt in the locker room (which is assault, whether sexual or not), followed by a brief confrontation with the cop gave cash to college athletes on the LSU team interrupted the congratulatory speech the LSU coach was giving to the team It's just more inappropriate and juvenile behavior from this guy and completely disrespectful to the LSU players, coaches, and university. It's not about you, OBJ. STFU and let the kids enjoy their moment. I can't argue that Beckham has talent, but I do not ever want to see this clown in a Bills uniform.

He had the "sports hernia" repair surgery that many athletes have. It's not really a hernia. It's the shredding/tearing of the tissues where the bottom of the abdominal muscles connect to the pubis. The symptoms are similar to a groin strain, but it doesn't heal like a groin strain does, which is why guys have the procedure. Athletes can play with this injury, but it is extremely painful a few hours after the activity, when the body has cooled down. The recovery from this procedure isn't substantial (a few weeks to a couple of months) and he'll be good to go in the spring, if not sooner. I'm glad it's nothing more serious.

I agree with the premise here, but there are 31 other teams who also know that Drake had a great finish to the season and that Harris is a good back to find in the draft between rounds 2 and 5.

I don't have a problem with the spirit of the Rooney Rule. There may well be some level of racial bias in the NFL hiring process, whether conscious or unconscious and I like the idea of giving some guys a chance that they might not otherwise get. The problem with the rule is the instance where a team knows exactly who they want to hire. If that candidate is not a minority, they are forced to conduct a sham interview with a minority candidate just to satisfy the rule. You could argue that this type of interview is a waste of everyone's time. On the other hand, you could argue that the interview gives the minority candidate some exposure and an opportunity to practice his interview skills to be better prepared for the future (even though he has no shot at the job they are interviewing for). McDermott, while not a Rooney Rule candidate, had some unsuccessful HC interviews in the years before the Bills hired him. I would guess that having that experience helped to prepare him for the interview process with the Bills. Does anyone know of a situation where a Rooney Rule interviewee ended up surprising people and getting the job, when it was pretty clear that they only got the interview to satisfy the rule? I can't think of any off the top of my head, but would be interested to know if this has happened. Rooney Rule aside, I am pleased to see the Bills doing whatever it takes to improve. Teerlick, by all accounts, was a good coach, but Washington appears to be an even better one.

As others have said, the Teerlick move now makes sense. I don't think he was outright fired, but he was probably encouraged to look elsewhere because the Bills knew they were going to sign Washington. Perhaps Teerlick had the opportunity to stay on, but he may have had to work under Washington, somewhat of a demotion, and he elected to take the VT job instead, where he could still be the #1 D-line coach. It also gave him the opportunity to work with his old buddy.

I have many friends in Wisconsin who are huge Packers fans. They have been frustrated with McCarthy for years and were very happy to see him gone. They felt it took way too long to get rid of him and that he wasted some of the best years of Aaron Rodgers' career. They believe that McCarthy was carried by having HOF QBs. There was also an article about the Packers that came out within the last year that was pretty damning. It was written by Tyler Dunne, formerly of the Buffalo News. One of the stories I remember from it was rather than attend practice, he was getting massages. When players wanted his time, he was a real prick. I don't know what the truth is, but it's interesting stuff. Here's a link: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2828649-what-happened-in-green-bay Could be another disaster in Dallas.

I'm not in favor of expanding to 17 games, but if they do, I like the proposed solution in the previous post of having the 17th game be at a neutral site. This way, every team keeps its 8 home games (both for home-field advantage purposes and revenue purposes) and the league gets more exposure in new markets. I have not seen statistics, but I think that the teams that have to travel to London in the middle of the season for a game are at a disadvantage (jet-lag, etc.), particularly the one that gives up the home game (revenue aside, you lose the home field advantage).

The reason it is effective is that it occurs so rarely - it is the element of surprise. If it was regularly run, there would no longer be the element of surprise. There's also the risk of failure (incompletion, sack, etc.) due to the tackle running a pass pattern and not being on the line to block. It was great to see the Bills run it to perfection on Saturday! Too bad they didn't have one more trick up their sleeve late in the game.

As to the comments about the Bills being a young team or not, the statistics may indicate otherwise, but the Bills are a young team. They have young players starting in a number of key positions, such as QB, RB, 2 of 3 LBs, all starting CBs (2 outside and slot), RT. Older vets like Gore bring up the average age. As to Milano, he and the entire Bills D had a poor game on Saturday. He's a valuable player who uses his speed in coverage and to go sideline-to-sideline against the run. He played the "viper" position in college at BC, which is a hybrid safety/LB role in Don Brown's defense (the same role that Jabril Peppers played at Michigan). 40-time aside, he plays fast and speed is part of his game. He's an integral part of our defense and will be for years to come. Objectively, our LB's, including Milano, are not thumpers and sometimes struggle against teams that can execute a power running game.

Allen's physical talents are among the best the league has seen - size, speed, strength (general) and arm strength. But it's his mental makeup and maturity that set him apart. His willingness to be introspective, accept his shortcomings and work (and work and work) at improving them are extremely impressive. To put in simpler terms, he's a guy that "gets it." Over the course of the last year, he's greatly improved his mid-range passing game and in just a few short weeks, he's made a remarkable improvement in cutting down on interceptions. Next, he needs to work on ball security. Although the Bills have recovered many of them, he's had too many fumbles while running the ball. (The one late in the first half against Philly turned the entire game around and the Bills never recovered.) Given Allen's willingness to address his shortcomings, I fully expect he will get that corrected too, and of course, he can then focus on the deep ball. Allen is progressing nicely and the future looks bright for him.

Josh's lack of success on the deep ball (bombs) is surprising to me, as he had a few last season, particularly to Foster. In fact, a lot of them earlier in the season last year were perfect throws that Foster couldn't track/hang onto, but Foster improved in the 2nd half of the season and hauled them in. This year, Josh's long throws are not close to the target. I assume that he will eventually hit on a few of these, and bombs aside, the rest of his game has improved tremendously. Losman wasn't good at much else, but I do miss his bombs to Lee Evans and interestingly, Tyrod had quite a few of them his first year as as starter and they seemed to elude his game in his last couple of years in Buffalo. Hopefully, Josh can re-establish his mojo with these types of passes. (Wasn't there a baseball ad that said something like "Chicks dig the long ball?")

We've hit the point in the season where all of the NFL broadcasts are now showing the "playoff picture" during each game. There are only 6 games left. It is not too early to talk about tie-breakers, whether we control our own destiny or not. In fact, earning a tie-breaker is a further step in controlling our own destiny. I was not aware of the potential good news of a win this weekend impacting our tie-breaker status against one of the teams we are competing with, so I;m glad to now this now. Thumbs up on the post! Now let's focus on beating Denver. With a challenging upcoming schedule, we need every win we can squeeze out. As others have said, the Pittsburgh game may turn out to be a "play in" game for us. If we can beat Denver, the Jests, and Pittsburgh, I believe we are in. If we lose to Pittsburgh, a lot of things would have to go our way for us to get in.

Yes and no. I definitely have emotional highs and lows during the games and can be loud and vocal, but I have to temper myself because it scares the children. They make me realize that some things are more important than football, which is a good thing! That said, football is something I really look forward to and it takes my mind off of some the other challenges of daily life, at least for a few hours a week.

Two comments: 1) After mid-season poor performances, the Bills came on strong the last two seasons. Let's hope they can do the same this season. Miami is not a good team, but we played them much better than the 1st time and this one was in their house. Perhaps the Cleveland game was our wakeup call. 2) Milano's injury last year was pretty severe and I was surprised how quickly he came back to playing full-time. I don't think he missed any offseason work, training camp, etc. When you combine last year's injury, with this year's, it's likely he hasn't been 100% in quite a while. Maybe he is finally getting back to 100% at the right time. Weak opponent aside, Milano looked much faster yesterday than he has looked all season, and I don't think he's been too bad this season. He's a very good player and a huge part of our defense.

I hope the Cardinals game isn't in London. I live in Phoenix and many of us out here have been looking forward to the Bills return. The last time they were here, Fitz led a OT victory in a very sloppy game that neither team seemed to want to win. The Buffalo ex-pats took the tailgating to the next level and we had a ball. As to the schedule, outside of this year, the Bills have a tough schedule every year. I agree that for good teams, the schedule doesn't matter as much. Also, the schedule can be deceiving. Teams that project to be good can be terrible and teams that project to be terrible can be pretty good. The AFC West is a good example. The Chiefs were supposed to be 14-2 and roll through the league, and are doing OK, but not world beaters. The Chargers were also supposed to be very good and are not. The Raiders were supposed to be terrible and are actually pretty decent and the Broncos were supposed to be decent (not great) and are terrible. So you never know. I will admit that the easier start to the schedule this year has really helped the Bills and was very timely for a young team with a developing QB learning how to win. Let's hope it pays dividends for the future.

As two others have mentioned above, Phillips might be willing to sign an extension during the season for potentially less than he might get as a UFA in the open market after the season because it's the NFL and injuries happen. He could blow out his knee next week and his career might be over. Turning away $15-$20M with a large chunk of it guaranteed in a signing bonus isn't something to take lightly. Also, after a bad start in Miami, he is flourishing in Buffalo. He might genuinely like the coaches, teammates, fans, community and want to be there. People like to be in places where they are having success. He might be able to go somewhere else and make more money, but he might not be as successful there and he might not be as comfortable and happy.

Kudos to the OP for bringing up this topic. I mentioned something similar in a different thread that was critical of Hauschka. He had a bad game vs. the Browns and it was costly to us, but our kicking situation is far from the worst in the league. Kicking seems to be a problem league-wide this year, more than I can ever recall seeing in the past.

Rudolph should be suspended 1-2 games for his attempts to hit Garrett in the balls and to rip his helmet off. No place for that in the game. Pouncey and Ogunjobi should be suspended 3-4 games for kicking and punching Garrett after the helmet swing. Garrett should be suspended, at a minimum, the remainder of this season and at a maximum, a full year (16 games) for the helmet rip and swing. From what I have heard and read, Garrett is not a cheap shot artist like Burfict and doesn't have a history of bad behavior. He's a decent guy. He just lost his cool (apparently because Rudolph went for his nuts - twice) and committed a terrible infraction. I disagree with those who say he should be banned for life. If he were suspended for 8-16 games and came back and did something similar again then yes, a lifetime ban would be appropriate. The bigger picture is that sometimes it just makes sense to run out the clock. Take a knee, or hand it off to your backup RB and get off the field. Dropping back to pass on 4th and 29 in the shadow of your own goal line with less than 10 seconds left and down 2 scores just isn't necessary. People get hurt and tempers can flare (as they did last night). I have't read all 18 pages of this post, but from what I have seen and read elsewhere, not much has been said about this angle.

If a team is "one player away" from being a serious contender, it makes sense to take a gamble on a guy who is not very bright or lower in character but has a lot of talent. The Bills are not "one player away," so adding a guy like this isn't going to move the needle much; plus, he's not a "process" type of guy. So the Bills should take a pass. And the 10 game suspension (and possible longer ban for a future offense) pretty much renders it moot anyway.

I think it will be 9-7 and we will be in the Wild Card hunt going into Week 17. Likely fall a game short, possibly on a tie-breaker to the Steelers (who, under that scenario beat us when we play). I could see us rise up and win one we are not supposed to (maybe Cowboys or Ravens) and also lose one to someone we are supposed to beat (Broncos, Jests or Fins). To McDermott's credit, we bounced back from a rough patch in 2017 (Saints ran all over us/Tyrod put up 68 passing yards, the Peterman experiment) and got to 9-7 and a playoff berth, and we had a strong finish last year too, so maybe he can rally the troops again this time around and bounce back from a disappointing Cleveland loss and re-establish some momentum. No doubt our 6-3 record has been aided by a very easy schedule, but there's no law against improving as the season goes on.

As mentioned above, the most egregious error was on 3rd down. Hausch has not been good this year and wasn't good in this game, but he has certainly made many from 50+ in his career and he has made several clutch kicks. We have not been effective on 4th down, so statistics aside, I think our chances of making the FG were about as good as getting the 1st down (and then working for a FG or TD). But the play call and clock management on 3rd and 4, and then the ensuing chaos was terrible. Did you see the camera shot of Hausch on the sidelines trying to trot onto the field, but he was held back, then they decided to go for the FG after all? That chaotic sequence may have messed with his mind a little bit. Also, did anyone else notice the so-so hold? I'm not an expert, but I think the laces are supposed to be 180 degrees from the kicker's foot when spun correctly. In this case, the spin only put the laces 90 degrees from the kicker's foot.

This isn't the first we have seen this. I hate to give anyone nightmares, but remember Vlad....This staff does seem to be stubborn when it comes to making personnel moves with veteran players who are not carrying their weight. I'm still a supporter of the staff, but this does frustrate me (as does the "strategy" at the end of yesterday's game, but that was addressed in another thread). Lee Smith is known as a great run blocker. If there was evidence of our great run game with him leading the charge, you can put up with a penalty or two. There is no such evidence (that I have seen) and the penalties are horrible. Smith is a class act and a great locker room/sideline guy, and that's where he needs to show his influence - in the locker room and on the sideline. Not on the field.