MPT

And on that one, a three-man rush bulldozed our O-line and hit his arm as he was about to throw. That's why he tucked it instead of getting rid of it. That one is also on the line.

Skrine tripped him as he was getting beat on the route.

I have more confidence in McDermott to make halftime adjustments than any other coach during the drought. We're lucky to only be down by 3. If we can stop getting manhandled at the lines this will be a much better second half.

Dirty play by Skrine. Zay beat him and probably had a TD there. Our offensive line might as well just lie down on the field every snap. At least they couldn't get pushed into Taylor that way.

And instead of stepping up in a clean pocket, he shuffles directly into pressure on the right side. We disagree on a lot of things, but Tyrod being a long-term solution isn't one of them. I just wish coaches' hubris wouldn't cause us to go from top defense to bottom defense from one regime to the next and then above average offense to still-to-be-determined-but-not-promising from that regime to the current one. We know how to maximize a limited QB already, from prior experience. Maybe don't f with it just because you can. Edit -- Zay is not equivalent to Sanders yet. He looks very promising, but that's a silly comparison.

Obviously it's hard to watch as a Bills fan / player / coach, but they didn't deal him because they thought he lacked skill. They dealt him because they 1) succumbed to the typical "get rid of all the previous GM's "guys"" and 2) don't want to build a team around a player who may not play half the season. I get the trade, I supported the trade, I didn't necessarily like the trade. But yeah, we all have to grin and bear it when Watkins, Woods, and Goodwin all simultaneously perform at the highest level they ever achieved with the Bills, but for a different team. I really wish we would have been able to keep Woods at a modest salary. He was [mostly] solid, and would have helped Tyrod tremendously.

None of that is true. Watch the replay. He didn't use his arms at all.

Wrong. No arms, no interference. True, with respect to the "putrid" aspect. I think our offensive game calling limited his options and were easily defended. There were no options, no screens, no deep balls called. When you make Tyrod try to be Brady, he will fail. That's a coaching problem.

Love that Tyrod haters are barely literate. That was a garbage game all around. Peterman would have turned it into a blowout.

It wasn't a perfect throw that led him into the endzone, but #1 WR's make that catch all day long and give their team 1st & goal at the 1. Tyrod could be Aaron Rodgers, but he's not. Make the catch you're paid to make.

So running McCoy 12 times for a total of 9 yards isn't a play calling issue? Tyrod missed some open guys, but their game plan was dog $#it.

Arms were never extended. There was no push-off whatsoever. Players are allowed to use their bodies to create space. Unless you're the Bills, obv.

Offense was terrible. But am I really the only person who gets livid about phantom penalties at the end of the game? We were driving hard and we got F###ed by a BS penalty. Game over. Say what you want about the rest of the game, but that one call determined the outcome.

Seconded. Gaines looked capable in a scheme that's supposed to be his strength, but he didn't reach "impressive" to me.

I hear that, but I also like being able to read a specific take and its responses without having to wade through 30 pages of a generalized thread. I really don't see any problem with multiple threads about the same player if they approach it in different ways or ask different questions.

I'll also say this about preseason in general: it's certainly not a barometer of a team's regular season capabilities, but it is definitely an indicator of individuals' capabilities. Taylor's struggles, to me, were alarmingly awful. That lies mostly with him, but the offensive line also may as well have not even played. They were seriously manhandled: instantly and consistently.

I like Tyrod, and I thought we could win with him. However, that would have required a talented, healthy receiving corps and a drastically improved defense. The recent trades have pulled the rug out from under any chance of that. To be clear, I'm not against the trades. But the fact that they happened means that we might as well be testing the trade market with Tyrod. You don't trade your QB's best receiver during preseason unless you've at least partially resigned yourself to a losing season. I believe Beane and McDermott when they say they're still trying to win, but their primary goal is clearly aimed at the future. That being said, there's little reason to keep a quarterback around who could be the difference between a top-5 pick and a 10-ish pick.

Hochuli's crew notoriously calls more borderline penalties than most officiating crews. The Bills have also seemed to become a magnet for such calls. I'm totally speculating, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Bills had more "block in the back" penalties than any other team. Most of them are complete B.S. Teams can embellish against us (and other teams; we're certainly not the only ones) and get the call every time. It's going to take a lot of disciplined, sanitized football to reverse that. Meanwhile, the Pats will run a pick play with about 3 offensive line holds every single down and never get called. The NFL is very much a winner-friendly or sensationalist-friendly organization, and we haven't been either for two decades.

That's what I was thinking. I know it's just preseason, but it's not a good feeling when the referees are literally creating impossible situations just to screw with us.

That's my bad. I lumped you in with MAJBobby in that regard. You'll forgive me for not being able to keep track of which troll is trolling which topic.

He did, but he also tore a thumb ligament on his throwing hand towards the end of that game. MAJBobby and Maury have been trolling around claiming that an injured third string quarterback is statistically equivalent to Tom Brady. Yeah. Let that settle in, and then decide if you want to hop into this can of worms. That's fair enough, but that would just bring us back to the debate over the cause of a 6-10 record. Since we've agreed that the hypothetical loss to NE1 is due to Tom Brady demolishing our defense, the answer remains the same.

It's funny that you changed the quote to "team," and then proceeded to specifically blame Tyrod for the loss that you agreed is only guaranteed because Brady would have shredded our defense. You're not doing yourself any favors. A QB that took his team to the Super Bowl is not the same as an injured third string rookie. Also, last time I checked, they don't allow college players to play in the NFL. I'm pretty sure I qualified "normal" as "statistically relevant." In order to be relevant, it has to be repeatable. Other teams played against the 49ers with Kaepernick. No other team played against an injured Brissett.

Those two games are not equivalent in their statistical relevance. One is a normal game, the other is not. Yes, but it would only improve the offense's ranking if we didn't. You can eliminate it if you want, but I don't think that would be honest.

So what you're saying is that our defense is so bad that there is no way Tyrod could have beaten Tom Brady if he had played? I'd agree to that.

That was my point. Even when you use DVOA, which generally does a really good job of adjusting for these things, our defense was much worse than the points per game statistic would indicate. Then when you consider that DVOA adjusts the wrong way for an injured Brissett playing in place of Brady, it gets even worse. I don't know what's worse than worse than not great, but it's probably not good.