Last Guy on the Bench

Agree on both points. The smart decision on that 3rd and 4 is to run it there, and I hope (with a caveat) that he does that in the future. It would have been super easy for him to miss that pass or for Foster to drop it. The caveat is that I kind of love a QB who doesn't think that way. It's part of not playing scared and having confidence. Sometimes that confidence will burn you, but I'd rather watch "Josh Thinks-He-Can-Do-Anything" than "Josh Always-Takes-The-Safe-Play" (who doesn't actually seem to exist, thank the gods). And your second point about that Beasley pass out of the end zone - for me that pass is up there with the sluggo TD pass to Brown against the Dolphins for Josh's most Holy S*** throw of the season. Phenomenal.

Ha ha - I think you're right. I find myself feeling much more optimistic with Josh and this team on 3rd and long than on 2nd and short sometimes. Very strange.

I've been enjoying the defensive play as much as the next guy. But I keep having the feeling that the offense is actually much closer to good (and getting closer all the time) than it appears, and the defense is more vulnerable. If you look at the teams we've played, it will lower your confidence in the defense a little bit. By yards, we have played 8 of the worst 10 offenses in the league, with only the Browns and Pats (16 and 17) even respectable. The average offensive ranking of our ten opponents is 25th! We've played 10 teams so the worst the average could be would be 27th (if you had the actual 10 worst teams on the schedule). By yardage, we've played close to the worst collection of offenses you could play. Meanwhile, the average defensive ranking of the teams we've played is 17th. Only three are in the bottom 10 on defense (Giants, Bengals, Dolphins). They aren't the best defensive teams (except the Pats #2 and the Broncos and surprisingly the Jets tied for #8), but they average out to average. Granted, the Bills' own performance affects both of these rankings, but only 1/11 for everyone but the Dolphins, so it doesn't affect them that much at this point in the season. I don't think the Bills offense has really looked outgunned against anyone, except maybe Philly (we even out-gained the Pats by 150 yards despite Josh being in a panic most of the game). And they seem to be improving. I wonder if when all is said and done, at least by next year, the strength of this team might actually be offense? Meanwhile, the defense is about to face the #1 (Dallas) and #2 (Baltimore) offenses in the league. So I guess we'll find out how good they are. Unfortunately, the upcoming defenses are also going to be tougher, NE 2, Dallas 6, Pitt 7, Baltimore 14, so let's hope the Bills' offense continues to come together. We are about to learn a lot about this team. I hope we like what we learn.

I hear you. But that Pats game was different. The Bills also out-gained the Pats by 150 yards, just like they did the Jets. I would say in the Jets game, the Bills outplayed the Jets, even including the turnovers. Didn't feel like much of a theft. More like the Bills almost gave the game away to the Jets, despite their superiority, then they took it back. I do think, though, that Darnold was probably affected by the mono he didn't know he had yet. When he's healthy and in the groove, the Jets and the Bills are a pretty even match in my opinion. The Bills have really only been out-played from the line of scrimmage once this year. They have have been out-gained three times. In the first Dolphins game, they were out-gained 381-305, but a lot of those Dolphins' yards came late, if I recall. Cleveland nipped them by 24 yards. The one game where they really got beat from the line of scrimmage was Philly: 253-371. They have generally been significantly out-gaining their opponents, including yesterday's ridiculous 300 yard margin over the Broncos.

That's true given the turnovers and field goal misses. But it's also a little misleading. You can say, well if the Jets make a field goal, or if Darnold plays a little better . . . But you can also say, well if a deflected pass or fumble bounces differently . . . The Bills did out-gain the Jets by 150 yards, which was an earned reason that they were able to pull out the squeaker, even with their turnovers.

I wondered. Didn't Josh then point to his eyes while looking at Beasley? I feel like I remember that. If so, maybe he was telling Beasley to look sooner, or maybe he was saying it was his own fault somehow? Not sure.

Unreal. The offense tosses up four interceptions, and somehow the defense holds the Pats to 224 yards! (We had 375.) Brady averaged 3.85 yards/attempt on 39 passes!!!!!! It's a brutal loss in some ways, given that we outgained them by 150 yards. And our offense still has a long way to go (more experience individually and together, a few new players down the road). But if the Bills keep playing defense like that we are going to win a truckload of games, even with a hot and cold, mistake-prone offense. It was a joy to watch them.

Yeah, I wondered about that. That DB could close pretty quickly while the ball is in the air, and he'd meet Brown well before the sticks. Of course, it still might have made sense to give Brown a shot to shake one guy and make the few extra yards needed, since there was no other defender in the picture. But still, that is not a guaranteed first down at all if the DB comes up and makes a good tackle. Josh wanted more.

Huh. I watched the game in Cape Town, thousands of miles away, and I just couldn't get into it the way I normally do. When they went down in the second half I couldn't get myself that worked up about whether they would lose or win. And I NEVER feel like that. Happy they won, and there were some fun plays, but I can't remember ever feeling so foggy about what was actually a pretty good game, let alone the home opener for an undefeated Bills team. Strange energy.

I don't know about that. I went to lots of games in those days, including playoffs. But still, by far the loudest I every heard the stadium was at the Dallas Monday Night game in 2007. My Dad's hearing was literally never the same after that.

Legend.

I am beside myself. I am so jacked for this version of the Bills! I am sooooo thirsty for a compelling win today, and am hoping we win going away. And yet, I truly believe that if they lose I won't crater, because I think we are in for a good year either way. Plus, I actually like/enjoy this Darnold-led Jets team, apart from their tool of a coach. So I'm hoping that both these young upstart teams set a tone for the season which will banish the *Pats to oblivion where they belong. Bring it! Go Bills!

Great article. This finally made me buy a subscription to The Athletic.

Just from his highlight reel, though I guess that was most of his catches last year: Hands look great. But man is he a lumberer. It's a bit painful watching him try to make any kind of cut or move. He also seems to get hit HARD. He doesn't go down right away, but the first hit seems to cave him in and he sort of flails around and stumbles, usually going to ground pretty soon. Doesn't seem to deliver many blows the other way. (Again, maybe a blocking cutup would show him as a punisher - don't know, but I doubt it.) He doesn't really feel like an NFL athlete to me. Except for those hands. Which may be enough with old rocket arm Josh. I predict practice squad.

Been watching a lot of this kid and getting really excited. Three things I love: 1) He has this awesome Aikido way of breaking tackles. He regularly sort of goes in the direction of the force of the tackle. He lets the defender push him, or spin him, or knock him back. The defender is expecting resistance, and he doesn't get it on the vector he was expecting, and all of a sudden he is off balance, stumbling, grabbing at a sleeve or an ankle, and Singletary hits the jets and is out of his grasp. I keep seeing this and it's fascinating. Maybe other RBs do this too? I've never really noticed it. Once in a while Singletary will just pop someone, but mostly he absorbs the hit and lets it redirect him. He's so quick he adjusts to the new angle way faster than the defender can. The funniest is when a defender hits him square from the front and Singletary moves backward a step or two and the defender falls on his knees or even face. 2) Has a great feel for when to run around in the backfield looking for an escape, trying to reverse fields (he doesn't do this all that often, but when he does, it often works) and when to just slice through the muck for a few yards. He seems very decisive about which of these two options to pursue when he's bottled up, and usually seems to get it right. 3) After every TD he just tosses the ball immediately to the nearest ref. Classic Marv Levy "Act like you've been there before." Love this kid. Can't wait to see him in action with the big boys.

Yeah - it is a shame for the poor player. What I really empathize with is that complete sense of helplessness those fans are feeling. When you are stuck with an owner/GM/coach that is driving you crazy and there is nothing you can do about it, you feel like an enraged five-year-old. Of course, the whole thing also illustrates how ludicrous it is that so many of us take this parlor game so seriously (me definitely included - I take a four-day holiday from work every Draft).

Sorry if this has been posted, but I haven't seen it. Hilarious compilation of Giants fans going out of their skulls at the Daniel Jones pick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkQrgk-BoLc&feature=youtu.be Feels very familiar to me from many Bills drafts, though not this one.

Guess I'm in the minority, but I would do it. Love that guy. People put way too much stock in first rounders. Half of them aren't that great. (More than half of ours, historically.) I get the argument that you'd be trading two for one for a guy who also might not be that great, but if you believe in him, do it. We need a few superstars. Take a big swing now and then for the right guy. I think Williams might be that guy. And obviously if they made a trade like this they would agree.

It's also weird that he seems to equate Beasley with Brown. The whole point of Beasley is that he's a quick slot guy, not a guy that needs a 7 step drop and tons of time to get open. Unless I'm missing something. So the two main additions at WR serve very different functions. Seems like part of a plan to get more flexibility into the offense. I'm sure Beane would love to add a reliable big guy too. The offseason is far from over.

I don't think this fully captures a columnist's job - or at least a good columnist's job. Yes, a columnist is not reporter, and their job is "opinion" in some sense, but not in the sense of your drunk neighbor at the Bills' game or your irritating Uncle. Good columnists draw on non-obvious information to build a non-obvious window onto what they are writing about. They read stuff and synthesize it. They talk to people that others might not be able to talk to. Fresh opinions don't just drop out of the sky, even for very creative people (which Jerry is not). They take some kind of engagement. It doesn't seem like Jerry ever did anything but watch the games and go to the press conferences. You know who else does that? All of us (at least virtually). So it's no surprise that his columns were rarely surprising. I think when people say he was lazy, they don't mean he should have been acting like a reporter. They mean he was intellectually lazy. Even geniuses need to prime the pump. It takes work to have an interesting take. Peter King, for example, is a columnist. He writes a million words a week of opinions, musings, autobiography, etc. But love him or hate him, he spends a lot of time reading, talking to other people, and going out and engaging with the NFL. I know he has access that Jerry could only dream of, and I wouldn't expect the Buff News to mirror a national publication. But you can do some of that, even if you're working in Boise. Honestly, an average post from you, KTD, or from a bunch of other posters, has much more interesting opinion and analysis than any Sullivan column. And it has very little to do with how positive or negative someone is. You tend to be relatively sunny (except when it comes to Peterman). Badol is a curmudgeon, but always interesting. Both of you offer a fresh eye. Neither of you sounds like every other poster or radio idiot. There are lots of posters here who can knock off a tipsy post in their sleep that is better than Jerry's columns. Someone who is actually thinking about things and engaging with them can always find lots of interesting positive and negative things to say. The key word being 'interesting'. Heck, even DC Tom, who never offers any actual football insight, and who is as surly as they come, is actually funny. I would read a column by him. But life's too short to read stuff by someone like Jerry.

Wow. Rosen looks sharp. Throws a beautiful ball. All of the top 4 QBs look pretty legit so far. It would be something if it stayed that way. Still, I'll take our guy. Allen was at the bottom of my list for the draft, but he has sold me. I really enjoy watching him play. He may end up being a little messier than the other guys, but he looks like a baller, and he's super cool in the pocket. That has surprised me. And I love that sense you have with him that something big can happen at any time. I've missed that. That's what I liked about Mahomes too (whom I still like), but Allen seems cooler in the pocket.

Yeah, full standalone, unconditional streaming is definitely coming. Just have to be patient. Many similar sorts of arguments used to get thrown around about other premium TV like HBO, etc. Streaming was going to be too disruptive to their revenue model. But now you can get standalone HBO streaming, standalone Showtime streaming, a streaming cable package equivalent through Youtube, etc. I'm sure they NFL will follow suit. They do it abroad. And they are close with their non-live GamePass offering in the U.S. now. I've been living abroad, so I've been able to get the full ticket streaming for $200 bucks straight from the NFL. But I'm back in the U.S. this fall. No way I'm getting in bed with DTV or any other TV provider. I'm just paying my $99 bucks for GamePass and watching the games after they air. Sucks not to see them live (except when I head out to a sports bar), but not worth it to me to put in that whole insane TV infrastructure. I'll just stay away from the news for a few hours and watch the Bills on Sunday evenings. Just pretend it's a night game.

I would have agreed with you on first looking at that play. But the Cover1 breakdown was illuminating. A) He wasn't reading Proehl's route by design (at least that's what the Cover1 guy thinks), and B) Proehl isn't actually open when Allen starts his throw - be breaks open after that when the safety cheats over to the outside - if the safety had followed him, Proehl he wouldn't have been open - but Allen's already made his decision before it's clear what the safety is going to do. Bold decision. Great throw. And for anyone saying he had several inaccurate throws in that game, I don't see them. The two that were way off were obviously miscommunications. They were so far off there is no way Allen was throwing to where the receiver ended up. Still might have been his fault, but from screwing up the play or misreading the defense, not from inaccuracy. On the bombs NO QB hits those precisely even 50% of the time. Your best hope is that someone can get a long one close enough that you'll hit it now and then. He certainly did that. I was amazed at how accurate Allen was in this game.

If we played the Dolphins 16 times a year, Charles Clay would have 2,000 yards and 30 TDs. It's vastly entertaining watching them try to tackle him.

Good post. I was definitely among the disappointed when his name was called, but there is a lot to like about the kid. And like many, the more I look, the more optimistic I feel (or at least can talk myself into feeling). IF he's going to be good, I think your point three on story is key. No player falls into an entirely predictable, pre-set pattern. Every player has his own journey. But in Allen's case, the journey really is an outlier, making it even less predictable. No one would have said that Kurt Warner - going undrafted, cut in training camp, not from a big conference, kicking around the Arena League and NFL Europe - would be a hall of famer but there he is. What gives me the most hope about Josh is the tenacity and will and love for football that has kept him going through being unrecruited out of high school, JUCO, the 1,000 emails, heading to the middle of nowhere based on one offer and glad to do it, etc. This kid is driven and disciplined. He was a late bloomer physically. He might be a late bloomer statistically on the field too. Combine that with the fact that he is a PHREAK. I wish he had thrown for more yards and more completions, but man, his best throws are so much better than anyone else's best throws from a physical standpoint. He doesn't just have a big arm. He might have the best arm I've ever seen - and I've been watching football since the early 1970s.