HappyDays

Last year I thought the three best players not named Josh Allen were Cook, Benford, and Brown. So far this year Cook is the only one of them that has lived up to his own standard IMO and if anything has gotten even better. Benford is still the best tackler in our secondary but he has had some rough pass coverage reps. Brown is still an elite run blocker but has taken too many L's in pass protection. Benford and Brown both dealt with injuries in the offseason so I don't know if that's having an effect but we need our best players to get back to the level they were at last year.

I agree, I'm surprised there has been so much uproar about that non-challenge. During the game watching the slow motion replay back it looked to me like his first foot was still touching the ground when he regained possession. Then I looked in the live game thread and everyone was saying he obviously didn't complete the catch? In any case that is not a call you feel confident they are going to overturn. They stick with the original ruling on the field if it isn't clear and obvious.

So then what is the solution? In a vacuum I agree the defense has been the bigger problem. But we just spent the offseason pouring almost all of our resources into that side of the ball, and so far this year it looks exactly the same as last year. We'll occasionally beat up on a vastly inferior opponent with bad QB play, but against any decent offense we are giving up chunk plays and 3rd down conversions almost at will. Just like last year timely turnovers are the only thing stopping it from being a complete massacre. The conversation always turns into a question of which side is performing better, but the real question is which side deserves investments? We have seen defensive investments go to waste and have no measurable impact on the outcome of the game. Meanwhile offensive investments tend to have an immediate impact because they happen to be on the field with the best player in the world. So it comes down to - do we try to build the team around McDermott and Babich, or do we build it around Allen? Early returns on the season tell us that spending a 2nd round pick and salary on DK Metcalf would have been a better use than spending those resources on TJ Sanders and Greg Rousseau. Yet year after year we are choosing the second option and nobody should be surprised when the product looks the same.

Yeah he is supposed to be our pass catching back but he has 2 drops in 3 games. I'm more confident that his issues are fixable though, there is at least a proof of concept there. With Davis he's really never shown anything that makes me confident. His vision is shaky and you can tell he is hesitant/not trusting himself when we give him the ball.

By the way not to spoil the James Cook thread but Ray Davis has been a total non factor this year. And the team knows it - he ended up with just 4 snaps last night. I'm at the point where I'd like to call Gore up for a game and see how it goes with him as the RB2. Right now Cook is probably the #1 player on offense other than Allen that we couldn't afford to lose. That's crazy to say about a RB but the drop off from him to his backups is massive.

To my eyes he looks even better so far this year. We know he can break long TD runs, but what's really impressing me is how he is almost perfectly maximizing all of the available space on every run. Like if he doesn't get instantly stuffed he is picking up 5 yards at minimum and that's a testament to his vision and his ability to attack open space.

FWIW PFF has him graded as their 12th best EDGE this season (not including tonight's game) with an 82.5 grade which is just below elite by their metrics. Not that PFF is gospel but it indicates he has been performing well at the little things that you don't really notice live because the impact on the play isn't obvious. The problem is we're paying him $20M per year and you expect more than just "the little things" for that contract. He has yet to flash once as a pass rusher this year. If Bosa and Oliver and Walker can provide the flashy plays while he's doing the dirty work I guess I can live with that but it's quite the contract to give out to a guy that is basically just a role player.

Hawes is going to be the reason Cook breaks a couple of his long TDs this year.

Whereas I think more of our drives would stall out if we went more pass heavy. The personnel is built to run. An OL that is better at run blocking than pass blocking, the most explosive skill player is a RB, we have 3 TEs that can block including one who might already be the best blocking TE in the NFL. Cook breaking an explosive run has been the best indicator that the drive is going to end in a TD. I quibble a bit with Brady's persistent run calls but I can't really blame him. He's using the ingredients he has.

I don't know, I'm pretty sure they wanted to finish it when we got to 21-21 but the offense stalled out at midfield until Miami's boneheaded mistake gave us new life. As soon as they started run blitzing us we didn't have any answers and I don't think it's because we were playing with our food, it's because we don't have the pass catching talent outside to make them pay for selling out. It's going to continue to be a problem this year and we'll just have to do our best to hide it as much as we can.

I think Coleman will keep getting better. The back shoulder he dropped is a play he will hit more consistently in the second half of the season. But he is not going to suddenly become a pure separator outside. Palmer is the guy we paid to play that role and he was invisible tonight against a horrid group of CBs. Just like last year it is going to be up to Cook breaking one or Allen improvising to create explosive plays. Otherwise it is going to be 10 play drives of perfect execution to get into the endzone. We've shown that formula can work, but there were a few times tonight we really NEEDED someone to make a play and nobody could until Zach Sieler made it for us.

Was this the worst possible outcome for Miami? They lose to go 0-3 but it wasn't so egregiously bad that you can move on from McDaniel. If anything this game showed his mettle as a coach, rallying his players to play tough against the division Goliath when the rest of the world was declaring them dead. If anything this game is a referendum on Tua. For the 2nd week in a row he threw a horrid INT on their potential game winning drive.

I've been critical of Babich and McDermott but I don't have much to complain about the defensive play calling in this one. We mixed in some good looking blitzes and I didn't see anything egregiously dumb. The problem tonight was the players IMO. Benford played as bad as I've ever seen him. I continue to believe that White is just washed and needs to be replaced by Hairston ASAP. And Miami is not a matchup where you can overcome bad performances from the outside CBs. Waddle and Hill had it too easy all night. There were also several instances where we had Miami stopped but poor angles and tackling let them off the hook.

To my eyes he was getting doubled most of the night. That should open up somebody else to make a play but it didn't. If the Ed Oliver from the Baltimore game comes back defenses will have to pick their poison.

I'll give a shout to Bosa too, he didn't make any big plays but he was the only one consistently pushing the pocket. Groot has been a massive disappointment as a pass rusher this year and Epenesa did his usual "did he even play?" routine. DQ is close to JAG status at this point. And Sanders doesn't look ready for a full time role, he got pushed around. We need Oliver back ASAP and give Walker more playing time, he's creating a lot of muck in the backfield.

Allen Cook Hawes Bernard/Walker - in a game where nobody on defense wanted to make a play, these two combined to make THE play that won the game

This is a classic drought era Bills loss from Miami. You have a superior opponent on the ropes but you make a couple big dumb mistakes and let the game slip away.

Nice work old man

Say what you want about Coleman, Palmer is supposed to be the pure outside separator and he was invisible tonight against a horrid CB group. Interested to see what the tape shows.

Nice to see Moore getting involved in this game

He's been the only DL getting consistent push tonight. He's getting no help from his teammates including the $20 million dollar man Greg Rousseau

Nice instant win off the snap from Deone Walker there. He gets half the credit for that pick

LMFAO Tua just handed us the game

Starting to get nervous about the clock