[Gameday Thread Week 7 1st Half Bills @ Jets]

Time to get a kicker. He isn't going to suddenly learn how to kick accurately. It's going to lose us games at some point.

[Gameday Thread Week 7 1st Half Bills @ Jets]

Dropping the ball when your elbow hits the ground is not a sign of a fumbling problem. It doesn't matter at all.

[Gameday Thread Week 7 1st Half Bills @ Jets]

Why is Milano not playing? Why did we make him active?

[Gameday Thread Week 7 1st Half Bills @ Jets]

If it walks like a bad defense and quacks like a bad defense, it's a bad defense.

[The "historic" punishment for the Titans has been announced]

 

Will they be able to recover?

[Week 7: Bills at Jets]

 

Okay this makes me feel a lot better. Even with half our starting defense available I don't see how the Jets will score.

[Week 7 Bills at Jets predict the score.]

We elevated Dane Jackson from the practice squad which could be a sign that White won't play. Or it could mean Cam Lewis won't play. Without White and possibly Milano the Jets WILL score on us, I hate to say it. Allen just needs to get back to his early season play and we'll still win handily.

[Week 7: Bills at Jets]

With the Knox and Dodson news we are really getting hit with injuries this year. It's conceivable we'll be down our top OLB and his backup, our top 3 CBs, our #2 WR, and our #1 TE. Thank goodness we have our easiest game of the year this week or it would be an almost certain loss. Knox won't be back for the Patriots but hopefully everyone else will be.

[Week 7 Bills at Jets predict the score.]

I'm going to assume worst case scenario for injuries.

 

Bills 35

Jets 28

 

Jets score a garbage time TD to make it closer but it's generally a 2 score game the whole way through.

[Week 7: Bills at Jets]

With Brown out and all the injuries on defense we need to feed the ball to Diggs and Beasley early and often. Build a lead and keep our foot on the gas. Don't let the Jets stay in the game. Bury them.

[All-22 Grades for Bills/Chiefs (The Athletic)]

7 minutes ago, zevo said:

The bomb to Diggs in the endzone was a dime and a game changer...I believe there was one other deep shot that went to brown that was there as well

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't we score a TD on that drive anyways?

[All-22 Grades for Bills/Chiefs (The Athletic)]

3 minutes ago, BillsFanSD said:

I thought Allen played fine last week but was too timid to say so.  Glad somebody else noticed that.

 

I wouldn't say he played well. It was his worst game of the season by far and was too much like 2019 Allen for my liking. You can't miss throws and TDs early when you're going against the Chiefs offense. Down the stretch the offense let him down more than he let them down but the 1st half struggles were mainly on him IMO. Who knows, maybe if Brown catches an accurate 3rd down throw on the first drive the whole game would have gone differently. It feels like the first 4 weeks the offense could overcome mistakes but the last 2 weeks the margin for error has been zero. The whole offense is in a funk.

[All-22 Grades for Bills/Chiefs (The Athletic)]

 

A few snippets:

 

1) Edmunds doesn’t look anywhere close to his 2019 self (or even 2018)

Tremaine Edmunds has had one of the most confounding starts to the season of any Bills player. In the second half of his rookie year, Edmunds was showing signs of becoming a solid starting middle linebacker, with the potential for more. He then finished last season as a top-10 player on the roster, according to my weekly reviews, maintaining a 2.99 GPA over 1,065 snaps and averaging a “B” grade. Through almost five full starts this season, Edmunds’ level of play has dropped off so much that his GPA is a 2.02 (or “C” grade), which on this scale is well below a replacement-level player. I’ve been using this grading system for about six or seven years now. Players who consistently grade at or around those levels are usually the ones the team is looking to replace. For example, the Bills desperately tried to move on from Jordan Mills, Ryan Groy and Russell Bodine as starters after the 2018 season. That year, Mills graded better (2.12) than Edmunds is currently, while Groy (1.94) and Bodine (1.90) were only slightly below.

 

In an unusual move, the Bills did not dress a single one-technique defensive tackle against the Chiefs, opting to make Harrison Phillips a healthy scratch. Oliver, Quinton Jefferson, Vernon Butler and Justin Zimmer fit best in the three-technique defensive tackle role, so something had to give. The result was Oliver playing as the one-technique defensive tackle for the majority of his snaps. Of his 34 snaps, Oliver filled the one-technique role 67 percent of the time (23 snaps). 

 

Oliver was clearly playing out of position all game, but the Bills went with it out of self-preservation. In his few three-technique snaps, Oliver mostly won his one-on-ones. Overall, he didn’t have enough opportunities to penetrate the backfield by the Bills’ design.

 

3) Justin Zimmer is a revelation

 

Zimmer and the Bills were at their best when he lined up at one-technique. He played almost exclusively with Butler, outside of a few third-down passing plays when Mario Addison slid inside into a stand-up, three-technique position. On ten designed runs against the Butler-Zimmer pairing, the Bills allowed only 1.6 yards per carry for a total of 16 yards. Five of those ten attempts went for zero or negative yards and seven were for negative-4.

 

4) Chris Jones wrecked the Bills’ offensive plans

The Bills had a pair of problems on offense against Kansas City, and the two went hand in hand. Right guard Brian Winters, left guard Cody Ford and substitute left guard Ike Boettger all had some of their worst performances of the season. The player responsible for almost all of their lapses was Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones, who rivaled Patrick Mahomes as the most impactful player for either team.

 

5) Outside of some missed throws, Allen’s day wasn’t as bad as it seemed

 

Allen did have issues with ball placement and missed some clear throws — the Stefon Diggs throw to the end zone being the most glaring example — but it wasn’t anything too different from what we’ve seen in other games. It fits with Allen’s identity right now, and the Bills know what he does well far outweighs those bad moments.

 

Allen also continued to show improvements against all-out blitz attempts, reading the defense, spotting the holes in coverage and calmly delivering a quick throw. He was hard on himself after the game for the missed throws early in the game, but he was far from the Bills’ biggest problem on offense. Allen still looked like an advanced version of his 2019 self, even without the statistics to back it up. He has remained on the right track, even in two losses.

 

Top 5 grades: Zimmer, Butler, Morse, Beasley, Allen

 

Bottom 5 grades: Edmunds, Winters, Jefferson, Ford, Klein

[Eagles ready to deal]

I would go for Ertz but will he be off IR before the trade deadline? Based on the injury the trade capital would probably be relatively cheap. I'd swing for it if possible. A dominant pass catching TE would take this offense to the next level.

[Ed Oliver vs Quinnen Williams]

Oliver is playing on a knee injury. Before that he was showing progress. I'm not worried about him yet.

[Week 6 Postgame Thread KC at Bills]

On 10/20/2020 at 8:53 AM, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

What happened to Brown last night? He was basically taken out of the game.

 

Brown continues to be the most overrated player on the team. He almost never makes a tough catch in big moments and he isn't great at separating against man coverage. The almost TD he had against the Raiders was the first big catch I can remember him ever making for the Bills. There's a reason he was a #3 WR for the rest of his career.

[AB return? Schefter picks up on fantasy team and then reports ...]

I'll wait until Ian Rapaport confirms it.

[Quinton Spain released; signs with Bengals PS]

 

[Quinton Spain released; signs with Bengals PS]

Sounds like a backup player wasn't happy with being a backup so we cut him. Let's have a 20 page thread about it.

[Week 7: Bills at Jets]

This game is the free square on a bingo card. My excitement level is equivalent to that of a preseason game. I just hope Allen finds himself again in this one.

[What is Wrong With the Defense]

2 hours ago, Stenbar said:

Coaching: The scheme they are running game to game is puzzling to say the least. It could be that the personnel is so horrible, they are just throwing anything up against the wall hoping something sticks. The players are getting not only beaten one on one, they are in the wrong position, the wrong everything. A perfect example was last week when Josh Norman was beaten in the back of the end zone on a fade route. They practice that play a 100 times a week to defend, yet how with the WR only 4 yards from the back of the end zone and running out of it, does Norman not look back for the ball. Not only is that a picture of failure on the player, it is a picture of failure on the coaches not drilling this play into their brains on how to defend it.

 

There isn't a coach in the league that can turn Josh Norman and Mario Addison into top tier players. Scheme is not the problem right now. We don't have nearly enough talent to stop good offenses. Beane has had three front 7 picks in the first 2 rounds in Edmunds, Oliver, and Epenesa. None of those are looking like hits right now. I still have hope Oliver will be good after recovering from his knee injury but Edmunds has really regressed and Epenesa looks like a flat out bust.

[What is Wrong With the Defense]

We don't have a single above average player in the front 7 other than Milano who is always hurt. White and Poyer are Hyde are still good but they can't cover forever.

[ROCKPILE REVIEW - Evolution]

2 minutes ago, Figster said:

Not many players drafted turn into a superstar right out of the gate. I think when you hit on one or two a draft you did a good job. Gabe Davis is Beanes big hit on our last draft. Considering the maneuvering Beane did to land Allen and secure Diggs I'm very happy with our Bills GM. Buffalo is looking to draft smart, high character players and I appreciate the thought effort they've put into every draft choice.

 

We have a difference of opinion when it comes to the amount of good talent drafted by Beane. 

 

I like the way Beane handles the salary cap and structures contracts but you can't look at his draft classes and be too happy. I'm not asking for superstar level, just above average play from any one of his draft picks. So far the best he's found is solid contributors but no game changers. Eventually that catches up to you. Gabe Davis is still a maybe but yes the early returns are promising.

[Week 7: Bills at Jets]

1 hour ago, dave mcbride said:

He had way too many inaccurate throws last night. Two bad ones to start off, a bad missed TD pass on the opening drive, and a brutal drive killer to Beasley on their first drive in the third (and man, he has to play better in the third quarter). I know you said the one that should have gone to Singletary was a smart throwaway because he would have taken a sack in the past, but ... Singletary was wide open and it was a pretty easy throw. I expect he'll play a lot better against the Jets.

 

He was very accurate in the first 5 games at all levels of the field so I have to think the shoulder injury is affecting him. I don't know how else to explain such a severe regression. I'm worried it will linger and this is just who he'll be the rest of the season but I don't know enough about AC joint sprains to say for sure.

[ROCKPILE REVIEW - Evolution]

26 minutes ago, Figster said:

The Buffalo Bills have plenty of talent IMO.

 

Not that we've drafted. What picks has Beane hit on? So far it's Josh Allen and no one else. Edmunds and Oliver have shown potential but they aren't hits until they show a lot more. We can't get by on free agency alone.