oldmanfan

Go back and watch last year's Pats game against us, where they ran the ball to win. The Pats are the definition of a team that can evaluate the weakness of their opponent and exploit it. Your position is clear. You would rather see the team lose games so long as they throw the ball more. That's really sad.

I 'd like to see them loosen the reins on Allen so he plays more in the first three quarters like he plays in the fourth. I think the more experience he gets the less amped up he'll get early in games. It seem to me sometimes he comes out really psyched up and overdoes it, for want of a better way to put it. Maybe script the first 10-15 plays; as I recall Walsh did that even with Montana?

Yes. Obviously so.

I am not defaming you. I am however challenging some of your premises. If you feel defamed my apologies. But you did say if the 2018 Allen played in 2019 we'd be 2-6. That is pretty much the definition of playing the "what if" game. I am glad you also think the TT comparisons are over the top. I would call them apples and oranges myself. I think we agree on wanting to see them take the brakes off of Allen. I started a thread a week or so again titles Let Josh be Josh. I am impressed by what he does in the fourth quarters, where he throws more and has more freedom to make plays. I'd like to see that happen all 4 quarters. When it comes to numbers and statistics, I tend to be skeptical and critical. I have a research science background and as such had to take a lot of stats classes and have to use stats in my daily work. Your thread about the 300 yard passing? If you recall. I commended you for pulling that data, and that you did not place as much statistical relevance to it than it merited. Unfortunately, some took your data and used it to try and make definitive conclusions about Allen's play that were not merited. All I know is this: Allen is a second year QB that is showing improvement. The last several games he has cut down on picks. And the record is 6-2. Forget the stuff about schedule and other QBs and on and on. right now he's in pretty good shape, and the team is in really good shape. I just wish everyone would settle down and actually be happy that the team is where they are right now as opposed to looking for reasons to be so negative.

One could make an argument for that. I think allen is inherently a better passer than Jackson. And not as good a runner.

It will be interesting to see how the rotation at DT changes with this guy. Wonder if any of the other 4 get deactivated Sunday.

You can play "what if" games all day long. But the bottom line is Allen is progressing and playing better this year than last year. List all the stats about 300 yard games in X amount of time by Qbs that have played X amount of games and have had Y amount of good receivers in Z amount of games in the snow and wind plus about a million other variables that one would want to throw into the equation (and actually need to throw into the conversation to make things statistically meaningful), and it won't change the fact that this season the Buffalo Bills are 6-2, and that their young QB is getting better as time goes on. These comparisons to TT are over the top. The big concerns about TT is he was too tentative throwing, and that he couldn't being the team back in the 4th quarter. Allen has had to dial thing s back a bit because he was too aggressive trying to force passes and he is one of the highest rated fourth quarter QBs in the league. Does he need to continue improving? Certainly. Is there evidence he won't? Certainly not.

Jackson is having a great year. The Ravens designed their offense around his unique skill set. Good for him. And that has nothing to do with how good or bad Josh Allen is playing.

Or you could have a QB capable of leading fourth quarter drives to win. Allen is one of the top ranked fourth quarter QBs this year.

Yep. And Tremaine should watch some of Harry Jacobs

I was at the stadium and saw The Hit. The ‘64 defense was one of the all time great defenses.

Here you go: Nextmanup says: If only it was as simple as "opening up the offense" and telling Josh to go throw 300 yards! If it was in him to do that or be that type of passer, he would regularly do it now, and have been doing it for a while now. He is a slight upgrade over Tyrod, with a slightly different skill set, but about the same output. I do NOT want him to be the Bills QB for the next dozen years! I want a good QB for a change! Keep looking! He's not it!

These comparisons to Taylor are silly. The problem Taylor had was that he was afraid to pull the trigger, and he could not perform in the fourth quarter of games. if you recall, anytime we were down in the fourth quarter with Taylor, we knew it was over. Allen is one of the top rated QBs in the fourth quarter, and they have had to rein him in a bit this year to get him to stop playing hero ball. There is no comparison between the two.

I am of the opinion some of this is classical psychological defense mechanisms by Bills fans who are scarred by the past. People see good things happening this year and they repress that so they don't have to be vulnerable if for some reason a loss occurs. They displace their fear by projecting (Allen is horrible, Allen is OK but why can't he be like X). They undergo regression to go back in time and find another time in Bills history where things didn't go well and project that to today's team (a favorite of some here). Rather than celebrate an excellent record when the D plays good, it's safer to one's psyche to bash the team when the offense doesn't score X number of points. Rather that get excited about wins, it's safer to the psyche to say you only want wins if they are entertaining wins, or if they only win by throwing for a certain number of yards. And so on. Classic psychologic mechanisms at play here.

So here is one poster who has openly said he'd be OK with losing so long as there is a certain number of posting yards. I have a good memory for these things; I was astounded when the poster said this. Still am.

Report post Posted October 29 3tds and 350 yards. This is a pass first, offensive driven league. You cant expect your defense to play lights out every week, and when they have a bad week you lose and lise badly. Thats not balance. Losses suck, but they are inevitable. Its how you lost that matters. 10 straight incompletions and 3 fumbles is not how you want to lose. 350 and 3tds??? Losing on a game winning drive? Acceptable in my eyes.

Wins don't matter. Being entertained does, according to the OP.

Do you work at being obnoxious or does it come naturally? Has anyone around here seriously said Allen doesn't have room to improve?

He's answered that. He wants to be entertained, and to him entertainment is big passing days. Me personally, I'm entertained by victories but to each his own. Because they get behind and have to start throwing the ball to catch up. As opposed to having a defense that holds a team to, say, 3 FGs?

Is there anyone out there who does not think the offense could be better? Buehler? Buehler? The difference is that the OP is obsessed with this 300 yard mark, as much if not more so than how folks were obsessed with the 60% completion percentage last year. There are different ways to score points, you pass, you run. Just two games ago Wentz threw for 172 yards, three yards different than the Bills, but they put up 31 points. Why? Because they ran the ball well. There will be games where we need to gain more yards in the air. Absolutely. There will be games when we gash the other team with the running game. Absolutely. It would be great to have more offensive production. Absolutely. But just remember about the OP: he is on record saying the most important thing to him is to be entertained. I can only surmise than means wins are secondary. As opposed to another poster obsessed with the 300 yard thing, who has openly stated he'd be OK with the team losing so long as they throw for over 300.

No. A pathological obsession.

For some around here football has now turned into Olympic gymnastics or diving. It's not enough to be better than the opponent, now we have to add in degree of difficulty and style points.

All right. This is getting tiring. I'll ask this question. If your team is playing a defense that struggles against the run, should you run the ball to win? Or be stubborn and pass the ball just to gain a certain number of passing yards? You are like a dog with a bone that can't let go. Teams need to do what they need to do to win games. You have said repeatedly you're more wanting to be entertained than to win. The perhaps instead of watching games on Sundays you should go to the movies.

I think this is pretty accurate. I rewatched the second half last night, and thee are a few things to keep in mind with the hysteria surrounding the run game defense in the first half. One, it was really 4 plays that Peterson got loose on. Second, it is Adrian Peterson after all. Third, I don't pretend to know which gaps different guys are supposed to occupy and so on. But there were some things Is aw with the uneducated eye. One is that Star for the most part occupied blockers. Sometimes he got pushed back a bit more than you'd want a stout DT to have happen though. Another was that Phillips also got handled more than I thought originally. Oliver? His quickness was a disadvantage at times; on the one run where Peterson got about 20 yards cutting back against the pursuit, Oliver was 5 yards into the backfield and took himself out of the play. Other times he held position but was not able to disengage from the blocker to make a play. He'll have to work on that. Moose Johnson made a point that the Bills in general the first half weren't disengaging from blockers to make plays. That to me speaks to a physical thing, but McD and staff who know a lot more obviously think it's a scheme thing, and after they changed it up second half it was obviously effective. I still think that line play ultimately comes down to winning physical battles (like to 3rd down play where Gore got stuffed right before Josh scored? Morse got shoved straight back, got completely whipped physically). I'd like to see our defenders win more physical battles up front.

Well I agree to a point. They could be more imaginative. But with your attitude the Eagles would have lost to us because they’d have thrown instead of run. we have a fundamental difference. I think you figure out for a specific game what will win and do that. You think they should just throw all the time and if they lose fine.