Logic

Shaw, I see that your retirement from writing the Rockpile Review is going about as well as Tom Brady's retirement from football! 😅 Only kidding, of course. Always happy to read what you have to say. I'm surprised to hear that the Ravens' stadium wasn't absolutely rockin' yesterday. It certainly didn't sound very loud on TV. Kind of strange, considering all the factors you mention. Huh. My main takeaways from the game were threefold: Opposing defenses have gone back to the old tactic of blitzing Josh Allen and playing tight man coverage on the Bills' receivers. Unless and until they show they can beat it with consistency, this will continue. Luckily, Dorsey dialed up some good answers yesterday -- particularly the empty set screen to Singletary at the two minute mark of the 4th quarter that got them into really safe field goal range. I'm optimistic the Bills offense will pass this test -- again. The second half defense has been elite this season. Just seven points allowed in the second half through four games, and against four really good offensive opponents, to boot. Elite. The lack of plan for Cook is bizarre to me. I agree that he hasn't been making the most of his opportunities, and maybe hasn't been earning himself any more, but...he's supposed to be this homerun pass catching threat. Where are the go routes against linebackers split out wide like we saw at Georgia? Where are the screens, the Texas routes, the swing passes against linebackers in man coverage? Maybe he needs to take better advantage of his snaps, but I'd also like to see the coaches do a better job of trying to take advantage of his unique skillset. Happy Monday and GO BILLS!

Leslie Frazier is certainly the Eric Bienemy of Leslie Fraziers.

It's definitely becoming a theme.

I'm more concerned with the coaching staff's apparent complete lack of plan for his usage than I am for him as a player. For all the talk of wanting to acquire a pass-catching threat at running back, they sure don't seem to be designing any plays for him or putting any special effort into getting him involved in the passing game. He seems to just be subbed in for the other running backs at random times and expected to run the same exact plays. I figured they'd have a few bubble screens, Texas routes, go routes on the outside against linebackers....SOMETHING! Their lack of plan for him reminds me of when we drafted CJ Spiller and then let him sit in the garage and collect dust like a divorced man's Ferrari. To start with, I'd love to see the Moss experiment end -- and yes, I was one of his biggest supporters and biggest believers that he'd have a great year, and yes I'm ready to take the L. Singletary should be the unquestioned starter and Cook should be the change of pace, third down, and primary receiving back. If they want a third back active on gamedays, let it be Duke Johnson.

The Bills defense has allowed only seven points in the second half through four games this season. Let me say that again: The Bills defense, through four games of professional football, has only allowed SEVEN points in the second half. That is truly incredible. No one can say "yeah, but who have they played?!" either. They've gone up against offensive genius Sean McVay, Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp. They've gone up against All-World running back Derrick Henry and the reigning AFC 1-seed. They've gone up against Mike McDaniel, Tyreek Hill, and Jaylen Waddle. They've gone up against MVP candidate Lamar Jackson. Seven points. Truly incredible job by Leslie Frazier's defense, ESPECIALLY when you consider that they've been missing All-Pros Tre'Davious White and Micah Hyde, Ed Oliver, Jordan Phillips, as well as their current top two corners in Dane Jackson and Christian Benford for long stretches of playing time. The only thing I can reasonably do at this point is to honor this incredible effort the way my head coach would:

No. A few reasons: 1.) The offense is still learning what it is and what it wants to be. People quickly forget that we have a first time offensive coordinator at the helm. For all the talk of carry-over from Brian Daboll's offense, I've seen a whole bunch of new stuff from Dorsey. It may be the same terminology as the past few seasons, but it's not entirely the same offense. As they continue to grow into it and Dorsey continues to get better as a playcaller, I expect evolution from the offense. It's already happening, in fact. After lacking answers to cover zero blitzes against the Dolphins last week, Dorsey called an empty set screen to Singletary who was aligned out wide at the two minute mark of the 4th quarter against the Ravens. The play went for a big gain and essentially sealed the victory for Buffalo. I had not seen this playcall before, and it worked wonders as a cover zero blitz beater. Speaking of cover zero... 2.) Teams are starting to blitz the hell out of Josh Allen and play press-man coverage again. This used to be the way to beat Josh Allen. Once he showed that he could repeatedly torch this approach, defenses started doing all of the two-high, "you won't beat us deep" stuff. From the playoffs last season through the first two games of this season, however, Josh absolutely destroyed that type of defense. Opposing defensive coordinators -- at least the last two weeks -- have said "screw it. Nothing really stops this guy anyway, let's blitz him and hope we create enough negative plays to swing the game". This happened in the Dolphins game. The Bills mostly moved the ball very well against these looks, but one of the only times a heavy pressure got home, Melvin Ingram stripped the ball and the Phins recovered it deep in Bills territory. This leads us to... 3.) Until our offense shows that it can consistently beat these heavy pressure and tight man coverage looks again, teams will keep doing it. Opposing defenses will want to continue to test our offensive line and test our rookie play caller. So long as our offensive line can remain healthy and continue to gel, and so long as our rookie play caller continues to come up with answers to what the opposition is throwing at him -- as he did this week against the Ravens -- I have faith that the Bills offense will be just fine.

But again...if they want to be salty, they should be salty that their team couldn't score a single second half point or stop the Bills from scoring 20 unanswered. Blaming the refs is for losers.

These things all even out. How about the no-calls on "hit to a defenseless receiver" in back-to-back weeks against the Bills -- to Dawson Knox last week and McKenzie this week. Both should've been worth 15 yards. Blaming a loss on the refs is chump *****. Maybe Ravens fans should be upset that their team couldn't score a single second half point or that they gave up 20 unanswered to the Bills.

I just hope that for all the flak McDermott gets about clock management and game management, people give him his due for today's end-of-game sequence. I would have preferred they called the timeout with a little more time left on the clock on third down just in case the snap didn't get off cleanly or something, but other than that, absolutely masterful job at clock management. Gotta think today's win will do wonders for this team's confidence. Soon, they'll have big Ed and Tre back, and then it's clobberin' time. GO BILLS!

I wonder what all the indignant, righteous Dolphins fans who've spent the past few days calling this a witch hunt and saying everything was done by the book are thinking right about now.

That one.

The Bills offense is currently ranked 3rd in points per game. Somehow, they seem to be doing okay. Counter question for you: How's the defensive line -- which you relentlessly knocked Beane for investing money and draft picks into -- looking?

Now is not the ***** time, man. Read the room.

I feel like throwing up. That was just awful, awful, awful to watch. It's hard to go on thinking about or watching football or caring about this game after that. If Tua did have a concussion last week and the Dolphins knew it and allowed him to take the field tonight, I hope they are penalized incredibly heavily. That would constitute potentially murderous negligence. Literally risking a man's life to win a game. Sickening. I don't even know what else to say. This is horrible. Prayers up and fingers crossed for Tua. He seems like a great young man and I really hope he's okay.

Before the season started, I predicted the Bills would start off 3-3, then come back from the bye and go on a winning streak, ultimately finishing 12-5 or 13-4 and winning the division. I figured the reason for the early season struggles would be adapting to the new offensive coordinator. Instead, it appears that the struggles may be due to an unreal rash of early season injuries to key players. I don't mean to be a downer (like I said, I still think the Bills end up winning the division), but I'm sticking with this prediction. I think the Bills, still depleted by injuries and hampered by pouring rain, drop this one to the Ravens. I think they beat the Steelers handily next week and then lose a heartbreaker to the Chiefs. From then on, it's clobberin' time, and I think the healthy and rested Bills go on a tear after the bye. As for this week, and of course I hope I'm wrong: Ravens 24, Bills 20

"While the passing game has been very productive on early downs, that hasn’t been the case on third down. The Ravens rank a mediocre 23rd in success rate on third-down dropbacks, per RBSDM.com, which means Baltimore hasn’t been able to pass when the defense knows it’s coming. That’s a prerequisite for winning in today’s NFL. It wouldn’t be fair to pin the issues in obvious passing situations on Jackson, because he’s not playing in the same environments that his peers are. While teams around the league are loading up on talented wide receivers, the Ravens came into this season with just two that they’re willing to play consistently: Rashod Bateman and Devin Duvernay. And so far, Lamar has played only 15 pass snaps with three or more receivers on the field, per TruMedia. That ranks last in the league behind even Jimmy Garoppolo, who has started only one game." https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/9/29/23378476/lamar-jackson-mvp-race-baltimore-ravens-offense This tells me two things: 1.) We may be seeing more of Terrell Bernard this week than we normally would. I know the Bills like to stay in nickel, but the Ravens are in pro sets A LOT, and if the Ravens are able to run and operate play-action out of those sets with success against the nickel, the Bills may have no choice but to operate more in 4-3. 2.) Success on early downs against the Ravens will be CRITICAL. Getting them into consistent 3rd and longs will be a major key to victory.

I would think the Bills will be more negatively impacted by heavy rains. I know the Ravens haven't been running the ball as well this year as in years past, but if a game is being held in a monsoon, and passing is going to be more difficult than usual....I'm taking Greg Roman as my OC all day, every day. For all of the things he lacks in the passing game, Roman is an elite run game coordinator. On a day where running the ball may be imperative, I like his chances of scheming up success more than I like Dorsey's chances of doing the same.

I'd like to add my name to the "I was wrong about Lamar Jackson" list as well. I've doubted him every step of the way. I STILL have reservations about the notion that he can go toe-to-toe with other top passers in heavyweight fights in the playoffs. But all in all, I was just wrong to doubt him as much as I did. Simple as that. He's a dynamic playmaker, a one-of-a-kind athlete, and he seems to get better at passing every single year. JUST as a passer, taking his running out of the equation completely: Jackson has thrown 94 touchdowns in 61 career games. For comparison's sake, Josh Allen has thrown 112 touchdowns in 64 career games. Jackson is very, very good. He also seems like a pretty great guy. At the end of the day, it's awesome that the two "long shot" QBs from the 2018 draft are the only two that wound up being worth a damn, while all the "sure things" have flamed out or are in the process of doing so. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If anyone feels like scouting the enemy, this article about the Ravens offense and Lamar Jackson is awesome: https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/9/29/23378476/lamar-jackson-mvp-race-baltimore-ravens-offense I'd post highlights of it here, but honestly, the whole thing is a highlight. If you want to know what the Ravens are doing and how they're doing it, give this article a read.

Whether or not Ronnie Stanley plays feels like it will have an enormous impact on this game. If not, it'll be the Ravens 4th string left tackle, a 4th round rookie, making his first ever start at left tackle. And not just his first ever NFL start -- he didn't play a single snap at LT in college, either.

It was a joke. It may not have been a particularly GOOD joke, but it was a joke. The idea was that the Bills were struck so hard by injuries that they had to pull guys off the street to cover the Dolphins WRs. The best jokes are the ones you have to explain, ya know?

Yeah, I mean... They're 2-1 and they're going to compete to win. Schoen came from the Beane front office. Beane DID trade away key players in year one, but he also brought in key players. He still tried to win while also rebuilding. It is critical to the culture building part of a rebuild that your players buy in to the notion that you're still trying to win football games. As such, you'll have to excuse me if I don't see the Giants GM walking into his locker room -- or a media scrum of New York City reporters -- and saying "Look, I know we're 2-1 and people are excited about Giants football for the first time in years, but we just traded away our best player to get cap space for the future". If the Giants lose a bunch of games and the trade deadline approaches and they're essentially eliminated from playoff contention? Sure, then maybe we can have this discussion. But right now? I don't buy it one bit.