Logic

Bills win the next three handily and enter Bengals week 6-2. Team proceeds to look like booty, lose to the Bengals, drop to 6-3, and everyone is back out on the ledge. Then they win the next three after that and it's "Super Bowl or bust" again. There is nothing more predictable than the rhythms of a Sean McDermott coached Buffalo Bills season. Deja vu all over again.

No. There's a Josh Allen on the other team. I think he'll impact the game.

Josh Allen

When a team who just gave up the 32nd pick in the draft for a guy and direly needs passing game weaponry gives up on said player basically immediately...one has to imagine there's a pretty good reason. The fact that he's a guy who a team needs to make a big effort to "get engaged" is exactly the problem. He was "not engaged" in Chicago from pretty much the first game onward. It's not as if they were eliminated from playoff contention, so he checked out. He STARTED THE SEASON checked out. That's why a guy like that gets traded for peanuts. And that's why, contrary to what you say, there actually IS a bit of risk. His last team asked him to stay away from the facilities. He was that much of a headache/drag on the team. I get what you're saying, because the compensation is low, but...I just don't want any part of a guy like that, to be honest, even for a future 7th or a swap of late picks or whatever.

Stinks. Hopefully not a lingering thing. Luckily, the Bills have nice DL depth this year. Leonard Floyd has been outstanding, and AJ Epenesa has been playing well. Add in Shaq and Kingsley for breathers and, if we're lucky, Von Miller and...not too shabby.

I feel like the team wouldn't have Von flying to London if they didn't plan to have him active. It just seems like a lot to put a veteran through, body clock and travel wise, if your main goal is to be getting him back to full health for some future date. Have to think that if he travels with the team, he'll suit up. How many snaps he plays is another story.

Steelers offensive coordinator Matt Canada, too. https://nypost.com/2023/10/04/steelers-matt-canada-suspected-of-having-burner-account/

....I have followup questions, but I'd probably better just quite while I'm ahead. This is a family forum.

I've never had the pleasure of climbing aboard a Virgin before.

Thanks. Cool stat. I appreciate you sharing it. Last thing I remember like this was Josh's 2021 playoff performance. I believe that was an "all previous such instances of this have resulted in Super Bowl win" thing, as well. Then 13 seconds happened. Ugh. Just one before I die. Please.

Try catching the game on the west coast 🥴

This one gets stuck in my head endlessly.

Reading an article on the Athletic just now, I had to share the following. I know there was some recent discussion about play-action on this forum so I had to contribute this factoid. I realize that four games is kind of a small sample size. Then again, it's a quarter of an NFL season, so it's not THAT small. https://theathletic.com/4926954/2023/10/04/buffalo-bills-stefon-diggs-josh-allen/ 1. Speaking of Dorsey, the way he’s incorporated the play-action passing game into the offense this season has helped this passing offense become one of the most efficient in the league through four games. Josh Allen has a 158.3 passer rating and is completing a league-high 81 percent of his passes when the Bills use play action. Last season, Allen was in the top five of passing attempts and EPA/dropback on play action, so it’s not a new thing that he excels in this area. But Dorsey said he and his staff put even more emphasis on finding different ways to lean on it heading into this season. He also said the way the team has been running the ball creates more opportunities in the play-action passing game.

Bills-Jags makes me think of two things: The first is the throw from Josh Allen in his rookie season against the Jags -- you know the one -- where I thought, for the first time "Hey...maybe this kid has something". That throw is STILL amazing to watch to this day. The second is the last time we played the Jags in London. I remember it because I was at a destination wedding week in Cancun. Everyone else was down at the pool, sipping free drinks and enjoying the gorgeous weather and laughing and having fun...and I was sitting up in the hotel room, watching this football game like a crazy person. Everyone knows what happened next. The EJ Manuel game, the Nickell Robey phantom pass interference, the crushing loss. All I could do afterword was hang my head and go join everyone at the pool, regretting the obsessive fandom that led me to miss out on Cancun pool time to watch THAT friggin game. Not to even MENTION the recent 9-6 debacle. Here's hoping for an absolute shellacking of the Jaguars on Sunday.

1. The word "composite" means the totality of the season. One can't say with a straight face that the o-line hasn't looked stellar for three weeks in a row. 2. The Commanders have as good a d-line as you're likely to find. How did their pass rush look? The Dolphins have Bradley Chubb, Andrew Van Ginkel, Christian Wilkins, and Emmanuel Ogbah. Decent to good pass rushers, all. How did their pass rush look? The Bills offensive line has played really well this season. The eye test tells us that, as Josh has looked very comfortable and the run game is producing. Now, the grades of an unbiased website are telling us the same.

I hope he hangs Arthur Smith upside down over a hotel railing by his ankles and shakes him until he agrees to make Kyle Pitts a featured part of the Falcons offense.

And he's right! When I watch a football game, I spend the first three or so drives for each team just watching the trenches. Seeing who's winning each battle, and by how much, more often than not tells you who's going to win the game. It looks like in the seventh year of his tenure, he may finally be getting his wish. This is as good as I've seen the OL and DL look since McDermott arrived.

Thanks for the writeup. Great, as always. The two stories of the game -- and of the season so far -- were the play in the trenches on both sides of the ball, and the controlled, surgical precision of Josh Allen. When the Bills are controlling both lines of scrimmage the way they have been lately, and when Josh Allen is playing this brand of football, the Bills are nearly unstoppable. I thought the game on Sunday turned on two plays. The first was the Diggs catch-and-run TD, where the two Dolphins would-be tacklers fell haplessly to the ground, Diggs went dashing, and the Bills were suddenly up 14 points instead of 7. The second, coming just a short time later, was the interception to Micah Hyde. Once the Bills went in to half time up 31-14, I felt pretty comfortable that they'd be victorious. An otherwise close game, that very well COULD have been a back-and-forth shootout, instead changed on two plays. Things snowballed from there. But going back to the stories of the game and of the season: If you have great offensive and defensive lines in the NFL, and if you have elite quarterback play -- and right now, the Bills have both -- you have not only a good shot to win games in the high double digits, you also have a chance to hoist a Lombardi trophy. So far, so good.

Very reasonable. Agreed on all counts.

So we know that the Bills are about to activate Von Miller from PUP. He'll return to practice, and a several week window will open up, during which time the Bills will need to decide when to elevate him to the 53-man roster. Personally, I don't expect Von to return immediately. Even once they elevate him to the roster, I think he'll have a game or two where he travels with the team, does pre-game warmups, but is inactive. I expect the Bills to use the "Tre White recovery model" from last year. I'm not saying that's what they SHOULD do, I'm saying it's what I think they WILL do. I expect Von Miller to suit up and return to the football field on 11/5 against Cincinnati. Knowing how cautious the Bills are with injuries like this and how much they need Von to be productive (both on the field and from a contract standpoint), I think the New York and New England games are a bit too soon. Then there's a short week against Tampa Bay on Thursday Night Football. But after THAT, there's 9 days until the next game, and it's a big time, Sunday Night Football AFC matchup against the Bengals. That's when I think we see Von Miller for the first time. How about y'all? When do you see Von Miller back in action?

Thanks for the reply. Respectfully, I think calling Juju a "top receiver" -- which was the phrase and notion to which I originally replied -- is a stretch. Juju had 933 yards receiving and 3 TDs in 16 games played. Gabe had 836 yards receiving and 7 TDs in 15 games played. If you're JUST looking at catch percentage -- and yes, I agree, actually CATCHING the ball is important, and is something Gabe has struggled with at times -- then I suppose you can try to make the Juju argument. But taking into account the totality of their production, it's hard to say with a straight face that Juju Smith-Schuster was significantly better than Davis, or that he was a "top receiver" in the NFL. His last three full seasons in the NFL saw him post 552, 831, and 933 yard totals. Hardly "top receiver" stuff. If you asked most defensive coordinators around the NFL if they view Juju Smith-Schuster as a "top receiver" or someone that they really have to gameplan for, I'm guessing most would say no. And if you asked most offensive coordinators which receiver they'd rather have on their roster right this minute between Juju and Gabe Davis, I'd bet the vast majority would say Gabe Davis. As is often the case with us, we can agree to disagree on the matter. 🙂

Just a few short weeks ago, Terrel Bernard was "too small", "looked more like a safety" and was a glaring representation of Brandon Beane's draft failures. Now he has HIS OWN APPRECIATION THREAD?!