Logic

Tre is gonna get his first start of the year against the Patriots on Thursday night football. If not, THEN I'll be ready to load him into a cannon and launch him into the sun.

Personally, I think all this "we're this team's Super Bowl!" talk is silly, no matter who it's against or in what week it takes place. I'm sure players are more amped for certain games than others, but I really don't think opposing teams' players are out there circling the Bills game on their calendar, or getting together before the game and saying "this is the big one, boys!". If you want to say this game is bigger for Detroit because it's on Thanksgiving and its on national TV and they take pride in hosting the Thanksgiving day game every year, then fine. But I don't think hosting the Bills has anything to do with it. I'm not aiming this at anyone specifically, I've just been seeing the "we're your Super Bowl" talk from Bills fans every week, no matter who we're against, and I just can't buy into it. ESPECIALLY now that the Bills are the AFC's 5 seed and are a three-loss team. Like...why would be anyone's "Super Bowl" at this point?

I actually really like Rick Bates at center. It's the right guard position that will suffer if Morse is out, IMO.

It would really be something if the Bills entered the playoffs with, for the first time all season, a fully in tact secondary. White, Hyde, Poyer, Johnson, and then the Jackson/Elam/Benford/Rhodes combo platter, who by then will all have a heap of experience and reps in this scheme. A boy can hope.

.........................................Who are you talking to?

Per Ryan Bates himself, he'd be the starting center if Morse can't go, confirming what we saw in practice yesterday: https://theathletic.com/3925801/2022/11/23/bills-thoughts-thanksgiving-lions/ 2. Bates says, “I’ll be at center” if Morse doesn’t play On the first play of the Browns game, starting center Mitch Morse suffered an ankle injury that he had to play through the rest of the way. Morse didn’t miss a snap and had an excellent outing. But after the game, several reporters spotted Morse in a walking boot. He didn’t participate in Monday’s walkthrough, or Tuesday’s full practice, which put his status for Thursday in doubt due to the short week. When Morse missed time earlier this season, the Bills replaced him with backup Greg Van Roten, which led to some difficulties in the quarterback-center exchange with Van Roten and quarterback Josh Allen. Even if Morse doesn’t play, it likely won’t be Van Roten getting the start at center. “I’ll be at center,” starting right guard Ryan Bates said Tuesday, only if Morse couldn’t play. That would likely mean one of Van Roten or Bobby Hart would be the starting right guard, with Van Roten probably having the edge because of how much they like using Hart as a sixth offensive lineman on some snaps to help the running game. Bates has been playing incredibly well as of late and has more experience at center than Van Roten, both in general and with Allen as the quarterback. Morse has been their best offensive lineman this season, so it will be a huge loss against an improved Lions defensive line.

https://theathletic.com/3925801/2022/11/23/bills-thoughts-thanksgiving-lions/ 1. Micah Hyde leaves the door open to returning this season When Bills star safety Micah Hyde injured his neck in the first month of the season, the initial thought was that his season was over. Hyde and his teammates used the #23in23 hashtag, alluding to the safety’s number and his return for the 2023 season. Hyde successfully underwent a neck procedure that has helped solve the pain he had been dealing with for a long time and returned to Orchard Park nearly a month ago to be with the franchise. It’s long been a foregone conclusion that his year was over, but some recent activity has been, at the very least, interesting. Ahead of the Bills’ game against the Browns on Sunday, Hyde was seen getting some work in with other inactive players under the guidance of the strength and conditioning staff. Then again on Tuesday, the Bills’ lone practice of the week, Hyde was again going through some running drills with injured members of the 53-man roster. After practice, The Athletic caught up with Hyde following the recent developments. Hyde revealed that he was just cleared to run “a little bit,” and said he’s taking it one day at a time. But when asked if there was any possible hope of coming back this season, Hyde left the door open to the idea — a slight departure from when initially placed on injured reserve. “I would love to. I would love to. We’ll see,” Hyde told The Athletic Tuesday. “It’s not really up to me. It’s kind of up to the doctors. Historically, no. But I’m not dealing with… those are other people, other situations. So, we’ll see what happens.” The fact that Hyde didn’t immediately shut down the idea meant that a potential return this season is possible, even if it’s only a slight chance. Hyde’s reference to those “other people” and “other situations” is also pretty impactful. It’s also worth pointing out that players will always veer on the optimistic side, and there’s no doubt that Hyde would love to be a part of the season he and the organization have been building toward over the five previous seasons. But if the Bills did get Hyde back, it would be an incredible boost to a defense capable of excellent results without him. But there’s a long way to go and several things that have to go right before the idea becomes a reality.

Japan with the second big upset of this young tournament. Everyone who had Argentina and Germany losing to Saudi Arabia and Japan respectively, raise your hand. 😳

Outstanding. Post of the day. Won't be beat.

A Zack Moss by any other name...

Great post, thanks. I didn't get to watch the Argentina match, as I live on the west coast and it was on at 2am my time, but what an astounding outcome! And in the "win one for Messi" World Cup, no less! I think it's super interesting any time a massive underdog wins a game they "have no business winning". All the more so when the team they're going up against is arguably the best in the world (or at least top two or three). The fact that Saudi Arabia did so in Qatar makes it all the more special for them. Sorry your guys ran into the buzzsaw that is the English national team yesterday. My goodness, they were impressive. Hell of a team to draw for your first matchup of the tournament.

France pouring it on now.

Couldn't agree more. Andy Reid has a generational talent at QB and gives him tons of easy answers, motion, pick plays, and wide open targets. McDermott and Dorsey have a generational talent at QB and, well....don't give him those things nearly enough. Just because your QB is an elite talent doesn't mean you can't still make life easier on him.

That Australian goal was a thing of beauty.

It would take an effort like what you describe for him to even re-enter the conversation at all. Mahomes is the runaway favorite at the moment, with Tagovailoa having the second best odds and Josh in third. Unless Josh turns his statistical production around quickly, he's not in the race at all.

A fair analysis. I agree that the Bills should be 8-2 at worst, but more likely 9-1. A reasonable argument can even be made for 10-0. Then again, as you point out, the Ravens game might be a "should've been a loss" game that went down as a win, so it goes both ways. At the end of the day, "you are what your record says you are", but damned if it doesn't feel like the Bills have a worse record than they ought to have at this point.

I'm not gonna lie...I'm not really a fan of the Bills playing on Thanksgiving. It has worked out the past two times, but I know that a loss would add an unnecessary streak of misery to what is otherwise normally a very enjoyable day. Hosting Thanksgiving is stressful enough WITHOUT the Bills playing in their double monkeypaw black cat cursed blue pants away combo, thank you very much.

White tops, blue pants.

Thanks for this. All of what you say may be true, and if so, it adds another concern: Lack of adaptability. I think the best offensive coordinators build their offense around the personnel they have. If they don't happen to have their ideal personnel, they adapt to what they DO have and make it work anyway. In fairness to Dorsey, the Bills are #2 in YPG and PPG and #3 in Yards Per Play. So I can't exactly say that he's NOT making it work. Still, whether Cook, Hines, and McKenzie are his idea of great personnel or not, it's who he's got, so I'd like to see him dial up some winning plays for them.

I guess I figure the one loss they have would be to Miami. They shot themselves in the foot with stupid mistakes that game, but there was enough else going on -- heat, attrition, the Dolphins making a few big plays -- that I felt like it was a "legitimate" loss. The Jets and Vikings losses should not have happened, in my eyes.

Thanks for the numbers. It doesn't change my opinion of the things lacking in Dorsey's playcalling, though. Numbers don't always tell the whole story. In this case, I concede that the Bills offense, as a whole, is very productive, and its rankings and statistics prove it. Nevertheless, I feel they can be MORE productive. I feel like they could be 9-1 right now. I feel like they can re-establish their grip on the AFC if they can find ways to get more productivity out of their complementary pieces. This isn't a controversial opinion. Everyone from Bills fans to national analysts to the play-by-play guys for Bills games have been saying the same. Hines, Cook, McKenzie. Lot of speed and explosiveness there. Find a way to use it!

Not that I don't want this thread to devolve into an argument about the comparative behavior of soccer and NFL fans, but... HOLY *****! I woke up this morning to see that Saudi Arabia had beaten Argentina? What the what?! Excellent, thorough, and poetically written summary of the game for those who, like me, missed it. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/11/22/sports/argentina-saudi-arabia-score-world-cup This time was supposed to be different. For Lionel Messi, this time was not supposed to end like all of the others, with those slumping shoulders, that distant stare, that hollow grimace. Qatar was not supposed to be as bad as what happened to arguably the greatest player of all time in the colors of Barcelona on those nights in Rome and Liverpool and Lisbon, let alone in the albiceleste of Argentina in Rio de Janeiro. And, in a way, it wasn’t. It was worse. Argentina arrived in Qatar with the sole ambition of ensuring that Messi’s final World Cup would be remembered as the one which bathed his legacy in the brilliant, golden glow only this tournament, this ultimate triumph, can confer. Instead, it must now face the haunting possibility that it will forever be synonymous with one of its darkest humiliations, one of the greatest upsets in the World Cup’s history. For Argentina, losing to Saudi Arabia was not just a defeat; it was an embarrassment, an ignominy, a stigma scarred into Argentine skin in front of 88,000 people, streamed live on television and beamed around the world. By the end, as the delirious Saudi substitutes swarmed onto the field, Argentina’s players seemed visibly diminished, their faces drawn, their eyes hunted..... ..... All is not yet lost, of course. Argentina still has two games to avert disaster, to spare its blushes; beat Mexico and Poland in the remaining two group games and, on the surface, losing to Saudi Arabia will have done no lasting damage. That defeat to Cameroon in 1990, after all, did not prevent Diego Maradona leading his team all the way to the World Cup final. This is not the end of Messi’s tournament. It may be nothing more than a false start. In the moment, as Messi and his teammates gathered in a tight bunch in the middle of the field, as if huddling together for safety and for security and warmth, it did not feel like that. Instead, it seemed as if something had come undone in the white heat of Lusail’s afternoon sun. This time was supposed to be different. All of a sudden, for Messi and for Argentina, it all felt exactly the same.

My main critique of Dorsey so far is that he doesn't seem to know how to get the most out of the Bills' complementary pieces. With Daboll, I felt like he used every single tool in the tool chest. He had plays for Diggs, plays for Beasley, plays for McKenzie...we even had third string tight ends and swing tackles catching touchdowns. With Dorsey...I don't get that feeling. My concern started with the lack of usage of James Cook in the passing game. Rookie or not, he was brought in to be an explosive addition as a pass catcher. Even now that he's finally starting to get some usage, it looks like he just runs the same plays as Singletary. The lack of creativity in the usage of Cook, which has now extended to the lack of creativity so far in the usage of Hines, is confounding. In Cook, Hines, and McKenzie, the Bills have quite a bit of speed and explosiveness. For an offense that has lacked punch the past several weeks, speed and explosiveness seem like much needed commodities. And yet, week after week, I don't see many/any manufactured touches for these guys. It's not rocket surgery. As others have said, the McDaniels and Shanahans and Reids of the world don't seem to have an issue getting the ball into the fast guys' hands. I'll give Dorsey credit for one thing that he's better at than Daboll, seemingly: Getting the ball to Stefon Diggs no matter what the defense is doing. Too often under Daboll, Diggs would all but disappear for whole games. That doesn't seem to happen any more. The way that Diggs is moved around the formation and seems all but immune to being erased now is awesome. It's the usage of the REST of the offensive skill weapons that has been lacking.

A player known to be incredibly fiery and passionate showed some frustration early in a game in which the offense was sputtering. The head coach then expertly diffused the situation, apparently offered the perfect words (which you could have surmised by watching the change in Diggs' body language when it happened, before even reading the post-game quotes about the situation), Diggs settled down, caught the go-ahead score, and the offense picked it up the rest of the way enough to score 31 points and secure victory. We good here? Do we need to go another 7 pages?

It's hard for me to understand how anyone can claim with certainty that Team X "won't lose again" with 7 games remaining. Crazy, unexpected game outcomes happen in the NFL ALL. THE. TIME. The same Chiefs team that you're saying won't lose again was beaten by the COLTS earlier this season. We just watched the Eagles -- subjects of "will they go undefeated?!" talk, who many assured us had no losses left on the schedule -- get beat by Tyler Heinecke's Commanders. The Chiefs also have the Bengals left on their schedule. The same Bengals who beat them in the AFC Championship game last season. If everything happened like it's "supposed to" "on paper", this wouldn't be the league we all know and love. It's a week-to-week league. Crazy stuff happens.