Logic

Haven't actually listened to them or read any transcripts. To be honest, aside from this article, I have completely abstained from any Bills related coverage or pressers until this morning. I needed a couple days to decompress after that excruciating loss. From what little I have gathered this morning, Daboll seems to have said that the Browns basically completely stacked the box and dared the Bills to beat them with the pass, and Buffalo couldn't get it done. The All-22 footage I'm watching seems to back up that claim. Essentially, the Browns loaded the box, dared the Bills to run into 9-man fronts, and blitzed the hell out of Allen. This being the case, it's actually a game where a Duke Williams might have come in handy to win some 50-50 jump ball blitz beaters against single coverage. I guess I'm a little bit less angry that they didn't force-feed Singletary the ball now that I have had a chance to digest the defensive looks the Browns were showing. More of the blame, then, shifts to Allen and the passing offense for not calling the Browns' bluff and torching them through the air. The "book" on how to beat the Bills passing offense has been out since the New England game. Load the line of scrimmage with defenders and show varied and muddled defensive looks and force Allen to make the right pre and post snap decisions. It's up to the Bills -- specifically Josh Allen -- to figure out how to overcome that. Daboll can give him some easier answers, sure, and the receivers can do a better job of getting open. In the end, though, it's on Allen. It's big boy time. He needs to take his game to the next level.

Just one bump for the evening crew and then I'll let this thing die its death.

Great point. As I sat back and thought over yesterday's game, it occurs to me that every single phase of the Bills failed them at one point or another. It really and truly was a team loss. The defense gave up that easy first touchdown drive, didn't keep the Browns out of the end zone at the end, and didn't collect any turnovers despite going against a turnover prone QB. The offense...well...we all know. The special teams accounted for two missed field goals. The coaches made multiple head scratching decisions. All three phases of the team AND coaching contributed to the loss. Extremely frustrating and disheartening. Thanks for the comments.

Thanks. It's fine. I post this column on BillsMafia every week. I just copy and paste it here in case anyone wants to discuss it. I have two things going against me: One, my columns are ***** long. LOL. Two, after this week's game, I don't think people are in a mood to do a deep dive into the team's failures. It's all good. No skin off my back.

Great observations. Spreading the field with less condensed sets and thus unpacking the box and creating more space for our runners may be the way to go. So too might running plays at a faster pace. One thing's for sure: The offense needs to find SOME kind of identity, SOMETHING to hang its hat on. Right now, they're just a whole lot of "blah".

I’m back this week with another edition of The Extra Point. Last week, a Bills win made it so that I couldn’t WAIT to sit down and write about the team. This week, my desire to write takes on more of a…therapeutic role. Here goes. 1.) Maybe the critics are right. An awful lot of attention has been paid this year by the Bills players and fans to the fact that the national media doesn’t believe in them. For the third time this year they had the opportunity to prove the doubters wrong, and for the third time, they failed. While the Browns didn’t boast the pedigree of teams like the Eagles and Patriots, they represented a supremely talented opponent and a chance for the Bills to thumb their nose at those silly Vegas odds makers for declaring the Bills the underdogs. A Bills win today and a subsequent 7-2 record would have gone a long way toward changing the national narrative. Instead, the Bills looked like a walking embodiment of the old Dennis Green “We are who we thought they were!” rant. Another strong defensive performance. Another listless offensive performance. Another wide open receiver running down the field for Buffalo, watching the ball sail 8 yards past him. Another winnable game, lost. At some point, if you want to earn national respect, you have to go out and take it. The Bills once again failed to do that on Sunday, and fans are left to wonder whether they are capable of doing it at all. 2.) Sometimes it’s the Xs and Os, sometimes it’s the Willies and Joes. The tendency after a loss is to want to figure out who and what was primarily to blame for the outcome. Against the Browns, the Bills coaches and players were both to blame. The lack of carries — the Bills only ran the ball 13 times all day — for Gore and Singletary were baffling, sure. But within the scope of the offensive game plan that WAS utilized, there were plays to be made, and the players often did not make them. Josh Allen again failed to complete a deep pass to a wide open receiver that may ultimately have led to a Bills victory. He also had a costly fumble in the red zone that Jon Feliciano luckily had the alertness and athleticism to recover, saving Buffalo’s offense from catastrophe. There were numerous failures to convert manageable 3rd and shorts and 4th downs. And what of the Bills defense? It’s easy to question the call to send pressure against Mayfield on his 4th quarter touchdown throw to Rashard Higgins, but that would ignore how badly Higgins beat Levi Wallace on the play. Sometimes it’s the Xs and Os, sometimes it’s the Willies and Joes, and on Sunday, both deserved blame for the Bills’ loss. 3.) Keep it simple, stupid. After a string of games in which the Bills were mostly unable to exhibit any kind of offensive identity, they finally stumbled upon a formula that worked last week against the Redskins: give Devin Singletary the ball early and often. Singletary was a revelation, touching the ball 24 times against the Redskins for 140 yards and a score. On an offense mostly devoid of playmakers and clearly incapable of executing a competent vertical passing game, Singletary made it clear that he was the most explosive player the Bills had in their offensive arsenal. This week, it seemed like a safe assumption that the Bills would continue to give Singletary the ball — especially considering that they were facing an opponent that was giving up 141 rushing yards per game. Instead, to the extreme frustration of Bills fans everywhere, they gave him the ball just eight times. The Bills, in fact, only ran the ball 13 times total — and on a day when they were never far behind on the scoreboard, no less. Josh Allen, by comparison, threw the ball 41 times. Now I readily admit that I don’t know one tenth as much about play-calling as professional football coaches do, but even I know that giving Singletary the ball just eight times while asking Josh Allen to throw it 41 times is a losing recipe. Football can be a really complicated game. Sometimes, though, the best answer is the simple answer. The Bills, with a mauling and nasty offensive line that is better at run blocking than pass blocking, an explosive rookie running back, and facing an exploitable run defense, just needed to give Singletary the ball. I mentioned above that the offense needs to make more plays regardless of what the game plan calls for, and that’s true. But it’s the coaches job to put their players in the best position to succeed, and it’s nearly impossible to see how Brian Daboll did that today. 4.) “We’re not in Foxborough any more, Toto”. Given the seemingly obvious good fortune of having a rookie running back with a hot hand and facing an opponent who is bad at stopping the run, it seems absolutely crazy that Brian Daboll rolled out the gameplan that he did. So why did he do it? It has become clear over his two seasons with the Bills that Daboll wants to import the New England offensive philosophy of tailoring each week’s offensive gameplan to the opponent in a highly specific way. The Patriots offense looks different every week. Sometimes they’re a power run outfit, sometimes they sling the ball all over the field. It makes sense, in theory, to want one’s offense to possess this type of flexibility. The problem for Brian Daboll is that the offense he currently oversees in Buffalo does not seem to have the personnel to execute this type of varied offensive scheme. They certainly don’t have Tom Brady behind center. Josh Allen is an ascending player who looks to have a bright future, but his ability to consistently threaten defenses with his arm is not yet at the level where the Bills should ever consider such pass heavy offensive game plans. I understand Daboll’s desire to have his offense be adaptable and multiple, but the Bills don’t seem to have the horses to accomplish that task. With that being the case, the only reasonable thing to do is scrap the “highly specific, tailored gameplan” stuff and go with what works: Running the ball, controlling the clock, and setting up play-action opportunities. 5.) The Dick Jauron Award for “Bend but don’t break” goes to…The Bills defense deserves major credit for the Bills even being in the game in the fourth quarter to begin with on Sunday. Yes, they gave up too many rushing yards. Yes, they allowed the Browns to score the go-ahead touchdown with just minutes left in the fourth quarter. At the end of the day, though, they allowed only 19 points and tallied two points of their own on a safety. That should be good enough for a win most weeks. Their eight-play goal line stand culminating in a 4th down stop was a thing of beauty. Later, with the Browns again in the red zone and poised for a back breaking touchdown, the Bills defense held them to just a field goal. Once again, they failed to collect a turnover, but they played good team defense throughout the game and did a good job limiting the points scored against them. If you need a bright spot to focus on after Sunday’s heartbreaking loss, go back and watch Tre’Davious White’s performance. White did an absolutely masterful job shutting down Odell Beckham Jr. If there is one Buffalo Bill that deserves more national attention and praise, it’s White. He shadowed OBJ on all but 10 plays and essentially turned him into a non-factor. With his stellar play this season, #27 has catapulted himself onto the short list of best cornerbacks in the league. 6.) Tale of two halves, redux. Just like in last week’s game against the Washington Redskins, the Bills defense looked positively toothless against the run in the first half. The Browns were seemingly running the ball at will, with Nick Chubb breaking off three runs of 15 or more yards. Sometimes the defensive tackles were pushed off the ball. Sometimes the linebackers took bad angles or got lost in the wash. Whatever the cause on a given play, the Bills defense looked like it was in for another long afternoon against the run. Then a funny thing happened: The second half began. Just like in last week’s game, the Bills defense flipped some sort of switch. While they didn’t completely stymie the Browns running game in the second half, they undoubtedly curtailed its effectiveness. Instead of runs of 15 and 20 yards, the Browns were getting gains of 3 to 5 yards. What is Leslie Frazier saying to the players in the locker room at halftime? What adjustments are they making? Why can’t they seem to replicate their recent second half run-stopping efforts in the first halves of games? What gives? Things don’t get any easier in the run defense department, with a rematch against a Dolphins team that already gashed the Bills on the ground once this year on deck, and games against the Cowboys and Ravens still to come. The Extra Point This one hurts. Bills losses always hurt, at least a little bit. But this one REALLY hurt. The Patriots game was upsetting, sure, but Bills fans could tell themselves that if Allen hadn’t been knocked out of the game, things might have been different. The Eagles game was disheartening, sure, but the Bills were simply outclassed by a superior opponent. For some reason, those types of losses are easier to take. If the guys lining up across from your team are just better, then so be it. There’s nothing you can do. But when the opponents AREN’T clearly better, when the game is there for the taking and some combination of bad coaching and bad execution causes a loss in a game that could have been a win — those losses really hurt. This game had the sting and the stink of so many bad BIlls losses of the past. Games against the Browns are strange. They always are. Whether it’s a Bills running back dropping a pass in the end zone in a playoff game, a kicker missing wide right on Monday Night Football, or a hideous punt bonanza that the Bills somehow lose 6-3, Browns game are strange. Today was the latest chapter in a nightmarish tome authored over the years on the shores of Lake Eerie. This game hurt because there were so, so many missed opportunities and squandered chances. There were bungled third and shorts and failed 4th down conversions. There was bad play calling and bad execution at inopportune times. Most egregiously of all, there was the absolutely horrendous final Bills drive, in which the Bills coaches exhibited a hideous double-dip of coaching no-no’s: Poor clock management and playing to tie rather than playing to win. Indeed, between the missed opportunities, the poor play-calling, the lackluster execution, and the head-scratching clock management, the Bills squandered multiple precious opportunities today. They squandered the opportunities to win the game, to take a commanding lead in the AFC playoff race, to exorcise the ghosts of Browns games past, and most of all, to prove to the nation at large that they’re contenders instead of pretenders. The road certainly doesn’t get easier from here, with games against opponents like Dallas, New England, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh looming. Even games against opponents like Miami and Denver no longer seem like sure Bills victories, such is the strength of the impression of ineptitude that the Bills have left in recent weeks. I pleaded with Bills fans last week in this space to learn to enjoy the Bills’ winning ways while still wanting and demanding more from the team. I spoke of the dangers of falling into the trap of extremes. To be clear: the Bills’ season is not over. Their hopes are not dashed. They are 6-3 — still a darn good record for a team that many picked to win no more than six games ALL YEAR — with the opportunity to make the playoffs still in front of them. However, if the Bills don’t figure out a way to create greater offensive production and iron out their coaching foibles quickly, Bills fans will begin to feel another old, familiar sinking feeling all too common to this fan base the past 20 years: "Here we go again”.

Yeah. I'm sure YOUR take is right. I'm sure it's just one guy's fault ?

The instantaneous judgement of draft picks is so ridiculous. Eight games in and many fans are ready to declare a player a bust. It's madness.

Fair enough. A key point to remember with Oliver, I think, is that he DOMINATED lower level competition his entire life. I doubt he had to employ much advanced hand usage or really learn the position very thoroughly. I bet it was just "beat your man" or "hold/split your double team", and he was so talented and superior to the competition that he could do those things without understanding the nuances of the position. He has said as much himself. He seems/seemed surprised and newly cognizant of all the work he needs to put in, the hand usage, scheme knowledge, and technical nuance he needs to learn. But he knows he needs to learn it, he seems EAGER to learn it, and he's in a room with great coaches and veteran players who can teach him. For the reasons listed above, I'm not worried about him. Similar to Josh Allen as a rookie, he's getting by on sheer physical talent right now. Once he actually learns the game (and has a full offseason in an NFL weight and training program), he'll be a killer.

He has the third highest pass rush win rate of any defensive tackle in the NFL. John Randle and Warren Sapp -- two Hall of Fame penetrating DTs -- had one and three sacks in their rookie years, respectively. Ed Oliver is doing fine. He's not lighting the world on fire, but few rookie DTs do. Aaron Donald is the exception, not the rule. Oliver is going to be fine. He's ALREADY been fine. Lack of sacks are the only reason people seem to think otherwise and, like I said, rookie DTs rarely pile up sacks. I give the first half of his rookie season a B to B-, with room for improvement but no worry on my part that he'll be anything other than a very good player.

The thing that bugs me with the Star talk is that everyone on the Bills -- coaches, players (young and old), everyone -- says he does his job and does it well. Meanwhile, fans -- not even analysts, really, just regular fans -- swear up and down that he stinks. So who should I believe? The coaches and players? Guys like Leslie Frazier and Lorenzo Alexander? Or armchair quarterbacks and message board "experts"? The big disconnect, in my opinion, likely comes down to what the guy is paid. If he had an average contract, no one would talk about him much. Because he gets paid a lot, Bills fans like to scapegoat him and whine endlessly about him. Maybe, just maybe, there's more to the Bills' recent run defense problems than just one player's performance? Maybe, just maybe, fans don't always know what the hell they're talking about?

When you look at a football matchup to try to decide who has the edge, you usually look at three factors: Coaching, Quarterback, and Defense. I would say that ALL THREE of those factors currently go in Buffalo's favor. I'm not saying Josh Allen is better than Baker Mayfield, but he certainly has been PLAYING better than Baker the past few weeks. So coaching, quarterback, defense? Buffalo. And yet? I can't shake the feeling of a Bills loss this Sunday.

I'm familiar with their roster. Their defense has talent in the front 7 and the secondary. Ogunjobi and Garrett on the line, Denzel Ward and Demarious Randall in the secondary. Their offense has two excellent receivers and a quarterback who -- despite his recent struggles -- is still a talented player that can make all the throws. Their backfield of Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt should be formidable. The Bills recent vulnerabilities to inside zone runs does not bode well for this game, because the Browns have JC Tretter at center, who is more than capable, and who will be paving the way for the aforementioned running backs. I already said the Bills are a better TEAM than the Browns. I stick by my statement, however, that the Browns have a ton of talent on the roster. The notions that the Bills should be big favorites, or that there's "no way they should lose to this team" are erroneous, in my opinion. YMMV.

Nah. To conclude that, one would have to be looking ONLY at the two teams' records. A more in depth look shows that the Bills have likely been playing a bit above their talent level in terms of win total, while the Browns are under-performing, but have a supremely talented roster. In my mind, losing an away game against a desperate opponent that has OBJ, Jarvis Landry, Nick Chubb, Kareem Hunt, Baker Mayfield, Myles Garrett, and Denzel Ward would not be a surprise at all. In fact, I'm expecting it.

Nothing quite like people who don't know what they're looking at or what the scheme is asking the players to do watching a few plays and then diagnosing the problems the team is facing. I just wonder if the OP is available for a conference call with the coaches, since he clearly has this thing figured out.

I'm really curious to hear more from whoever winds up voting "no" on this poll.

Josh Allen has alleviated so many concerns that people had about him so far this season. He has improved his accuracy, improved his completion percentage, improved his ability to read defenses pre and post snap, improved his pocket presence, improved on his willingness to hang in the pocket rather than bail early, he leads the league in game-winning drives... I mean..the only legitimate complaint people seem to have about Allen right now is that he's been more of a game manager than a playmaker. But think of that: JOSH ALLEN...is now an effective game manager. Something we were told he couldn't do. And oh, by the way, he does things like routinely convert 3rd and 15+ situations, he leads the NFL's BEST red zone offense, and he's now gone 13 straight quarters without throwing an interception -- which is a big improvement for him. All of this within his first 20 games played. He has lots of room for improvement and no one's saying he's "there" yet, but if you can honestly look at his play from last year to this year and not see vast improvements and some hints of a possible franchise QB, well...I don't know what to tell you.

This "300 yards nonsense" is just the worst. Fantasy Football has ruined football discussion/analysis.

Don't move Oliver anywhere. Leave him at 3T, where he's having a good rookie season. Let him learn on the job. He needs reps at the pro level. The only people thinking he's any kind of a letdown are those who bought into all of the Aaron Donald and John Randle comparisons and set themselves up to believe he'd have 6 or more sacks as a rookie. Warren Sapp -- arguably the greatest penetrating 3T of all time -- had 3 sacks as a rookie. John Randle, the Hall of Famer to whom Oliver was compared before the draft, had ONE sack in his rookie season. Historically, defensive tackles take a season or two to adjust to the pro game and start to dominate. Aaron Donald was a rare exception to this rule. Oliver is doing just fine. He needs a bunch of reps the second half of the season and a full offseason in the weight room and he's gonna be the absolute least of the Bills' concerns going forward.

Who is Kevin and why is he giving Taylor liquid?

#1 is such a complex question. I would argue that there have been games where the Bills won in spite of Josh AND games where they've won because of him. I could easily point to his 4 game-winning drives this season as games that they won because of him, but it could just as easily be countered that a game-winning drive was only necessary in the first place because of his poor play in the previous quarters. I do think the three benchmarks laid out in the article make sense, though. Clearly, the jury's still out on Allen.

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2019/11/5/20941743/nfl-young-quarterback-evaluation-gardner-minshew-baker-mayfield-mitchell-trubisky Cool article on the Ringer today at the above link. Basically, after talking to talent evaluators and players, the noticed these three questions recurring as the basis for whether or not a QB is worth keeping and building around. This criteria, I would think, should open up some nice discussion about our OWN young QB. 1. Is this is a player you can win because of, and not in spite of? This is the portion of the evaluation where guys like Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson quickly show that they’re worth a long-term investment. And it’s a question that many quarterbacks—even some who earn lucrative extensions—may never fully answer. 2. Do the player’s strengths outnumber his weaknesses? This line of thinking is paramount when considering the futures of QBs like Mayfield and Jameis Winston, whose highs are undeniably attractive, but whose deficiencies still leave doubts at these (admittedly very different) points in their careers. 3. Has the player had enough opportunity—with proper scheme, coaching, and personnel—to show whether he is a QB you can consistently compete with? The exact time frame needed to answer this question differed among the folks I spoke with, but the ballpark seemed to be around 45 starts, or about three seasons’ worth. That number dovetails nicely with the practical realities of most young QB contracts. Players on rookie deals can be extended after their third season. First-round picks must have their fifth-year option exercised after that year, as well.

Woah. The Bills "easily handling" the best rushing team in the league seems like a long shot after the way they've defended the run the past two weeks. I'm not saying that the Bills won't have a chance to win that game, but.."handle them easily"? I sincerely doubt it. I respect your optimism, though!