transplantbillsfan

I think he's our most important Defensive player... https://theathletic.com/2160660/2020/10/25/bills-jets-jerry-hughes?source=user-shared-article Bills’ third-down revival and Matt Milano’s return are not coincidental So, what was a big reason for their third-down revival? The presence of linebacker Matt Milano sure helped. After a two-week absence, the Bills welcomed Milano back on a pitch count against the Jets. He wasn’t an every-down starter just yet, but there was a clear plan of attack from the coaching staff for Milano to make the Bills a better defense. Milano took only 15 snaps, all coming on third downs, on fourth downs and at the end of each half. He provided excellent run support, and his read on fourth-and-1 helped force the running back wide to get the Jets off the field. He was also solid in coverage, and when asked to, threatened the Jets as a blitzer. The statistics backed up how much better the Bills were when Milano was on the field. The Jets gained 190 yards total. They gained only 16 of those yards when Milano was playing. The Jets tallied, on average, only 1.1 yards per play when the Bills used Milano. While that’s very likely an unsustainable figure, it simply reinforces the point about Milano’s wide-ranging importance to the Bills’ defensive operation. Without him, the Bills are a different team. But he can't stay healthy!!!

https://theathletic.com/2160660/2020/10/25/bills-jets-jerry-hughes?source=user-shared-article Offense’s failure to put the Jets away was a compilation of errors ... Josh Allen will naturally take a lot of criticism because of his position, though once again, I don’t think he was the problem on offense. Allen fulfilled his weekly routine of throwing a handful of inaccurate passes. Those plays always tend to stick out more than some of the successes that help engineer drives. While he needs to be more careful on those pass attempts, including an interception-worthy throw to the end zone, he avoided the truly baffling decision that is an easy play for the defense. During the rest of the game, Allen and the passing offense picked apart the Jets’ soft zone coverage. Just as they were in Week 1, the Jets were insistent on not allowing the Bills to beat them deep. And like the first meeting, Allen locked on his underneath targets and defeated the Jets with a ton of short throws with opportunity for yards after the catch. The only difference this time was that the Bills didn’t convert for a touchdown. Think of all the missteps throughout the game. On the second drive, Allen and Reggie Gilliam set up the Bills with a first-and-goal opportunity with a 15-yard reception. On first down, the Bills took a holding penalty. On second down, they took an illegal man downfield penalty. With the Bills backed up, Daryl Williams conceded a quick pressure around the edge and Allen lost the ball on a strip-sack. Later in the game, the Bills were moving the ball easily in the second half, but then offensive coordinator Brian Daboll went to the quick pass to Isaiah McKenzie one too many times. The Jets were ready for it and dropped McKenzie for an 11-yard loss on first down, and it completely ruined the drive. The Bills had a touchdown nullified because of an illegal formation penalty in a later drive. On a different one, Allen read the bust in coverage and put an on-point throw to Tyler Kroft with a clear path to the end zone, only for the tight end to trip himself up and fall well before the end zone. Those are four separate drives that should have resulted in more than a field goal, and yet the Bills couldn’t get out of their way. That’s 22 points not scored because of all of their errors.

Don't need much of an excuse for him. He played a good game. No INTs. Over 300 yards passing. Almost 8 YPA. One TD wiped out by a pre snap questionable formation penalty. Apparently we need greatness every week now. Last week Aaron Rodgers threw 2 INTs, no TDs for a 45.7% completion % last week. Shame on him.

You seem to like football on paper rather than watching actual games played. You said "injuries aside," which is pretty convenient for your apocalyptic perspective. But the fact remains that you can't put those injuries aside. They were part of the equation on top of the Jets getting their rookie WR back and a new offensive play caller and a 2 week "zone defense blueprint on how to defeat Josh Allen." This week Allen managed to overcome being without his starting Guard, his TEs, and the WR he has probably the most longstanding trust in. On top of that our D was clearly playing with half a Milano and without 2 of its 3 top CBS. But we won. You take it, get healthy, and move on happily with the W to the next game. That's the NFL, not your game played on paper.

How old are you? You must be a brand new Bills fan. Welcome, but understand that you will ALWAYS take a W for the team you're rooting for and move on to the next week because unlike almost any sport, the NFL is a week to week league.

Calm down. First of all you can never underestimate the impact of divisional rivalries. Second of all, Allen was playing without John Brown, all but 1 of his TEs and his starting Guard. It wasn’t especially pretty but it was a road divisional W. That's important. In the 2nd half I really think you're undervaluing something: Allen looks like he started figuring out the zone D. Say what you want about the Jets, but Gregg Williams is a darn good D coordinator and you can bet he saw Allen against the zone D against Tennessee and Kansas City. That's super encouraging considering he's about to go up against Belichick. Besides, if Kroft can keep his footing and Davis doesn't have a stupid pre-snap formation penalty, Allen has 350+ yards passing and a couple of TDs to boot. Who cares about the F'in spread other than people focused on making money on NFL games rather than focused on their own team?

Davis is right there... just gotta get him over the hump.

There were rough patches in this game for sure, but at a certain point it looked like a light bulb came on in terms of playing against the zone defense, which is how it seems opposing Ds will play us from now on. I really think we miss John Brown in this offense. Patriots, Seahawks and Cardinals in a tough 3 game stretch before our bye.

Update the title: https://theathletic.com/2157936/2020/10/23/antonio-brown-are-bucs-new-super-bowl-favorites-or-is-move-unnecessary-risk?source=user-shared-article Antonio Brown finally has a new team. A year after we last saw the four-time first-team All-Pro wideout on the field, Brown agreed to a one-year deal with Tampa Bay on Friday. The agreement reunites him with quarterback Tom Brady, with whom Brown played one game for New England last season.

https://theathletic.com/2154752/2020/10/22/bills-chiefs-tremaine-edmunds?source=user-shared-article 5) Outside of some missed throws, Allen’s day wasn’t as bad as it seemed Games like Bills-Chiefs exemplify why watching the coaches film is such an impactful exercise. I initially wrote that this was Allen’s worst game of the season, which it was. But I also thought he was more inaccurate, and that perception didn’t hold up on film. Allen did have issues with ball placement and missed some clear throws — the Stefon Diggs throw to the end zone being the most glaring example — but it wasn’t anything too different from what we’ve seen in other games. It fits with Allen’s identity right now, and the Bills know what he does well far outweighs those bad moments. Most of the time against the Chiefs, Allen was going with the hand the defense dealt him. The Chiefs’ defense dominated up front, effectively canceling out the running game. They also disguised some of their coverages well and took away most of the Bills’ opportunities over the top. During the rare plays in which the Chiefs were in man coverage with a single-high safety, Allen tried to push the ball down the field. He mainly attacked the short areas when the Chiefs were in Cover 2 and pressured him quickly enough to force an early throw. Allen also continued to show improvements against all-out blitz attempts, reading the defense, spotting the holes in coverage and calmly delivering a quick throw. He was hard on himself after the game for the missed throws early in the game, but he was far from the Bills’ biggest problem on offense. Allen still looked like an advanced version of his 2019 self, even without the statistics to back it up. He has remained on the right track, even in two losses.

I've seen the YouTube video of Zimmer getting blown up... but there's also this... https://theathletic.com/2154752/2020/10/22/bills-chiefs-tremaine-edmunds?source=user-shared-article Zimmer and the Bills were at their best when he lined up at one-technique. He played almost exclusively with Butler, outside of a few third-down passing plays when Mario Addison slid inside into a stand-up, three-technique position. On ten designed runs against the Butler-Zimmer pairing, the Bills allowed only 1.6 yards per carry for a total of 16 yards. Five of those ten attempts went for zero or negative yards and seven were for negative-4. Zimmer took 20 snaps at one-technique compared to nine at three-technique. When the Bills flipped Zimmer to three-technique and Butler to one-technique, the results were more in line with the rest of the game, with them allowing 27 yards on four carries (6.8 yards per carry). Zimmer held the point of attack as the one-technique and must have a spot in the lineup for as long as he keeps this up.

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-ranking-all-32-starting-quarterbacks-after-week-6-2020-season 8. JOSH ALLEN, BUFFALO BILLS Change: Up 19 Josh Allen made the single biggest jump of any quarterback in the rankings from the preseason, just in time to show some wobbles in his play the past two weeks and make me wonder if we all jumped the gun. Even with those two rough outings, Allen’s 85.9 PFF passing grade is a top-five mark and more than 20 grading points higher than any other year of his career. He has a 79.3% adjusted completion rate, 10 percentage points better than his previous high. Allen looks to have taken a huge step forward in his development, but he now needs to avoid crashing back down to earth after a couple of more familiar inconsistent games.

https://theathletic.com/2149269/2020/10/20/bills-chiefs-takeaways-run-defense?source=user-shared-article The game was there for the taking for Josh Allen Despite all the yards the defense allowed and the time the Chiefs took off the clock, Josh Allen and the Bills’ offense still had every opportunity to pull out a win. The problem was Allen struggled with his accuracy, looked more frantic in the pocket than he has all season and never was able to correct it. The game was Allen’s worst of the season and more reminiscent of his 2019 self. The film showed us that Allen played better against the Titans than we were first led to believe, but there won’t be any false illusions this time around — Allen’s inaccuracy was one of the primary reasons the Bills lost. Allen had 27 pass attempts by the end of the game, completing only 14 for a season-low 51.8 completion percentage. Seven of those 13 incompletions were short-yardage misfires that could have kept drives alive. The most glaring miss was a potential 33-yard touchdown throw to Stefon Diggs, who wide open and drifting toward the end zone. The offensive line provided great protection, but Allen tried to get the ball out quickly. He failed to step into the throw and instead moved his front foot to the left, causing the pass to sail about 10 yards over Diggs’ head. The drive resulted in a field goal. Games like these represent a trend for Allen so far in his career. He’ll have a few good games where he shows all of his progress and then slowly drifts back into old habits in the following weeks. Once he has a game where the bottom falls out (see: New England, Cleveland, Baltimore and Houston in 2019), he gets back to the basics in search of rapid improvement. He tends to take constructive criticism well and implement changes immediately. The Bills next face the hapless New York Jets, giving Allen a perfect opportunity for a reboot. Every quarterback has bad games, but Allen has to prevent it from becoming a trend. If Allen can get back to the way he was playing in the first four weeks, the temporary setback will wind up being worth it for the whole season. Tyrann Mathieu kept Allen on his toes all game Part of the reason Allen could never get comfortable on Monday was because of safety Tyrann Mathieu. The Bills don’t have a tight end worthy of Mathieu’s sole focus, which allowed the Chiefs to use him as a game-plan wrecker. Mathieu acted as a zone defender underneath to cover up Cole Beasley, he dropped back deep in Cover 2 to bracket Diggs and he faked a deep drop into zone coverage only to pick up John Brown on a crossing route on third down. The Chiefs used Mathieu in man-to-man coverage against Brown, Beasley and Gabriel Davis and also blitzed him off the edge to get Allen off his spot. The range of outcomes from snap to snap made it so Allen could not predict what was coming. All he could do was avoid Mathieu as much as possible, which took away options on every play.

Wow. Low bar. This is a meaningful regular season game against a divisional opponent and we're the Bills. I am way, way more excited (and anxious) about this game than I ever could be a preseason game.

I understand that was his plan, but I'm sure his plan didn't involve letting the other team gash us on the ground. I'm pretty worried about our defensive depth and talent at certain positions, especially on the DL. I just wish we could have last year's D with this year's Allen. It's like we have to choose one or the other, unlike other teams. Baltimore has Lamar Jackson AND a great D. Kansas City has Mahomes AND a pretty good D. We have a Defensive coach. We already have the QB (IMO)... the D should be a given.

I'd absolutely have deep concerns about the D, but I'd be ecstatic about the W. And in truth, I do believe that if that fumble went our way, Allen would have drove us down for a TD. The 2 point conversion is more iffy. I've had concerns about the D all year. They haven't been very good at ANY point this year. You just can't rely on turnovers in the NFL. You have to stop the other team. And we can't. I don't see our D getting much better this year. But I also don't think Allen will play as poorly as he did last night again.

They kinda matter a lot though... especially in the new age of the QB. Plenty of 3rd down conversions with his legs. Those don't count? Josh Allen was 80% of our offense yesterday. That's how bad our running game is.

I don't really care about this. I think that's going to exist to a certain degree for Allen's entire career. What concerns me right now is the fact that as Allen goes, so does Buffalo. Our Defense and running game is just plain bad this year. So Allen is required to play exceptionally well almost every week just for us to win. Not only that, but Daboll has to be better and understand this. Sunday against the Jets should be a get right game for Allen and the Bills, but it only goes right back to being difficult with the Patriots, Seahawks and Cardinals.

https://theathletic.com/2148707/2020/10/19/josh-allen-bills-chiefs-patrick-mahomes?source=user-shared-article Third-and-wrong Buffalo’s defense entered Monday’s game third from the bottom in stopping third-down conversions, allowing opponents to move the chains 50.9 percent of the time. As bad as that overall number is, consider they also allowed three of six conversions on third-and-11 or longer. Make that five of eight now. Buffalo squandered both juicy chances they had to get Kansas City off the field. Down by six with 4:13 to play, the Bills gave up a 37-yard completion to Byron Pringle on third-and-12. The Chiefs ended the drive with a field goal. Kansas City also converted a third-and-14 with Buffalo in prevent defense 16 seconds before halftime. Mahomes threw to Demarcus Robinson for 15 yards to lengthen a drive that short-circuited with Kelce’s midfield fumble on the next play. Picking up those low-probability first downs can be backbreakers. It occurred once in each of the Bills’ three previous games: The Los Angeles Rams scored a touchdown to pull within three points in the fourth quarter, the Las Vegas Raiders made a field goal on their opening possession, and the Tennessee Titans scored a second-quarter touchdown on those extended drives. Opposing quarterbacks in these situations have completed seven of eight attempts for 124 yards with no turnovers or sacks.

Sorry so late to update... managing work while watching the game along with depression to follow. Upon reflection, Allen wasn't very good, but I also don't think he was as bad as our initial reaction is. First of all, Daboll frustrates me... I feel like he's Jekyll and Hyde as an OC. Our RBs just aren't very good... or our OL is just horrible at run blocking... or both. Singletary had 1 run of 10 yards and 1 run of 9 yards at one point. Other than those 2 runs our RBs still ran the ball 13 more times for a TOTAL of 23 yards. We just get behind the sticks too often on those early downs and then have to rely on Allen to get us a 1st down. And honestly, all year that's what he was doing with his arm... today he did it more often with his legs. And the icing on the cake are the drops by our WRs. I know the deep passes to Brown and Diggs in the EZ aren't drops, but those were good passes. But Diggs had another drop at one point. Brown had that drop on a perfectly thrown pass on 3rd and 10 on the very first drive that hit him in the facemask. We've upgraded our WR corps for sure, but even before this game Allen was STILL suffering from highest drop % in the NFL. And finally I really do think Allen has some Primetime Yips he needs to work through. Last year I think I made the comment that Allen was much better on the road because there's less pressure to perform on the road than at home. Same goes for Primetime games. He's still growing, and I'm confident he will, but I think the fact that he didn't have much of a spotlight in HS, JuCo, or D1 College is factoring into his need to grow a bit more into the game.

He honestly might be our best Defensive player... I definitely think he's our most important

Allen wasn't very good, but I also don't think he was as bad as our initial reaction is. First of all, Daboll frustrates me... I feel like he's Jekyll and Hyde as an OC. Our RBs just aren't very good... or our OL is just horrible at run blocking... or both. Singletary had 1 run of 10 yards and 1 run of 9 yards at one point. Other than those 2 runs our RBs still ran the ball 13 more times for a TOTAL of 23 yards. We just get behind the sticks too often on those early downs and then have to rely on Allen to get us a 1st down. And honestly, all year that's what he was doing with his arm... today he did it more often with his legs. And the icing on the cake are the drops by our WRs. I know the deep passes to Brown and Diggs in the EZ aren't drops, but those were good passes. But Diggs had another drop at one point. Brown had that drop on a perfectly thrown pass on 3rd and 10 on the very first drive that hit him in the facemask. We've upgraded our WR corps for sure, but even before this game Allen was STILL suffering from highest drop % in the NFL. And finally I really do think Allen has some Primetime Yips he needs to work through. Last year I think I made the comment that Allen was much better on the road because there's less pressure to perform on the road than at home. Same goes for Primetime games. He's still growing, and I'm confident he will, but I think the fact that he didn't have much of a spotlight in HS, JuCo, or D1 College is factoring into his need to grow a bit more into the game.

Allen wasn't very good, but I also don't think he was as bad as our initial reaction is. First of all, Daboll frustrates me... I feel like he's Jekyll and Hyde as an OC. Our RBs just aren't very good... or our OL is just horrible at run blocking... or both. Singletary had 1 run of 10 yards and 1 run of 9 yards at one point. Other than those 2 runs our RBs still ran the ball 13 more times for a TOTAL of 23 yards. We just get behind the sticks too often on those early downs and then have to rely on Allen to get us a 1st down. And honestly, all year that's what he was doing with his arm... today he did it more often with his legs. And the icing on the cake are the drops by our WRs. I know the deep passes to Brown and Diggs in the EZ aren't drops, but those were good passes. But Diggs had another drop at one point. Brown had that drop on a perfectly thrown pass on 3rd and 10 on the very first drive that hit him in the facemask. We've upgraded our WR corps for sure, but even before this game Allen was STILL suffering from highest drop % in the NFL. And finally I really do think Allen has some Primetime Yips he needs to work through. Last year I think I made the comment that Allen was much better on the road because there's less pressure to perform on the road than at home. Same goes for Primetime games. He's still growing, and I'm confident he will, but I think the fact that he didn't have much of a spotlight in HS, JuCo, or D1 College is factoring into his need to grow a bit more into the game.

It's great he takes the onus on him, but the worst part of his statement is that it's absolutely true. This year Allen pretty much determines the outcome of our games. In years past when we had a strong running game and/or strong D, mediocre to poor QB play could be overcome by the team for a W. Not this year. That's both exciting and terrifying. Part of the reason it's terrifying is because the offensive game plan going into these games doesn't seem to really acknowledge that. We too often have runs for little or no yardage on 1st and/or 2nd down only to get behind the sticks. Oh yeah... and TOO MANY DROPS!!!

Like I said. We miss Star. Gotta trade for a big run-stuffing DL.