Rochesterfan

I will say this - there is a huge difference between having to stop them from the 10 and the 41 - HUGE! If Indy gets the stop and starts at the 40 - they are running the ball to try and win - something they had been effective at doing. When they got the ball at the 10 - Indy needed to throw to win a huge difference and what allowed the Bills to have time to win. It is not trusting them - it is that Indy had to do something they struggled doing all game if they wanted to win after the punt. If Indy had wanted to just tie the game - they could have just run it and the punt would have been even worse decision, but Indy wanted the victory and it cost them the game.

For me and with the Bills position relative to the playoffs - I would of loved to see him go for it, but I get the call to punt. He is going to be a conservative coach - we have seen that and it should be no surprise. Sometimes it it will work and sometimes it will fail - just like an aggressive coach that goes for it - sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. As a coach - you just have to be willing to stand up and answer the questions - so you better believe in what you are doing - live it and accept it.

I hate the punt, but this is not right. Punting was fine all day - no one had punting issue - whereas the Bills had already failed on 4th down twice in the game. It had been nearly 30 minutes since the last colts drive - so the tiring of the D was irrelevant. We punted and lost only a little distance - mostly caused by the 1st down as the two punts netted the Bills nearly 10 yards. If he believes his team can win - he believes his defense can make a stop and he can get the ball back and go for the win. If they do not get the first down - Indy has it near midfield and there is no way the Bills could win from there. Even if they get a stop - the colts punt and the Bills have 1:00 and 80+ yards Now those are to counter your points and I get it, but I do agree - with the playoff position and the need to win - I would of preferred to see them go for it, but choosing to punt puts faith in the side of the ball that has been better all year. It is similar to the Rex punt against the Dolphins- except the Bills strength had been offense and he choose to go with the weaker side of the team and lost. McDermont choose to have faith in the stronger side of his team and was rewarded with a stop and the win.

I think you are a bit high with 4 in the top 10, but I agree it has not changed much. If Darnold come out - I think you have 3 in the top 10 and 5 overall in round 1 with Jackson. They do tend to be overdrafted though - so maybe. If Darnold stays it lessens the class, but I still think you get 3 in the top 15 and 4 overall.

I do not see any way McCoy is hired as OC. He took Dennison’s Denver offense and made it worse and got himself fired first. If McDermont wants to bring him in at this point it will be for a position like QB coach. The only way I see Dennison gone is if they can get Ken Dorsey out of Carolina or another young Andy Reid guy that McDermont feels comfortable with. I feel the same way about Frazier on the defensive side of the ball - if they can get one of the younger Carolina coaches like the LB coach to jump ship and run the defense a change could be made. Just my opinion, but I do not see Dennison getting let go unless he gets someone he has worked with very recently - and I think he wanted Dorsey originally, but was blocked.

Landrys hit was not illegal because he was moving forward not peeling back. They could of called him for the hit to the head, but the hit and the play were all from the front of Williams. The hit by JuJu was illegal because exactly as you stated he was past the defender and came back upfield (toward his own goal line) to make the hit. The hit by JuJu was illegal and correctly called and was taken out to protect defensive players from this exact kind of hit and he will deserve the suspension that will come with it. For the guys thinking the players policed themselves - now Cincinnati has players that will want revenge and this is going to get worse. They need to get the union to get these players to respect each other and stop with the cheap shots and work to increase fines and suspensions before they kill each other for some perceived slight.

That is bull - maybe 20 years ago in hockey, but there are more cheap shots in hockey than most sports and the players do very little about it. You see guys get hit in the head and knocked flying or slew footed into the boards and the players do nothing. Guys hit defenseless players in the back and drill them into the boards and 5 minutes later 2 uninvolved players drop the gloves that does nothing - very rarely does the actual player involved get anything more than a glove to the face as players mill about. Later in the season a different player will take a run a the original player because the league did nothing and then you get these guys getting injured. It is dangerous and does nothing to police themselves because there are no lines or code. Therefore my question is do you want more Gronk like moves - because that move is exactly what you are advocating - a player taking care of a perceived slight (Gronk complains - I was being held trying to justify his actions) - or the league handling it. If the league and the players union worked together on this and Burfict had been suspended 4 or 5 games originally- then you see these things stop. Since the union fights all suspensions - the league gives smaller suspensions and you get more retribution. Additionally in football - you have 11 players of different sizes on the field and after each play several players come on and off the field - so fights can suddenly get out of hand quickly and as there is little to separate fans - if you allow fights - I could see an NBA situation where fans decide to take some vigilante justice if the fight escalates. I think fighting in hockey has become a useless part of the game and if you watch minor league or European/International hockey a former part of the game - it is not missed and there are no more cheap shots taken there than in Pro Hockey.

Absolutely not. The NFL unlike the NHL actually ejects and suspends players for these thing. The NHL does a poor job policing hits and now they have very little in the way of retribution- so players get away with cheap hits all the time with very little to show for it. First - I think the league needs to keep at it and get even a bit harsher, but more importantly the Union needs to step up and support suspensions rather than fighting them. The union does more damage to their own cause by always siding with the player getting suspended and fighting it even when it is something egregious against another union member.

I think TT is 100% gone - I think that decision was made before the SD game and the benching. Dennison - I think he will be back unless McD is able to lure a young guy like Dorsey from Carolina. I think that is someone he wanted last year that got blocked and it would not shock me to see if try to raid that staff this year. I could see the same thing on the defensive side where they bring in a Carolina coach to better run the defense and keep LF as more of a mentor.

I could not disagree more with this statement. The results have been the same for 3 years with different players all around. We have had a number of different WRs - several high draft picks - from Watkins, Woods to Benjamin, Matthews, and Jones. You have had Clay and McCoy, etc. They are not devoid of talent. The o-line has struggled, but they are forced to hold pass blocks longer than every other o-line in the league. I do not think TT masks the O-line deficiencies, but adds to them - because he takes a huge number of sacks and holds the ball so long. You could have a point if the passing attack was worse this year, but the passing attack is the same - the difference is the running game. I think missing Glenn has a lot to do with that.

I honestly do do not think they have a number in mind for passing yards. For the year they pass more than they run by a small margin - they just do not get a ton out of the passing game. When I watch the all-22 you see the windows that open and the multi-layer attack, but you do not see passes into those windows. You see a delay and then you get a sort of continuation and then the pass. It is not all of the time, but enough that it disrupts the passing attack and puts additional pressure on the o-line leading to both sacks and holding penalties. I think when you have TT as a QB - your game plan goes out the window. You have to run a specific sort of free form passing attack (think schoolyard) where guys start on a pattern and then work to get open. If Dennison was a new OC and TT had been spectacular under previous OC’s - I would tend to agree, but this is the 3rd OC all producing exactly the same results with different systems. At some point you may need to think that maybe the results are not from the play call, but the person running the play.

It is all so dumb in the analysis. This is TT 3rd year and he is on the exact same pace as year 1 and year 2. The offense is not holding TT back at all - he is exactly the same QB as the last 2 years - the difference in the Bills offense this year is in the running game which has dropped about 40 yards a game - still in the upper half of the league. I think by the end of the year we will have another top 10 rushing attack (currently 12th, but have been moving up) and a bottom 5 passing attack (currently 30th) - just as we have the last 2 years under TT. So how is this offense holding him back? People blaming the offense or the changes are just arguing semantics at this point - TT is the QB that he has been - his numbers are consistent year to year - bottom tier passing while having a top flight rushing offense. 3 OC have been involved and all 3 have gotten the exact same results - almost nothing out of the passing game and a rushing attack that features 2 threats in McCoy and Taylor. TT will continue to put up what will statistically be another decent year with middle of the pack numbers that work great when things are perfect, but do nothing to help the team win games. He is the ultimate game manager - no turnovers and no chances - just dink and dunk and punt away. One or two drives a game to get scores and we will play a close tight game.

Once again - your entire concept is way way off and you are pushing blame away from TT for some reason. Yes there was a massive discrepancy in passing plays first half to second half, but there was also a massive difference in total plays. First half we ran around 46 plays with about 26 drop backs per your analysis. Just over 50%. Second half we had 9 drop backs on 24 play - with the last 5 plays the Bills either running out the clock or kneeling. Take those away and it is 9 drop backs on about 19 actual snaps or just under 50% of the snaps. The difference was the play in TT in the second half on 3rd down. In the first half he was 6 of 8 passing on 3rd down with several first downs to keep drives going. The second half TT was 1 for 2 with a sack on 3rd down and no first downs. He did not keep drives going and therefore we had fewer overall plays. He had people open - the scheme of Dennison worked, but TT went back into his conservative shell the 2nd half and played poorly when we could of blown out the Chiefs. I think that Dennison may be a bit conservative, but overall TT is exactly the same QB as he has been - the only difference in offense is the running game and it is hard to know how much is Dennison and how much is the combination of O-line changes and play. TT is exactly what he has been and all of your many threads on TT do not change that. He is a below level starter that will not turn the ball over. That is not the worst thing, but if that is the best you can say about your starting QB - you need to be looking for better. TT can win with a strong defense, a strong running game, and good special teams play so that he can move your team and not give the ball back to the opponents. He is not a viable long term option and he is not a high end starter. He will not win you games and he will not lose you games. He is just there as a place holder until someone gets the guts to try and get better.

Wow a really well thought out and reasoned article by MSM (Main Street Media) and one that seems to look at the actual play rather than just stats. I am impressed and think he captures what most of us have been saying. Nice Find

You don’t suppose that is part of the reason they tried to get Hoyer in FA. Hoyer chose SF with a starting gig over competition in Buffalo, but I think the coaching staff recognized that TT might not fit what they wanted. I believe a majority of the change at WR also dealt with getting guys to fit the timing offense. Drafting Zay and trading for Matthews both scream of WCO over Watkins. I think this staff would of loved to keep Woods - another fit, but not at the cost the LARams paid and he wanted to go back to the west coast. Everything this team did during the off season screamed that TT was not their long term solution - he was a safety net until they could get a better fit at the position. I think Dennison has a lot to prove, but McCoy and Musgrave have been busts in Denver taking a guy that Dennison made look decent and turning him into a failure - so I am not sure that had we gotten our top choice things would be better. I will give Dennison the benefit of the doubt and see how the offense looks with a different QB and then judge him as the year concludes.

Correct - he will be released and free to sign with another team at a more appropriate rate.

This is is why I am not sure TT will make a good back-up in this league. Guys coming off the bench may not have worked with these WRs in weeks on some plays, but if you are the back-up you need that Chemistry right away. Peterman has seemed to have good chemistry even in preseason as he moved from 3rd string to 2nd string to taking over with the #1s after TT got hurt. The chemistry seemed pretty good for little practice time, but with TT we keep hearing about needing time and trust to use a WR.

Correct - he would need to be a back-up in a scheme that is not about timing because that is not his strength and he does not seem to get on the same page as his WRs quickly. If you are running a freelance style of offense where the throwing windows are less important, but the WRs keep moving until they find an open area - he may be a better fit. I see a team like Pittsburgh in that regards or even Houston and perhaps GB. Those QBs add lib and buy time and that allows the WRs time to get open - they are not 3 steps and read the defense and make a throw. The other way to make him successful is to draft a rookie with similar skills and to build the offense around what they do well. That is where a mobile strong armed guy like Lamar Jackson could be useful.

No - I think he is done in Buffalo - I do not think as a back-up that would be a good fit here with what they want to do. He he needs to go someplace that is not running a timing based offense - so that his ability to freelance can work. Someplaces that are running more freestyle offenses - Pittsburgh, Seattle, Houston, GB - none are perfect, but because the QBs move in the pocket and keep plays alive - the WRs are used to working themselves open and those spots may work. If not he he could be a bridge if you want to draft a similar style guy and build the team to their strengths.

I think his no turnovers approach as a back-up is great, but it seems to take him a couple of weeks to get in sync with a WR. Matthews come back and he is out of sync - KB comes in and they are not on the same page, but Peterman comes in and seems to be in sync with the WRs from the get go - same with the preseason when TT got hurt.

Racists much?

I disagree about bout him being a good back-up in the league. We keep hearing that TT needs time and trust to work with his receivers - as a back-up you may come in and not have any time with the people on the field. Based upon everything we have seen - he would be a terrible back-up. If you are not starting him - you are going to get very little out of him. He also only fits a few specific schemes - so unless you are Houston with Watson or you draft Lamar Jackson - I think TT will not be great coming off the bench.

Agreed - the offseason and in season moves all pointed to the offense they wanted to run and it all suggested TT was not in the long term plans. Lots of big bodied middle of the field guys - says WCO with timing.

I disagree - he ended up with half way decent stats in the Jets game, but he did not play well. Romo repeatedly talked about what the Bills needed to do do to beat the Jets rushing front - hit your drop and make a decisive throw. There in lies the issue - he could not do that. Once the game got out of reach and the Jets backed off - he started making completions and put up decent numbers. The rest of the team also stunk- which did not help, but the Jets game is part of the reason stats on TT are difficult to assess. He does a lot of things wrong throughout the game - things that drive an OC and HC crazy, but he does not make that key mistake either. I think Jeremy White said it best - if TT is your starting QB you are never going to have the EJ game against the Jags in London or the the Houston game that ended EJs season, but you will not get the big game needed either. You are going to need just about perfection from the rest of the team to consistently win.

AFL - I believe the Bills are looking at long term planning and they are building an offense and although they incorporated some things TT does well - they were not going to sacrifice long term goals for short term wins. If they felt TT was a potential long term answer - an offense designed for him would require very different personnel from a WCO. You need more speed and guys working the sidelines and less guys that work the middle parts of the field. I do not think they are trying to fit a square peg in a round hole - I think they are building the holes for next year and the square peg in TT was left over and they were going to see if it could work. I do not think anyone on this coaching staff felt TT was going to be a long term answer - he was just the best of a bunch of poor options. Honestly - if they had been able to sign Hoyer like they tried - I am not sure TT would have started a game here this year - I think they would of looked to trade him also, but the only back-up was Peterman - so they waited.