Shaw66

What happened to going with the call on the field unless you have convincing evidence. Wasn't there. Incomplete.

Allen's playing great, but if he's going to be a truly great QB, he can't throw the INT. A truly good QB knows that at that point in the game, the #1 objective is to score and the #2 objective is to eat clock and win the field position game. So, you don't throw that ball in that situation. Run, throw it away, find something else to do, but do not risk an INT. He'll learn.

McDermott would tell us that it's his job, and his coordinators' jobs, to make sure that their players execute correctly, particularly under the stress of the game, whether that means the stress of the pass rush or the stress of being in a close game in the fourth quarter.

I think the point of Romo's comment was that it was Davis's job to know the Eagles were in cover zero. He had pre-snap plus a 20-yard sprint upfield to figure out that there was no one deep to pick him up. So he's supposed to see that, assume the Eagles are blitzing, and therefore look back to find the ball. I think it's the case that on most plays, most plays must recognize the defense in order to adjust their routes. So, for example, on back shoulder throws, the receiver must read the defender and, if the defender has the deep route covered, the receiver must look back over his inside shoulder to find the ball. This was (I think) the opposite - see cover zero, look back for the ball, make a play on the ball. Again, I don't know. Maybe you're right - maybe Davis was supposed to read the defender and cut away from him, and Josh was supposed to make the same read and throw it. And that would explain Josh's comment about guessing wrong - maybe he couldn't see the leverage (he was under pressure), so he guessed. But I'd say that even if that's what happened, it would make sense that it STILL was Davis's job to look back early and find the ball.

I'm not saying I'm right. I don't know. But I also think you don't know. Have you bugged the wide receiver room at the Bills facility? Is Brady your brother-in-law? How do you know? As I've said before, what Romo (who actually played pro football and has been in hundreds of meetings about how the QB and receiver play the game) said was that in that situation it's the receiver's responsibility to find the ball before he makes the cut. Now, what I assume he meant is that that's the way the Cowboys trained their receivers. Whether the Bills do the same thing, I don't know. But I don't know how you would know, either. As has been said, over and over by me and others, is that one thing is certain: It was failure of training. Either Davis failed to do what was expected, or Allen failed to do what was expected, but in either case, it's the coaches' responsibility to train the players so that they WILL do what is expected. It's different from failure of execution, like Davis dropping the ball or Allen overthrowing him. That's on the players. But when Davis cuts the wrong way or Allen throws to the wrong spot, that's because they may have been taught something, but they didn't learn it. It's the coaches' job to see that they learn it.

Actually they aren't ridiculous. People are just in different stages of their life and their feelings about many things that go by, including the Buffalo Bills, change from time to time. I'm feeling somewhat the same as the OP. It just happens. And when the Bills are playing good, you ignore your children!

I hear you, and there's some truth to it. But losing Milano and Jones for the season hurt, and the D has nevertheless held up pretty well. Yes, struggled late in games, but overall the defense has always had the Bills in the game. It was the offense that really underperformed. I'm just hoping Brady will be the savior of this team, this season and next.

Great admission! But it's a good theory. I mean, an OC taking over in the middle season isn't throwing out whole schemes and installing new ones, but he may very well be tweaking things in just the way you described.

This is correct. No defender came close to making a play where the ball landed. Davis was open whichever way he broke.

I hadn't considered that Brady might have changed the technique on some plays, in which case he would really mean that the problem was on him. I understood his answer to be a the-buck-stops-here answer. That is, regardless of whoever installed the protocol for a play like that, as the OC he is ultimately responsible whenever a player misses an assignment. And I agree with you - the inside read is a better. At a purely amateur, touch football level, as a receiver I would find that both finding the ball and catching the ball would be easier with the throw down the middle. As I mentioned earlier, I think throwing the ball into the corner immediately causes the receiver to begin worrying about the sideline - I'm much more comfortable if I know I can just roam into the center of the end zone and concentrate on the catch. And lest we forget as we slice and dice this play is the bigger problem, which is at the end of close games, the Bills always seem to find a mistake to make that costs them the game. So, as plenty of people have said, there is a level - an important level - where this is a McDermott problem, not a Brady problem.

Bottom line, I would like to have Brady or someone explain what happened and what should have happened, but we aren't going to get that. I agree that going to the corner makes the catch tougher for the receiver, because he's looking over his shoulder and running away from the QB. I think it's tougher also because either the backline or the sideline may come into play, so the receiver has to worry about his feet, too. On the other hand, as someone said, going to the corner pretty much eliminates any possible safety help. What Romo said still makes the most sense to me, but who knows how the Bills operate in this situation. Romo said that in this situation (at least when he was playing), it's the receiver's job to know he's going to be open and to look back to find the ball before he makes his cut. It's cover zero, everyone knows the QB may have pressure and may have to let the ball go early, and the QB is going to have to make a choice. The receiver is supposed to find the ball first and just track it. I agree that where Josh threw it, it was the easiest pitch and catch. What we don't know is whether in the Bills' system, Josh had the option to pick that throw, or whether he had no reason to believe that Davis ever would expect to find the ball in the middle of the field. When Davis made his cut and looked for the ball, he seemed surprised to see where Josh had thrown it. I'd really like to know, but as is pretty much always the case, no one is talking.

You're response is completely driven by your distrust of Gabe Davis. If Davis were as bad as you seem to think he is, he wouldn't be on the field. Dorsey or Brady or McDermott would have insisted he be on the bunch or off the team entirely. The Davis criticism on this board is like the Bernard criticism here this summer. This board was almost unanimously of the view that Bernard was incapable of being the middle linebacker, because of his size, inexperience, and what people saw when he was on the field last year. Finally, late this summer, I asked why it was that McDermott didn't seem worried about the position and Beane had done absolutely nothing to bring in anyone to get a real middle linebacker on the field. I suggested that the reason McBeane had done nothing was because they decided they already had someone on the roster who could do the job. That turned out to be completely correct. The same is true for Davis. There simply is no way that Davis would still be on the field if McBeane thought Davis is as bad as people think here say he is. If he were really that bad, then Daboll should have been fired for playing him, and Dorsey should have been fired for playing him, and Brady would have been instructed when he was hired that he must insert someone else in the starting lineup. None of that happened for a reason, and the reason is that the Bills organization does not agree with your assessment of Davis's ability. As for "an important clutch play going to Davis," you seem to misunderstand how football, and all games, are played at the professional level. At this level, everyone is expected to do his job, and play calling is not done by excluding a player because he isn't trusted. If a player isn't trusted, he isn't on the field. That's why, for example, Cook got benched after fumbling on the first play of the game. He wasn't trusted, so he was given a rest. Gabriel Davis obviously IS trusted - that's why he's on the field so much. If he's on the field, then the offense will be executed without regard to the fact that he may have dropped a pass or anything else. On the play in overtime against the Eagles, Davis wasn't necessarily the primary receiver on the play as called. He became the primary receiver when he and Allen recognized that the Eagles were in cover zero and Davis had the deep route that would be open. As I've said before, the problem with that play was that someone made a mistake and didn't execute properly. It was either Davis or Allen (I think it was Davis), but the real problem was that Allen and Davis hadn't prepared themselves well enough to execute the way they should have.

Cook was drafted BECAUSE of his receiving skills. That's what made him attractive to the Bills. And he catches the ball pretty well. And no one's talking about the rain. That was tough weather to play football in.

I don't know that we know for a fact that this is why Dorsey was gone, but it certainly makes sense. And, really, that play represents what looks like a problem, but it was only one problem. The thing that was troubling everyone, starting at game 5, was the disappearance of any offensive flow or effectiveness. The Bills are 6-6 because the offense substantially underperformed its potential. With decent offensive performance, like we've seen in the last two games, the Bills would be 9-3 or even 10-2. It's really frustrating to have blown (absent a miracle) another opportunity.

Interesting, as well. The real point, of course, is not who did it right or wrong, but why they weren't on the same page. It doesn't make a lot of sense to run a play where there's a 50-50 chance it will fail because two players are both guessing at what to do.