Shaw66

I don't know what he did or said last night. All I knew was that at that moment when it became clear that something bad and potentially horrible was happening, I was glad that McDermott was the man. I knew he would lead with wisdom, kindness, and inclusiveness. And I knew that his men would follow him. Bills fans everywhere can be proud of the quality of the men and the woman at the top of the organization. First rate.

eball - I couldn't agree more. Moreover, I'm exhausted. Am I prepared for the continuing emotional drain of a game against the Patriots, and then the playoffs. I want to stand with my team, but to be honest, the way I feel right now, I'd welcome the Bills shutting down the season and regrouping for 2023.

I've stopped thinking about the game this way. It's obvious to me that there are a lot of teams capable of playing well enough to beat any other team. The playoffs will be full of tough outs. The fact is, no one can afford to lose any more. Every game is incredibly important. Bills at least have the advantage of not being out of the playoffs altogether, even if they drop two. There still are plenty of teams that don't even have that luxury. How far the Bills get is going to be about the Bills, not the opponents.

Seeing this sent me to Bonvoy to look for rooms. I booked three nights in Tucson for a total of around $1000, total. Then I looked at their options in Phoenix. They have more than 20 hotels listed, and all but four are sold out. Town Suites and SpringHill Suites for $900 a night, Fairfield Inn for $1000, and Tempe Westin for $1300 a night. Still don't know if I'll go, but at least I'll have a room to stay in. I love telling this story. I scalped tickets for XXV. Turned out we were in the section allotted to the Giants. I started talking to the guy behind me. His family had had seasons to the Giants for decades. In the early 80s his job was transferred from NYC to Buffalo. He bought Bills seasons and kept his Giants tix. Later in the 80s he got transferred back to NYC. He kept his Bills tix. That season he went to every Giants home game and to every Bills home game if the Giants were away. He went to every playoff game for both teams, except the NFC championship game, which was in SF and he couldn't get from Buffalo in time for the game on the coast the next day. Then he went to the Super Bowl. He was a winner either way the kick went.

I hear you. And not to argue, at all, but just to say that I've been fortunate enough to have done some of both, and the memories are different. Those memories each are simply an isolated memory of a particular point in time. You can compare your trip to Africa to your trip to Europe, but the two trips aren't also part of a continuous narrative that runs through your life. The Bills are a continuous narrative, which is something that is part of my current life. So, those fan experiences, simple points in time, remain with me, are current with me. I can't say that about our other trips.

I've only read the first page of posts. I've always assumed I would go. I actually planned a different vacation around it. But when I stop and think about it coldly, it's really hard to justify. For me, I think, the determining factor will be what I can get tickets for. I don't know how the priority list works with the tickets the team will get to season ticket holders. If I'm high enough on the list, I could get tickets at face value. Even that, whatever it is, would be a big-ticket item, but at least that would be a lot better than having to pay three or five times that much to buy them in the after market. My wife and I went to XXV. We were in different financial circumstances then, and my wife sort of didn't ask and I sort of didn't tell her how much I spent to get tickets. And yes, the game ended badly, but I have never for a moment regretted spending the money to experience that game. It's an iconic Bills game, and to have been there, regardless of the outcome, was worth it. The money, we earned back. The memories of that experience connect me to the Bills for all time. Just like having been at the 64 AFL championship. My dad paid for tickets, and they were a pittance, not like today. It's not about the money. It's about a lifetime of memories.

Great article. Thanks. And thanks to whoever posted it originally. You know what I find interesting about this? It's the name not mentioned, but the name that deserves some of the credit: Sean McDermott. Is it a surprise to anyone that this is the QB room on the team that's led by a guy who says it's ALL about teamwork, about doing this together, about doing this for your teammates? Is it a surprise that it's a McDermott team where the practice squad QB says he feels like he's important, like his opinion matters? It's quite cool that one of the reasons the QB room is so good is that the two backups have absolutely no thought whatsoever that they might be as good as the starter. To have discord in a Josh Allen QB room, Justin Herbert would have to be one of the backups. Or Mahomes.

That's a great look at it. From a team building philosophy, you're approach is exactly correct. However, if the discussion is evaluating return on draft picks (a discussion I don't often get into because I think the only way to evaluate a GM's draft record is from a global perspective), a part-time player who gets you 900 yards a year would be something of a disappointment as a second-round pick. I mean, in terms of value to the team, it would make more sense to have taken Singletary in the second round and a 900-yard guy in the third round. Motor is clearly the more important contributor to the team. That, of course, points out the silliness of spending too much time evaluating the draft: If you have Singletary and Cook as your running backs and part of your success is the running game, then it's irrelevant which guy was taken in which round - it's the results you get from the cumulative drafts that matters. But if you're playing the evaluate-each-pick game, a part-time running back is less value than you'd like to get in the second round, just like I'd say a part-time receiver is less value than you'd like to get in the second round. For example, if five years ago the Bills had drafted McKenzie in the second round, we'd all be looking back saying that that pick was something of a disappointment - Davis in the third was better. I was really disappointed in him. And I didn't expect him to improve, because it's often the case that what you see from running backs as rookies is what you get. Moss, for example, was more or less as valuable as a rookie as he is now. Singletary, too - he's certainly improved, but in his rookie year we saw that he could be productive. I think Motor could do it as a rookie because he had to do it that way in college, too. He learned to get the hard yards, because there weren't easy yards to be had in college. This is pure speculation on my part, but I wonder whether Cook's ever really been challenged to learn how to be a running back. He obviously has a lot of talent, and I can imagine that in high school, they just gave him the ball, told him to run, and good things happened. Even at Georgia, I remember looking at his highlights and thinking that what I was seeing was a guy with speed who was presented with these big holes to run through, so he ran through them. He wasn't a power back, for sure, and he didn't show much that suggested he was an ankle-breaker, either. He just took off and celebrated in the end zone. He didn't need to get the tough yards. That's not to say that he didn't have some shiftiness or some ability to break tackles, just that he didn't show a whole lot of either because he didn't need to. Earlier in the season, someone asked McDermott about Cook's lack of production, and he dismissed it, saying something like "he's making good progress." When I heard that, I thought, as I often do, "what do I know? Maybe there's more to this than meets the eye." And, indeed, Cook seems to be developing. My big complaint about him, as I said earlier, was that he was trying to run away from tacklers, like beyond the edge, instead of cutting it up into whatever crease was presented to him. I think, as I said, he never was challenged to do that in college. If there wasn't a whole, he'd break it outside and often as not, he'd outrun someone to the edge. He's had to learn that in the NFL, the defenders are just too quick to beat them to the edge - you just have take best opportunity in front of you and if you're good, like Singletary or Fred Jackson, you learn how make something of that opportunity. That's what we've begun to see from Cook. In a sense, he's learned not to run away from the challenge of running into the hole and instead to try to make something of what he finds there. What he's finding is that he CAN make something of it, and that's what makes him dangerous. And, I suspect, that also explains why he hasn't been the threat in the passing game that we had hoped. I think he has to be able to keep defenses honest first, to force them to respect his running between the tackles. Once they respect that he will have an advantage on throws to the flat and on wheel routes.

He has improved a lot, and I think he has more to go. One thing I like is that he seems to have gotten the message about ball security. He's been at least a few times in the last few weeks where I worried that the ball would come out, but he's been rock solid. One thing that I think has changed is that he's gotten comfortable with running north-south and then creating yardage as tacklers approach. Earlier in the season he kept pressing to the outside because he didn't see a hole or seam he liked. He now seems to be hitting it upfield on the first opportunity. I don't think the Bills want him just as a change of pace back. I think it's more likely that they'd like him to share the load with Singletary. That's what they tried to do with Moss, but Moss never got very consistent production. They're not Zeke and Pollard, but they could be a very nice pair to throw at teams. I still think it's early to anoint him as a starter level guy, but I no longer shudder when I see him come in. And the Bills don't, either. When the Bills put him in, they put him in expecting him to stay in the huddle for the whole drive. Actually, I think 1500 total yards is a pretty good measure. I mean, if he doesn't get there, it doesn't mean it's a bad pick. It's all a crapshoot, and lately he's been showing the skills that made him at least a decent bet in the second round. So, the pick still doesn't bother. But at the end of the day, when we're keeping score, if he isn't up over 1000 total yards consistently, he won't be a second-round pick who produced the hoped-for value.

They won't care. If it's the best choice to optimize profits, they'll have a 33-team league. 34. Whatever it takes, they'll schedule around the problem. It's been done before.

Unreal.

The schedule is irrelevant to the league. They will create a schedule with 33 teams, 34, teams, however many teams they want. MLB and NBA have always made do, regardless of the number of teams, and the NFL did, too, every time it expanded. 32 is perfect, of course, because everything is nicely balanced, but the NFL won't care about that. If they can make money with 33, they'll make up a schedule.

If the NFL can make more money expanding, they will expand. It's all about the benjamins, as they say. There aren't enough franchise QBs now, and the league is fine. Having a few more teams without franchise QBs won't matter.

First, let me say that I agree with you. During the game, I wanted them to run it, but I now think that's the wrong move. However, you're analysis is faulty, because doesn't look at the probabilities of the Jets winning under the two scenarios. It's why game strategies have changed so much. Run two plays and let the clock run, and Jets are left with five and a half minutes, all their timeouts and down two scores. Throw incomplete twice and the Jets have seven minutes and all their time outs. That may look like it doesn't matter much, because we've seen teams get two scores in five minutes lots of time. But in fact, the probability of winning having run the clock is much better - that minute and a half is important. And you also have to calculate the probability of getting the first down by running versus passing. That's what analytics is about. They have the data, they know the answers to all that math, and they know the answers when they adjust for how good both teams offenses and defenses are.

And we have a (prospective) winner!!!!

I've already forgotten - did the Bills actually kill the clock at 1:12?!?? I'm sure I was screaming at the TV if they did. I agree with you on that. I think the thing about Knox and the call, the important thing, is that good teams actually execute that play, make the throw, make the catch, and also stay in bounds. Or, at least that's what we like to think good teams do. The reality is that the good teams, the iconic teams, even, fail to execute some of the time. The problem is that as a fan, I think we tend to remember the positive execution by the Chiefs or the former Pats and we tend to remember the failed executions by the Bills, the Stevie drops in the end zone in overtime. If you think about how you remember the Patriots from all those years, I think about how they made plays down the stretch. But the truth is, every year the Pats lost some games, in upsets, and the defense failed to make stops, or Brady failed on fourth and 14 or something. We just don't remember those failures. I don't know what the Bills overall stats are on late-in-the-game-must-have third down plays, but to be a really good team, your success ratio needs to be going up as you go into the playoffs. That's what wins games - not killing the clock against the Jets in December, but killing the clock against the Chiefs in January, or making the stop. The next few weeks will show how tough the Bills really are.

This is the point that I keep reminding myself about, a point that I think that many fans miss. The simple fact is that the things we learned about how the game worked even ten years ago, let alone 20 or 30 years ago, have changed. The strategies and tactics are so sophisticated and evolving so fast that there are very few hard and fast rules about what works and what doesn't work. The Bills are fourth in the league in yards per attempt rushing, and yet we tend to think their rushing attack is anemic. Well, sure, the numbers are inflated because of Allen, but guess what? Most of the teams with good yards per attempt have rushing QBs. It's just in the nature of the game. Devin Singletary has 4.4 yards per attempt, which is fine. We tend to think that the Bills aren't a good run stuffing defense, but the Bills are fourth in the league in yards allowed rushing. The point is, the old-fashioned pound the ball rushing offenses don't exist any more, and the old-fashioned run-out-the-clock-strictly-running-the-ball drives don't happen any more. We like to think that that's what good teams do, but the fact is that in the modern NFL, if the defense knows you're running, you aren't getting ten yards on three plays. Sure, it happens once in a while, but not often enough to make it the right approach to killing the clock. This season, a lot of teams are playing really good defense. It's hard to move the ball, and it's hard to score. Offenses need excellent execution, play after play, using the full playbook, to put together 50-yard drives. And/or they need to be able recognize mistakes by the defense and take advantage of them, but defenses are making fewer and fewer mistakes. It's about play design, play calling, and execution. I keep reminding myself that it may seem simple, but it isn't.

I've travelled a lot for Bills games (I live in New England), but I've never gone too far west. KC, Green Bay, Houston are the farthest I've gone. Never LA, SF, Oakland, Seattle, or Denver. Never Dallas. Never New Orleans. So, the farthest is something under 2000 miles. Still hoping for Arizona in February.

I read some of this thread yesterday and wanted to post. Personally, I'm pretty conservative, and at the time I wanted the Bills to run the ball three times. I think driving that minute or more off the clock is valuable at that point in the game. Plus, good teams are supposed to be able to run the ball and at least in the old days, that time of the game is when good teams won just by running it. However, reading the thread, I see the wisdom of throwing - particularly because that's your strength. One completed pass in that situation gets a first down AND keeps the clock running, and that's really valuable. In any case, I would guess that the focus on Dorsey is misplaced. I seriously doubt that whether to go into play calling based on clock management is his call. It's McDermott's. In fact, I think the decision is driven by their analytics. With an 11 point lead, do you try to kill the clock with 10 minutes left? Six minutes? Four minutes? Trailing by 11, do you use your timeouts at 10 minutes, six minutes, four minutes? Those are classic analytics questions. So, I'm sure someone tells Dorsey whether he's running his whole playbook at that point in the game or running his clock-management-protecting-a-lead playbook. And I'm sure McDermott, not Dorsey, gets to override the analytics advice. Which is not to say that Dorsey isn't a problem. His offense isn't producing, and that was a key point in the game. If the Bills have a good offense, he's supposed to have plays that will succeed. Too often, he doesn't.

Right. Can't do that every play, but good teams make it easy for themselves sometimes.

I'm not a Daboll booster. You may or may not be right about the swing pass and screen pass. All I know is there are some ways to attack defenses the Bills see that are better than the things they've been doing. Maybe the defenses they face are good at moving away from their tendencies, or maybe Dorsey isn't very good at getting away from his tendencies. I don't know what needs to be done, but the offense should be more effective with the talent they have.

Whenever I think about this topic, I always come back to Dorsey. A good passing game is measured most easily by how many high quality, easy completions you get. Yes, you gotta make the tough throws and catches, but it's the easy ones that you get over 250-300 yards a game. Easy completions come from route design, play calling, and execution. A properly designed play called at the right time executed properly gets SOMEONE open for an easy toss and catch. That's what seems to be missing in the Bills' passing game. Dorsey has the wrong play designs for the opponent, or he doesn't call them at the right time. And if he has the right play at the right time, then he hasn't trained his quarterback and receivers to execute them. It's not about talent. Davis is more than talented enough to be a competent #2, and McKenzie is talented enough to run routes like Beasley. If they're running the routes wrong, well, what are coaches for? There are a few teams who have two true stud receivers, but not that many. Smith-Schuster and Valdez-Scantling are ordinary NFL receivers - no one's idea of a good #1, but the Chiefs do a lot of damage in the air with a great QB and a great tight end and - play design and play calling. I think it's Dorsey.

It's a given that pressuring and hitting the quarterback is the best way to reduce the effectiveness of pretty much any passing attack. It always was the way to stop Brady. Belichick knew that, and his priority always was protecting Brady. Only the very best QBs manage to beat you when you're harassing them consistently. But even the best are affected. I was thrilled when Miller signed with Buffalo, for a lot of reasons, but mostly for the mental image of Miller chasing Mahomes off his spot and then pursuing him.

Bills won't rush three. More of less never do. And Tua kills you if you let him stand back there. He needs to be disrupted. What you describe is an offense that is incomplete and isn't balanced. Last night, with Hill hobbled, Waddle wasn't all-world, not by any means. The objective will be to have Tua wondering, on every play, were the rush is coming from and what the back seven are doing. The defense will be adjusted, as always, to throw wrinkles that upset the Dolphins' tendencies. Tua's a game manager and good short- and mid-range passer. I think the Bills will expose him as nothing more.

Yeah. Yesterday, the Bills' front six played like they could smell fresh meat. They got a good taste of it, and I'm guessing that it will continue. I wouldn't be surprised if those guys feel a responsibility to Von to do what he was going to do for the Bills this year. I was surprised how much the Bills blitzed yesterday. They will come Saturday night with blitz packages for Tua, and other tactics, and I expect they're going to make his life miserable. Still, it isn't going to be easy.