Shaw66

I think a lot of folks are looking at this in a vacuum. The Bills play in the National Football League where, by design, the talent is spread around pretty equally. Most of the games are pretty close. No one, except maybe the Eagles, run away and hide from the rest of the league. The Rams kind of did it last season, and look where they are now. Having a truly dominant team in the NFL is a pipe dream; it happens, but it's the exception, not the rule. The Chiefs almost lost to Denver yesterday, for Pete's sake. I agree that the Bills don't have great talent on offense, other than Allen and Diggs. The Bills haven't gone after high-end offensive line talent, people who thought Knox and Davis were on the brink of being all-world weren't thinking clearly. But this team is built to be an all-purpose team, a team that can play a lot of different styles. It's also built to emerge as good all-purpose team in December, and that's what I think we're seeing. What happened after the bye was just what was happening around the league. They always say it's a copy-cat league, and what defenses around the league was copy what McDermott and Frazier are doing - stop the deep ball and explosive plays. Get pressure with four rushers. A lot of teams started having trouble throwing the ball, not just the Bills, and teams with quality running games started winning games. The Bills don't have the running game to take over games, so that defensive posture has worked to slow down the Bills. Plus, there are a lot of really good defenses now. The Jets and the Dolphins to begin with, and the Pats. Yes, but look at the Cowboys, or the Eagles. Yup, there always is a team or two that in recent weeks has really been lighting it up. But except for maybe the Greatest Show on Turf, you don't win Super Bowls in this era with explosive offenses. The Patriots proved that by beating the Greatest Show and then playing great defense for 15 years, with efficient offense. Through 12 weeks, Football Outsiders had the Bills having played the 7th toughest schedule in the league, with the 8th toughest schedule remaining. They also had the Bills with the number 1 DVOA. So, if the Bills are playing a tough schedule, have the second best record in the league, and are the #1 ranked team, are we really going to moan that the offense doesn't look like something that is seen only in comic books?

Good stuff. I share your pain. I think fans have unrealistic expectations. We imagine somehow running away from the field and sitting out there alone. Well, the Eagles have done that, sort of, and I doubt Eagles fans feel secure. I mean, they may feel good about home field and the bye, but if they're thinking clearly, they're worried about every opponent and they're worried about the continued performance of plenty of players. The league is just so competitive, if a fan is comfortable, he probably isn't thinking clearly.

The Bills beat the Jets on Sunday afternoon at Highmark Stadium, 20-12. The game was played in a classic wind-blown wintry mix. It was cold – mid-30s. The game had plenty of playoff implications: the Bills need to win, week in and week out, to get homefield in the playoffs, ideally all the way through the AFC championship. The Jets are battling for a playoff spot, and a win over the Bills could even have kept them within range of actually winning the division. The game was a textbook example of how the NFL is about winning the game, not winning the stats. At this point in the season, the Bills want to be a team that wins games. This team is built to win. They believe it doesn’t matter how they look doing it. In the CBS post-game show, someone started talking about Allen’s poor passing stats, and about how the Bills didn’t do so well in another way. Bill Cowher disagreed. He said the Bills are a good, tough football team. The admiration in his voice was clear. The win over the Jets had the same tough, workmanlike feel to it as the Patriots game ten games ago. This win was closer, because the Jets are better than the Patriots. But the Bills won, because that’s what they’re built to do. It wasn’t pretty, certainly not a blowout, and the Bills made mistakes. But at the end of the game, when you add up plays made and mistakes made, the Bills did what they needed to do. They made stops, they got takeaways, scored opportunistically. The Bills defense clearly led the way. The pursuit was smothering the hitting was turned up several notches. The hits that out took Mike White out of the game, twice, were fierce. The defense attacked with a purpose. Every defensive lineman showed up, creating regular pressure and disruption. Edmunds or Milano or both seemed to close on every play. Remember all the angst over the Bills’ horrible record in one-score games? Once again, the Bills backed into a close win, giving up a larger lead to make it one-score. Well, the point is, however they got there, the Bills are now winning close games. Kansas City almost lost to the Broncos on Sunday. A lot happened in that game that may trouble, even worry, Chiefs fans, but the Chiefs won that game. It is that ability, the ability to do whatever is needed to close out games, that has the Bills and the Chiefs on the top of the standings. The Bills have lost three games this season to, it turns out, three of the toughest teams in the league. Close, hard-fought games. If you want to play what ifs, what if the Bills’ bench was in the shade in Miami, what if Allen to Diggs late in the Jets game wasn’t called back on a bogus holding call or what if Davis held on, and what if Allen doesn’t fumble on the goal line? What if the Bills were 13-0? They’d feel more secure about home field but really, if they’d won those games they wouldn’t be a better team. They’d just have a better record. Could the team be better? Sure. Give me someone more reliable in the slot than McKenzie. Give me the best of Dion Dawkins, instead what he’s been serving up. Give me John Brown in his prime. Yes, the team could be better, but it almost doesn’t matter. All we can expect, all anyone can expect of any team, the Chiefs, the Eagles, the 49ers, is that your team is tough to beat at this time of year. The Bills are tough to beat. GO BILLS!!! The Rockpile Review is written to share the passion we have for the Buffalo Bills. That passion was born in the Rockpile; its parents were everyday people of western New York who translated their dedication to a full day’s hard work and simple pleasures into love for a pro football team.

I agree, but it is greedy. Or spoiled. Nothing wrong with the dime he dropped on Diggs that was called back. It's easier to remember the misses because they stand out.

Oh, I agree, by NFL tough guy standards, he should have gotten to the stick, injured or not. All I'm really saying is that by ordinary human being standards, I wasn't surprised that he lost his concentration. Dalton wasn't great - and taking the sack was inexcusable, but he didn't lose it. I don't complain a lot about clock management, but the clock management unquestionably cost them the game. It was downright amateurish.

I agree until you get to underthrown or overthrown, or at least the implications of that. I've come to believe, actually, I think, understand, that NO ONE throws the ball in one-square-yard window consistently. Accuracy at that distance is a relative thing, and the ball only LOOKS mover or under or perfect. Great accuracy at that distance is getting it within a somewhat bigger window than that. It just looks accurate, depending on how the receiver adjusts to the ball and other factors, including where the defenders are and what they do. Perfect at that distance, or even close to perfect, is impossible. Mahomes is accurate, and he appears to "miss" on his share. Rodgers does, Brady does. The difference between the best QBs and all the others is how often they get it within that window.

In the Saints game, the guy ran out of bounds because he was injured. He immediately went to the ground. Still, a tough guy would have held it together to get that yard, but I give him a pass on that. But then, on third and one, they passed! Run the ball, get the first down or not, but force the Bucs to take a timeout. Then, on the next possession, second and seven, Dalton goes back to pass and gets sacked! So, now they're third and 17 and they pass incomplete. Run on second down, force a timeout. Run on third and seven or less, force another timeout and maybe get the first down. It was just so obvious in both situations, and yet the Saints were fiddling around trying to throw the ball. They gave up two chances to get a first down AND they saved two timeouts for the Bucs. Really, really dumb.

Just watched it the other night. Love it.

Well, then you're just stuck watching a team that won't play defense the way you want. I suppose they might go against tendency and blitz a lot because it's such a good way to pressure if the guy your playing doesn't have much experience. But the Bills won't do it out of the 4-, 3. If everyone is healthy (except Miller), it'll be 4-2, as we've seen. I don't see the Bills sacrificing the pass coverage scheme just to get another linebacker on the field. If they blitz, they'll send Johnson, Elam, Poyer, maybe even a corner in the right formation. And sprinkle in Milano and Edmunds. I was looking at Football Outsiders today. Their system shows that the Bills have a very successful run defense playing the way they've played for several years now. Where the Bills have struggled is in the passing game, which isn't surprising given that they played more or less the whole season with Dane Jackson, Kair Elam, Damar Hamlin, and Christian Benford. Get Poyer and White back out there full time, with Milano and Edmunds back, I expect the pass defense now will tighten up. The big beneficiary of the Bills getting healthy will be Hamlin. With the veterans around him, Hamlin's responsibilities should narrow, and I expect that will help. I hope they get Elam back, too.

I think he just got a big head. The media always love it when they find someone who can talk and who is funny, because he tells them stuff about how the game works, and he's always good for a quote. So, after only a few years in the league, he thought he was special because he was a media star while still playing. He was too full of himself, and I don't like that in ballplayers. As an announcer, however, he can get away with the same act that always bothered me when he was a player.

I think you're correct and I was wrong. I was under the impression that both Chase and Jefferson had 3-4 inches and also arm length on Diggs, and that made them better on jump balls. Actually, all the differences are negligible. 40 times were close, too, He's only an inch or an inch and half taller, and I have longer arms than he has. Jefferson and Chase. It sure looks like Jefferson plays bigger, but the numbers don't suggest a major difference. I wouldn't trade Diggs's tenacity or leadership.

And there's another thing about packaging picks. Beane and McDermott told their own that they were going to blow up the roster, and in four or five years the team was going to be good. Then they traded Cordy and all kinds of picks and unloaded a lot of people and ate dead cap space. If Belichick told Kraft that he thought the way to rebuild was to do a true rebuild, Kraft might agree, Kraft would recognize that Belichick is too old to be the leader of the rebuild. Declaring a rebuild is the end of Bill's reign in New England.

I agree about both points. I thought it was really interesting, however, that Beane essentially admitted that even with all his maneuvering, he wasn't in a position to outbid the Jets to get to the third pick overall. Belichick hasn't had as much trade ammunition as even Beane had, because he hasn't had a good first round pick in about ten years. It's just tough to maintain quality personnel without picks in the top third of the first and second rounds.

Yeah, he's big into trading down, and that's a good strategy when you have your studs, because the object then is to surround the studs with as many quality football players you can, so those second-and third-round guys are really valuable. But as we've seen with the Bills, it's really hard to have enough ammunition to trade up into the top 10, unless you're willing to give up future #1 picks. Beane isn't trading up into the top 10 from #28, and Belichick didn't, either. And Belichick hasn't been willing to go into total rebuild mode by trading his best talent for future picks that he then could package. We can say whatever we want, and there's plenty of what-ifs, but I think at the end of the day the draft and the salary cap will not let you keep your team on top forever. Sooner or later, you're trying to make Cam Newton work at quarterback.

Yeah, he'd look less helpless. They'd clearly be better if they'd had better success late in the first round and in the second round. But so would every team, because it's very unusual to have big success with those picks all the time. Look at Elam and Cook, and Boogie, and etc., etc. It's just very hard to find the true leaders of you franchise at that point in the draft. Maybe Mac Jones will grow into a big success in the NFL and just needs time. But assuming he doesn't, then the question is whether Belichick screwed up the search for a QB post-Brady. I don't know what opportunities he's missed, but it isn't immediately obvious that he blew it. Did he have a shot at Jalen Hurts? That would be on Belichick.

I wasn't thinking about the trade deadline. Obviously, there are rules about this stuff, but if I'm Mayfield I'm letting the teams who might claim me off waivers that I'm really not interested in going there. I'd do everything I can to clear waivers or to make the 49ers with a waiver claim. Heck, not only is SF thinking he's best hope out there, he's thinking, "the future doesn't even matter, I could go start for a playoff team with McCaffrey (who I know) and Samuel and a superb defense. " Of course, McCaffrey may be telling Shanahan, "you don't want this guy."

But I think the problem is that you need some true stud players, and those guys you've named aren't those guys. They aren't Wilfork or Brady or Jefferson or that 88 guy for the Cowboys or a top three running back or a shut-down corner. Yes, people can argue all day about the guys he missed, but those guys he missed (that everyone misses) are nice guys to have but not cornerstones for your franchise. The cornerstones are in the top 10, along with guys who come later who turn out to be more than anyone thought, like Cooper Kupp. So, yeah, he could have better guys than he has in the just-below-stud category, but he wouldn't be winning a lot more games if he had them. He needs a QB, he needs a stud receiver or corner or both, and it's hard to find those guys where he's drafted year after year.

Wow. He was pretty much everyone's #1 QB coming out, although there certainly was a lot of room to argue. My sense of the guy is that he isn't great in the locker room. I think he's too much of a me-first guy. And although he's shown that he can be a pretty good playmaker, he's not a big-time thrower. Obviously, he can't throw like Allen, but he can't throw like Mahomes, either, or like Burrows or Herbert. If you don't make any eye-popping throws, it's pretty hard to be big success at QB in the NFL. My take is that no one who's looking an answer at QB is likely to be interested. Can't see why Houston would bet on Baker instead of someone in the draft, and why would you want in camp as your rookie is working his way in. Colts shouldn't want to take a run an another retread. Rivers then Ryan then Baker? No. Not the Ravens. They have their #1, and Huntley fits better as a backup in their offense. The 49ers are a different situation. They've been looking seriously at a Super Bowl run this season, and now they need someone who can run their offense. They may or may not like Baker for the long run, but if they may very well want him for the short run. Look at it this way: If someone told you at the start of the season that after week thirteen, you'd be 8-4, leading your division and in excellent position to make the playoffs (93%), and they asked you what you'd like to do from a personnel point of view, you'd say, "whatever I possibly can do to make myself better, this year." That's why they went out and got McCaffrey. So, here they are, staring at the playoffs, and needing a QB. I think in that situation, you go get the very best QB you can find. Colts might let you trade for Matt Ryan, but, no thank you. Jets might give you Flacco or Zach Wilson. Broncos might give you Russell Wilson. Ryan Fitzpatrick might hang up his mike and come off the sideline. The choices just aren't very good. Baker, you actually could plug and play and have a shot at winning ball games down the stretch. By the time the playoffs start, he'd be integrated into the system. He has the mobility Garropolo lacked, he's got an arm for at least the intermediate passing game. He's a gamer.

I'm a big Belichick fan, but I don't enough to even try to defend how player personnel has worked within the organization. I do think, however, that drafting at the bottom of the first round for so long is likely to leave a team in the situation the Pats are in now. It's pretty clear that to be a really good team, you need some superior talent leading your lineup. As many as a half dozen guys, and it's . almost a given that one of them has to be a QB. With the Bills, you have Allen, Diggs, White, Miller, and then a collection of guys who I'd put just below stud level - Poyer, Hyde, Edmunds, Oliver, Dawkins. (Looking at it, it's obvious how the offense has been neglected.) Getting a stud-level occasionally happens by accident (like Brady), but most of the time it happens by having a draft pick in the top ten. At the bottom of the first round, if you draft well, you will miss sometimes, and sometimes you'll get an Edmunds, an Oliver, or a Dawkins. You can't count on getting a White - from today's perspective, he's a guy who should have gone much earlier than he did. When you draft at the bottom of the first round for as long as the Patriots did, you simply are going to have great difficulty coming up with the true stud players you need to threaten opponents. You have trouble getting a Diggs or a Justin Jefferson, you certainly have trouble getting a QB, you have trouble getting a top offensive lineman or a stud edge guy. They always go before you draft. Belichick won by having a team full of really well-coached role players, guys really committed to excellence and hard-nosed football. But a team full of guys like that can't go very far in the modern NFL without some real studs leading the team, particularly a QB. Belichick hasn't had many opportunities to get those studs - he's had to count on some guys developing (like White developed for the Bills), and that hasn't happened. He certainly hasn't helped himself by surrounding himself with "his" people, but in some ways, he's a victim of his own success. He got lucky with Brady, and he's had his collection of studs, like Wilfork and one or another stud shut-down corner. Working in his organization has not been a stepping stone to success. (Actually, Daboll is looking like the most successful guy in his coaching tree, and it's interesting to consider whether Belichick or McDermott gets that credit.) Hard to imagine any up and coming GM candidate wanting to work in that organization - subject to both Belichick's quirks and Kraft's. End of the day, Belichick was exactly the right coach with exactly the right quarterback, and he had an unbelievably long run. His creativity resulted in sustaining his offense for a long time with a truly odd couple - Gronk and Edelman. Still, the leveling effect of the draft caught up with him, like it catches up with everyone. He needs to get himself back into the top 10 in the draft for a few years to reload, but he's too good a coach for things to come undone to that extent, and anyway, when he gets down to that level, Kraft will move on. As much as the Patriots are always a threat when you play them, I think we've seen the end of Belichick's glory days.

I always thought Sherman was a jerk when he was playing, but he sure is entertaining. He enjoys himself. "You see those blinks ..." Great stuff. I read an article in SI once about linebackers. One guy said he loved how when you really hit someone, everything goes white for a second.

The announcers pointed it out early in the game about White, and it was accurate. When White isn't hurried in the pocket, he's deadly. When he begins to feel the pressure, he really struggles. If your pass rush is anemic, the Jets can throw the ball. As for the Vikings (and the same for the Jets), no team is complete. The Vikings' offense has big-time potential, even though it may struggle occasionally. (The Jets' defense is really impressive.) It's a team game, and the Vikings team is in the game every week. Plus, their defense was really stout in the red zone yesterday. If NFL insiders made a list of teams you don't want to play, the Vikings and Jets are both on it. The Bills, the Chiefs, the Bengals, the Ravens with Jackson, the Niners with Garoppolo, the Cowboys, the Eagles. Maybe the, Dolphins, but I still have my doubts. The Titans. And I'll always put the Belichick Pats on the list. Looking at that list gives me a better sense of just how tough the Bills' schedule really was this season. Pats twice, Jets twice, Dolphins twice, Titans, Ravens, Vikings, Chiefs, Bengals. I just check Football Outsiders. Bills were #1 DVOA last week and the week before. They've played the 7th toughest schedule, and they have the sixth toughest schedule remaining. It's a measure of how tough the NFL is. The Bills haven't looked like world beaters, but so far as FO is concern, no team is better.

I'll pay him the market rate, wherever it falls. I think that salaries will go up next season, so his contract is probably going to look like he's getting paid at the top. It will quickly be surpassed by others and he'll be only around the top 10 in a year or two.

The Bills played the Patriots on Thursday night. I was tense for hours before the game, because the Patriots can play defense, because Belichick is a football genius, and because the Bills haven’t been dominating, not by a long shot. Or so it seemed. The Bills beat the Patriots. They played a solid all-around game, were smart with ball, took what the Patriots gave them and won with what they took. It was workmanlike. It was a very good team winning a prime-time game on the road against a solid opponent that the Bills should beat. It was, by the way December 1. Welcome to December football. And then someone pointed out that Sunday afternoon’s games lined up to be of particular interest to the Bills and Bills’ fans. Division rivals Miami and New York, just ahead of and just behind the Bills in the division standings (the Patriots having fallen a bit out of the hunt, thanks to Buffalo) had tough road games at San Francisco and Minnesota, respectively. The Chiefs, leading in the race for the playoff bye, were at the Bengals, a good team once again in a dogfight in the AFC North. The Titans, another potential competitor for the bye, was at Philadelphia. Wow! One weekend of games falling the right way, and the Bills would lead for the bye, be on top of their division, and have put some distance between them and other competitors. “Forget it,” I thought. “Can’t happen.” Well, it did happen. So, here we are, as the first week of December football is winding down, and the Bills are back in the top spot in the conference. The only game that didn’t fall the way the Bills would have liked was the Ravens against the Broncos. Lamar Jackson was injured, but Tyler Huntley rallied the Ravens for a 10-9 win. But the Bills already have a one-win lead on the Ravens, and they have the tie-breaker, too. I spent all Sunday afternoon watching first the Vikings beat the Jets and then the Bengals beat the Chiefs, while I kept checking the score as the Dolphins failed to keep up with the Niners. It was a great afternoon of football. Several reactions: 1. There are some really good football teams out there. Really good. The Bills, the Chiefs, the Eagles, the Vikings, the Jets, the Bengals, the Titans, Cowboys. Others, I’m sure. Teams that are focused, disciplined, and fierce. 2. The games suddenly are intense, exciting contests. They’re must-win games for most of the teams that are playing, and the fans and the announcers are into it. The Vikings and Jets slugged it out. The Chiefs and the Bengals slugged it out. The Ravens slugged it out. The Titans no doubt went down slugging; they don’t know any other way. Great football. 3. Stefon Diggs is great. Diggs makes himself great with his brains and attitude. There some receivers out there who are out of this world. Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase in particular. They do things that Diggs literally dreams of. 4. The Jets simply are no picnic. Their defense is absolutely for real. And Mike White? Few NFL quarterbacks ever have thrown as accurately as White did on Sunday. Throw after throw, precisely where each should be. I mean precisely. If he stands undisturbed in the pocket, he can pick anyone apart. 5. The Bengals are a bigger nightmare. They have Chase, Burrows is what Mike White dreams he could be, their running game is excellent, and their defense is tenacious. 6. Bill have losses to the Vikings and Jets, close losses. No shame in that. Those are tough teams. Bills have wins over the Ravens, Chiefs, Titans. For those teams, no shame in losing to the Bills. Point is, the Bills have earned the position they’re in, but there’s no easy road to stay there. The Bills have to play and beat the the Jets, the Dolphins, the Bears, the Bengals and the Patriots. That’s a tall, tall order. If they stumble, well, the other teams can stumble, too, but I’d always rather be the lead dog. December football games. Playoff caliber. Call it what you will. It’s time to prove you’ve got it. GO BILLS!!! The Rockpile Review is written to share the passion we have for the Buffalo Bills. That passion was born in the Rockpile; its parents were everyday people of western New York who translated their dedication to a full day’s hard work and simple pleasures into love for a pro football team.

Deek - Unbelievable post from a few days ago! I was pumped for the games today, and the outcomes were amazing! With thanks to you, I'm working on a Rockpile Review about the parlay.

The two of them have been my whipping boys this season, and they both showed up as pleasant surprises against the Pat. I think it's a sign of things to come for Cook; I think Mc will continue to be up and down.