Shaw66

You're thinking isn't clear about this. You're assuming that possessions will go back and forth throughout the game, and therefore the team that gets the ball first statistically would have a chance of getting an extra possession. That would make sense only if the second half kickoff was determined by who had the ball last in the first half. Instead, there are two halves, which means that the team that receives the opening kickoff has a good chance of having an extra possession in the first half, and the other team has the exact same chance of having an extra possession in the second half. McDermott's philosophy on deferring is based on his belief (that may be hard to establish with data) that you win more often by playing your best in the second half. That is, if you can play one good half and one bad half, you'd rather have your good half in the second half. So, he prepares his team to play their best in the second half. If you're going to play your best in the second half, that's the half you'd like to have the extra possession. And I'd never thought about it, but RoyBatty is correct about being on the road. In a lot of stadiums, including in Orchard Park, the fans tend to be late getting back to their seats to begin the second half, so the crowd support for the defense is weaker opening the third quarter compared to opening the game. That gives the visiting offense an advantage opening the third quarter.

No. One of the many things that McDermott does that promotes excellence on this team is stress the importance of the second half and particularly the 4th quarter. I know that points are points, but seven to open the second half is always more important than seven to open the first half. I've heard several coaches make the same point. Someone, I think a college basketball coach, said the "the point of playing the first half is to get to the second half." I've often said that you can't win the game in the first half, but you can lose it. Josh said that at halftime of the Rams game, he wasn't worried, because he knew the team was playing well, despite the score. Belichick at halftime of the Super Bowl, down big to the Falcons, said no one was worried, because they knew they had been competitive on the field, they just hadn't been competitive on the scoreboard. If the Bills defense is going to play well enough to slow down the Dolphins, an opening drive for a TD won't matter - the Bills will win anyway. If the Bills defense can't stop the Dolphins, an opening TD drive probably won't save them. The game plan is always the same - stay close in the first half, win the game in the second half.

Really cool point. I have no idea what Frazier's future holds, but shutting down that offense with this defensive lineup would be a signature achievement on his resume.

Chandler - you're absolutely right, both about overseas fans and about his conclusion. And it's not so much that we fans shouldn't worry, because the Bills have Josh. The real point is the impact that Josh has on the team. A football team is a gang of warriors who go out to do battle with enemy warriors. The most important guy in the gang is the leader. Does your gang have Mel Gibson in Braveheart or The Patriot? The answer for the Bills is "yes, we do. We have Josh." Yes, you always want your 40 best warriors on the field, but 40 of your top 50 should be enough, if Josh is leading the gang. Look at it this way. If I could wave a magic wand and make everyone healthy, including Tre White, and put the best 21 on the field with Case Keenum at quarterback, would you take that team over what we actually have today? I wouldn't.

That's what I thought. And I think that not all offensive linemen actually understand that it is permissible for defensive linemen to move. You see offensive linemen react and point at guys who clearly never entered the neutral zone. I think it's generally a mistake to ask players to alter their behavior because they think they saw an infraction.

My billionaire-super-model-wife told me to get back to work.

Thanks for your comments. You may have missed my announcement earlier that this year that I no longer intend to write the Rockpile Review after every game. That's why you didn't see it last week. Between traveling to games (all the home games and a couple of away games, other commitments, and, frankly, finding it hard to be interesting when the team is so good (I mean, do you really need me to tell you Allen made a nice throw to Diggs???), I decided it was time to hang it up. The stadium was so much fun on Monday night that I decided to post something. It remains to be seen how many more I will do. Could be two, could be twelve. I don't know.

Any running back in the league would have gotten those yards. All he did was catch the ball and run. He didn't fake once, he didn't have a tackle to break. Just run. Every running back has plays like that, and it's nice for your team when you get them, but they don't tell you anything about whether the guy is a quality running back. The only way you could be disappointed in a play like that would be if he just fell down, or let go of the ball.

I'll try it this way. I was disappointed when Gilliam tried backpeddaling to catch Allen's bomb. I was disappointed when Milano dropped the second interception. And I was disappointed pretty much every time I saw Cook run the ball. It's possible to be disappointed in performance on particular plays.

It happened all night, multiple tacklers. He was a different ball carrier Monday.

It's okay to be disappointed with him. It isn't a final judgment; it's just that there are some things that we'd expect to see from him from day one, and I'm not seeing it. He'll get more chances. Meanwhile, I got reamed here a few weeks saying they probably should be trying to find a spot on the roster for Blackshear. Now, he's gone to the Panthers. That "juice" that we were talking about? Blackshear has it. Not saying I would have kept him and released Cook, but I'm fully expecting we'll be seeing some Blackshear highlights soon.

That play, too, wasn't something you were likely to see in Henry's prime. He just ran through high tackles, or carried the guy with him. I liked Edmunds play, but I was a bit surprised when Henry couldn't handle it any better than he did.

Yes to this. I hoped we getting someone really special, and he seems just ordinary. He's confirming the fears I had watching his college replays, which is that if you give him a really nice hole, he can run through it. But if you need to him beat a man in the hole, he doesn't have it, at least not yet. He tried a couple of quick moves in the hole the other night, but they didn't work. As for his pass catching ability, we haven't seen it. In fact, in this offense, if you're a running back, you have to be a running back first. You have to be a real threat in the run game. Bills are not going to put him in the game if all he can do is catch passes. Maybe he's still learning, but as you say, he plays a position where it's relatively easy to see if he has it, and we haven't seen it.

You're right about all of this. And the timing he has with Allen. Presnap, they know what is going to happen, and when Diggs turns out or turns in on his break, the ball is there. He knows it's going to be there, and he's ready. On the first touchdown, that play looked all screwed up, but I think it was either designed that way, or Diggs and Allen know that they have this option. All the receivers had taken the DBs to the back line, and Allen just threw the ball to an open space that no defender could get to. Diggs knew that Allen might do that, so he was prepared to step up into the open space for a simple catch. Then, on the second touchdown, he double caught it, something we rarely see from him, but you could see how even that was effortless. He was so zeroed in on the ball that when it popped up, nothing in this body language suggested anything out of the order. He just stayed with the ball and pulled it in. He was already coasting, because he knew it was a score. The guy is phenomenal. He knew he was good when he came to Buffalo, and he knew Allen could fling it, but I doubt that either he or Allen imagined that they'd have this kind of magic. It's truly elite.

And I'll make couple of comments about Gilliam. First, Gilliam's touchdown was simply a great play. He should have been on the ground, probably after the first hit and certainly after the second, but he stayed and saw the daylight. It as another big-time play from a guy we tend not to think of as a big-time player. He is a serious contributor to this team. Scored the touchdown, then lines up on special teams. I was amused by the long ball that Gilliam couldn't catch up with. He looked like a typical weekend-warrior sandlot player, running full speed way downfield, tracking the ball, and simply not having the confidence to catch the ball in his outstretched hands in exactly the way Diggs did on his long one. Instead, he turned so he could be facing the ball as it arrived and so that he could use his chest to held cradle the ball, hoping he could backpedal enough to get it. Allen, on the other hand, threw it with the expectation that he had a guy like Diggs or Davis or Knox running down the field. I'm guessing that, given that the game was a laugher, people had a good time ribbing Gilliam about his effort on that play.

On Diggs's long TD, I was watching the receiving on the near side of the field (for me), and the guy next to me said, "He's got him!" just as Josh was beginning to throw. I looked up and saw Diggs beyond his defender. I remember thinking, "this is a touchdown," because I knew Allen would hit him and I knew Diggs would catch. Then, with the ball in the air, I thought, "Is it too long?" Then Diggs had what looked like just two steps that amount to an extra speed burst - it looked like he turned on the afterburners to make up a little ground, then turned them off again and just settled into getting under the ball and finding a comfortable way to catch it. The two of them together already are masters at what they do, and they have several more seasons to do it. It's really special.

Virgil - Thanks for posting these. They're great. I haven't finished this one, because I got stuck on #1. I didn't think of Henry's lack of success being attributable to his finally hitting the wall - which makes me sad for him, because he has been absolutely magnificent for several years, but I think you may be right. I'd like to think the Bills had the perfect defense, and they did play the run really well. What I notice about Henry was that everyone was taking him down at the knees and below. Poyer early on, I think the time Miller got him in the backfield, Elam, and one or two other guys. If they got close to him, they went low and did a good job wrapping up his legs. Henry went down almost immediately when that happened. He'd get the yard or two from falling forward, but he didn't break any of those tackles. I think in years past, he'd stay upright, pull his legs out of the tackle and keep going. He definitely didn't look like the guy we've seen previously.

Yes. At least temporarily. Being the mediocre team the Bills gave me some sense of certainty. I could see and understand what the problems were - it was easy, week and week and season after season to analyze and understand how the QB, for example, needed to improve. Hope and despair were consistent and constant companions. The stability that came from the relentless need to move beyond the mediocrity is now gone. I feel like I'm on unstable ground. I still find it hard to understand that one of those great quarterbacks I used to watch and dream of, the Montanas, the Favres, the Peytons, is now on my team. I still find it hard to understand that the Bills are the team to fear on everyone's schedule. It leaves me uncertain, and I haven't gotten used to it. Worst is that from time to time I find myself thinking this can't last, something will go wrong. It's a crappy feeling that I fight off as well as I can. I don't want to go back, for sure, but I haven't adjusted emotionally yet.

Whoops. Thanks. My memory obviously failed me.

I suspect that buried somewhere in one or more threads are comments about the stadium for the Titans game on Monday, but I haven't seen them, so I thought I would share my thoughts about it. First, overall, the place was electric. Pregame and early in the game, there was a level of excitement that I've rarely heard there. Fans are still processing the success of recent years, the signing of Von Miller, the emergence of Josh Allen and the Bills on national media as relevant. The months and months of waiting energized everyone in the first half. There were times when the crowd wasn’t just loud; it was frenzied. Sometimes it sounded like we were ready to storm the field, all 70,000 of us. It was special. Second, Titans fans were kind enough not to have shown up for the game, at least not in any numbers sufficient to be heard. I saw a few Titans jerseys here and there, but they were hard to find. Once inside the stadium, Titans fans quickly figured out that there was absolutely no sense in trying to make noise for their team – their cheers literally weren’t going to be in the same ball park. Fans in the parking lot pregame were happy. It was a party atmosphere, for sure. Everyone seemed to be celebrating. Some, I suppose, thought it was a foregone conclusion that the Bills would win, and it turned out they were right. But most just seemed to be genuinely happy to be there with thousands of their friends, celebrating a team that, whatever may happen in the coming months, has finally arrived. Traffic was bad, the crowds at the gate were pretty big, but the stadium filled in pretty well, and for all those who made it inside early, the pregame was pretty special. Bruce Smith, wearing a "Choose Love" tee shirt, came on the field with survivors and relatives of victims of the May 14th attack at Tops Market in Buffalo. He spoke beautifully, with power and emotion, with love and compassion. He thanked all who have responded. He challenged all of us to continue to love and support the survivors and our community. He celebrated Buffalo and its future. An excellent “Choose Love” video ran on the video screens. Then, the now-traditional “Let’s go, Buffalo” cheer lead by a former Bill brought tears to the eyes of fans all around the stadium. Jim Kelly, wearing number 12, walked onto the field in the corner of the end zone, tunnel end, Bills sideline. The public address system volume was no match for the crowd noise, so pretty much no one could hear Kelly lead the cheer. We heard just enough to know when to respond, and we did. Following “Let’s go, Buffalo,” it was time to ask “Where would you rather be than right here, right now?” And Marv Levy took the microphone. People went nuts! Kelly and Smith, now wearing number 40, flanked him. The past and the present came together in one special moment that was lost on no one. The noise when the Titans had the ball was as loud as it gets in Highmark. Sometimes it hurt your ears. We sit in what the Bills staff calls the “girlfriends’ section” (covered, with heat), and there are plenty of women in those sections, proportionally more than in most of the open space in the stadium. The result is that there is more high-pitched shrieking. It was hysteria. In the second half, the noise quieted down, but the party was on. It was a lot like the second half of the Patriots playoff game last season. Score after score, the fans turned more and more joyous. How could this be happening? How could this be our team? We exploded in joy when Allen found Diggs deep downfield for a touchdown that put the game out of reach. And when Milano delivered his pick six, well, the fans were delirious. Then the fans left. Tuesday’s a work day, so I suppose plenty of people wanted to get a head start to get home and get to bed. Maybe 20% of the fans were left when Case Keenum took the last knee to end the game. It was like the Bills Mafia remaining in the stadium at an away game win. Still, we made noise and celebrated with the team. It was another great night at Highmark Stadium. 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 get that people feel that way, and I'm not here to convince you feel any other way about him. My view is different. The way we operate in this country is that we have a criminal and a civil justice system to address problems like this. The system is pretty good, and in fact it's better than most other countries, but it isn't perfect. The point of having the system is that the system imposes the penalties on people, rather than having private citizens impose the penalties. That means to me that my job, as a private citizen, is to accept the outcome of the criminal and civil processes and move on. The guy is entitled to come out of the process free to move on with his life. He's just a human being who did some things and on whom the society has imposed some collection of consequences. It doesn't mean he isn't a human being trying to make a life for himself. Having said that, I don't want my team welcoming back into the fold. From the Bills' point of view, he has to be OJ, private citizen, for the rest of his life.

I guess I'm not surprised. He had good lawyers, and who knows how wealthy he was before all of his story began. The lawyers would have been focused seriously on preserving wealth for him after society was done "processing" him through the legal system. Actually, I'm a lawyer who knows some things about personal wealth planning and I represented a guy on his way to prison for life for killing his wife, and all we talked about was ways to preserve his wealth so he could use it to take care of his kids. OJ had better lawyers than that guy. I can't imagine the Bills are going to be all that welcoming to his efforts to re-connect with the team, and I would think that OJ or his people are smart enough to understand that. Still, there are a lot of fans - like me - who are willing to look past the ugliness, remember his greatness. and ask for a selfie. I talked to him because I always regret not having stopped Jim Brown and asking to shake his hand when I passed him one day in the stadium after a Browns-Bills preseason game. I decided I wouldn't miss this opportunity.

Oh, yeah. He's traveling in our circles now, I suspect. But if he's at SoFi last week and Buffalo this week he is still doing better than a lot of folks.

I just met OJ in the lobby of the Courtyard at the airport. He was sitting with a couple of guys, just hanging out. A few fans came up and asked for selfies. I'm not a selfie guy. He was wearing a Bills cap with, of course, the standing buffalo. He was relaxed and smiling. He said he's doing well, and his kids are happy. He said all is good when your kids are happy. I told him he's the subject of debate around here about the best Bills running back of all time, and that the old guys around here have to explain that it isn't Thurman. One of his companions sat there, nodding his head and smiling. Man's been through a lot, and probably deservedly so. Many think he deserved greater punishment. He took what the system imposed on him and has moved on, and I'm happy for him if he's found some peace.

Yes, yes, yes. Once Shady got to Buffalo and started talking to the press, I liked him for the same reasons. He understood the game, he understood what it meant to be a teammate, he worked hard, he wanted to win. Wasn't always polished, but you got straight and insightful answers from the guy. And, by the way, Shady in his prime in the 2022 Bills backfield would have been absolutely sick.