Shaw66

Thanks. I love the Soviet friend. In my previous post I stated why I've been vocal about it again. I just don't understand why the NFL is working to fix the obvious. Remember a few years ago when they got the "catch-no catch" question all screwed up. They made rule changes and actually made it worse. Somehow, they worked their way through that, and we don't have that problem anymore. When the receiver gets hit just after the ball arrives and loses it, not catch. When he catches it and makes a real play with ball, fumble. It took a while, but they seem to have gotten it right. The refs know how to call it, and the rulings don't seem unfair. One thing that's happened on pass interference is that they really tightened down on it a few years ago, and every contact downfield was interference. It was easy to officiate that way, but it was ruining the game, because the defenders couldn't do anything to break up passes. Now, they've eased up on that, and there's a lot of contact that the officials let go. That's better, because it allows the defenders at least to make plays. However, by loosening up how they call interference they've introduced the problem of big mistakes. The interference against Diggs in the end zone was one. In real time, I can see how the official may have thought it was incidental contact, but on the replay it was clear that the defender denied Diggs all opportunity to make a play on the ball, without the defender making any play himself. Three or four years ago, that would have been an automatic interference call. Now it's not. The league needs a way to fix it.

I don't find the reviews interrupt the game much. And they do them quickly. My impressions. Whatever, it just seems that pretty much everyone agrees that the NFL could and should do some of this better. They don't seem to be interested in fixing it. I mean, I'm sure someone in the NFL offices looked at the calls and non-calls in the passing game in the Bucs-Bills game and could see a problem. I don't know why they do something about it. The latest scourge on the came is offensive holding. They allow the offensive lineman to put their arms on the outside shoulders of the rushing linemen, and there's obviously some holding going on there all day, every day. Then, when the back changes direction and the defender changes direction, the offensive lineman is seen holding and it gets called. Well, come on, if you're going to let them hold the defender when the guy is rushing straight in, you have to cut the offensive lineman some slack at the instand the change of direction happens. Offensive holding calls are ruining the run game.

Good points. The solution to that would be simply to make DPI a 15-yard penalty generally, and a spot foul in the final two minutes of each half. And I like the idea of having dedicated refs in the booth observing the pass plays. Refs in the booth should have the ability to stop play for a few seconds to conduct the review. That stoppage would stop the clock and not hurt teams in the hurry up. College football has been doing quick reviews like that for years - it doesn't slow down the game and it fixes a lot of mistakes. Overall, it just amazes me that the NFL is so reluctant to make some changes that would make the game more fair to the teams and players, and that also would reduce the recurring questions fans raise about the credibility of the game itself. Nickell-Robey commits that obvious interference against the Saints in the playoffs, and the league did only one thing about it: create a one-year experiment to let pass interference be a challengeable call. Then they administered the rule to never overturn an interference call, preordaining that the experiment would fail. Simple, quick video review would have fixed that problem, but the league won't do it. Under the circumstances, if some reporter breaks a story, uncovering the fact that that official was on the take, that he got $100,000 to look the other way, would anyone be surprised? No. Why? Because there must be SOME reason why the league doesn't work harder to take bad officiating out of the game.

Your question answers itself. Let's say $1 billion of that $1.5 billion is public money. That's the public paying $1 billion to for the benefit of maybe 100,000 fans who go to games, as well as the several hundred thousand more who want to keep the team in Buffalo. The next $1.5 billion, to put a dome on the place, just benefits the 100,000 who go to the games. There are a million other people around the state, and several hundred thousand around western New York, who can rightfully say, "Why aren't you spending that $1.5 billion on me?" Spending public money to keep the team is one thing; spending it make you more comfortable when you go to the games is something else entirely.

I live in Connecticut. We needed a logo. I found a guy around here who was a professional cartoonist. He drew the comic strip "Nancy." He ran classes for people to learn how to be cartoonists. I called him and asked him if he'd ask his students to take a crack at creating a logo for us. He said no, because whenever he did that, the students did half-baked drawings, and that was bad advertising for his school. Then he asked me about the Ball Burglar and how it worked. After a while, he told me a story. A guy that he used to work with on cartoons lived in Lancaster. The guy got cancer and died. Every year, they had a charity golf tournament in memory of the guy, and he'd go play in it. He said he got to know a lot of people in Buffalo, and he realized what great people they were. He talked about it for ten minutes. Then he said, "give me a couple of weeks, I'll get you something." A couple of weeks later he sent me this fantastic logo. It was really nice of him. The Facebook page is still up. The logo is there. https://www.facebook.com/BallBurglar/ We also had a great Burglar mask. I still wear mine at Halloween.

I don't think that analysis is correct. The play happened right in front of me, and I just watched the replay a few times. When it happened live, I said "he's (Allen) got him (Diggs)." Then Allen threw it to Chinn. I think Allen misread it. Now, maybe Allen released it before Chinn made his drop, but I don't think so. Diggs saw it and stopped. He was wide open, and he looked like he did what he was coached to do. He expected the ball to be coming right to him. When he saw where Allen threw it, he was too far away to make a play to break up the INT. If his route was supposed to take him out to the path the ball was on, he wouldn't have stopped and he would have been in position to make a play on the ball. He didn't do that. He settled into the open spot and waited for the ball to arrive. I'm sure it was on Josh. Did Chinn make a good play? Sure - they were doubling Diggs all day, and he was coached to make that drop. But defensive backs these days are making those drops a lot, and Allen and Diggs were coached about how to respond. Diggs responded; Allen didn't.

Okay. Now about the Ball Burglar. I did a lot of work on the Ball Burglar. For those of you who don't know, the Ball Burglar was an organization formed and run by a few posters on the Buffalo Bills Message Board. It wasn't affiliated with the Bills in any way. We didn't get paid. The Ball Burglar encouraged fans to give $1 for every takeaway the Bills got (takeaways for a touchdown, like a pick 6, counted double). Some fans pledged $5 or $10 per takeaway. The money, after expenses, went primarily to Hunter's Hope (Jim Kelly's group) and the children's cancer fund at Roswell Park. You gave us your credit card, pledged a buck or two per takeaway, and at the end of the season we charged the cards and distributed the net to the charities. If I recall, we did it for four years. We raised about $40,000 and had expenses of about $10,000 (25%). Expenses were just about all to pay the company that processed credit card transactions and kept all the card information secure. Our lawyer formed the organization for free, handled the application to the IRS for charity status for free, prepared the tax returns for free. We'd get total pledges of maybe $300-$400 per takeaway per year. If we could have gotten 1000 fans to do it, that would have been about $1000 per takeaway, or maybe $30,000. Our expenses then would have been about $5,000 a year. or about 15%. What I really wanted to do was get to $10,000 per takeaway. That would have been around $300,000, and our expenses would have been less than 10%. You can see how looking at percentages doesn't tell the whole story. It never caught on the way we hoped, and after a while we shut it down. There was no scandal, no controversy at all (except some fans didn't like that we were using the message board to promote the effort.

I hate modern journalism. Without studying all the details, I'm pretty sure this is a lot of baloney. Was the Dalton Foundation well managed? I don't know. If this management company was formed to serve foundations formed by pro athletes, well, sure, I bet the management company charged a hefty fee. There are lots of people trying to make a buck off of pro athletes. So, yeah. But let's recognize a few things. First, Andy Dalton, or even Mrs. Dalton, are not going to manage the Andy Dalton Foundation. They don't know the first thing about managing any organization. They don't know how to form a corporation, how to run it, how to apply to the IRS to become tax exempt. Andy's father doesn't know how to do it, his sister doesn't know. No one is going to run foundations like this for free. The Andy Dalton Foundation has to hire people to do it. Second, there's this believe that many people have that the people who work for charities should get work fo less. Why anyone thinks that the bookkeeper for a foundation can afford to work for 20% less because it's a charity, I don't know. If someone offered you the exact same job that you have today and offered to pay you 20% less, would you take it? The foundation has to pay an executive directors, a bookkeeper/financial person, has to pay for web services and hosting, an accountant to prepare tax returns, has to pay for a lot of stuff. The things they have to pay for cost just as much as the cost for-profit organizations. So, Andy Dalton's agent tells him he should have foundation, because it's good for public relations purposes or for some other reason. Andy says yes, and the agent, of course refers Andy to a friend of the agent who's in the business of creating and running foundations for athletes. That organization gets paid for doing all the things the staff of other foundations do. It all costs money. Third, and this is a key point: When you add up all the expenses of running a small foundation, the expenses are pretty much the same as the expenses of a medium sized foundation. If a foundation raises $1 million a year, its expenses are pretty much the same as a foundation that raises $2 million a year. Why? Because the both foundations pay the director the same thing, pay the bookkeeper the same thing, pay the accountant the same thing. The website costs the same thing. Bank fees are minimal, so the bigger foundation doesn't pay that much more for banking services. So, if it costs $250,000 a year to run a foundation collecting $1 million a year, and if it costs, say, $300,000 to run a foundation collecting $2 million a year, look at the percentages: Fees are 25% for the smaller foundation, 15% for the larger foundation. But that doesn't mean the crooks are running the smaller foundation - it just means that on a percentage basis, it's more expensive to run the smaller foundation. Plus, I don't know, but I doubt that management company gets a percentage of the money raised. They charge a fee for services. So, when Dalton's foundation gets an extra $400,000 in contributions, the management company doesn't take $100,000. IF they do, that's wrong. Assuming they don't, then the whole $400,000 Bills fans gave did in fact go to charity. Compare that to the campaign to give in honor of Josh Allen's grandmother. That money went to an organization that spends millions on management - CEO, treasurer, etc., etc. But it was going to spend that money last year whether or not Bills fans gave them a million dollars. That was no additional cost to the hospital to collect that money. So, yes, more or your money goes to charitable purposes the bigger the organization is that you give to. It's simple math. The money given to Dalton's foundation was not wasted.

That's true. It was obvious how uncomfortable Newton was back there. He was real fidgety, and with good reason. There was a lot of hostile activity in front of him.

Thanks for this notice. Jacobs wasn't the big name on that defense, but he was the key to it all. He was absolutely solid in the middle. Sorry he's gone.

The Bills aren’t playing like the best team in the NFL, but guess what? The best team in the league, whoever it is, isn’t playing like the best team either. Week after week, last week’s presumptive best team is this week’s pile of old rags. The Bengals are great, no they aren’t. Wow, look at the Chargers, well, maybe not. The Chiefs? Yes, for a while, then no, then yes again. The Packers, this week’s darlings. The Cowboys. Wait, no, the Patriots. The Ravens. Sunday, the Cardinals were taken out behind the woodshed by the Lions. Yes, those Lions. The Bucs were shut out by the Saints. The Colts definitely get some votes. Maybe the Dolphins are the best team in the league. So, no, the Bills aren’t playing like the best team in the NFL, They’re trying to figure it out from week to week, just like every other team. The NFL is a total dogfight, with most teams scratching and clawing, trying to get into the playoffs. With three weeks left in the season (plus some teams playing Monday and Tuesday), 13 of 16 AFC teams still have a shot at the playoffs, and an amazing 15 of 16 NFC teams are in the hunt. Yes, if only Jake Fromm can get it together, the Giants can make it to the postseason. The Bills beat the Panthers 31-14 on Sunday in Orchard Park. The game was closer than the score might indicate. Take away a garbage-time TD and give the Panthers a couple of field goals they probably would have had if they had a kicker, and the game is 24-20. That’s more in line with the game stats, which were more even than the actual final. What are we to take away from the game? One thing, and one thing only: W. Take the win and move on to the next game. The Bills weren’t world-beaters against the Panthers, but they didn’t have to be. Christian McAffrey, probably 50% of the Panthers’ offense, didn’t make the trip. He’s out for the season. Cam New still can make plays at quarterback, but not enough to carry a team. Their placekicker was a game-time scratch. Carolina’s defense is pretty stingy when it comes to giving up yardage, but they give away points like candy on Halloween. The Bills took advantage of all the Panthers had and didn’t have and rolled to the win. A few observations: 1. If you need to expose a rookie left tackle to life in the NFL, it’s great if he doesn’t cost you the game. Spencer Brown sure seems to have a lot of fun running around the football field, but sooner or later he needs to realize he isn’t at Chucky Cheese any more. Four penalties, inconsistent play. Give him a bath, read him a story, put him to bed, and hope Dion Dawkins is back for the Patriots game. 2. Dawkins’ absence weakened the line terribly. Brown’s follies moved into the left tackle spot, Daryl Williams moved from right guard, where he’s been pretty good, to right tackle, where he’s less consistent, and Cody Ford returned to the lineup at right guard. The result was some pretty awful pass protection for Josh Allen. He was sacked four times, and he was on the run a lot, unloading the ball before he had time to find an open receiver. It was brutal. 3. Whether credit goes to the line or to the scheme, the Bills’ running game came alive on Sunday. Devin Singletary had enough running room to put his skills to work, and it showed. Motor was slipping arm tackles and cutting to space in the open field, squeezing extra yards out of every opportunity, carrying the ball the way he did so often his rookie year. On a big third down, Brian Daboll shifted into the wildcat, and pulling offensive linemen led McKenzie around the right side for a first down. All in all, the Bills showed the kind of running game they need to complement their passing attack. 4. When Josh Allen stops making the occasional total head-scratching plays, he’s going to be nearly unstoppable. The Bills were rolling along comfortably, up 14-0 and looking for one more score before the half ended. Then Allen missed Diggs badly, the ball was intercepted, and minutes later the Panthers were in the game, 14-8. Allen and Diggs probably miscommunicated, because Allen doesn’t usually miss by that much. Diggs turned out when Allen probably expected him to turn in. It looked like Diggs made the right move for what should have been an easy completion. In any case, the play changed the whole feel of the game, leaving the Panthers in striking distance for most of the second half. Allen’s passer rating dropped 20 points on one play. To his credit, Allen led the Bills right back down the field for a field goal to end the half. Allen’s greatness was on display often, particularly when the offensive line gave him time to see the field. The best was the Bills’ third touchdown, the first of two TD passes to Gabriel Davis. Allen settled into the pocket behind good protection, quickly looked right, then looked left, then checked out a possible slant route before looking down the center of the field. Allen found Davis, and the Bills had a comfortable 24-8 lead. One replay in the stadium, shot from the closed end of the stadium directly behind Allen showed just how great the throw and catch were. Davis started on the left side of the line and headed upfield toward the goalpost. When Allen found Davis, he was running toward the back of the end zone with his back turned to Allen and with a defender trailing him. In other words, when he released the ball, Allen couldn’t see Davis, and Davis couldn’t see Allen. Fearless, Allen ripped a dart, a laser, a rocket, a, well, whatever you want to call of of those balls that we see Allen throw every week. Knowing the ball would be on its way, Davis hooked to his left and cradled it in his belly for the score. Davis’s cut and reception happened so fast, the defender had no time to turn or make any kind of play. The thing about that throw was that it was just one of several picture-perfect throws to Gabriel, and Knox, and Beasley, and Diggs throughout the afternoon. As we’ve seen so often this season, down at the goal line, on Sunday the Bills trusted Diggs to create a window, trusted Allen to put it there, and trusted Diggs to catch it. Touchdown. Allen is simply a magnificent thrower. 5. Harrison Phillips continued his dominant play in the middle of the defensive line. He’s really come alive. The Bills’ big-down defensive line is Phillips and Oliver at the tackles and Hughes and Addison at the ends. That’s who we see on third and six. The defensive line rotation gives the others – Basham, Obada, Rousseau, Butler, and Lotulelei – opportunities, too. The defensive line doesn’t dominate, but they all make plays. 6. Edmunds was a playmaker Sunday, too. He stopped several runs in the hole and had assists all over the field. On Newton’s touchdown run, he looked like he maintained his gap discipline when he should have reacted better to the flow of the play and met Newton on the edge. There probably was no stopping the biq quarterback, but it would have been nice to see Edmunds get there to give it a try. 7. Ever since McKenzie’s fumble against the Colts, all I want on every kickoff and punt is for the return man to hold onto the ball. Still, it’s hard not to get excited seeing Marquez Stevenson on the move. McKenzie is more of a one-cut speed guy; Stevenson is a waterbug, stop-and-go, change-of-direction guy. He looks like a video-game character working his way through a maze, and he’s good at it. The Bills haven’t had one of those guys since Roscoe Parrish. 8. The Bills seem to have upgraded their in-stadium video capabilities. They’re showing plenty of replays after most plays, sometimes from multiple angles, like the end zone view of the touchdown pass to Davis. The Shout song has new graphics. All around it’s more professional and makes the game more enjoyable. Before the game they showed highlights of the Bucs’ game. They didn’t show the interference against Diggs in the end zone. The Patriots next week. ‘Nuf said. GO BILLS!!!

Correctemundo!

I think you're confused. Only two defensive holding calls. PI numbers aren't out of whack.

I think it's a good idea. PI is the only penalty in pro football that awards yardage based on an assumption something would have happened. Who knows whether the ball would have been caught? Nobody. Why don't they give a touchdown if a receiver holds, based on the assumption that but for the hold, the guy would have gone for a TD? Teams, including the Bills throw deep in part because they know the chances are good they can get a penalty worth 30-40 yards. I don't like it.

I'm in. May as well do some good and make a statement.

Well, you can't ask your running back to play 100% of the offensive snaps, unless his name is Henry. Last I checked, Derrick Henry wasn't on the roster. So, the Bills need someone to take some of the snaps at running back. I've seen enough of Breida to know that he's not the guy. No one else on the roster, apparently, has shown enough to get even a whiff of offensive action, so that leaves me to think that Moss has to be the guy.

I won't argue with you about whether it's the best play to call. What I said is the Bills love it. But I think your analysis of the play is incorrect. It isn't a true fade. The fade is a pass where the receiver is heading toward the sideline and the QB puts the ball up and ideally over the receiver. The defender is always on the inside, and the ball is essentially unplayable to him. If the defender tries to take that away, the QB throws a backshoulder fade, so that the receiver can turn and stop, also leaving the defender unable to make a play. The Bills run essentially a down and out to Diggs. The Bills strategy is that Diggs essentially always can get open, because the defender has to protect against the inside slant. Diggs is so good off the line, he always can create a window on the outside. He and Allen have developed great chemistry on the play, so Allen reads Diggs well. And Allen gets the ball into tight windows - the ball gets there so quickly that the defender, even if it's well covered, can't make the play. For all those reasons, the Bills seem to think that play is a high-percentage throw. They come back to it often. And they go to Beasley that way, too, but in the red zone Diggs seems to be the preferred receiver. It's not a low-percentage throw. However, it becomes a low-percentage throw when the defensive back does the only thing he can do to stop the play: hold Diggs and prevent him from making his cut. When that happens, the defender and Diggs are just standing side by side, upright, and there's no place to throw the ball. The Bills count on the official to make the proper call. Now let's talk about the play selection. The Bills like that play, but I think what you said is the important point. You're wrong about Allen being a great red zone QB. He hasn't been this year, for sure. But he SHOULD be. He should be Aaron Rodgers+. Rodgers kills teams in the red zone with a combination of brains, scrambling ability, and an arm that puts the ball into tight places. Allen can do all of that, plus he's clearly a better power runner than Rodgers, so he brings that element, too. The Bills can come at you in the red zone with quick short slants from Beasley and Diggs, with Knox and Davis running crossers on the back end of the end zone, with play action up the middle and tight ends flaring to the near pylon, with power sweeps with Allen. And Allen should be able to execute all that. It seems to me, and I think you, that the Bills should be more or less automatic inside the ten. Yes, the defense gets to tighten up a lot, but Diggs and Beasley are two of the best at that maddening short game off the line, and Knox and Gabriel each have become solid possession-type receivers with decent size. The weapons are there, the arm is there, and Allen's running ability is special for QBs. So, if the play to Diggs was a bad play to run, I think it was bad not because it's low-percentage, but because it's been clear this year that that's the play they like to run down there. The Bills are talented enough that they shouldn't have any obvious tendencies in that situation. If you're going to play Diggs that tight off the line of scrimmage, then we're going to get him and someone else inside releases and throw it there.

The Bills don't run a true fade. Allen to Diggs on that side has become a go-to route for the Bills because of Allen's accuracy, Diggs's ability to shake defenders at the line of scrimmage, and Diggs's hands. They love going there. Of course, opponents know that. And, of course, the Bills know the only defenders can stop it is by holding or interfering. The Bills got exactly what they expected, except the ref didn't make the call.

They're planning on all blowout wins! Seriously, success in the playoffs is dependent on how well your team is playing in the playoffs. It's still a month a way, and the Bills aren't a bad team right now. If they pull some things together, they could have a serious playoff run. What things? Well, if Feliciano comes back, that's one thing that could help a lot. If Daboll continues to have success diversifying the offense, that's a another. Not hard to imagine the defense going on a run - it's a really good defense. Ravens, Bengals, Browns, Chiefs, Chargers all have struggled in mid-season, just like the Bills. Pats and Chiefs are the only teams on hot streaks right now. It simply isn't far-fetched to see the Bills being a tough out in the playoffs. Or, of course, they continue as we've seen and make an early exit, or miss the playoffs altogether.

Well, sure, the Bills should have won the game, even with the calls. That's clear. But that doesn't mean the calls aren't worth talking about. They happened, and they happened largely one way. There were some obvious missed calls that could very well have changed the outcome of the game. Those are facts, and if people want to talk about that, there's good reason to talk about it. If you're not interested, if that's not an aspect of the game you want to talk about, fine. But it's real, it happened, and people want to talk about it. It's not a meaningless topic just because (1) the Bills could have won anyway or (2) it's happened to other teams. 54 passing plays without one penalty on the defensive backfield must be some kind of record in the modern NFL, especially where there is clear photographic evidence of multiple blatant holds by the defense.

Yeah, I thought nine from four was how rugby records are stated!

This is good stuff. Either Josh is just comfortable with Cole, or Cole just has a knack. Whatever it is, the offense clearly is more diverse and better when he's on the field. And McKenzie, too. I'm not a McKenzie fan, but those plays they run for him also diversify the offense, and that's what's been missing. I don't know why they can't run plays like that for Diggs and Sanders, but they don't. Somehow, they need that part of the offense. And another thing that you didn't mention: With the offense opened up with Beasley and McKenzie, Singletary looked like the back they need in the game. He showed yesterday that he can be effective when he has room to work. The line can't create the room on their own, but the field opens up for Singletary when the offense is more varied. Breida is not the guy and dare I say it, with the offense going better, it may be time to bring Moss back. Moss can handle the pass blocking assignments, and he can run effectively. When we stop moaning about the loss, we can start to see how the Bills are rounding into shape.

Thanks. As I said in response to someone else, then Edmunds identified the problem well and respondes, just couldn't make the play. Someone, I'm guessing in the Boston Globe, said McD should have gone for the TD at the end of regulation. Win it or lose, but don't give Brady another chance.

It's a combination of everything. That's why continuity is so important. I don't know if Daboll actually has the horsepower to get it done, but he needs to do better. The players need to execute better. Allen needs to see the field better. The offensive line has to step up and get the job done in the red zone. It's all of it. That throw to Diggs into the end zone is money for the Bills, or they think so. Daboll goes back to it over and over again, and it hasn't been working. However, the Bills also think that the percentage success rate on that play is very good when you factor in the percentage completions and the percentage of holding or PI calls they get on it. They should have gotten the call yesterday. Bills have to learn how to be better, plain and simple. Titans, Patriots, Bucs, Jags, Steelers all were totally winnable games, and the Bills lost them all. Better talent isn't going to make much of a difference. Better execution will.

A "slot on a slip"? Man, who taught you English? 😃 Yeah, I agree, this is a good team that isn't playing well. There's still time. Ah, I see! Lost on a slip. Yes, it was. We'll never know if Allen would have scored if he'd kept his footing. I thought "Slot on a slip" was some great fan phrase from the UK.