Shaw66

I don't think McBeane would agree with you. I think they've built the offensive line just the way they've built the defensive line. They aren't looking for the standout stars; they're looking for versatile dedicated athletes who will work together within a scheme. The Bills don't have an Aaron Donald or Chris Jones or Kahlil Mack or JJ Watt on defense, and they don't have whatever the comparable names are on the offensive line. The Bills don't strive to have a feature guy on either line. Look at the draft choices - Epenesa, Rousseau, Basham - none of them is a flashy sackmeister. Look at the 1-tech tackles - none of them is the monster in the middle. That's not what the Bills want to play with. And they've built the o line the same way. So, to call the o line subpar is correct, if you're talking about raw athletic ability and special playmaking ability. If that's what you expect, yes, the oline is subpar and you're going to be disappointed. That's not the ideal that McBeane are after.

I just don't see many teams protecting their QB in the pocket on 90% of the plays. No teams have studs across the whole offensive line. The game has changed. We're seeing mobile QBs for two reasons: (1) Because they can add to the offense - Jackson, Murray, Allen, and (2) because nobody has a line that can protect a stationary QB. QBs MUST be able to run, or they'll take too many sacks.

I think the comments in this thread are kind of funny. Lower top 10? Lead the league in yards against and points against, lead the league in takeaways, and you think there are 7, 8 or 9 better defenses? What makes those defenses better? Their teams have cheerleaders?

The reason I say they protected well is that I think the perfect pocket that Peyton used to hang in is a thing of the past. Perfect pockets for most of the game is a thing of the past. If you're going to throw 35 times a game, on about 10 or 15 of those, you'll be releasing quickly enough that any kind of protection is okay. On another 10 or 15, a good oline will give you a good pocket. On the final 10 or 15, a good line will give Josh running lanes, or at least room to move. I think that's what we saw yesterday. In the modern NFL, an immobile quarterback can't play, because his oline, no matter how good, can't protect him all the time. Even Brady is getting forced to run more often.

Yes, I noticed it, too. Essentially no run up - just blasts away. Useful in on-side kick scenarios.

On the money, as usual. And McDermott does one additional thing - he steels his guys to be tough at the goal line. They're currently second in the league in red zone scoring defense. If you're going to lead the league in scoring defense, you have to be good in the red zone. So, not only does McDermott insist that you won't hurt him long, which allows teams to attack consistently for short yardage, he also insists that you won't hurt him with short yardage once you get inside the red zone. It makes sense, of course, because there is much less territory to defend, but you can see that the rushing defense tightens up too. It doesn't hurt so much to bite on play action from the five, because the guys in the box don't need to take deep drops. Again, whether we think it's pretty or not, whether he think it's flashy or not, there's no arguing that it's effective.

I keep saying it, because every week that goes by makes me think the same thing: We're watching a young Bill Belichick. Belichick didn't have a star-based defense. His defenses don't make lights out plays, and they also don't make mistakes. Belichick wants a shut-down corner, if he can get one. Other than that, he'll assemble good players at every position, teach them a complicated defense, and then they'll do what they need to do to win. When has Belichick based his defense on true All-Pro pass rusher? So far as I can recall, never. His guys are always around the ball, they're always good at taking the ball away, they're always well ranked, but they aren't the 85 Bears. (Frankly, it's been so long that I don't think the 85 Bears are relevant. And I'm not sure that even the 85 Bears were as good as we think we remember.) I'm not sure that even the Ray Lewis Ravens are relevant any more. I mean, what team has had a truly lights out defense in the last 10 years? Yes, the Bills give up some easy yards, or at least it looks that way. After all, how much easy yardage can you give up and still lead the league in yards per game defense? The offense isn't dominating time of possession (fourth at 32:23) that much to keep the defensive stats down. Every team gives up some easy throws every game - it's just gotten a lot easier to pass. And Tennessee kills you with play action because they threaten on every play to send Henry rumbling through the middle. I think McDermott knows what Belichick knows, which is that JJ Watt doesn't win championships, Von Miller doesn't, Kahlil Mack doesn't, name whatever flashy defensive player you want, they don't win championships. Really solid team defense wins championships. On one play, are the Bills at a disadvantage because they don't have Aaron Donald or a JJ Watt clone? Sure. Over the course of 60 minutes, I'm just not so sure those guys matter. I'll take first in yards defense and first in points defense, however impressive or unimpressive it may look.

Well, I have to agree with that, but the original point was actually pretty good. It DID look like so many Bills-NE games over the past couple of decades. Like the Bills did so often against the Pats, the Dolphins played the Bills tough and then, like the Pats, the Bills said "enough" and shut the door.

Whoa! Maybe I need do a podcast with a soundtrack? There's an idea.

Well, actually, this isn't as wild an idea as everyone seems to think. What if the deal were Trubisky for Siemian and a starting guard? Siemian and a second round pick? The odds are you probably won't need your backup to start, because most starting QBs don't go down. Although Trubisky is clearly a better backup for Allen than Siemian, Siemian has a lot of starting experience and showed some good presence. Plus, their both free agents at the end of the year. Trubisky almost definitely is gone, but Siemian has real potential as longer-term backup.

You simply do not give up possession of the ball with time on the clock with a two-score lead. Look at Hyde at the end of the first half. He knew the situation, so he kept the ball alive to see if there was a way to score. If the Bills had scored on that play it would have been amazing. Point is, scores happen is surprising and unusual ways. Now, if there had been a practical way for Allen to get the first down and then give himself up, he should have done that. Then, they could have taken knees and ended the game. But it was too close; you certainly don't want to give yourself up and then have the ref rule that you were short of the line to gain. So, Josh didn't have much choice. Going for two was a bit much, but the logic was right. Getting the two point conversion makes it a three-score game and it's over. Plus, I think McDermott's competitive emotions may have gotten the best of him - Dolphins went for two, so I think he wanted a little payback.

Well, I don't know. My gut says Shaw. He was just so good, consistently. But i was going to those games and watching them on TV. By the time Joe D came along, i was at college and running around, never around Buffalo, so I didn't see the Bills nearly as consistently in those years. However, the Electric Company was more than a cute slogan - those guys were amazing at getting out clearing a path. Plus, to be honest, I'm biased against Joe D because he has whined so much about wanting more from the NFL for retired players. I'm not saying he's wrong; I don't know the right answer to that question. I just find complaining about it as often as he has to be tiresome. At some point he needs to accept that he was born in the wrong era. Shaw got paid less than Joe D, and Shaw's not complaining.

The NFL season follows a predictable pattern: In September, a few teams explode offensively and a few teams are absolutely terrible. Some players (veterans you’d expect and some younger players you wouldn’t) have some spectacular performances. The trend continues in October, but less dramatically. Some team (this year it’s the Chiefs) struggles unexpectedly, and a few that had shown some promise (like the Bengals and the Chargers and Cardinals) appear to be the new powers. Then November hits, and the real NFL season begins. There’s still a really bad team or two, but all of a sudden just about other every team becomes a tough out. The truth is that parity is real – even the weakest teams have very good football players, and they don’t like losing. And those explosive offenses? Well, every team has seen two months of film on them, and every team has seen what other teams have done to slow down the high flyers. When November comes, tough, hard-nosed football returns. Reality returned to the NFL in 2021 in week 8. Okay, it wasn’t November yet, but it was close enough. It began on Thursday night, when the Packers took down the league’s only undefeated team. Welcome to the real NFL, Kyler Murray. You’re a spectacular player, but spectacular isn’t enough in the NFL. Let’s see how the next two months go. Then on Sunday, other teams got punched in the face. Sorry, Bengals, the Jets were ugly for a month or more, but it’s time for real football with real football players, some of whom are really tired of losing. Sorry, Chargers, the masters of real football came to town and showed you how it’s done. Sorry, Browns, but Tomlin and Roethlisberger know a lot about November football, and if you want to play with the big boys, you have to step it up. All around the league on Sunday, rough tough football was on display. Trench warfare. Hard, power running. Ball security. Courage in the face of adversity. Even the G.O.A.T. got his nose bloodied. In the NFL, there’s preseason in the summer, warmups in September and October. The true regular season begins in November. Or in this case, on Halloween. The Bills entered the true regular season at 4 and 2, coming off a tough loss to Tennessee and a bye week. They needed a win for several reasons – to get back to winning, to keep pace with the rest of the AFC front-runners and well, because it was the Dolphins. Like a lot of AFC front-runners, they weren’t ready. They were prepared, but they weren’t ready. The Bills seemed to think that the game would be a Halloween party – maybe a few scary moments, but mostly a lot of laughs and treats. But these weren’t some cute little kids coming to town. These weren’t the hapless Dolphins the Bills trampled 35-0 several weeks ago. That game wasn’t the blowout that the score would suggest; the Bills got two quick TDs in September and then stalled for most of the game, before blowing it open late. And the Dolphins, although still losing, had been playing better in recent weeks. They were hungry, and they have good football players. The Bills’ offense did nothing in the first half. One 35-yard drive for a field goal. That was it. Fortunately, the defense came to play, and Dolphins’ offense stumbled just enough to match the Bills; the half ended 3-3. Devante Parker looked like the great receiver that he is, and the Bills were fortunate to keep him out of the end zone. What happened? The real regular season arrived, that’s what happened. The Dolphins were ready for it, and the Bills weren’t. The Bills seemed to think it was still October. The Dolphins came ready to play November football, and in the first half, they showed they weren’t going to roll over for the Bills. The good news is that the Bills aren’t just another NFL team. This is a Sean McDermott team, and Sean McDermott builds his teams for November football. And December football. He builds his teams like Belichick and Tomlin, to be tough and resilient in the face of the toughest challenges at the end of the season. It won’t always be pretty, but McDermott’s teams are built to rise to the challenge, week after week. They don’t always win (sometimes you get stuffed on fourth and one), but they don’t back down. And so, in the second half, the Bills took over the game and put the rest of the league on notice: the Bills are who we thought they were. They forced three straight Dolphin three-and-outs in the second half, while the Bills’ offense was getting rolling. The Bills finished the game touchdown-touchdown-field-goal-touchdown. The Dolphins made it close in the fourth quarter with a touchdown and two-point conversion, but the Bills answered with a drive that made it a two-score game. Josh Allen’s touchdown at the end of the game truly was icing on the pumpkin donut, but it also highlighted the Bills’ offensive dominance. It may be November, but the Bills still can move the ball and score. (If McDermott is able to work his usual late-season magic, if his team can continue to get better, then the league should be worried. Just short of the halfway point, the Bills are sixth in offensive yards per game, first in points scored per game, first in defensive yards per game and first in points per game allowed. Whew!) What are the signs of a good November-ready NFL team? One is ball security. The Bills were going to win the game if they didn’t give away the ball. I’d been wondering whether this would be the game that Isaiah McKenzie coughed one up, and he almost did. It was a tough play and a ball he should have fair caught, but it was a play – and a muff - that Andre Roberts might have made, too. McKenzie’s been a rock, and the Bills survived the muff, so all was good. Allen waved the ball around wildly on one first-down run, but he tucked it away before the hit. He didn’t throw anything close to an interception. The Bills weren’t going to give it away. Another sign is that players step up. Mario Addison has become a special player for the Bills on defense. The Bills have stocked the defensive line with guys who can play, so no one needs to be on the field for every play. The rotation has evolved in a way that allows Addison to be a true pass-rushing specialist, and the effects are obvious. When Addison is on the field on passing downs, he’s applying relentless pressure. And he’s able to do it because Jerry Hughes has shown the versatility to flip from right to left defensive end and create his own pressure. Tua was under pressure all day, from the outside and from the endless combinations of inside rushes, led by Ed Oliver. Tua had success with Parker in the first half because the Dolphins were getting the ball out quickly, before the rush got to him. In the second half, as the coverage tightened and Tua held the ball longer, he began to feel the heat. Why did the coverage tighten? Well, in part because Tre’Davious White was a man possessed, and not just because it was Halloween. He’s getting like that every week – serious intensity. And quarter after quarter, Levi Wallace’s coverage was better and better – by the fourth quarter he was there consistently as the ball arrived, working his hands, making the hit. Dr. Jordan and Mr. Hyde were their usual scary selves. And for years I’ve been hoping I’d see Tremaine Edmunds take down a running back in the hole with authority. Who was that masked man, stopping ball carriers all over the field? Sunday, Cole Beasley was the number one stepper upper. In the second half, play after play, Allen found Beasley and delivered the ball, and Beasley caught everything that came at him. Get open, catch the ball, get up field, take the hit, move the chains. Beasley is a great weapon when you have wideouts who attract the attention that Diggs and Sanders do. Defenses know that Allen is going to go deep if he can, and that gives Beasley plenty of room to work his magic. (Kudos to Beas, too, for deciding that it was time to get off social media. It’s good for him and good for the Bills to get rid of the distraction.) Diggs was rewarded for all the gritty, dirty work he did on short yardage when Allen found him for a score with a picture-perfect throw on a classic Diggs route over the middle. Sweeney was ready for prime time. The offensive line survived another shuffle with Spencer Brown out, and then with Feliciano going down. The run game still didn’t work, but the pass protection was solid. Josh Allen showed up for the the game dressed as the super-hero he is. Josh made some bad choices here and there, and he missed a few throws, but this was a gritty, MVP-type performance. The Bills were 6-13 on third down and 3-4 in the red zone, and a lot of that was Allen. His running was timely and extremely effective. His 12-yard run on the late field-goal drive was one of those plays that only Allen makes – he’s just so big and tough that he takes yards that no other QB gets. Daboll isn’t using Allen as the feature back; it seems like a surprise each time the flow starts one way and Allen gets to the edge behind a couple of lineman who have pulled and gone the other way. In the pocket, Allen is showing great presence. He moves and slides to buy time. He knows what he wants downfield. His escape and short scramble to the right to get the ball to Davis for the first TD was classic Allen – he knew what he had, and he knew he needed to avoid the rush. He had the strength to break the tackle and make the easy throw. Allen finished with a passer rating over 100, and he is sneaking up into the top 10 in the passing stats. All in all, it was a solid November-NFL win. Jacksonville won’t be easy. No one is easy this time of year. GO BILLS!!!

The question turns on whether he was giving himself up or trying to advance the ball. It was pretty clear that he was giving himself up to avoid contact. So, the ball is spotted where it was when his knee hit the ground. It really was a pretty routine call.

Most of us thought he learned that last season. Seems he forgot.

Yes, we're old. Not responding to you, but I will say that I've seen them all since Brown, and Brown is absolutely the correct comparison in terms of running style. Exactly the same style. Pound straight ahead into the hole and make the slightest of moves necessary to get to daylight, breaking arm tackles along the way. Absolutely devastating stiff arm. The only season Brown did not win the rushing title was when he played the entire season with a broken wrist, carried the ball in his good hand and couldn't stiff arm with the bad one. Blistering straight ahead speed. Plus tremendous power. Not Campbell, who was incredible and had the speed. But Campbell didn't feint past tacklers like Brown and Henry, he just bulldozed them. Dickerson was closer to being like Brown and Henry, and was better than they were in the open field, but wasn't as good as just a great back for as long as Brown. Simpson, Sanders, Sayers were the most spectacular ball carriers ever in terms of pure entertainment value, but they weren't the same kind of workhorse backs that Brown and Henry were. Brown then and Henry now, if your game plan every week is get him the ball 30 times, it's a good game plan. One difference between Brown and Henry is that back then, it was a running game, and Brown gave the Browns the best running attack, year after year. He was just so dominant. Henry is so good that even though it's no longer a running game in the NFL, the Titans can play throwback style football and make it work. He's devastatingly good. To your point, I'd never really thought about it, and it's very interesting. When he was coming out of Alabama, few people were raving about him. He looked like a guy with great attitude who benefitted from playing on a great team. Nobody was looking at him as the next truly great running back. He was picked 45th! (Everyone knew Brown was great. He was picked 7th, I think, and probably would have gone earlier if he weren't Black. It was the 50s, and NFL teams were just starting to add Black players to their rosters.) And then, as you say, he didn't explode on the league like the typical superstar running backs. (Brown was great as a rookie, broke the single season rushing record in his second season. Dickerson, Sanders, Sayers all flashed almost immediately. And, as you say, more recently, RBs star early and then fade; it's a consistent pattern.) I was a huge Jim Brown fan when I was a kid, and I've become a Henry fan. One thing I liked about Brown was his stoicism. He just carried the ball and went back to the huddle. Players were less demonstrative in those days, but even by comparison in those days, he seemed to be emotionless on the field. Henry plays like that too. Make the run, get tackled, get up, go back to the huddle. It's almost impossible for Henry to catch Brown in terms of career dominance in the NFL, because of Henry's slow start the first few years. Brown played nine seasons, led the league in rushing eight times (as I said, he played the whole season with a broken wrist the one season he didn't win the title). But if youngsters like you want to know what Jim Brown was like, replay in your head Derrick Henry against the Bills on Monday night, and then imagine him doing the same thing every game for nine straight seasons. That was Jim Brown. (EVERY game? Well, no, he got stopped once in a while. But you never were surprised when he played like Henry did the other night. Never. You were surprised when he didn't.) When Franco Harris was closing in on Brown's career rushing record, Brown was 45. He said that if he came out of retirement, he would be better than Harris. Brown was so good that even though he'd been out of the game for 13 years, lots of people seriously argued the point.

Nice, nice, nice. Thanks for posting this.

I'm glad you said that. Why wouldn't those guys run some kind of route? Who knows what might happen on the play? Or come down the line to block, if that's still legal. Why wouldn't you want the QB to have the option to back off the pile and throw it? That seems obvious. Bills had three guys on the field who were total observers. Granted, they occupied three defenders, to make the play 8 on 8, but that's not getting the most out of the fact that rules let you play with 11. Thanks for this explanation. I wasn't trying to suggest that WhoTom is an infallible source. I was only trying to explain why I relied on what he said.

After the game he was asked if Josh had options, and McDermott said yes. It was clear that McDermott meant that Josh did some decision making on the play. Maybe it only meant he had options to choose the hole, I don't know. Of course it is. I didn't say it wasn't. You asked me how I knew that Allen changed the play. I went back and found where I heard it and showed it to you. I also told you that there was no link, and that I generally trust what WhoTom says. None of that suggests that that inquiry should stop there. And then I went and did the research and explained that I didn't find anything saying Allen changed the play, just that he had options. I'm not sure why you're asking this.

Hap - I just went back and listened to McD's presser after the game. He doesn't say it directly, but at one point he says "I'm gonna trust my players," and it seems like he meant he's going to trust Josh to get the yardage. Didn't necessarily mean that Josh changed the call. But then later someone asked whether Josh had an option or choice, and McDermott said he did, and Josh has usually been excellent in making that decision. Now, again, it isn't clear that Josh changed the play; McDermott may have meant that they called the sneak but Josh has options as to how to run it, where to attack it. That "sneak" he ran around left end a couple of weeks ago clearly was Josh reading the defense and attacking where he saw the weakness. So, I didn't find (didn't look too hard) McDermott saying that Josh changed the play, but it's clear that at least some of the responsibility for running the play and how it was run was on Allen. Someone else commented that the Bills had three receivers in the end zone on that play, and the body language of each suggested some disappointment or frustration. That's not right. The wideouts just stood at the line as the ball was snapped and pretty much just watched. The sneak had to have been called either in the huddle or at the line, because the receivers had nothing to do except line up in places that would keep three defenders too far from the play.

On the first page of Thr Rockpule Review, WhoTom said this: "One point about the 4th-and-1 play call: McD said Josh made the decision to change from whatever play Daboll called and sneak it instead. They gave him the authority to do so." No link. WhoTom doesn't make stuff up. I assumed it came from the postgame interview.

I don't know what they will do, but there will be changes in scheme or personnel or both.

I absolutely thought the Bills were the better team. A couple of points about that. Offensively, the Bills were excellent. Allen just reverted to his high school days. That three-play sequence he went against all the principles he's been taught in the last few years. And the quarterback sneak was his misperceiving the situation - he shouldn't have checked down. As for the defense, it was pretty simple, and ESPN showed it on one replay late in the game. By the fourth quarter, the Bills were overreacting so much to the play fake that they were leaving the huge expanses of open field underneath the safeties and corners, and Tannehill was having no trouble finding open receivers for easy completions. I say overreacting because as I've thought more about the game and looked at the stats, I realized that Henry didn't kill the Bills. It fell like he did, but the numbers say otherwise. He had a yard run. Take that away, and he gained 3.5 yards per carry. The Bills stopped him a lot at the LOS, and he got a few 10-yard runs or so. I'm not so sure they needed to react that way. I've never understood the difference between run blitzes and pass blitzes, but it seems to me that if the Bills had blitzed more, they could have maintained their ability to control Henry by denying him gaps, AND they could have put more pressure on Tannehill, making it tougher for him to make the downfield throws. The Bills rushed four pretty much all night, and they got close to Tannehill often, but didn't really make him uncomfortable. I think they could have brought 5 and 6 more often and made him get rid of the ball earlier, or sacked him, and maybe even taken the ball away. Yes, in the fourth quarter the defense was a sieve, but I don't think it had to be that way.

Yes we agree on 99% of things, and I agree with 100% of this. But you said in your original post the that the offensive line "has to" get the inches they needed, meaning they "must." That's what I objected to. I agree that's the objective. You need to win the one-on-one battles or you lose. My point was that you could be the best team in the league and only be the 10th best at winning the offensive line's one on one battles. You simply cannot win the one and one battles every play - the league is too good. It's one thing to say we're going to build the team around the principle that we will win those battles, it's another thing to call a smart football game. Sometimes, your intention notwithstanding, you can see that the matchups are unfavorable and you're not likely to win. That was true the other night. If McDermott really wanted to win that battle at the center of the line (and apparently the coaches actually wanted to go in a different direction), then he should have recognized that he needed an extra lineman and maybe Star at fullback to help push the pile. Being stubborn about winning one-on-one football isn't always smart football. And you seem to be saying that, too. I've thought more about the other point I was making. With all the analytics, I'm sure it would be possible to calculate what is the single down and distance that is the most important to win. I'd guess that the down and distance that most affects your winning outcome is something like 3rd and 7. That is, if the question is "What is the down the distance that I'd like to be the very best in the league at?," the answer is something like 3rd and 7. If I can every 3rd and 7, I'm going to win more games than if I win every 4th and 1. Why? Well, I keep a lot more drives alive winning on 3rd and 7. Plus, if I'm the best in the league at 3rd and 7, I'm probably also the best, or close to the best, at 3rd and 6 and 3rd and 8, which means I'm sustaining a lot of drives. 4th and 1 is a very particular play that only happens once or twice a game. What does that mean? It means that pass protection and more sophisticated run blocking schemes are more important than the ability to blow your opponent off the line of scrimmage to get that one yard. If I'm great at 3rd and 7, I'm getting the first down on the play where Josh came up inches short, and I never get to 4th and 1.

Well, yes and no. Yes, to a man it looked like the Bills line got beat. But no, your O line doesn't HAVE to be able to a gain of several inches against EVERY team in the league. Being able to get one yard against every team in the league is not the stat that correlates best with winning. The whole game, every game, doesn't turn on your ability to get one yard. I agree, you'd like to be able to get that yard against anyone, but it just isn't the case every week. What is more important is being able to get the first down on fourth and one. You don't necessarily have to get it with power up the middle, but you have to be able to get it. Even so, you aren't going to get it every time. Allen was supposed to know how good their defensive front is, and he was supposed to recognize that the defensive formation made the defense difficult to attack. Allen failed at that. Maybe he changed out of a play that also wasn't going to work; I don't know. That play was a failure, and yes, if you want to win a championship, you shouldn't be failing there. But I'm sure that the Bills coaches spent no more time this week teaching about that play than they did on several other plays, each of which was as easily responsible for the loss as the sneak. Failing on fourth and one there was disappointing, and the Bills need to be better, but it's far from the crisis you seem to suggest it is.