Shaw66

You could write all day about it. Those little dump offs Allen threw over defenders. White and Hyde protesting to the refs. Diggs not realizing the defender was right there on the deep ball. Oliver was possessed. Mahomes side arm stuff not working. Defense was everywhere. Pass protection. Incredible to step up so completely in a big game on the road. And now to have turn around and do it again.

All right. Full disclosure. I left Arrowhead at halftime. I had a good excuse. Well, I had an excuse. Okay, there is no excuse. The upper concourse was absolutely packed with people at halftime, just standing around and waiting out the weather delay. The concession stands were selling no beer. It was raining. The lightning seemed to keep coming and coming, and the weather radar looked bad. We decided to go. As we began to push our way through the crowd, I stopped beside a big Bills fan who seemed to be enjoying himself. Why not? The Bills had dominated the first half, and you could feel the dejection in the KC air. I tapped him on the shoulder and asked, “Will I be forgiven if I leave at halftime?” He looked me in the eye and sympathetically said something like, “I don’t have that authority, but I don’t think you will ever be completely forgiven.” We both laughed, and I went on my way. It took ten minutes to get to the gate. We stopped. Once I went out the gate there was no coming back. I thought about it and then decided to continue. Walking through the parking lots, we heard the cheers from the crowd as they learned they could return to the stadium. We heard the second half kickoff on the radio in the car. We heard Hyde’s interception, and we heard Rousseau’s interception. I was in the hotel lobby restaurant for the final plays of the Chiefs’ TD drive and for the rest of the game as I worked on a drink and a sandwich. I missed the second half downpour. I missed the end-of-game traffic jam. But I also missed celebrating with Bills fans at the end of the game. All in all, it wasn’t a horrible way to have seen/heard the game, but I never leave before the end. Well, last season, I left a meaningless game 16 in horrible rain, but that was like leaving a preseason game. Now that I have that off my chest, what a game! I mean, really, what a game!!! In his post-game interview, Josh Allen was very calm and professional, it’s only one win, four wins doesn’t get you to the playoffs, etc., etc. The Bills’ celebrations on the sideline as Allen took knees said something different. The mantra is “don’t get too high, don’t get too low, blah, blah,” but those celebrations showed that the Bills looked at this game like the fans did – maybe not redemption for the loss in the Championship Game, but at least a test. Did the Bills have the secret potion to counter Mahomes’s magic? Could they stop Hill and Kelce? Could they slay the dragon? Hell, yes! Maybe the dragon’s getting a little long in the tooth, and maybe the dragon will rise to fight again, but for now, this dragon took a fatal sword thrust to the heart and is lying dead on GEHA Field at Arrowhead. There are new dragons on the horizon – there always are in the NFL, but if the Bills face the Chiefs in the playoffs this season, it’s going to be in Orchard Park, and that’s where the Bills want them. Watching the early games on Sunday, I realized that one thing that makes the Bills defense so great is that the Bills do not, they absolutely do not, let anyone get deep on them. All afternoon long, one team after another got beat deep, and I kept wondering what was wrong with them. Finally I realized it – there’s nothing wrong with them; it’s just that the Bills are special. Somehow, the Bills always have a defender running with the deep threat. Except for the first play of the game when Kelce got deep and Mahomes missed him. I began to worry that Andy Reid had found, once again, the cracks in the defense that would allow him to strike deep, but that was it – one play. After that, the long strikes to Hill or any of those other speedsters KC puts on the field simply weren’t there. The Bills were fearless. Sometimes Tre White followed Hill, but sometimes the defensive responsibility fell to someone else, mostly Taron Johnson. KC seemed to think that they could put Hill in the slot and take advantage of the matchup, but that strategy failed almost completely. Johnson’s been playing well all year, but it seemed as though he said to the Bills, “if you give me the money, I’ll show you what I REALLY can do.” With his new contract in hand, Johnson was ready for whatever Hill could bring at him. The defense is amazing. There’s always another tackler arriving, someone’s always going after the ball. They’re tough. Poyer probably will get fined for that hit on Kelce, but Poyer wanted to send a message. It probably was a bad idea, because Kelce will remember, but Poyer WANTS him to remember. The difference this season no doubt is the defensive line. The Bills don’t come at opponents with superstar talent on the defensive line. They don’t have a Kahlil Mack demanding double teams, or a Chris Jones. They just attack with good football players, and the complementary effect of working together is that someone is always making a play. Last season, all they had was Hughes, Addison, and Oliver, and the total of the three wasn’t enough to threaten the offense consistently. This season, the Bills have added Rousseau and Star and an improved Zimmer and Basham and Efe, and it seems that any four of them together threaten the QB on almost every drop back. And they stop the run, too. Even when the opposing QB has time to look downfield, he has a problem – the back seven. All night long, Mahomes was looking, scrambling, looking, looking, and more often then not, he threw a contested ball or threw it away. Did the Bills miss Matt Milano? Yes, because every game that Milano is on the field, he makes an eye-popping play or two. No, because AJ Klein made all the ordinary plays that the Bills defense requires. He seemed never to be out of position, and roaming behind that defensive line, he and Edmunds made tackles all night. One last thing about the defense: Rousseau. Football at its very core is about territory: can you attack their territory and can you defend yours? The best coaches say, for example, that the offense needs to attack vertically and horizontally, because if you can threaten to attack all over the field, you spread the defense and everything gets easier. On defense, the better you can defend territory, the easier defense gets. It’s the point about Edmunds that so many people seem to miss. Edmunds is valuable because the combination of his size, including his wingspan, his quickness and his speed allows him to cover a much larger part of the center of the field than the average middle linebacker. Throwing over him and dropping the ball into the middle zones is difficult if not impossible. He makes it hard to find crossers, because of his unique physical skills, and that helps the entire defense, because the offense has less territory to attack. Rousseau looks like another Edmunds, and he is. He stays on his feet, and he can run. The result is that he is excellent shutting down the run game to his side of the field, and he’s almost equally valuable trailing plays to the other side. But the point about defenders taking away parts of the field with their size was best demonstrated on his interception. Mahomes learned, and other quarterbacks are learning, that throws to the right flat are not the gimme outlet passes they’re used to making. Rousseau is so tall and has such great reach and athletic ability that he makes it difficult to get balls around or over him and still connect with the receiver. So, there the defense sits after game 5, on the top of the league in yards per game and points per game. Spectacular! How about the offense? How does 8th in yards per game and first in points per game sound? Wow! The Chiefs haven’t gotten the message about not letting receivers deep. Sanders, Diggs, Knox all burned them. Josh still hasn’t played his best football, and that’s exactly what keeps defensive coordinators up at night. Wait until the offense really gets humming. A few things about the offense. First, the Bills seemed prepared for the noise. There had been questions about whether Josh’s success last season stemmed from the fact that he could make adjustments in quiet stadiums on the road. It seemed that when he faced a full house in KC last January, he struggled. Well, the crowd was loud on Monday night, as loud as in Orchard Park, but it was no problem for the Bills. They ran on a silent count, and Josh seemed to make the adjustments at the line that he wanted. That’s a credit to Brian Daboll. Actually, the entire offensive performance was a credit to Brian Daboll. He schemed up the right running plays for Josh, so that Josh’s legs were a true threat. He got receivers deep, and he got them open in the middle, too. Best of all, he had a great scheme for the running backs. Moss and Singletary were constant threats. Particularly late in the game, the running backs were much more patient, getting wide and simply waiting for the blockers to open a seam before attacking. It’s the style that made Le’Veon Bell a star in Pittsburgh – just be patient and you’ll find a place to go. The Bills are being rewarded for the their patience with Dawson Knox. Finally, if you want to be a dragon slayer, you’ve got to confront the claws, the teeth, and the flaming breath fearlessly and fight back. That’s exactly what the Bills offense did in the second half. They opened the half going three and out, four and out, three and out. Micah Hyde gave them some breathing room with his pick six, but the Chiefs roared back, with Mahomes taking them on a classic, quick TD drive to make it 31-20. The game was on the line. Fourteen minutes left. The Bills needed to run clock and keep the ball away from Mahomes. They needed a field goal to go up 14, which wouldn’t be bad. What they really needed was a long drive for a touchdown, leaving the Chiefs down three scores without enough time to do it. Josh and the offense were ready to slay the dragon. What looked like a bogus offensive holding call put the Bills in an immediate hole, but they were bailed out with a roughing the passer call against Clark that probably was the right call – lifting the quarter back off the ground and landing on top of him without Clark breaking his fall. But they were still deep in their own territory, and there still was a lot of time on the clock. A first down pass to Sanders got the Bills a fresh set of downs from their own 34. Moss ran for one, and Beasley made a good run after a short completion for five. Now it was third and four, still with nine and half minutes on the clock, plenty of time for Mahomes to get two scores. The Bills needed a first down. And then it happened. For fans of any other team, it would have been a miracle, but for Bills fans it was just Josh being Josh. Bills fans had seen it before. Hard as it is to believe, they’d seen EXACTLY the same thing before. Josh scrambled and, confronted by a tackler who would drop him short of the first down, he simply jumped over him! When he did it his rookie season, he said he knew he wasn’t supposed to do it, but the team needed the first down. Same thing against the Chiefs – his team needed the first down, so he just jumped over the guy. Nine minutes were left on the clock, maybe still enough time for Mahomes, but Allen’s play ignited the offense. Allen to Moss for 16 yards, Allen to Davis for another 16, Allen keeps it for 12, Moss runs for 4, and Allen to Sanders for 8 and the TD. Six minutes left, but the dragon’s corpse was lying on the field. The celebration began as Allen took three sweet kneel downs and fittingly tossed the ball Micah Hyde, the ever-present safety. Last season, the Bills were spanked on the road two weeks in a row by the Titans and then the Chiefs. Coincidentally, the Titans will be waiting for the Bills in Nashville next Monday night. Just another dragon. Go Bills!

No way they would move the game up and conflict with the 4 pm games. Viewership at the end of the 4 pm games and the beginning of 8pm game all would be affected. It would cost the networks millions.

I hate to be a contrarian, but I think we fans, including me, are pretty stupid about this kind of thing. We think that what we saw last season was what we're going to get this season, when in fact, more often than not, that is simply wrong. The Chiefs clearly are not the same team they were last season. The Bucs aren't. The Cowboys aren't. Nobody is. Teams evolve, rosters change, players develop, players get old, coaches change. Everything changes. One of the things I like about McDermott is that he understands this dynamic completely. He view his job as trying to figure out how to win this week's game based on the skills and deficiencies of this week's roster and this week's opponent. It is a constantly changing dynamic. The Bills' top-five go-to plays from last season almost certainly will be stopped by opponents this season. It seems pretty clear that defensive coaches have figured out how to slow down the Chiefs' best plays from last season, too. If Knox weren't better this season than last we'd be disappointed (a la Cody Ford). If Singletary didn't come back after last season, we'd be disappointed. Everything changes. Go Bills!

Great song! I remember going to see Oklahoma! when I was about seven. Loved it. I still make up alternate lyrics to the title song when I run across a word that fits. Joshie Allen! with an arm like no one ever had, Joshie Allen.

!!!!!!!! LOL.

Great. Thanks for the suggestion. I was wondering how we'd fine a good BBQ place.

I've had tickets for months. Flying in Saturday night, spending Sunday afternoon watching the NFL and the Red Sox with a buddy, then off to the game.

Definitely a combination. Gotta think the Chargers would slice and dice the bad teams just like the Bills have been doing.

It probably will settle down, but right now it's looking like there are a lot of bad teams.

I haven't studied film and I didn't watch the interior line during the game, but I like Brown at right tackle and Williams at right guard. The way McDermott views it, he's going to play his five best linemen, and I think Brown has shown he's in the top five. And I think that Williams actually will fit well at guard. I think he gives the Bills more power at the position, which should help their zone blocking schemes. Plus, the one thing that has bothered me about Williams at tackle is that he doesn't have that quick first step to the right to cut off the wide rusher. Brown has it. Inside, Williams is quick enough to slide right or left to help on the double teams either way. The question is whether he can pull on the traps and get in position to make some of the seal blocks.

Right. Some of these teams are colossally bad.

Ha ha ha ha!!! Ha ha ha!!! Ha ha ha ha ha!!! The Bills beat the Houston Texans on Sunday. In a word, it was a laugher. Final score: 40-0, but as they say, it wasn’t that close. When the Patriots recovered after a disastrous first half to beat Atlanta in the Super Bowl, someone asked Bill Belichick after the game if the coaches were worried at halftime. He answered that they didn’t feel too badly, because they were competitive on the field, they just weren’t competitive on the scoreboard. Well, Houston wasn’t ever competitive, on the scoreboard or in the game. In fact, the game was over shortly after the opening kickoff; we just didn’t know it yet. Houston couldn’t stop the Bills, and Houston couldn’t move the ball against the Bills. Okay. If you’re a regular reader, you’ve heard this before. Same old story, I know, but what a great story! The Denver Broncos had a receiver in the 60s named Lionel Taylor. Taylor was the first receiver in the history of professional football to have 100 receptions in a season – a 12-game season. He was unstoppable for a few years. There was a story about Taylor that was told in those days that supposedly was true. The Broncos were playing the Houston Oilers (now the Titans), and the Oilers’ defensive backfield was weak. In those days, everyone was trying to play bump and run, all the defenses ran standard 4-3, all the offenses pretty much split played two-wide, one receiver to each side, always to the same side. So, every play, a receiver was lined up wide against the same corner back, and they were face-to-face across the line of scrimmage all day. The story was that for the entire game, before the snap Taylor told the corner back what route he would run, essentially challenging the corner to stop him. He went for over 100 yards that day. Well, Sunday, against another Houston team, Josh Allen seemed to pay homage to Taylor, who’s still alive. The Texans received the opening kickoff and, after a first-down holding penalty, went three and out. They punted, and the Bills took over on their own 34. Almost as though he was saying, “Here, I’ll give you a chance,” on first down Allen threw the ball directly to Lonnie Johnson, Jr., who made a brilliant change of direction and returned the interception 32 yards to the Bills’ 13 yard line. The Bills defense took over, and on 4th and 3 from the Buffalo 6, Houston wasted their first, and last, scoring opportunity of the day by going for it. Attacking from the left defensive end, Jerry Hughes deflected Davis Mills’s pass, and Houston was done. On the ensuing third down, Allen air mailed his next pass over the head of Stefon Diggs and out of bounds, forcing a Bills punt. It was as though Allen was saying to Houston, “Here, I’ll give you another chance.” After the punt, Houston got one first down, and then on third down Mills threw an interception to Tremaine Edmunds. Houston didn’t get another first down until the third quarter. Now, Allen took over, and the Bills put up a touchdown and three field goals before the half ended. A third-quarter field goal and three fourth-quarter touchdowns accounted for the rest of the Bills’ scoring. It was a total blowout. The Texans had no answers for the Bills defense. Jaquan Johnson, Tyler Matakevich, and Micah Hyde had interceptions, and A.J. Klein picked up a fumble. If Matakevich had gotten his pick one play earlier, the Texans would have finished the game with fewer than 100 yards of total offense. Everyone had fun. Edmunds had his pick and a couple of really nice tackles, Ed Oliver exploded through the line to make some nice stops. Boogie Basham got his first NFL sack. Cam Lewis, called up from the practice squad to play for Taron Johnson, flashed on a few plays. Johnson handled his duties, subbing for Jordan Poyer, without mishap. The offense struggled in the red zone, but otherwise there were plenty of fireworks. Dawson Knox continued to emerge as a more consistent target, catching everything that came his way, including two TDs. Diggs went over 100 yards, courtesy of a long Josh Allen laser that dropped in Diggs’s hands as he streaked down the right sideline. Emanuel Sanders caught his share of balls. The surprise move, or perhaps not so surprising, was that Daryl Williams moved from right tackle to right guard, as Cody Ford went to the bench. Rookie Spencer Brown took over the right tackle duties. Ike Boettger filled in for the injured Jon Feliciano, so it was something of a remade offensive line. The changes seemed to help. Devin Singletary and Zach Moss shared the rushing duties, and each had some nice runs, courtesy of perhaps the best run blocking the offensive line has displayed in 2021. Allen suffered only one sack and generally worked in the pocket without substantial pressure. In a pass-happy NFL, Josh Allen was ordinary against the Texans. He had the 16th best passer rating among quarterbacks in week 4. He threw for a paltry 248 yards, also 16th, and two TDs. He threw an ugly interception. And yet, Allen was spectacular in ways that only Allen can be. The deep ball to Diggs way eye-popping – not a Russell-Wilson-rainbow, but a rocket that fell in perfectly for the completion. Allen’s pump fake on the first touchdown to Knox was one of the best you will ever see. As Knox was crossing the field, the fake not only froze the safety covering Knox, it caused him to step toward the fake – Knox suddenly was wide open as Allen delivered the ball. And Allen’s scramble, roll out, and long throw to Diggs to set up the Bills’ first field goal was spectacular. Two Texans suddenly appeared in Allen’s face and instead of running away from them to the left, he spun almost instantly and sprinted out to the right to buy time while Diggs broke to the sideline. Allen is the new Elway. His right arm is a rocket launcher. Gabriel Davis couldn’t handle one fireball in the endzone, Zach Moss wasn’t ready on the goal line for a ball that arrived hot, and a Texans’ defender pounded the ground after missing an interception on a ball that exploded past him before he had a chance to make the play. Allen’s not showing the touch that he did last season, and his receivers know they need to be ready. It rained off and on all day, sometimes hard. The rain may have contributed to Allen’s interception and at least a couple of the Texans’ turnovers, but the rain had pretty much nothing to do with the outcome. The fans came prepared and packed the stadium. At halftime, the upper deck began to thin out, and over the course of the second half, more people began to leave. At the two minute warning, maybe 20,000 people remained, celebrating. As I looked at the crowd and listened to the noise, I realized something was missing. At first, I didn’t know what it was. Then it dawned on me – for the past 15 years I’d been to multiple games where the stadium emptied out like that, and I’d gotten used to seeing the opposing players standing on their bench, waving towels and celebrating with their fans who had gathered in the lower deck behind the visitors’ bench, as dejected Bills fans left the stadium. An empty stadium usually meant a blow-out loss for the home team. No more. Of course, everything changes next week. The Chiefs are not the Dolphins, the Washington no-names, or the Texans. Next week is serious football with big implications. Go Bills!

Great stories!

Interesting thoughts. Clearly, they aren't doing any more improvements at Highmark, but there definitely should be some wind-planning for the new stadium. It seems to have gotten worse the last couple of years. There have been multiple games a year where the wind is a big factor. The fundamental problem is that the wind comes from the open end of the stadium. If the easterly end were closed, it wouldn't be so bad. The old Giants stadium in the Meadows was completely closed. The wind blew a lot there, but it blew across the top of the stadium. It caused a lot of swirling on the field, and it was tricky to throw there. But it wasn't a wind that forced tactical decisions on pass plays and kicks.

Thanks for both comments. Makes sense if the explanation is just that Singletary screwed it up. And you're right about just beat teams. Nothing special. Just be better most of the time over 60 minutes. Something always will go wrong. Just get up and do it better.

Well, I agree about Edmunds. I'm not saying much about him these days. He may be doing everything the team asks of him, but it does seem to me that a guy playing in the middle of an active team defense should be standing out more than he does. Shouldn't he make a tackle once in a while on 4th and 1 like Milano did? Why is it always Milano? Wouldn't you think once in a while it should be Edmunds. Still, I'm not worried about it. I think he's doing what the Bills want.

Hard to believe that all of this is correct, but right now it's hard to argue with much of it. You could point to any one of several other defenders. This team at least is looking like it could become a really good team. We'll see when the tougher opponents hit the schedule.

I got it. All I'm saying is I like what I've seen from Moss better. I get that others could see it another way. I'm not saying Daboll is a fool not to be giving Moss more touches. He's not the clear and obvious winner in the competition to be the start. I just think he'd be a better choice.

Oh, yes, I agree about they'd try. McDermott saw it as an opportunity to find out how his team works in that situation. He knows he has the team that should be able to do it, so let's find out. I didn't expect success. That's where they blew me away. Success, and it just wasn't all that hard. Think about this. I know, it's a different situation, but Aaron Rodgers went 42 yards in 6 plays with 37 seconds. Allen went 51 yards in 5 plays with 26 seconds. Rodgers was fantastic, so what was Allen?

I won't like it one bit if he becomes a factor in their offense. On the other hand, if in three months that guy can make himself back into a big-time receiver, as Antonio Brown did to some extent, it will be one of the great personal comeback stories of all time.

Yes, but there's a tactical advantage to having your best running back threat on the field on first down. That's the down when you can attack the whole field, so that's when you want your best running back out there. Regardless of how the touches vary from week to week, you want the opponent to have to plan for the guy as a threat on most of the offense's plays. Singletary's been okay, but Moss seems more consistently to find opportunities for an 8-15 yard gain. I'd start Moss and force the opponent to plan for his brand of explosiveness.

I didn't expect to see it. I expected they'd struggle and stall, maybe find themselves managing the clock so as not to have give the ball back. I knew they could do it, but I didn't expect it. And I really didn't expect they could be so clinical about it, so efficient. They knew exactly what they were doing. It was impressive.

Great discussion here. Thanks from all the people, like me, who don't know or see those things. Good stuff. I'm particularly interested because it's an example of McDermott's philosophy. He wants his team to learn to do something new every week. He wants to be able to attack, on offense and on defense, in different ways from week to week. "We block this way this week, we block another way next week." He wants jack-of-all-trades guys, with a few masters thrown in. The dline analysis is similar to the oline analysis. One week the Bills won on defense by attacking the QB. Next week they won by containing the QB and playing pass defense. Play different styles to take whatever advantage of any edge they can. Still, while on defense that style may work, I worry about the offense. At some point, there isn't a tactical edge when you're facing more strength, more speed, or more both. I'd like to see a line that gets more outright one-on-one wins, rather than holding their own or worse from week to week. I'm skeptical that this group has the physicality to win enough. The Bills running backs don't threaten either with good speed or good power or good receiving skills, so they are guys who need good holes to get past the LOS. The Bills offense eventually will have to be able to threaten to run the ball. Moss and Singletary will be able to be that threat if the oline gives them better opportunities than we've seen.

This is a really good point. I was at the game, and I was thinking, "what are you doing? You don't have time to go deep, you're within range, something could go wrong. McDermott would have none of that. Go get six more yards or whatever, because we can. It was an aggressive decision, they had the play and got closer for Bass. That's trusting the QB.