Shaw66

I'm not surprised by this at all. Guy was trikes me as smart, which is valuable, and accurate, also valuable. Beyond that, I couldn't get too excited about him. Not at all a good sign that guys on the team don't see enough promise to keep their mouths shut.

Then I will go straight to the posters' Hall of Fame!

The thread that will not die. I feel like Roman Castavet.

Yes. Another box Freeman can check. It isn't a move to remake the running game. It's just a move to have a player available if he might add something.

Fair enough, but I think you're applying the wrong standard. The right question to ask is who might give give you something for a few plays? Yeldon gives me the least mistakes. Williams gives me the best all round big play potential. Wade gives me explosive play potential. Freeman gives me experience and the best power running potential. As I said, you’re not going to get a really good back, and McD wants options.

I like this signing. 1. Bills didn't sign him, I don't think, for the Ravens. It's too hard to get him up to speed in this offense in one day. A receiver, maybe, but not a running back. You've got too many things that can go wrong: blitz pickups, mesh point on option plays, mesh point generally, messed up screen passes. Yes, a veteran knows about those things, but they still don't happen automatically. 2. Moss goes down, the Bills need to add SOMEONE to the roster, and few teams are going to have really good choices off their practice squads. I'm not a Yeldon fan - he'll do his jobs, but he doesn't execute anything - speed back, power back, pass receiver, anything at a level that can be explosive. Williams does promise some explosiveness, but his inexperience is a challenge. Still, at least he's practiced with the team. He may not have real time experience, but he's like to do his job fine. So picking up someone who may be at the end of his career isn't a horrible move - you need someone. 3. There's no reason to expect the Bills got Kareem Hunt or something. Anyone who's certifiably good is on a roster somewhere. Don't jump all over me, but signing Freeman and expecting him to be able to contribute makes some sense, in the same way signing Frank Gore makes some sense. He's a guy who has done this at a high level in this league, he isn't completely aged out, even if his talents have declined a bit. And, again, like Williams, he still might give you something. He might be a better and effective power back in short yardage. He knows what he's looking at running behind zone blocking schemes. Solid move by Beane. These signings don't come out of the blue. They result from McD telling Beane where he thinks he might need help, because the PS is thin. It's McD saying "give me another option, if I have to call on someone," and Beane delivering.

Good points, but I dont think Ben is having much trouble getting the ball downfield. He's made a lot of good deeper throws when I've seen him. But maybe you're right.

I have stayed out of this thread and just popped in to see what people are talking about. It seems to me there are one points to be made here and only one. I would guess the only point that matters is the what you're saying here, Hap.. Does anyone really think that the Bills coaches watched film of the game on Saturday night and said, "Milano made the wrong reads, took the wrong angles, and was late to the ball all game long"? It is much more likely that most of the time he was doing exactly what he was supposed to do as well as he could, but for a variety of reasons he was in positions on the field where he couldn't quite execute. As you say, Hap, some of it probably was the Colts having found some weaknesses in the coverage schemes. Some of it probably was that the Bills coaches thought that the defensive scheme could do the job and were wrong - they misjudged the effectiveness of parts of the Colts offense and didn't prepare for it. It's just really hard to believe that overnight MIlano became a bad player. He's smart, fast, quick to the ball, and diagnoses plays and situations well. That's who he is. Everyone has good games and bad games, to be sure, but Milano is not a problem - we've seen what he can do over and over. I had the same thought over the past few days about QBs, and it was reaffirmed last night. We all love Allen and how great he is, but the fact is that the coaches find ways to get receivers open consistently. Allen just has to find them and do what he does best, which is to deliver the ball. Allen is not asked to throw into a lot of tight windows. Last night Big Ben looked horrible. I kept asking myself why he was making such bad decisions, throwing into coverage, throwing INTs and all. Well, Ben didn't get stupid over night. We've seen him for too many years to think that Ben doesn't know when a guy is open and when he isn't. Ben was throwing into tight coverage because his coaches aren't running a scheme that gets guys open. Some of it's talent of the receivers, but more of it is scheme. There's nothing wrong with Milano.

That's all well and good, but the problem is in the playoffs the refs let a lot more go. That plays into the Ravens hands. Bills will need to be ready for a more physical game, and they will need strategies that will beat the physicality and get people open.

I think Brown on Saturday was two things. One was playing hurt, just like Beas and everyone else on the team. Everyone is dinged to a greater or lesser degree at this time of year. He wanted to be on the field, he was cleared by the medical team, and the coaches wanted to get out of him what they could. I think the other reason he played was the Bills were looking ahead. They probably were thinking that they want him in the lineup and effective as soon as they can get him there and that it might take him a game to get back up to speed. During the regular season you might sit him until he's completely healthy, then work him back into the lineup. In the playoffs you don't have that luxury. So the thought was, I think, to get him some game time (turns out it was a lot of game time) to get his sea legs back, then to rest and treat him during the weak to get him back closer to full strength.

Just went back and looked at it. It was pretty cool. He might have slowed down a lot, caused a collision and got the PI call. He could have kept going and reached back. He didn't do either. He (not saying I could, or anyone normal person, but) he could see that the defender wasn't going to be able get to it. So he decelerated to make the catch as easy as possible. Incredible on-field playmaking.

Taylor had runs of 10 and 8 on their first touchdown drive. Beyond that, it's not like it was garbage time when the big runs happened. There was no garbage time. The Colts have a QB who NEVER runs. The running backs went for 163 yards on 30 carries. No team in the league gave up, on average, 163 yards per game. The Titans have an average rushing defense. They had three games this season when they gave up more than 163 yards. Three. Don't try to tell us the Colts did rip the Bills on the ground.

And how is Jackson not in the discussion ahead of Tannehill?

Thanks. That's interesting. I probably overstated it and implied that Poyer did it to get the opportunity to force the turnover. Your explanation was probably the thought process. Yes, it may be coaching, and that's a good point, but it's nevertheless evidence of really high-level football thinking, instantly assessing the situation and reacting in the right way. And if it's coaching, it means the Bills are teaching, as I think they are, very high level football thinking. Thanks for pointing that out. As for Bass, I don't buy that. You can't afford to have a low-percentage place-kicker. He needs to be dead-on on the routine kicks. If he isn't accurate, it doesn't matter how much leg you have. Bills drafted him because they knew he had a big leg and had identified the characteristics they thought were key in terms of developing into a high-percentage kicker. (By the way, that's EXACtlY what they did in the case of Josh Allen - big arm, and the character that they thought was key in terms of developing.)

I agree. Titans and Ravens are tough, and their style matches up against the Bills nicely. Plus, one of these teams could beat the Chiefs. Go Steelers.

Thanks for this. I almost jumped out of my chair when I saw that play. I just wrote to a friend of mine about that throw. I said Allen is throwing Bob Gibson fastballs with a fifth grade schoolgirl throwing motion.

I have club seats. I had a 10:30 slot to buy club seats, an 11 am slot if I wanted regular seats. I'm out of state and misunderstood the rules about out of state travel, so I didn't buy last week. This time I read the fine print and realized I don't have to quarantine before the game, so I bought two. The rules seem to say that they go by season ticket seniority. Doesn't mean that the most senior season ticket holder is at the top of the list EVERY week? I'd think the fair way to do it would be that once you buy tickets for one game, you go to the bottom of the list for the next game. Doesn't seem like the Bills are doing that - the rules seem to be that it's a new auction every week, and the most senior season ticket holders are on top.

I saw it this way, too. In an absolutely perfect world, Allen would have recognized that his position was 100% hopeless and thrown the ball away. He has such extraordinary physical abilities that he'd recognized, he could have thrown the ball somewhere. But one major aspect of Allen's greatness is his ability to evade the first tackle, because getting away from the first tackler often results in Allen making a big throw or a big run. That is, part of his greatness is that he DOESN'T bail on plays when most other quarterbacks should - he's able to make plays when other quarterbacks can't. So, yeah, in hindsight, we can say that Allen should have thrown the ball away, but taking that sack is the price, the small price, the Bills pay for having a QB who does such marvelous things. Having said that, I would like to know what the Bills coaches are saying internally about that play after reviewing the film. The question we can't answer is whether PRESNAP Allen should have seen something and been prepared for what happened or changed the play or the blocking assignments. Maybe there was something for Allen to have seen to prepare him better for what actually happened. It that's true, well, that's just one more learning experience. Another part of Allen's greatness is that if he DID miss something, he isn't likely to miss it next time.

Excellent. Thanks for clearing this up. What it means is that I could sell my playoff tickets to anyone in the world that I choose, but I have to give one of them my Bills account login and password. The Bills account is run through Ticketmaster, so giving a stranger my Bills account login and password is giving them my Ticketmaster login and password. And at least for me and probably for many people, the Bills and/or Ticketmaster have my credit card information. So giving a stranger my login and password would be a pretty stupid thing to do, just to have the opportunity to scalp a couple of tickets.

I don't think that's correct, but I don't know. My reading of the rules suggested that one of the people at the gate must be the season ticket account holder. If it were otherwise, then that would mean that the account holder could sell his ticket to someone else, and that is clearly against the rules.

I think it is the case. It does say no transferring tickets. Maybe there are people working at One Bills Drive now - I would try to call them. Seems to me if there's a situation like someone has four season tickets in her name and goes to regular season games with her husband and two kids, and if she wants just two playoff tickets for her husband and a child, she ought to be able to do that. But the rules suggest otherwise. If you buy a pod (2 or 4 seats), you get one seat and you designate who gets the others. You can't designate the entire pod to other people.

Is that what happened? It looked that way to me, too. Someone didn't know what was supposed to happen.

This is a great point. You could see it on TV, too. He was hurting, but there was no way he wasn't going to play. In fact, Diggs is dinged too, although to a lesser extent. The fact is that a lot of pro football players are like that this time of season. It takes guts to play this game. Thanks for pointing this out.

This is an excellent point. THe comparison is exactly right. Ball control was the key in both games to the opponents' strategy. Very enlightening comparison. It reminds me of something I (we?) saw several weeks ago. I don't remember if it was said about the Bills or some other team with a big offense. Someone said that the job of the defense on a team like the Bills is to get the ball back to the offense as soon as possible, literally by any means possible. That means play aggressive defense, and take chances. The worst think that can happen is that the opponents will score a touchdown, but that at least means that the offense gets the ball again, quickly, and that's the objective. Said more bluntly, there's an argument to be made that Josh Allen is the best football player on the planet, and if you keep the football in his hands you'll win. (Lebron's coaches have always struggled with the fact that he loves passing - it's great to share the ball and all, but the coaches have always told Lebron to score more - passing puts the game in the hands of less talented players. This is similar - let Josh play.) The best strategy to beat the Bills is to hold the ball for 40 minutes, like the Giants did. That means the best defensive strategy is to play high-risk, high-reward defense. Stick 8 guys on the line of scrimmage and say to RIvers "we're coming. We're not going to let you run the ball, and we're going to pound you in the pocket. Pound you. If your receiver can get a step on our guy in single coverage and you can hit him in stride as one of our defenders is planting you in the ground, good for you. Send your defense back out onto the field and let's see how that goes."

Oooh.. I need yo dif that. Thanks.