Shaw66

Yeah, watch for it. He's not doing as much now as earlier in the season, when those 15-18 yard deep crossers were open all day. He has such arm strength and such good mechanics throwing the ball that he doesn't need to get his body into throws nearly as much as most other QBs. So it is literally like throwing darts for him - just a flick and the ball flies on a line. He's very accurate on those throws. I think as soon as Allen - or any QB, really, needs to put his body into the throw to get the necessary velocity, he's introducing more variables in the throw, which means it's easier to be off a little here or there, mechanically. Throwing darts is elbow and wrist. Throwing footballs at max distance is legs, hips, torso, shoulders, elbow and wrist. Unlike almost any other QB, Allen can throw 15-yard sideline passes with his elbow and wrist.

I disagree with the OP and agree with others who say you take the time out. I think you want your defense as ready as they can be to win the game, just like coaches often call time out just before an onside kick attempt. Be sure your team is ready. Trying to guess whether the opponent is disorganized, confused, flustered or whatever is junior high school stuff. And I have one other, different reaction. McDermott is in this for the long run. Like Belichick, he expects his team to get better year after year, for everyone to learn and progress. McDermott believes that is true as much, or more, for himself as for everyone else. He studies his decisions, analyzes them, and revises his coaching philosophy as he goes. As a result, he will be a better coach five years from now than he is now, just like Billy Donovan became a better coach. If McDermott's analysis after the Cards game, or after similar end game situations in the next few years, concludes that he should have trusted his players and not called the timeout, then that's what he will do in the future. If he made the wrong decision on Sunday, and I don't think he did, he'll make the right decision in similar situations later in his career.

I don't think he stinks. A little less so this season, but last season he's was fabulous in the pass defense. Covers so much ground. You could see QBs staying away from the middle of the field, because he was always a threat to be in the passing lane. So there's that. Against the run he's been okay to horrible. I think he's still learning to stay off of blocks. I think he needs to wait longer before he closes, but I'm not expert. He's begun to tackle with more authority. And I think maybe more than anyone else, he's the guy who needs Star in the middle. Star occupies a lineman or two every play. Without Star, guards or a center always seem to be roaming free, looking for Tremaine. He was in on a lot of tackles yesterday, and he was a big part of containing Murray.

Okay. The punt, for sure. The INTs happen in any game. I guess I agree that they're major mistakes, but if they're major mistakes, the Cards had two turnovers, too, so major mistakes in the takeaway category were even. I don't count those as things that changed the game. There was no major mistake on the final play. The pass rush was good, could have contained Murray better, but it forced him into a difficult throw. He made a great throw under pressure. The DBs did what they were supposed to do - White was with his man and the safeties closed beautifully on one of the most dangerous receivers in the game. He made the play, the Bills didn't, but those aren't mistakes. Michael Jordan missed 26 game-winning shots. Those aren't mistakes, either.

Can he play defensive tackle?

Gunner - I don't get this. What major mistakes? There's a difference between major mistakes, and ordinary mistakes that have large consequences. Penalties are ordinary mistakes, but every once in a while a penalty is a game changer. I thought the the Bills played pretty well, but made some mistakes. Same could be said about Arizona. The two Allen INTs and the fumble probably are major mistakes, but even those are routine events in a football game. The Bills did have one horrible string of penalties, but I don't think that's a major mistake - that's just a lot of penalties coming together. You want the team to play tentatively after they've gotten two penalties in a row. I don't think the Bills lost because of mistakes. They lost because they can't run the ball and they can't stop the run. Those aren't mistakes - that's poor coaching, poor talent, or a combination of both. That's coaches and players presumably doing their best, but their best isn't enough to get the job done. What are the major mistakes you're thinking of?

You dont have to defend Beane to me. In his job, he makes a lot of decisions, and I do t expect that he will get them all correct. That's impossible. He just missed on the middle of th D line. I thought Harry would be fine behind Star, and he might have been. But it turned out that without Star, Harry couldn't do what was needed.

No, he didn't know. But he knew he needed a second guy, and I thi k mostly he was thinking Philips would be that guy. He did a lot of work on the D line, but he didn't get a true backup for Star.

I've been thinking something for weeks, and this is as good a place as any to post it. After Henry stiff armed Norman, Henry went out of bounds. The momentum created by the stiff arm forced him out of bounds. So Norman actually made the tackle on that play.

It's not playoff time yet. McDermott is still building his team. But I agree with the fundamental point. Running and stopping the run is pretty fundamental to winning, and those are clearly the Bills weaknesses. As someone said, if they had Morse, and Feliciano, running probably would look better. If Beane had one do over, I'd bet that it would be that he would have found a a big guy to play the 1-tech.

No, I'm not. But the Cardinal clearly are a good football team. When the Bills started their final drive, I said to my wife that the Bills are good, because the three and out they forced to give Allen one more chance was the same kind of gutsy play we've seen from McDermott's teams for three years now. The Bills are good, and they're getting better. Most important, they have a big-time quarterback. The final play ripped my heart out. But I'm optimistic because the team is good. Yeah, I forgot to include Bass. Really solid. Bojo, on the other hand, has to go.

It was Josh Allen’s worst game of the season, until it wasn’t. Allen had been stymied by the Cardinals defense for pretty much the entire game. He threw perhaps his two worst interceptions of the season, one a poorly executed throw to Gabriel Davis in fairly tight coverage, a pass that if Davis had made the absolutely perfect play by stopping for the ball, he might have had a completion or interference penalty. The other, a classic young QB’s mistake, failing to see Patrick Peterson dropping into coverage underneath Allen’s intended receiver. Two critical mistakes. Allen took what the defense was giving him pretty much all day, which is, after all, what he’s supposed to do. He once again was great managing the pocket, taking no sacks, creating a couple of miraculous escapes, and making tough throws from tight situations. In addition to the two interceptions, several of his throws were just a bit off target. One of those throws, into the left flat late in the game, created the opportunity for Cole Beasley to make a great one handed catch for a critical first down on what looked like the game-winning drive. And then, with three and a half minutes left, Allen got the ball one more time. Until then, he hadn’t played so badly to have lost the game, but he hadn’t done much of anything to win it, either. The Bills had just completed a horrible, penalty riddled, drive to nowhere. That’s when Allen did it again – another fourth quarter comeback drive. He took control of the ball, the offense, and the game, running and passing the ball down the field, managing the huddle, managing the clock, managing the team. It was popgun offense at times, four yards here, five yards there, dink, dunk, nice throws but nothing special. Finally, BANG!!! The touchdown pass that could be thrown by only a handful of NFL quarterbacks, the touchdown route and catch that could be run and made by only a dozen receivers. Allen to Diggs. Touchdown! Game over, but of course, it wasn’t. The Bills defense needed one more stop; they played the last 39 seconds pretty much just as they had drawn it up. In the end, Kiler Murray made an excellent play, the kind of play that only Murray and a handful of other quarterbacks, including Allen, make, and Andre Hopkins made the catch to win the game, the kind of catch that only a dozen or so receivers, including Diggs, make. In a sense, all that happened is that the game ended with three and half minutes left, and then for a few more minutes two of the best QBs in the league and two of the best receivers in the league put on a show for the entertainment of a national audience. Could the Bills have stopped the final play? The Bills surrounded Hopkins with their three best defensive backs – Hyde, Poyer, and White, all four jumped, Hopkins was in perfect position to get his hands on the ball ahead of the others, and he didn’t let go. In a perfect world, White doesn’t jump, stands his ground and, as Hopkins comes down with ball, White knocks it out of his hands. The Bills were close, but just not quite perfect. The Bills are a good football team, a quality football team. So is Arizona. They fought for 60 minutes. Either team could have won. Both teams delivered under pressure. The Bills faded late in the third quarter and lost control of the game – had they put together a tight-60-minute performance, they could have won. But Arizona can say pretty much the same thing about how they played. When good teams play, it’s often the case that one team controls for a while, then the other controls. That’s what happened. The Cardinals were a little bit better. It’s a tough loss for the Bills, because it tightens up the AFC East race, a tough loss in a game they could have won. But it isn’t a disaster. It proved to the Bills, again, that they can play and compete with anyone. And the Bills aren’t done building and growing. Shout outs: Edmunds played well. Not perfect, by any means, but he was active, around the ball, making plays and making tackles. AJ Klein shone again. I don’t know where that quickness came from – if I had to guess, Klein isn’t quicker, but he’s anticipating better. He’s making a difference. Cole Beasley caught about 27 short passes. Man, what a security blanket for Allen. Diggs made his plays, too, and the touchdown catch was big-time, grown-man professional football. The running game disappeared again, and the run defense did too. The Bills kept Murray in check, more of less. The Bills need to go at least 2-2 in the third quarter of the season. They’re 1-1, with a bye, then the Chargers and the 49ers. 3-1 is within reach, which would get them to 9-3 and in a position to end the season with a solid run and a good playoff seeding. A lot of big football games between now and the playoffs. It won’t be easy. The good news is that the Bills have Josh Allen. GO BILLS!!! The Rockpile Review is written to share the passion we have for the Buffalo Bills. That passion was born in the Rockpile; its parents were everyday people of western New York who translated their dedication to a full day’s hard work and simple pleasures into love for a pro football team.

I'm guessing that what happened is that someplace as the total was climbing past $400,000 Josh told the hospital that when the total got to $483,000, he'd add $17,000. Josh didn't time it; he simply asked the hospital to make his donation the one that got to $500,000. He wasn't sitting by his phone, watching the tally climb, and then at just the right minute send his gift in.

What a story!

Hap - I didn't say Jackson was trash and should be benched in favor of Joe Flacco. I was talking about the long run. I was talking about Jackson being unable to dominate the league like a premier QB unless he learns to play from the pocket. It's now several weeks since my original post in this thread, and yes, he's 6-2, but he's near the absolute bottom of the league in passing yards per game - he's under 200. How many people here have written how many thousand posts about Josh Allen, and Taylor before him, having to be able to throw consistently for more than 200 yards per game. Jackson is exactly the kind of QB who, when the game demands he put up 150 yards passing in the second half, he's going to struggle. Others have explained better than I that the fundamental problem is Roman's offensive style. Whatever it is, Jackson's long-term ability to be a threat to win the Super Bowl is dependent on one thing: the ability to be a top-10 passer from the pocket. That's been true for running QBs from Tarkenton to Young to Vick to Wilson to Newton. Jackson hasn't shown the fundamental arm skills to be that guy, and playing in an offense that doesn't demand that he develop that way doesn't help him. In the OP I said I still think that's true. Might the Ravens win a Super Bowl playing with Jackson's current style? Sure. Flacco won a Super Bowl with a great Ravens defense. The point is that no one is going to consider the Ravens to be a serious threat, year after year, until he shows he can play out of the pocket like Brees.

I agree with you. I think the Zoom environment is a large part of it, or rather the isolation. In the COVID era, there are no casual, off-the-record conversations between journalists and players or coaches where the journalist gets a better understanding of what's really going on. Sure, the players and coaches all have adopted the stonewalling benefits of saying it's all about the process, staying focused, one day at time, just doing my job and all of that, but that's always been true to some extent. Players and coaches stopped calling out their teammates decades ago. But the off-the-record conversations that could happen at the end of practice or in the locker room an hour after the game, those things are gone. Plus, I think two things about the Bills press corps. One is that after the drought, it's just so much fun to have a good team that the press is just having a lot of fun enjoying the moment. It's exciting, it feels good. It happens to the writers just like it happens to us. After they've had some more sustained winning, they'll get back to thinking and talking about flaws more. Second, I am certain that the Pegulas came down hard on the media, the Buffalo News particularly, at the low point - Rex failing, resigning before the last game, then the press going after Anthony Lynn after his very first press conference, all the dumpster fire reporting. I'm sure the Pegulas told the News that was going to stop, or the News's access and advertising revenue was going to be reduced. I think that action had something of a chilling effect on the "investigative" side of sports journalism, so far as the Bills were concerned. When McDermott came in, and then Beane, you could see that both sides were trying to build a better, more respectful relationship, but part of that relationship was premised on the understanding that the press wouldn't rip the Bills relentlessly. I think the press has been cautious ever since. The result of all of this, including Zoom, is that we're not getting very insightful stuff out of the Bills. We aren't getting interesting stuff about what it is that Daboll thinks about, for example. He was asked this week about why they passed so much, and all we got were really generic answers. No one pressed him by saying "yeah, we get that it's week to week and all that, but tell us SOMETHING about what you saw that made you decide to go so heavily to the passing game." That being said, the coverage is the least of my worries.

I'm not sold yet on Murray, either, but you're right - he looks much better. And you're right, he looks like a much better passer.

Hey Dollars - That's great. Thanks. I wish the mods had left it for more people to see. Thanks.

50 years ago a running back was a wimp if he ran out of bounds to avoid a hit. Happens all the time now. I've seen other receivers give themselves up.

Pretty high praise

Wow. That's a creative take, and I think right on the money. It's let Josh cook, and get some good cooks around him. That's what will work for the Bills. , And another thing - a philosophy based on getting the ball into Josh's hands often, frees up the defense. It says be aggressive, make plays, try not to screw up but if you do, we still have gotten the ball to Josh. It means you don't have to have physically dominant players on the defense - you need guys with quickness and brains. I think you're right. And I think that up until now the Bills haven't been playing to the defense's strength. They've been, well, defensive, and they are sometimes physically outmanned - just beaten by strength. Now they can be offensive, attacking, confusing, all of that, which is what they're built to be good at. Like the blizzard of blitzes and Tre's INT against the Seahawks. That was creative play, and that's the kind of thinking that guys who play in this defense can do. The Bills can afford to let the defense be creative, which makes the defense better. They can afford it because the Bills defense has Allen, just like the Chiefs' defense has Mahomes. Those defenses know they can take risks, because they know that the worst thing that can happen is their QB gets the ball, and that's not a bad thing. That's complementary football.

Excellent. I like the idea of having a scripted second half. Just a different look, and something that the defense hasn't seen yet. Also, I like McD doing the adjustments for the D. Thanks.

Thanks, those are good points. That late long TD pass really helped inflate the Seahawks' numbers. I can't say Seattle never really was in the game. With their offense, any time they are within 10 points with a quarter to go, they're in the game. In the third quarter I was getting uncomfortable. Some of that was simply that the Bills always make you feel uncomfortable in the third quarter. But you're correct, there was a feeling that the Bills were making Seattle work harder for their points. Wilson was uncomfortable. It seemed like the Bills could get chunk plays whenever they wanted, and Seattle was struggling to move the ball as effectively.

I think it's hard to say the Bills manhandled when they allowed the best offense in the league to score more than their average points per game and get above their average yards per game. The Bills certainly did not shut down the Seahawks. The story of the game was that the Bills offense is every bit as good as Seattle's, and the defense made plays. The most encouraging thing to me was that the defense just seemed different, even though they gave up a lot of yards and points - again. They made some big plays, as I said, but they also seemed to be attacking individually. Someone commented that Klein seemed to be playing with speed, instead of tentatively. Edmunds played like that too. If those two can contribute more than they were a few weeks ago, that would go a long way. Plus, the Bills really are getting high level play out of Hughes and Addison, and if they can get some better play in the middle of the line, the defense may start to look like what we expected.

Well, what you say is true, for sure. But that's not what's going on here, or at least that's not all of it. It's about the money. Colin Cowherd is the sports personality I've heard talk most honestly about it. In the middle of Tebow mania, I heard him talk about. He said don't write to ESPN and tell them not to talk about Tebow - they watch the ratings daily, and they know when people change stations. They were going to talk about Tebow until people started changing stations. He said the same thing once about why ESPN kept showing the Red Sox and Yankees on Sunday night games - those were the games that, by far, the most people tuned into. What the networks know is that people don't want to hear about the Bills. Yes, you can say it's because people have bought an established narrative about the Bills, but I doubt it. The Cowboys get altogether too much coverage, year after year. Everyone knows the Cowboys suck and have sucked for a long time, but Dallas is a big market and the Cowboys have a lot of fans around the country. The ratings are better talking about the Cowboys. The networks are not going to turn their backs on their listeners. It didn't take long to establish a Mahomes narrative. It didn't take the networks long to jump on Tua - exactly one game. There's no reason that by now they wouldn't have jumped on the Josh bandwagon. They probably have twice as many listeners who want to hear about Tua than about Josh. The media could make Josh a star overnight if they wanted to. Why don't they? Because the base of listeners they can build hyping Josh is much smaller than the base of listeners they can with Tua - in part because of the relative sizes of the two cities, and in part because Tua brought some fans with him. The fans will be interested in the Bills only when they are demonstrably on the top. As soon, as they are, they'll be covered. As soon as they aren't, they'll be dropped.