Shaw66

I think it's happening around the league. Teams are playing more zone to keep the play in front of them, especially if the QB can run. Playing man against teams like the Bills is deadly, because you get beat once in a while, and you give Allen some big opportunities to run. Against the zone, if you want anything that is at least a little bit downfield, you need the whole pass pattern to play out before you can throw. Receivers have to run their routes so that the zone reshapes itself in response to threats, and then receivers have to run to the openings created in the zone by the reshaping. It takes time. Allen seemed to do an excellent job waiting for the opportunities to arise.

Nice job, VIrg. A lot of good things you put up this week, especially that opening about Division games. I wanted to comment on two points. First, Allen. I think it's funny that there's no one posting today about Allen being a project, a waste, not good enough, anything. The fact of the matter is that Allen played an excellent game. He was in command of the offense, and nothing much that the defense through at him seemed to trouble him. He's really growing up as a field general, and that's bad news for the rest of the league. As for Belichick, I couldn't disagree much more. Belichick isn't really a cheater. He's just an amoral guy who pushes the envelope. He studies the rules and tries to find ways to gain an advantage playing within the rules. He's a guy with an incredible love for football and fascination for the nuances of the game. He has great appreciation for the talents of the best players on the field, whether they are on his team or the other team. And he has demonstrated an ability above all others who ever have coached to find ways to win games. He is all about winning. Belichick is very much like Nick Saban, and each of them is equally dislikable in terms of a public personality. They both are quite like Geno Auriemma, who is disliked by many for the same reasons. Gregg Popovich is the only guy I can think of who seems to be their equal in terms of mastery of the game but who someone manages to continue to be a likable gentleman. Even Popovich has often been a difficult man to interview. I had no problem with Belichick taking the timeouts. Who knows what's going to happen? Call the timeouts and require the Bills to execute the simplest play in football correctly a couple of times. Maybe someone will have a brain fart and the ball will come free. Who knows? As for the onside kick, I think Belichick misjudged the extent to which his team was taking over the game. There was no need to risk giving the Bills the short field, because the Bills were not going to be able to stop the Pats for the rest of the game. He out-thought himself. I've seen this comment a few times. I think it completely misperceives what happened. Meyers wasn't the target. Whoever wasn't guarded by White was the target. Put White on Meyers and the target shifts.

Thanks, Kidd. You asked the right question. There are two distinct reactions to each game, and I think the two reactions are both relevant. One reaction is to whether the Bills put up a W or an L. That's very important, it's what McDermott and all other coaches and players are focused on. I didn't see any postgame, locker room video, but I am sure there was a lot of excitement in the locker room. Wins are BIG, all the time. Wins can't be overlooked. Getting to 6-2 was very important for the season. Critical, even. The other reaction is a reaction to how the team played, what it looked like, what we learned. Those reactions all relate to what we can expect from the team in the coming weeks. That is why there's been a lot of negative reaction on this forum yesterday and today. For some it's a reaction based simply on just barely eking out a win against a team that hasn't done much this season, and the inference that that means the Bills won't be able to beat the good teams coming up on their schedule. For others, it's a reaction based on aspects of the team - how well the run game worked, how well the Bills defense played, etc. In my view, the best teams in the league should be viewing the Bills right now as a beatable good team. By that I mean the Bills are always dangerous and shouldn't be taken lightly, but they have weaknesses that can be exploited to beat them. The weaknesses focus primarily on the lines - the offensive line isn't dominating in the run and is only okay in pass protection, the defensive line can't stop the run effectively and can't generate serious pass rush without one two blitzers coming, too. That makes the Bills suspect. However, McDermott's process is to build throughout the season, and his objective is to have no serious weaknesses as we get to December. If McDermott and the coaches do well in the coming weeks, the Bills will put up a couple of wins that cause the league to sit up and take notice. If they don't, or if the talent simply isn't good enough to play at the level the coaches demand, the Bills will fall back into the pack and be viewed as a team that flashed early and then faded. In other words, if you want to know if the Bills are a good team, ask me in a month. If I had to guess where they'll be in a month, I'd guess not as good as we'd like. I'll be happy with 2-2 in the next four games.

You're being too literal. When people use "hate" as I did, it doesn't mean hate in the sense of hatred. I agree, there are very few people here who actually hate Edmunds. When someone says there's hate on this message board, that means to me that there is a negative reaction to that player's contribution to the team that usually is more negative that is warranted. There was a lot of hate here last season for Star,. Fair amount of hate here this year for Barkley as a backup. In that sense, there's been a lot of hate for Edmunds this season. He isn't performing as well as people hoped/expected, and you see people posting that if he doesn't do this or that, he should be cut or traded or something. There's plenty to critique in his play, for sure, and I've been doing that pretty regularly for most of the season.

Pretty tough to go 6-2 while being completely outcoached every week. The best talent in the AFC East is 4-0 in the AFC East. Imagine how good that record would be if the Bills had good coaching.

As a young kicker in the league, first you have to survive. You survive by making the kicks you should kick. Over the last few years we've seen multiple young kickers in the NFL, choke when faced with the kick that won the game yesterday. Guys who missed badly, guys who missed close, guys who snuck the ball just inside the upright, guys who missed extra points - which is essentially what Bass's FG was. The first step in making it in the league is calmly making the kick you have to make to win that game. That is exactly what Bass did yesterday. It was high-pressure kick in a high-stakes game, into a tough wind. Bass made it look routine. I give him a lot of credit for that. That's a step that every team wants their young kicker to take. By contrast, Bojorquez has been in the league for years now, and every punt is still an adventure. I thought it was time last year to look for a new punter; I still think so.

True. I thought about that a little watching that game. But you have to think about what the scheme is the Bills are trying to play. Somebody dumping on Edmunds posted the replay of Newton's fumble and complained about how Edmunds let himself get taken out of the play. When you watch the replay, you see that Edmunds is being driven downfield by two blockers, at least one of whom is a lineman, and I think the other was too. Linebackers make plays in the running game by staying clean and running freely to the ball. That happens only when their defensive lineman occupy the offensive line. When the Pats can afford to get two offensive linemen downfield to block Edmunds, your defensive lineman have to make plays (which, it turns out, Zimmer did). Put another way, if Milano and Edmunds were playing behind Mack and Nicks, the Bills defense would be crushing it. And, as I said, I think it all starts with a guy who can play the 1-tech and absorb blockers. Then Oliver is better, and the DEs are better, too.

Yeah, I've learned to listen more to your take on things. Seriously. And it wasn't even about coming off injury. It's whether he's physically and psychologically suited for the position. It requires extreme dedication to the game, without any real glory. Last Thursday night, some interior lineman made a good play that Fox highlighted in a replay. Talking about what it takes to fight like that against really big men, play after play, Troy Aikman said something like "that's a life that I truly don't understand." I thought that was remarkable. Here was a guy who played that game for 20 years, side by side with and dependent on the success of those linemen, and Aikman was saying that he truly didn't understand what it would be like to battle like that, over and over. It was beyond a compliment; Aikman was in awe of the toughness and will power of those guys. I'm not Phillips has what it takes and, as you say, it was a big risk to assume that he did, and it was a bigger risk after Star sat out.

Wow. I didn't remember that Thurman had only 15 carries. To be honest, I never thought Marv was a great coach. Inspirational, but not a great coach. So, I'm not surprised he didn't adjust. (It's always bothered me that when asked sometime after that game whether he should have done more to get his players up for the game, more psychology ready for the game, he said something like "they're professionals; they get themselves ready for the game." Parcells must have laughed his ass off when he heard that - Parcells always was in his players' heads, and that's why he got results. McDermott is WAY into his players' heads.) As we know now, Belichick has always been about taking away what you do best. In the Super Bowl, he took away the deep ball and Reed. He pounded Reed all day. The Bills didn't respond. McDermott and Daboll are a different breed.

That's well said. I wasn't trying to say that Star's a, well, star. Just that his impact on the game wasn't appreciated last season, and we're seeing it this season. People within the Bills organization defended Star last year, saying he had the impact the Bills wanted and needed in the middle. There's no glamor in playing that position well - the only glamor is if you happen to be a total stud at that position. Star wasn't the total stud; he's just a guy who can play the position in a solid, non-glamorous way. You're right. The relative weakness of Phillips and Zimmer in that spot is the real problem. Not Star's greatness. Last spring Beane should have shored up the position better, and once Star opted out, Beane should have gotten someone better into the building. Maybe there was no one to be had - I don't know.

That's a fair comment. I mentioned him in my Review. Disappeared isn't exactly right. I still think my point is correct, and I think that if Star were on the field, Oliver would be a major disruptive force. As it is, I think Oliver's talent is being dedicated to stopping the Bills from being steam-rollered.

Kzoo - This is a really good perspective. In my head, KC stands out alone, just as you describe. McDermott is all about having players and teams who are tough, resilient, determined and focused. Zimmer's play wasn't an accident. It was the result of McDermott having a team that plays that way. Someone in this forum said last night or this morning that the way the Bills won yesterday was exactly how the Pats beat the Bills time and again over those past 20 years. As you say, not anymore.

I have a friend who reads the Globe regularly and sends me Shaughnessy bits from time to time. I finally realized that if you put him in perspective, Shaughnessy is just a narrow-minded loud-mouthed fan just like fans we all know. He's 100% homer. If you're looking for a balanced, insightful look at your team, Shaughnessy isn't your guy. If you want a cheerleader when your team is great, Shaughnessy is perfect. Bottom line for me is that he 100% deserves to be ignored.

I woke up this morning thinking about Star Lotulelei. For all the abuse he has gotten around here, I think his absence may be the single biggest reason we're seeing the defensive line struggle, and in particular the single biggest reason Oliver seems to have disappeared. With a quality, grind-it-out 1-tech guy, the 3-tech guy beside gets better. When you have that pair playing well in the middle, then you can afford to have your DEs play more in attack mode, rather than trying to shore up the middle. Maybe Phillips can still grow into that guy, but I doubt it. Zimmer's play has been encouraging, but he probably isn't it either. Given Star's age, I expect we'll see Beane make some kind of move in the off-season to get a real 1-tech guy in.

Absolutely. Belichick is a film-study genius. He knew he couldn't win a game with Allen throwing 35-40 passes, especially without Gilmore. I just said in the Rockpile thread that this was Super Bowl XXV all over again. Belichick looked at Reed, Lofton and Beebe and said "we have to force them to run the ball." He looked at Diggs, Brown, and Beasley and said the same thing. Belichick knew he couldn't win a shootout. It's not rocket science. The Bills have been getting a steady diet of this for weeks. They have to run the ball. It's on the offensive line.

Hap - There's a lot of good stuff in here. What you say about Feliciano sounds exactly right. He probably was the backup center all along, but when Morse went down in the middle of the drive it was simply "next man up." When the drive ended and they went to sideline, the coaches switched up to what they would have done if they had started the game without Morse. I don't think at all it's about selling out the passing game. I think what we're seeing around the league is that everyone has recognized that the defense has to sell out to stop the mid- and deep-passing threats. The Bills did it against KC. Everyone is doing it. The message around the league is that you MUST be able to play the run-and-possession passing game. Belichick watched the film, and he knew his offense. He knew that he was cooked if he got into a shootout with the Bills. It was, in a sense, Super Bowl XXV all over again. Same game plan. Stop the explosive passing and force the Bills to run the ball. On offense, run the hell out of the ball and try to run the clock. Reduce the number of possessions the Bills have to go off on you. Same plan. In both games, you keep the score close and try to steal the win in the end. It was wide right many years ago; it was a Newton fumble yesterday. You win some and lose some, but at least you're in the game at the end. McDermott's system is to build his team over the season. As I've said several times, that's especially true this year, with the shortened off-season and pre-season workouts. The Bills are learning how to play different styles. Every team is, but McDermott is good at building like this. It's what Belichick does, too. That's why we get these ugly games. But as others have said, his teams always have grit and determination. They stay in the game and they keep fighting. Zimmer's game-saving play is the kind of play that McDermott's system produces. His teams are full of guys who don't quit on the game. McDermott's season-plan is to win early-season games one way or another while the team is growing into an actually good team. He's succeeded this year, going 6-2 in the first half while trying to get his team up to a high level of play. Whether his team will get to that level is an open question - I certainly have my doubts. But after watching McD for a few seasons, I know not to give up on him. Finally, back to the passing game. One measure of Allen's growth as a field general is that he is not throwing deep against coverages designed to stop the deep ball. He won't. He understands his job and he executes. I watch other games, and these less mature QBs are bombing the ball out there against double coverage or even tight single coverage. It works sometimes, but sometimes it's a disaster. Allen doesn't do that any more. Allen's throwing the ball to guys who are open, who will catch, and who will have a chance to make a play after the catch. He looked at those seven defensive backs Belichick apparently had on the field often, and he knew to avoid the low-probability throws. Not that it's exactly and example, but I thought the pass that Davis dropped in the end zone was evidence of Allen's maturity. I don't know if he knew at the snap that that was where he had a shot at the TD, but he figured it out sometime. You could see him thinking and deciding to make that throw. It was a big-time QB play in crunch time. My only question is whether there was too much pace on it. It looked like Davis just couldn't handle the fastball, and a fastball might not have been necessary. Davis should be used to by now, but getting just the right touch on balls is a fine point that Allen will continue to work on.

I think it has to be his health. He got dinged again yesterday. He may not be back to full strength until next season. Milano, to. It would be nice to have the bye this week. As for Klein, I couldn't agree more. He doesn't look like he can tackle in the open field. He may be a straight-on run stuffer, but not a guy who can play in space.

Plus he actually hit some people. There's more Edmunds hate around here than he deserves.

It was what Bills fans expected. It was what Bills fans feared. In the end, it was what Bills fans wanted. The Bills beat the Patriots 24-21 in Orchard Park on Sunday. It wasn’t the dominant performance Bills fans would have liked, but it was the win the Bills needed. Division games are tough. It seems they’re always tough. The Bills are 4-0 in the AFC East, and none of the wins was a cake walk. They have return engagements with the Dolphins and Patriots on the schedule; they will be important games, and they won’t be easy. The cold and the wind and the coaches dictated the style of play. The Patriots can’t throw the ball all over the field, and it was predictable that they wouldn’t let the Bills do that, either. It was ground and pound for the entire game. Both offensive lines won enough of their battles to spring an array of running backs for nearly 400 total yards. It didn’t hurt that both teams had running quarterbacks. Josh Allen and the guy many people compare him to, Cam Newton, had similar, limited outings. Complete 60% of your throws for seven or eight yards per attempt, one turnover. Allen had a turnover that led to a score, Newton had a turnover that cost the Pats a score. It was about as even as a game can be. It was the kind of game that good teams win and bad teams lose, and that is exactly what happened. After the Bills had taken the lead late in the fourth quarter, they needed one defensive stop. But the Patriots had had long TD drives on each of their two previous possessions, and now they were marching down the field again. The 2020 Bills just don’t seem to be able to get a stop when they need one, and they weren’t close to stopping Patriots. Then Justin Zimmer made the play that good teams make to win games.[MK1] On second and ten at the Bills 19, Newton made a nice five-yard run. Zimmer trailed the play, tackled Newton. and drove the ball out of Newton’s grip. Dean Marlowe was there to fall on it, and the game was over. The Bills are 6-2, the Patriots are 2-5, and the Dolphins are the team that threatens the Bills in the AFC East. Even the Jets are celebrating. The Bills don’t look like an elite team, but they’re building. The defensive line looked solid if not spectacular. Edmunds showed up to play. Zimmer, Phillips, Oliver, and Hughes all played like the game meant something. Still, it wasn’t a championship defense, not close. Allen looked like a veteran. He was cool, under control, managed the pocket well and threw well. The sideline completion to Diggs was really pretty. Allen found Diggs and Beasley open repeatedly. Allen deserved better stats. Davis dropped a sure touchdown, which would have put the Bills up by 7 at the end. (Still, it was another fourth-quarter game-winning drive for Allen.) Based on Diggs’s reactions on the sideline, it looked like the interception was on him, not Allen. If Davis catches the touchdown and Diggs makes the right cut, the Bills would have had a ten-point lead. Singletary and Moss showed, finally, what had been expected from them from opening day. Pretty as it was to see them pop through holes and do their things in the open field, the biggest change in the offense seemed to be the presence of Jon Feliciano. I can’t say I studied his play (at center, no less, with the Morse concussion), but everything seemed crisper along the offensive line with Feliciano out there. Tyler Bass could have crumbled in the fourth quarter. That was a pressure kick – not long, but into the wind. Everyone knew this was a big game and this was the kick that could win it. It looked like business as usual for him, routine, a stroll in the park. Maybe he turned a corner last week against the Jets, and now we’re seeing Bass the pro. Six wins at the halfway point of the season are nice, but not the schedule gets tough. Four more wins should make the playoffs, but if the Bills are going to be a team to be reckoned with, they need to find a way to five or six wins in the second half. That will be tough, but no one said it would be easy. Seattle and Arizona both will be serious tests. 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. [MK1]

I haven't read the thread, so I apologize if others have said something similar. I don't agree with this. I mean, I absolutely agree that some QBs are way overpaid. However, I don't agree that it's easy to play QB in the NFL or that teams can find serviceable QBs without paying so much. It is true that guys are coming into the league and having success early, but I don't think many of those guys will have long-term success. The undeniable history of the league is that offenses and defenses keep getting more and more complicated in response to the other. Teams need quarterbacks who can understand that complexity and react to it in real time, on the field. We happen to be in a period when the offenses seem to have an advantage, when OCs can put a young qb on the field with a half dozen or more keys, and the combination of the QBs physical skills and his understanding of a few keys allows the QB to have success. That will change. Defenses will adjust to the Jacksons and Murrays of the world, and their continued success will depend on their ability to lead teams, run offenses, and make big-time throws. That's been true of QB play since Otto Graham, and there's no indication it's going to change. Justin Herbert is the flavor of the month. Wentz was a few years ago, but nobody's quite sure he's the savior any more. Mayfield has been hopelessly up and down, despite all of the early hype. Tua's been anointed essentially before he's done anything. The truth is that when you look at QBs who have been in the league five years or more, there are only a half dozen who've been worth having long term. That's going to continue to be the truth. When you get one of those, you pay him. Sure, you can win a Super Bowl with a decent quarterback in a season when everything falls together just right - good supporting cast, great coaching, some very good players in key positions, but you're not going to compete year after year with that formula. Foles and the Eagles, Flacco and the Ravens are examples of good QB play on teams that simply couldn't replicate the success with that QB. Brady and Wilson and Rodgers and Brees threaten to take their team to the Super Bowl every preseason, simply because they have mastered the high-level fine points of quarterbacking. When you get the right guy, you pay him. You're always looking for the right guy, because only the right guy will make you a contender every season. Lamar Jackson may look like the right guy today, because teams have a lot of trouble stopping him, but he almost certainly won't be having success with that style of play in a few years. If Jackson is a success in five years, it will because he's grown into Russell Wilson - a guy who can run the whole offense and beat you with his head and his arm as well as his legs. The real problem is when you get a Matt Ryan, who looks like he should be the complete package but somehow never quite gets there. Or Matt Stafford. They simply are not in the same class as the premier guys when it comes to being a field general. But they seem awfully good, and they give you the feeling that of they just got on the field with the right guys, they'd win for you. The truth is, however, that Ryan has been on the field with Julio Jones and a variety of excellent running backs and still never produced. So what should the Bills do about Allen? Unless he collapses in the second half of this season, the Bills certainly will exercise the fifth-year option. Again unless he collapses, the Bills are going to have to write a big contract to keep him. That's absolutely the right thing to do, because as of now Allen seems to be progressing toward being that complete package. He's certainly a leader, and he seems to be becoming an excellent decision-maker on the field. The concern is that a guy like Allen might plateau like Ryan did, someplace close but short of being elite. So I think in a perfect world you'd like to be able to cut him loose after year 7 or 8 without a massive cap hit - structure a big long-term deal for him with as little cap hit as possible on the back-end, so that it's possible to cut him without putting yourself into too much cap trouble.

Yes. The only way to reduce these hits is with big punishments. It.may not always seem fair, but every guy must play with the idea that he will be in trouble if he hits a someone in the head - especially a qb.

Interesting. So it's just sword rattling.

The time is of the essence is specific to the closing. If the cancelation. Was void, as I would guess it is, then the seller closing with first buyer means the seller has to worry that Tre will sue him. Not that i would advise that, but Tre would have case. The problem is the seller signed two contracts, and the seller is in a bind.

Thanks for this. If anyone is interested in this crap, I think this confirms what I suspected. The provision requiring attorney approval creates a three business day time frame within which the contract can be canceled. It appears that the cancellation notice from the attorney arrived the morning of the fourth business day. There is a provision about "time is of the essence," but it only applies to the closing. By implication, time is NOT of the essence with respect to other time periods, so the sellers had a "reasonable time" after the deadline to still exercise the right to cancel based on the lawyer's review. The morning of the fourth day is certainly a reasonable time. Having said that, there's probably New York case law about blowing deadlines like this, but unless that case law makes that three-business-day period iron-clad, from what we've seen I think there's a good chance the plaintiffs lose this, that their contract was in fact properly canceled, and that Tre probably can buy the house. To whom should I send my bill?

One more thing. I read through the complaint. I suspect that, as usual, there's more going on here than meets the eye. First, the complaint is really overblown. They claim they suffered emotional distress because they can't buy their dream house, and they also have damages because they had begun to make plans to move. Well, this all took place about six or seven days ago, so exactly how emotionally attached did they get to this house? And what had they done to get ready to move? And their children, oh, their children are suffering because they had their hearts set on this house. Come on. When I see a complaint like that, I'm embarrassed for lawyers. Second, there's stuff in the complaint about the seller's lawyer having approved the contract, and something that suggests the sellers had five days to get the approval. In other words, the sellers had five days to cancel if their lawyer didn't like the deal. The original contract was delivered on October 14, and a lawyer claiming to represent the sellers delivered a letter canceling the contract on the 20th. Lawyers can argue about whether the five days are five business days or five calendar days. If it's five business days, the cancellation letter was timely, because there's a weekend in there. On top of that, it will be very important if the contract for purchase says "time is of the essence." If it does, and if that reference is to every deadline in the contract, then missing the deadline is a problem for seller. But if no "time is of the essence" provision applies to the five-day lawyer-approval window, then the cancellation notice on the sixth day is timely enough to be effective. My guess is that there is no time-is-of-the-essence provision, but I don't really know, and I don't know NYS law on the subject. The reason I'm guessing is that the plaintiffs' lawyer put in all that nonsense about how they had already begun plans to move, the kids had their hearts set on it, blah, blah, blah, so they can show that they relied on the fact that the deadline came and passed. What are they telling us, that up until midnight on the fifth day they hadn't made any plans to move, but when midnight came, they knew they had a deal and started furiously planning? The fact is that before noon on the sixth day, they got the notice. I'm not saying who wins and who loses; all I'm saying is that there almost certainly are two sides to this story, and the plaintiffs' lawyer is only telling one side. And almost certainly Tre didn't do anything wrong. The sellers and their agent may have told them about the other contract and told them that contract was being canceled. Tre doesn't have any obligation to investigate. He's entitled to rely the representation of the sellers and their agent. Tre's a defendant because the plaintiffs' lawyer thinks that if he makes a big enough mess out of this, he can force the sellers to sell to the plaintiffs. Still, as we said earlier, simplest thing for Tre is to back out and find another house. Or to tell the sellers that he'll stay in if the sellers pay his legal fees. This is not Tre's problem. Meanwhile, there should be some full-page ads in the News informing the public who the lawyer is who sued Tre in the middle of the season.