Shaw66

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.

No, I didn't read the article or the complaint. Suing Tre for tortious interference is nonsense. It's an overly aggressive lawyer trying to put as much pressure on the situation as possible. Unless Tre actually forces a closing to occur, simply signing a contract to buy the house is not tortious interference with anyone. If Tre doesn't try to close, he hasn't interfered with the other buyer's right to performance of the other buyer's contract. Tre's got no exposure here, even if he knew the other contract existed.

It's really nice to see these guys relaxed and not just giving canned answers. We got the canned answer to start - are you and MVP? "I'm just trying to help my team." It's true, but it's so predictable we don't learn anything about the guy. Interesting watching him try manage the political nuances. Which QB would be the worst farmer. You can see Josh searching for a safe answer; something interesting but that won't get him trouble with anyone. Finally he settles on Darnold, because he knows Darnold won't take it seriously. And, yes, the insights about Daboll were interesting. Nice. Thanks. Yeah, right, we don't learn a lot of football in this interview, but we see Josh just hanging out and relaxed. We get a better sense of who he is. For example, I thought it was interesting to see him kind of speechless when Patrick asks him about Josh's nuts. That was cool.

I agree with your take on this. The rational thing to do here if you're second to the party is to get your deposit back and walk away. Particularly in Tre's case, because he has plenty of dough. Why would he want to be in the middle of this mess for a year or more? What I was pointing out is that the litigious person in Tre's position could make the claim - it's a really solid claim, written contract for the sale of real estate, it's pretty black letter law - and the seller's lawyer is going to tell the seller that the best thing to do is to pay Tre to make him go away. It's probably worth $50,000 or more if someone in Tre's position wanted to put up with the headache.

This is some good news. Activate Wallace, activate Feliciano. There's two guys who will help the lineup. Whether Wallace starts or not, can't have too many good corners. If he's healthy, I think he will start. Norman is his competition, not Dane Jackson. Whatever, it's good to get some guys back. Brown would be nice, too.

A signature win isn't just against a good opponent. It's a win that signifies that you've arrived, that you are one of the elite. It's a win over a team that already is there at the top. It's a win that says you've joined the club.

If the seller signed a contract with the first buyer, if the first buyer satisfied the conditions necessary to close, and if the seller signed a contract with White, the seller has a real problem. Each of the two buyers can compel the seller to sell to him - each of the two buyers is entitled to specific performance, because of the two buyers as an enforceable contract for the transfer of real estate. At least theoretically, if the seller closes with either one of them, the other then can compel the seller to buy it back and then sell it to the second. The price of the buy back is completely up to whoever just closed. So Tre pays $750,000 or whatever at the first closing, the other buyer can sue the seller, and the seller will have to buy the house back from Tre at whatever price Tre demands. Then the seller will have to sell to the other buyer at whatever the contract price was. Chances are good that if there are two signed contracts, this will cost the seller some dough, like $100,000, to settle.

Without going back and looking, I think what gives his perception are the records. A lot of teams with few losses, and a lot of teams with a lot of losses, without a lot of .500 teams. I don't think the records are indicative of the range of teams. I think in other few weeks it will be clear that there are a few really good teams, a couple of really bad teams, and a bunch heading for 6-10 to 10-6, just like always. Give it a few more weeks.

Right. Those lost opportunities just happen sometime. They make the game closer than they should have been. And, in fact, those lost opportunities mixed with a mistake or two, and that game could have been a loss. It's just in the nature of the game - sometimes games are much closer than you'd expect based on relative talent. Especially Division games. Every team has games like that.

Frankly, what I've always said is that I've wanted to see a guy in control and under control. A guy who was making plays and winning games. That's what I wanted, and I guess I'd say it's pretty hard NOT to be that if you're 4000/30.

That's an interesting perspective. But the other perspective is that if you're kicker goes .750 on the season, you're not happy. Interesting how one's perspective changes the perception of the performance. Plus, I'd say when you watch that 3-for-4 game, you still would have been unhappy about the miss.

And, I would add, that even the best QBs have haves or games where they just don't play well. Michael Jordan wasn't the same player every night - there were nights, or at least halves, where he was positively human. Guys who hit .333 on the season don't go 1 for 3 every game. It's no different for QBs. Like Allen's fumble. He holds on to the ball longer than other QBs. Why? Because he escapes from pressure better than most QBs, and part of his value is that he makes plays when most other QBs would be on their backs. So he holds the ball, and because of that he's going to have more fumbles. It's just something that goes with his style of play. I looked at the Jets game and saw a QB who was really in control, who was making a lot of his throws, who was making plays. Given him one of the touchdowns, and his stats for the day would look great. Yes, everyone wants him to be better, including Allen, but expecting him to be perfect is foolish. No one's perfect. So saying one thing or another happened, including something Allen wishes he hadn't done, isn't making excuses for him.