Shaw66

teef's been practicing onliine psychiatry here for years. a genuinely happy trainwreck!

Interesting question. First, let me say that I agree; there has been no signature win yet. The signature win is a win against a premier team in a game with major implications, like home field in the playoffs. It's a win that people can foreshadow being a Conference championship game or a Super Bowl. If the Bills had won the Chiefs game, if the full-fledged two-fourth-quarter-TDs- scenario had played out, with the Bills winning that game, that would have been the signature win. The signature win is probably on the road, but it could be at home. I'm not expecting a signature win this season. I think the Bills have too many weaknesses to get that kind of win, but I admit I could be wrong. McDermott's process is to keep building and to have a powerful team in December. He may already see how to get there - I don't know. I don't see the signature win coming this season. The schedule doesn't help - last three games of the season are almost certainly not signature-win games if won (unless somehow we come down to a Bills-Pats for the AFCE title). 49ers could be a signature win. Or the Steelers. There's a scenario where it's the Cards, but not likely. Completely aside from that, I've been avoiding until now looking at the schedule. Bills are coming into a brutal stretch. Going 1-5 isn't impossible. 4-2 is possible, I'd take it. I can live with 3-3, but if the Bills only go 3-3, that's one more reason we won't see the signature win this season.

Right. Good comment about Jackson. As for the TDs, the game felt like Allen had a good game and just didn't happen to get any TDs. Maybe he failed to see an opportunity here or there, but QBs often have games where they miss one or two. He sure didn't miss Davis. Another thing about the lack of TDs is that the score kind of dictated that the QB be conservative and avoid rookie mistakes. Of course, you'd always rather have the TD than the FG, but think about this: When the score was 10-9 and the Bills are driving, a veteran QB makes sure that he gets the go-ahead score. A TD is nice, but getting lead is essential. Then, when it's 12-9, a veteran QB doesn't risk losing the FG, because extending the lead with a field goal requires the opponent to get a TD. (We all would have been screaming, for example, if Allen had taken a sack that knocked the Bills out of field goal range. "ROOKIE MISTAKE!!!"). Then at 15-9, same thing - make sure you get the field goal to make it an 8-point game. In every case, a TD would have been better, but if it isn't there, the smart QB settles for the FG. Plus, there were a collection of drive-killing penalties. I'm just not too concerned about the lack of TDs.

Nice write-up, Virg. I was interested to see your take on Bass. I think it helped bring me back to reality a bit. The truth is that 6 out of 8 is okay, not the disaster it felt like to me. He IS a rookie and almost any rookie has to settle into his role in a much bigger - in the sense of high stakes - game than he saw in college. He could have melted down yesterday, and he didn't. He wasn't exactly the epitome of cool - truth is he could easily have gone 8 for 8, but for a rookie, it was an encouraging out. The thing that troubles me a lot about Bass is that many of his kicks hook left, and hook pretty sharply. I find watching the best kickers, they've cured the hook. They kick straight, pretty much all the time. If they miss, they miss because it started out right and stayed right, or started left and stayed left. The ball moves a bit, sure, but it doesn't move like many of Bass's hooks. Sometimes Bass looks like an amateur golfer who's in love with those long drives he can pound out there. Big swing and awesome distance, but sometimes that big swing delivers these huge duck hooks that send the ball onto the next fairway. Length is great, but accuracy wins. Watching yesterday, I had the sense that later in the game, his last kick and maybe his second last kick, he took something off the kick, and it flew straight. He may just have to learn to focus on driving the ball through his target, rather than focusing on pounding the ball as hard as he can. He has the leg to carry the ball, so taking something off may be the answer. I heard story about Sandy Koufax. When he was in the minors with the Dodgers, he had an incredible fastball and an incredible curve ball, but he was horribly wild. He walked a lot of hitters, and he threw some fat, hanging curve balls that got crushed. The Dodgers apparently were approaching giving up on him. One day in the middle of an ugly inning, the pitching coach went to the mound and said "Sandy, will you please, just for a few pitches, stop throwing the ball so hard. Just relax. Don't try to throw the very best fastball or the very best curve ball. Just relax and throw it." Somehow, Koufax got the message that day, and he became unhittable. The other example I'll give is Josh Allen. Allen has an arm like Bass's leg. Allen already has gotten good at taking something off. He's not trying to throw the biggest fastball on every throw. He's taking advantage of his arm strength to reduce his throwing motion, and as he reduces his throwing motion, his accuracy increases. I think Bass has to do the same thing, and his outing yesterday gave me some hope.

One other thing that I thought about off and on during the game was that Epenesa made some plays against the Jets. He had three tackles, one for a loss, and half a sack. HIs snap counts have been up and down all season, and that's really good production for being on the field for only 9 plays. His snap count was low in part because the Jets ran so few plays. For rookies in general and especially for McDermott rookies, it's difficult to break into the lineup from day one. I think it's a serious step up from college for most guys, even if they have the raw physical talent. Players have to get used to the speed and strength of the guys they're playing against. Also, if you play for McDermott, you have to play with real discipline. You have to understand the defenses you're asked to execute and understand your role in each. You have to learn to apply your talents to the tasks that McDermott needs you to execute. Most guys need time to grow into playing in a demanding system like that. I'm encouraged that Epenesa has is fighting his way up the learning curve. I expect we will start to see him on the field more as he learns his roles. That would be one more player with talent on the field, and that should help the defense improve.

The problem is getting TDs in the red zone. When they have a long field, the defense protects against the long ball, which is how Allen gets all those underneath completions. Inside the red zone, that open space isn't there. Film study, scheming, play design are needed.

I think this is backward. The Bills are undersized, and they can't win consistently one on one at the point of attack. They have to win by scheme. They need to complicate the running game, not simplify it. Bills need to execute complex game plans.

I was reminded last week of the reality of the Buffalo Bills in the early 1990s. I tend to remember big plays, big scores, Hall of Fame performers, but that was only part of the reality. There were plenty of losses in those years, and plenty of other games where the Bills gutted out close wins against mediocre competition. I was reminded of all those less-than-dominant performances as I thought about the losses to the Titans and the Chiefs, and I felt better about how the 2020 season is going. The goals in the regular season are (1) make the playoffs, (2) win the division, and (3) get home field throughout the playoffs. There are no style points. Losses, of course, don’t help with any of those goals, but there always will be some losses. Ugly wins against less talented opponents are wins, and nothing else. Yes, sure, if you can’t play well against the Jets, there are reasons to worry, but it’s one more win toward the goals. The Bills are 5-2, and only the most elite of elite teams would be unhappy with five wins after seven games. The Bills are a work in progress and a work in process. Sean McDermott is far from done building his 2020 Buffalo Bills. They know a lot about how to pass. They’re learning how to run. They know about how to stop the pass, and they’re learning how to stop the run. Whether they will learn enough as the season goes on is open question. The process is how they progress. They play a game, they learn something new in practice. They play another game, they learn something else new in practice. It’s a process. At the end of the season, they should know how to do a lot of things. At least that’s the theory. The Bills started the game ugly against the Jets. So ugly that even when the Bills took over the game in the third quarter, it still looked ugly. The only time it didn’t look ugly was when Allen took a knee to end the game, and after the game, when we looked at the stat sheet. In fact, the Bills did a lot of things right against the Jets. One thing was play defense. When the Jets scored with three and half minutes left in the second quarter, it was the last time the Jets got close to scoring. Actually, after that touchdown, the Jets gained 25 net yards through the rest of the game! One more first-half possession and all of the second half, the Bills allowed 25 yards. Sam Darnold, who looked like a world beater early, could do nothing about it. The Jets dominated time of possession early in the game, but the Bills finished the game comfortably on top in TOP. The Bills outgained the Jets 422 to 190, and they ran 72 plays to the Jets’ 51. All this after a woeful start, with a missed field goal on the first possession and a lost fumble on the second. Everything has to be qualified by the fact that this is the Jets, but good football is good football. The Jets came to play; Darnold wanted to beat his buddy, Frank Gore wanted to play well against his old team, the whole team was tired of losing and saw the Bills (with two straight losses and a long injury list) as the team they could beat. The Bills said “no” to all of that. Poyer and Boettger and Hughes and Oliver and Beasley and Moss came to play, too. If anyone expected a magical turnaround where the Bills put up 600 yards and 49 points while shutting out the Jets, they were dreaming. The Bills have serious shortcomings exposed during the past two weeks, and those shortcomings couldn’t be fixed in a short week of preparation for the Jets. The Bills still couldn’t throw deep, they still couldn’t run the ball effectively. They still were beaten by attacks on the edge. Early in the game they had trouble getting off the field. Tremaine Edmunds still got pushed around, and the Bills still were getting penalized big-time for unnecessary roughness. But the Bills showed progress. They improved their possession passing game, going repeatedly to Beasley and Diggs and Kroft underneath. Allen was in charge of an offense that effectively and repeatedly marched down the field – one fumble and eight field goal attempts. They played ball control with their passing attack, just like the Chiefs do. The Chiefs, of course, also have a running game, and the Bills should study Chiefs’ game film, 49er game film, Ravens’ game film, and continue to add wrinkles to their own run game. Moss and Singletary aren’t burners, and they need good creases to make their gains. They can get those creases as the passing game continues to move the ball effectively and to challenge defenses deep. It’s all a package, and the Bills are working on it. The Bills couldn’t find the end zone, and their place kicking leaves everyone shaking their head. Some things to work on. The good news is that they have the right guy handling the ball. Josh Allen had his usual collection of mistakes against the Jets, but he continues to dazzle nevertheless. His most impressive talent - other than his arm - is his ability to manage the pocket. He stands firm when unthreatened, and he moves and eludes tacklers while staying in the pocket. He handles the blitz reasonably well. When he scrambles, he’s as dangerous as Mahomes. He makes good decisions, most of the time. He’s throwing the ball away when he should. He’s been getting better for two and a half years now, and he will continue to get better. Milano’s back, with luck Brown will be back next week. Getting Norman back on the field will help. Feliciano will help. Learning and improving will be key. The upcoming game is big. 6-2 at the halfway point would be an excellent first half. More importantly, the Bills beating the Pats would be the symbol the league and football fans everywhere have been waiting for – someone to bury the Pats deep in the standings. It won’t be easy. Belichick doesn’t like losing, and he’ll do a better job game planning against the Bills than the Jets did. It’s a process. 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.

It's also about scheme and coaching. The Chiefs offensive line knew how to attack gaps - it wasn't strictly overpowering the guy across the line. Part of the process, over the course of the season, is to learn how to play several different styles. They learn to do that by playing against different styles and adapting. If teams run on the Bills for the next two months the way the Chiefs ran on them, then the coaches will have failed. I think we'll see run-stopping improve.

It's funny to me that people think I defend the coach, whoever he is. I don't think I do that. Whoever the coach, he IS the coach, and what I try to talk about is why he's doing what he's doing. Whether it's the right approach, time will tell. In the meantime, I'm just trying to figure out what he's trying. And it IS the process. He has a management system and a philosophy, and his strategy is to get a team full of highly motivated, committed athletes to play together. The philosophy is that he can out play everyone by having the most efficient team. I keep mentioning Belichick because that is his philosophy. Good athletes, learning every week, getting more effective. The biggest potential flaw in McDermott's process is that it requires brilliant coaching. It requires great Xs and Os analysis and creative game planning. It is based on always being so well prepared mentally that one-on-one physical mismatches don't wreck your game; somehow, you manage them. So the question always has been whether McDermott has the intelligence and creativity to lead such an operation. At the end of the day, Belichick is Belichick because of his exceptional command of the Xs and Os. My view on McDermott is that he's still young, that it takes time for that total creativity to blossom. McDermott's in a process, too. I think it's a very interesting coaching style to observe.

Figgy, I'm a true believer in this point of view. However, if you're inclined to worry if the Bills are pursing the right formula, you have to at least ask if they have right kind of physical talent. Do they need a more physically aggressive middle linebacker? Do they need more speed at running back? Do they need a couple of nastier defensive linemen? Stouter? You can have the right mental makeup for the team, but still be beaten physically on the field. I think it's too early to have that discussion. I want to see how the team develops over the next 4-6 weeks. I always come back to Belchick. If you look at his lines, he didn't have big maulers (except for a Wilfork or an occasional other stud). He had medium sized guys, guys you might even have thought were under-sized, but they fought every play, and they executed the defense as called. I think McDermott's model is similar - great, motivated athletes who aren't necessarily individual stars but are just really good at their jobs. Certainly, when you look at the players on the Dline, the kind of players McDermott wanted, that's the kind of guy you find there. Oliver is the one shot they have at being a real stud. The others are all supposed to be excellent role players. They aren't right now, and that's on McDermott and Frazier - they have the kind of guys they want, and they're supposed to be able to make that kind of talent win. That's not to say that McDermott and Frazier are failing. They expect to build their defense throughout the season, to be playing their best defense a month from now. It may have looked bad for a few weeks, but the question is what will it look like in a month. They understand that it's a yearly challenge to put players like the Bills have into a championship caliber unit. We will see if McDermott and Frazier can make their system succeed.

I would have been thrilled. Good teams don't win every game, but good teams often find ways to win game they shouldn't. I sort of think that winning games in the fourth quarter trumps just about every other measure of a good team. When it gets down to 9 minutes to go, down 13, if you can find a way to win that game against ANY competition in the NFL, let alone the Chiefs, you're a good team. So, yeah, TD drive, recover the fumble, TD drive, game over, I'm thrilled.

Yes, I agree with all of this. Including the balance of this season. As I said, beating the Jets is important, then they're 5-2 and should be headed for 10-11 wins. If the team develops over the next couple months, and McDermott's teams generally do, they should be better than last season, despite the current issues. Bottom line is that it's way to early to fret over. Three quarters of the league would like to be where the Bills are today.

That's really interesting. I kept wrestling with it in my head, and then I realized that what's going on here is cherry picking the data. It all depends what period you pick. Go back to the year the Kelly teams first want to the AFC championship. Start with that year, and I'm sure the Bills are ABOVE average for championship game appearances. How about Super Bowl appearances in the last 30 years? Way above average. Yes, we're still some on a pretty bad streak. But we're stuck in it because all of the Bills' successful years came in a tight bunch.

I try to respond to people who post about the Rockpile Review, but I was away from the computer all day yesterday and didn't get a good chance to read what everyone has said. I still haven't read all the posts, but I intend. In general, I don't think the sky is falling. It could be, but I doubt it. I saw a couple of comments about elite talent. I agree with whoever said the Bills have done fine in the elite talent talent, getting White, Allen, Edmunds, Oliver, and Diggs with first round picks since McBeane arrived. Poyer, Hyde, Norman, Brown, Beasley are all just a notch below. Milano, of course. More troubling to me, also picking up on something someone said, is that what's winning this season is tough, hard-nosed hitting, and the Bills look much more like a finesse team. San Francisco and Tennessee and the Chiefs (at least the Bills) are pushing people around. The 40ers receivers catch the ball and actually seem to be looking for people to hit. At its core, football is about hitting, and if you can't stand your ground and give as good as you get, you're going to blown off the field. Back to personnel, where Beane's work seems to have been less than stellar is on the lines. I think we all now can see what Star does for the defensive line. He was the only true one-technique guy they had. Phillips is a tweener and may not be able to contribute either at the one or the three. Without Star and another tough guy in the middle, the offenses are free to attack anyplace along the line, and I think that's when teams begin to be able to out-scheme the Bills. It's a long season. Yesterday I was recalling how in the Kelly years, the Bills often would have difficult games, including losses. It's a tough league and it's very unusual to be consistently dominant. The objective is to be good in November and December and to make the playoffs, and the Bills are still well-positioned to do that. Good teams win some games against good opponents (Rams, Raiders), lose some (Chiefs, Titans), and win the games they should win (Jets, Dolphins). A win against the Jets is critical. Getting to 5-2 as October ends positions the Bills nicely for the second half of the season. On top of that, as I noted last week, McDermott's teams always seem to need a reset at midseason, and we seem to be at that point again. Finally, I've said all along that 2021 was the target season, and I still think that's the case. Allen will be a mature NFL starter, and the Bills will once again have added some talent at some positions (ideally along the lines). The sky isn't falling.

Tua must be looking awfully good in practice. Really hard to imagine that he is ready, but the coaches see something. Gailey wont fo away from Fitz without good reason. This may be the end for Fitz. I'd be pretty discouraged if I were he. Maybe Gailey convinces him to come back next year to mentor Tua from the bench. Love it if he would replace Barkley.

Thanks.

Unfortunately, that's true this morning. Plus Star. The defensive line last season could stand it's ground. Not this season.

The Bills lost to the Chiefs on a raw, rainy Monday night in Orchard Park, 26-17. The Bills are now 4-2, a game ahead of the Dolphins in the AFC East, and they look like they’re headed to the middle of the NFL pack. We tend to want to make definitive statements about teams – “they’re good,” “they’re bad,” “they’re building” – but the most that can be said today about the Bills is that they are evolving. It’s survival of the fittest in the NFL, and if the Chiefs game is any indication, the Bills need to adapt. What happened in the NFL in the early part of the 2020 NFL season is now clear: Several teams, including the Bills, were able to throw the ball all over the field, any time they wanted, wherever they wanted. It was exciting, but we should have realized it wasn’t going to last. Teams adjusted. The adjustment was to play coverage; keep one or two safeties back, flood the defensive backfield with defenders. Defenses said “you will NOT beat us with that passing game. You may beat us some other way, but not throwing the ball like that.” The Raiders did it to the Chiefs last week, the Titans did it to the Bills, everyone’s doing it to the Cowboys. The Bills did it to the Chiefs, and the Chiefs did it to the Bills. Each said to other, “Find a different way to win.” If you can’t win throwing, all that’s left is running. Running means controlling the line of scrimmage. The Chiefs totally controlled the line of scrimmage against the Bills. The Chiefs found a way to win. The Bills need to adapt. There’s not much to say about the game that wasn’t obvious to anyone who saw it, but I’ll give you my take aways. 1. The front four was dominated by the Chiefs all night. The game film could be used as a training film for offensive linemen. It truly was a clinic. It wasn’t simply that the Chiefs over-powered the Bills; they out-finessed the Bills. They knew exactly how the Bills defense attacked the run, and they took advantage of the Bills strategy. Chiefs linemen consistently took the correct angles to create running lanes, and there was nothing the Bills could do about it. Every upcoming opponent will see it on film. The Bills have to adapt, quickly, or they will get run over. 2. Edmunds made some poor decisions in the middle, often getting caught in the wash, choosing bad angles, but it’s tough to blame much on him. He led the team in tackles, primarily because it would have been hard not to – running backs were coming at him all night. 3. Singletary and Moss would have gone for over 200 yards running behind the Chiefs’ offensive line; unfortunately, they had to run behind the Bills line. It was tough yardage all night. It’s easy to tell when the Bills running game isn’t working – they resort to running Josh Allen. When Allen gets designed runs, it means Brian Daboll has run out of answers. Allen led the team in rushing, not because he had a couple of 30-yard scrambles, but because he took the pounding that running backs ordinarily are asked to take. That’s not a formula for success. 4. Despite the numbers, Allen wasn’t bad passing. Yes, he missed badly on a couple of throws early in the game. (Troy Aikman was classic. He blamed the early misses on the reeemergence of Allen inaccuracy, but as soon as Mahomes, the golden boy, missed badly, it was because of the weather.) After the early misses, Allen had bad drops by Brown and Kroft, and then he got going. He threw two spectacular deep balls to Diggs, one that almost drew a penalty and one that did. His touchdown pass to Diggs was a pinpoint throw after a good scramble out of the pocket. In fact, Allen worked well in the pocket all night, avoiding the rush and finding the right targets His inteception was a desperation throw with the clock running out. The Bills still have their franchise quarterback. 5. The Bills didn’t play with the poise that Sean McDermott expects of his team. The successive unnecessary roughness penalties from White and Poyer were surprising, two veterans trying to fire up their team with physical play, two veterans out of control. Diggs taking a penalty after dawdling back to the line of scrimmage late in the game was ominous; the first sign this season of the Diggs who frustrated the Vikings. 6. And yet, with all that went wrong, with all that was so disappointing, the Bills were in this football game from start to finish. They were the lovable losers of the Dick Jauron era. The Bills scored first. The Bills escaped the first half down only three (and would have been tied, but for Bass’s bad misfire on the last play). They held the Chiefs to a field goal in the second half when a TD would have ended the game. They answered immediately with a six-play 75-yard drive to get back within 6. That was not a garbage-time score; that was the time of the game when Andy Reid asked his team to win the game with a stop; instead, the Bills blew away the Chiefs for the score. Then the Bills forced a fumble, and for thirty seconds, until we saw the replay, it seemed like the Bills would steal the win, despite the Chiefs’ dominance. The fumble was overturned, the Chiefs marched downfield one more time and kicked the field goal to end it. The Bills must adapt. On the fly. 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.

Well, it's just semantics. He wasn't "on" all day. His throws weren't always as accurate as they've been. Some of his throws simply had too much pace - one got to Diggs faster than Diggs expected, and the high ball to Knox also had some pace that may have surprised him. Yes, Allen made some good throws - a lot of them, actually, but when I say he was "off" all day, what I mean is that he wasn't sharp.

I agree. Allen was off all day. He didn't show the precision and command we had seen earlier. As for Roberts, it's constantly amazing to me that some guys just have it and others don't. You'd think that after years of practice by a world-class athlete, that catch would be routine. Even the best don't make that catch every time, but when that happens to the best, it's a surprise. When it happens to Roberts, it's just another ball going off his hands. Brown would have made a difference throughout the game; he would have made a BIG difference on that play.

Didn't see the Falcons news, but I can imagine. Someone suggested that the NFL will add a week at the end of the season and use that to clean up whatever they have to. I'd guess that that week already is deep into the planning stages. There are going to be Saturday games, Thursday night doubleheaders. They'll juggle and juggle to get every game on TV.

Well, the offense wasn't good. Eliminate the drops and pre-snap penalties, and the Bills still couldn't throw beyond 10 yards and couldn't run at all.

I agree absolutely, and I don't blame them at all. When your job is to grow and protect the enormous revenue stream they manage, their decisions are going to be driven by the money, period. The stain, as you say, must be avoided at all costs. So, for example, the NFL completely dissed Kaepernick until this year, when his message threatened to impact the revenue stream. All about the money. Do they try to make the schedule fair? Sure, for plenty of obvious reasons. But you know they're telling the owners that the schedule can't be perfect, and they're telling the owners this year not to complain about anything, because the league is fighting to preserve, - ready? - the money for this year and beyond.

Yes, $$$. That's why a primary objective is to play all the games. They lose a lot of money if they lose a game. And they lose money if they don't reschedule to the best times.