Shaw66

Thanks. As FIgster says. these are really good points. I like what you say about the Bills and the Chiefs. I don't have a lot of confidence in the Bills over the next several weeks and the playoffs, because they just haven't looked a dominant team. However, the Bills are the kind of team that can put it together and make a run. It starts with a good defense. The defense has the potential to shut down pretty much anyone, although the Ravens were nothing short of fantastic last night. So the Bills have the potential to stay close with anyone. And they have a sneaky good offense. As I said earlier, if Allen is blossoming right now into a really good QB, he could make a huge difference in games in the coming weeks. Mostly, however, it's what you said about the future that I agree with and am excited about. The Bills will be better next season, because that's how this team is designed. The coaching will be better, the talent will be better, and the playing experience will be better. The Bills will be a load next year. Agree about 11-5. That's the best outcome anyone could reasonably expect, and it's an outcome that anyone here would have signed up for three months ago. They go 11-5 and McDermott and Beane are coach and GM of the year.

I agree about the long term. Whether the Bills are on a par with the Chiefs is an interesting question.

I think the important point is that Beane isn't done. He will never be done. Some of these guys we're talking about as free agent finds, will be gone a year from now. I don't mean all of them or anything like that, but they're style (McDermott is completely in on this) is to move on from guys unless they are exactly what they want. They want a leader in every position room, but if they have one, they don't need a second. That's why McCoy is gone. Singletary wasn't necessary better than LeSean when the cut was made, but Beane and McDermott are always looking to the future, so they want to always have a good developmental player, a guy who promises to be better than the guy they let you. And they manage the cap to be able to do it. By always having cap room, they can afford to eat some cap a little here or there to keep upgrading players. As for Morse, I don't know, at all, how he's doing, but I wouldn't be surprised if McDermott and Beane knowingly overpaid for him because he has the intangibles that they want in the center of the line. He may be the best leader among the good centers in the league, for all I know.. They have they're approach. They know what a great athlete is, and they will aggressively go the guys they think are the right great athletes, like Allen and Edmunds. But at some positions they're looking for the right role player, like all the guys they added to the o line this year. Some of those role players will be at risk next summer. Zay Jones was one of those guys. Guy's got some talent, he could play the role the Bills wanted him to play, but the Bills were ready to move on from him pretty quickly. Whether they're copying Belichick, I don't know, but that's what the Patriots do. It's a revolving door in Foxboro.

His absence from the lineup the last few weeks makes me think you're correct. We're about to find out.

Good point about getting better as the season progresses. That's an important aspect of all the good teams. The Bills actually look like they're doing that. You say Allen's coming into his own, but slowly. I think QBs aren't great until they've been at it five years or more. The young ones who have success early either are flashes in the pan or they happen to be in the right system that let's them shine early. It's learning all the intricacies, getting smarter every season, learning more, seeing more, that makes guys into great QBs. I see that happening with Allen. Running the no huddle yesterday was one example. How comfortable he is in the pocket, scanning the receiver before delivering those passes with nice touch over the middle. The touchdown to Beasley was an example of that. Complete poise until he saw what he wanted, then a quick release with a ball that got their quickly but was still a soft ball for Beasley to handle. That was a big-time QB play, and he did it like he could do it all day. He had a passer rating around 74 last season, and he's up to 86 this season, a nice jump into the middle of the pack. Next season he will know more, he will execute more crisply, he'll have most or all of his offensive line returning, and I'm guessing he'll have an upgrade in the receiver room. My hope for him was to get to top 15 this season and top 10 next season, and I think he's on track. I'm excited about the future because of the process. I never felt good about Rosen, and I was thrilled when they took Allen. Then I heard McBeane talk about him on draft night, how he was dead on what they were looking for in intangibles - competitor, leader, tireless worker - and I was sold. He threw two incredible passes in preseason games his rookie year, and I was sure they'd made the right move. I'm still sure. The Bills are going to win 9 to 11 games this season, and everyone should be really happy about that.

I drove six and a half hours to get home, and then my wife was REALLY happy to see me, so I was a little groggy this morning. But it was worth it.

Yeah, I really hate running on first down, especially when it results in having 244 rushing yards. I hate that. Here's the way I look at the Bills. McDermott does everything for a reason. He knows his quarterback has limited experience, and quarterbacks with limited experience will make mistakes in the passing game, especially, if as McD has done with Allen, the QB has the whole play book to master. Mistakes are bad. McDermott hates them. His philosophy is to strive to play mistake-free football. Given that, the thing to do is to try to keep the QB from having to throw more than 25 times a game. Running is a good thing in any case, but especially with a young QB. As Allen matures, and we're seeing it happen before our eyes, and as the Bills acquire more talent in the receiver room, McDermott will be more inclined to let Allen bomb away. Just not yet.

Thanks. In his postgame presser, Allen said it's a play they practiced about 10 times this week. It must be that Brown told the coaches that Harris was properly set up for it. When you watch Brown's route, it was really simple. No huge fake involved or anything. It's just that if you have his speed and you keep beating people on the slants and other crossing patterns, they have to honor the inside break. Eventually, you just have to head inside one more time, plant a foot and turn on the jets. Three steps out his break, it's was over. Those inside routes were the part of his game the Lee Evans never mastered. If he had, he would have been unstoppable. Brown has the talent and the guts to go over the middle, and it's what makes him so dangerous.

There aren't a lot of injuries that can be diagnosed just by watching it happen, but hamstrings are one. Of course, it's possible it's something else, and I hope it is, but that sprinting, then hopping on one foot and grabbing the thigh is the classic look. I remember the one time I did it, running, hopping and grabbing the thigh. My first thought, besides the pain, was "oh, that's what those guys are feeling when you see that on TV." I doubt it was a cramp, but maybe it was.

Right. I didn't mention special teams, except for Bojo's punt to the 11. He punted pretty well all day. And it's pretty clear now why Andre Roberts is a league leading kick returner. Some guys just have a knack for that job, and he has it. He reads the oncoming tacklers really well and sees the openings.

Dinner's at 2 instead of 5. Pie at half time.

Good points. Plus, Cowboys had a tough game on the road, Bills had a relatively easy win at home. Set up about as well as it could be.

The Bills cruised to 20-3 win over the Denver Broncos Sunday, moving to 8-3 and leaving their fans pinching themselves in disbelief. Eight and three? The Buffalo Bills? Fans around the country may still be discounting that record, or ignoring it altogether, claiming that the Bills have piled up wins against many of the worst teams in the league. They may be correct, but there’s still something, a lot actually, to be said for piling up wins in the NFL. There are only eight teams in the league with three or fewer losses, and the Bills are one of them. At this point in the season, the Bills are in the position that all teams want to be. The win over the Broncos was satisfying on many levels. It was good, finally, to have a win where the Bills took control of the game early and followed good play with good play, winning without being the least bit threatened in the second half. They didn’t dominate on the scoreboard in the first half, but they were in control of the game. They’d gone on two 80+ yard drives for field goals – you’d rather have seven, but long, clock-eating drives ending in points are good. Then they opened the second half with the rarest of Bills rarities – a begin-the-half touchdown drive, and the game was over. The Bills were a good team taking care of business. It was fun to be in the stadium to watch Frank Gore pass Barry Sanders to move into third place in career rushing yards. It’s just good to be around greatness, even if we only have Gore on loan from the Hall of Fame. He doesn’t belong to Bills fans in quite the same way as Cookie and OJ and Cribbs and Thurman and Fred and even Shady, but he’s ours for now, and we’ll take him. If this is his last season, or his last in Buffalo, he still will be part of Bills history for what he accomplished on Sunday, and for how he modeled the perfect teammate as Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott build the culture they want. The Bills finally put up four quarters of stifling defense. Total yards – 134. Third down conversions – 2 for 11. After the Bills opened the second half with a touchdown, the Broncos went on a ten-play drive to the Bills 22 – as close as they’d get to the red zone all day – and kicked a field goal, their only points of the day. After that, the Bills held the Broncos to five consecutive three and outs to end the game. Five. Yes, it was only the Broncos, and they may turn out to be the worst team in 2019, but the Bills gave them nothing. That’s what good teams do. I realized Sunday what makes the Bills’ pass defense so good: they play six defensive backs in their base defense. Really. Six. Two of them, Edmunds and Milano, just happen to be built like linebackers. Those two just keep making plays in the passing game, Milano particularly. I’m surprised that teams actually keep throwing at him. He defended three passes on Sunday, to go along with a fistful of tackles. After Tre’Davious White, Alexander, Edmunds and Milano have defended more passes than any other Bill. Plays, players and other things of note: 1. I’ve been on the Josh Allen bandwagon since early in his rookie season, and he keeps progressing nicely. Sunday, he played the way a good, young, growing QB should. Statistically Denver has one of the best pass defenses in the league, and Allen beat them by putting up the same stats they’ve been allowing all season. The Broncos have given up twice as many TDs passing as they’ve gotten TDs, and Allen went 2-1. They’re giving up 207 yards per game, Allen got 185. Opponents complete 65% of their passes against the Broncos, Allen completed 60%. Allen didn’t slice and dice the Broncos like a star QB would; he just did what you’d like to see out of a second-year quarterback. By the way, when your rushing offense is pounding out 244 yards, you don’t need your QB to do more. (Except, of course, contribute to the 244.) What did I like? The Bills ran a lot of no huddle – not hurry up, just no huddle, which meant Allen was calling plays at the line of scrimmage. He handled those duties calmly, completely in control. He made only two really bad throws – the interception and a possible INT along the left sideline. Apparently, he misread the defense on the interception; he didn’t see and didn’t expect the safety to be back there. I suspect a receiver read it correctly and cut off his route. I think Allen probably threw it to the spot where the receiver would have been if the Broncos had been in the defense Allen thought he saw. The result was an amazingly ugly throw. But Allen’s good throws way outweighed the mistakes. He hung in the pocket nicely and found Beasley for the first touchdown, he read the defense and found Brown for the second, both beautiful throws. He consistently hit crossing routes to all of his receivers. He’s fearless in the pocket – on the Beasley TD he was a split second late in deciding to throw it, and he was hit just as the ball left his hand, but he didn’t get happy feet. He stood his ground and made the throw. I like how the Bills are using Allen in the running game. By giving him a few designed runs every game, the Bills force defenses to plan and prepare for his running. He isn’t particularly productive on his designed runs – his big gains on Sunday came on scrambles, but the scrambles demonstrate that he’s a threat running, so defenses have to account for Allen as part of the run game. 2. Between them, Shaq Lawson and Ed Oliver had three tackles and three sacks. All nice plays – Shaq’s came on third downs, and Ed’s pinned the Broncos on the goal line, which resulted in the Bills getting good field position that led Brown’s TD catch. I would love to see those guys celebrate with their teammates, rather than their look-at-me post-sack dances. Yes, you made the play, but often it was your teammates who put you in that position. 3. It’s fun to watch White. The Broncos targeted Courtland Sutton eight times, and he caught one for 27 yards. White picked one and could have had two more. Amari Cooper on Thursday. 4. The Bills had an American flag that covered the entire field for the opening ceremonies. 100 yards long, 53 wide. They had a couple hundred people around the flag to hold it up. When it was unfurled, about 40 people had to run across the field holding the bottom side of the flag. About half way across the field, one of the runners around the 30-yard line stumbled and fell and was covered immediately by the flag spreading across the field. I assume he scrambled on all fours under the flag to the sideline and resumed his duties holding the flag. One of life’s embarrassing moments that you hope no one saw. Well, I saw it. 5. The fans hate McDermott’s conservative decision making, but the wisdom in his choices was rewarded Sunday. At the end of the first half, he decided to run and let the clock run out instead of passing and using the timeout in his pocket. But the Bills had looked kind of ragged on the drive, taking three penalties, and the Bills were getting the ball to start the second half. Turned out to be a good move. The Bills regrouped at half-time and came out cooking, getting the touchdown to make it 13-0 and, it turned out, to end the game. Later in the second half, it appeared that McDermott would go for it on fourth and four from Denver 36. It would have been a 54-yard field goal into the wind, so that wasn’t an option. Instead of snapping the ball, the Bills did what they regularly do – try to draw the defense offside, then take the delay of game penalty and punt. It’s a conservative, field-position approach, disliked by the fans but smart when the wind is affecting play and when your defense has been in control. McDermott’s players rewarded him, with a nice punt to the 11. After the fair catch, Oliver got his sack, the Broncos went three and out, and two plays later Allen hit Brown for the touchdown. With a better team or a worse team, taking those chances makes more sense. A better team can afford to take risks, a worse team has nothing to lose. 6. The Bills seem to be blitzing more than earlier in the season. They don’t get consistent pressure rushing four and the threat of the blitz complicates things for the offense, like Allen’s running does to the opponent’s defense. 7. Not many Bronco fans in the stadium, and they didn’t make much noise. Of course, when the team is playing like the Broncos are, it’s a serious fan who goes on the road to watch that show. 8. For the second season in a row, Robert Foster seems to be emerging as a threat late in the season. Awesome speed. It looked like he pulled up with a serious hamstring problem – not surprising for a thoroughbred who can run like that, and that’s unfortunate for him and for the Bills. The door appears to be open again for Duke Williams to be a factor in the offense. The Cowboys are desperate for a win, and the Bills have an opportunity to make a statement on the national stage. Are the Bills just another team, or are they among the best? Can they beat a good team on the road? We’ll see. Happy Thanksgiving. 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.

The team doesnt dominate, and the defense isnt good enough to carry them. I'm not arguing with about the quality of their D, but ifthe Bills can just do against their D what their averages are, that would be a nice game for Josh and another win. They have an 89 passer rating, and an 89 for Josh at this point in his career is an okay outing.

Yeah, I know they're good, but they dont dominate. If Allen is any good he should put up 21, and that should win.

Nice stuff about Allen. We w uh ol see tomorrow if Allen really is becoming what Brooks seems to see. At this point in his career, Allen should be putting up good numbers and wins against mediocre teams. Still may struggle against the elite, but Denver isnt elite.

I agree. It seems like every time I watch them he drops another one or two. They aren't always easy catches, but they are the catches he always seems to make. Not this season. As for Brady, I've thought for a month or two now that he'll hang em up after this season. I think you can see it in his body language. He really doesn't like the grind any more, just as he said, and when doing what those guys do becomes only a job, that's when they need to quit.

That's about as good an article as I've seen about Allen. It describes nicely who he is and how he's developing. What goes unnoticed in most of these discussions is the job that Beane, McDermott and their staffs did. Allen may have been the best QB prospect in the draft, and it seems like only McBeane figured it out. Certainly the Browns and Jets didn't. And no one else, apparently, was trading up for him. Everyone knew Allen was big and had a big arm. But none of the draft pundits were writing about, and most teams apparently didn't figure out, that Allen was smart, dedicated to the craft, hard-working, a team-oriented guy and a fierce competitor. Those are the things that McBeane are looking for in all their players, especially their QB. Those are things about a player that are knowable, and the Bills did the work to figure out that Allen had all those attributes. Combine those attributes with that size, speed and arm, and you have a top prospect. It was obvious to me early in the 2018 season. It was evident to McBeane in March before the draft.

It really is about learning and maturation. Over the years I keep saying the same things over and over, because they are true. I heard one retired QB say that he had to start for three or four years before he really understood what he was looking at post-snap in the defensive backfield. That means with a young QB you have to recognize that he's going to throw some INTs that look like stupid throws but they're really just a reflection of the fact that the QB doesn't understand yet what he's looking at. The classic young-QB INT is the throw over middle when he doesn't see the linebacker moving deeper and laterally into the underneath coverage. Young QBs regular don't see that guy, throw what looks like a gimme completion over the middle, and it turns into an interception that the fans think was a totally stupid throw. What was he thinking? Well, that guy isn't there in college, so the QB's never learned to look for him. After he throws a few of those INTs, he learns. That process is taking place on every play, with looks all over the field. And the defenses are evolving, too, so just because the QB adapts to a particular defense doesn't mean that next season he's out of the woods. And that doesn't even bring into consideration the blitz packages that the QB has to learn to read pre-snap and post-snap and then make the right throw. It's a long, complicated process. Along the way, the coaches don't want to kill the QB's aggressiveness, but, somehow they have to dial it back. Imagine a QB wearing a blindfold. His aggressiveness needs to be dialed all the way back, because he can't see anything. Well, a rookie QB is peaking out from under the blindfold - there's a lot that he doesn't see. Even in his second year, he's not seeing everything. Sometimes the coach has to let the QB be aggressive and recognize that some bad things are going to happen because of it. It isn't easy.

I think that's one lesson he's learned. Not that he'll never throw another, and for that matter, he'll probably still make some dumb throws. But I think he's seeing the field well enough now, and he knows that INTs are killers, so he just isn't throwing the ball into tough spots so much any more.

Yeah. 11 voters had the Bills #1.

Yes, the upcoming games will be good tests. But even if he struggles, he will have shown that he gets how to do it. The next test will be learning how to do it against really good defenses. Be nice if he's pretty much already there. We'll see. Denver's actually the first test.

This is really on the money. TD to Brown WAS beautiful. I wouldn't say incrementally. I'd say sporadically. I'd take the guy we saw last Sunday every week. But we never know what we're going to get. And I agree about a playmaker. Singletary isn't explosive enough. And none of the receivers is spectacular. It's the same problem the Pats have, except they have the QB.

Thanks for pulling this stuff together. I was like you; I thought he'd do better than that. I was looking for him to get to the top 15 to 20 in the league, and he isn't there. Passer rating tells the same story - it should, because it's based on a lot of the same stats you posted. His oline and his receivers may have held him back a bit, but it's really on him. Statistically, I'd say he's improved just enough not to be too worried. If he showed no statistical growth (which is where Mayfield and Darnold are), I'd be concerned. Allen has shown clear progress, with no reason to believe his progress will stop now. How he finishes this season, and next season, will tell us whether the Bills still have a problem at QB. I'd love to see four of the last six games with a passer rating in the high 90s or above. That would raise some eyebrows.

Plus he isn't likely to be in anything like football condition. As you say, he took a lot of abuse, and he'd certainly get it again. He can't be in any kind of shape to take that punishment after a couple of workouts.