Shaw66

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.

The Pats have one of the best secondaries in the league for 10 years, even though the personnel keeps turning over. They don't have a bunch of Pro Bowl players back there, other than Gilmore. What they do is find, train and keep good athletes in a very disciplined system. I don't think the Bills are too far from being there. The Bills secondary plays a pretty sophisticated game based on communication, knowledge and understanding. I'm afraid the Bills are a little short of talent to make much of a splash in January, but I agree with you that it's possible. As always, Allen is the real key. If Allen stsarts stringing together 100+ passer rating games, the Bills could be a tough out.

The Bills put away the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, 37-20, sweeping the season series and taking another step toward the playoffs. Several big steps remain ahead of them. Wins over the 2019 Dolphins, of course, are not the measure of a playoff caliber team. The Dolphins don’t score many points and they give up a lot (second last in the league in both categories). In fact, most of the games the Bills have played this season have been against teams in the bottom half of the league in both points scored and points allowed, and that’s one reason why the Bills have for weeks been number 3 in the league in both categories. But as many people keep saying, all you can do is play the games on your schedule. It’s a one-game-at-a-time league: prepare for this week’s opponent, win, and move on. The game wasn’t as close as the first go-round with the Dolphins in Buffalo. The Bills took the lead early and never gave it up, scoring in every quarter. It was one of the most consistently effective offensive performances of the season for the Bills. Particularly satisfying was that the Bills shook off their usual third-quarter stumbling. The Dolphins opened the quarter with the ball, trailing by 9. The Bills stopped them on six plays, and then the Bills went on their own nine-play TD drive to widen the lead. The Bills coasted to the victory from there. The TV announcers made a big deal out of the fact that the defensive stop was aided by a questionable holding call against the Dolphins, but they ignored the fact that the Bills actually had just forced a three-and-out but for an even more questionable spot on third down. The game is best seen as another step in a process, a multi-year process to build a consistent winner. There was plenty of room for improvement. The Bills’ first two offensive drives, and three of their first four, stalled. The Bills settled for field goals, leaving the score much closer early in the game than it should have been. When the Dolphins scored to make it 16-7, the Bills compounded their early inability to find the end zone by being totally surprised by the Dolphins’ onside kick. The Bills were saved from that gaffe when the Dolphins turned the ball over on an unforced fumble, and the Bills took control again with another touchdown to go up 23-7. That comfortable lead was short-lived, as the Bills immediately coughed up a 101-yard kickoff return. The first-half problems on special teams demonstrated, again, that the Bills are not fundamentally sound in all aspects of the game. A fundamentally sound team is prepared for everything, and the Bills were unprepared for both the onside kick and the kickoff return. Every week the Bills make some big mistakes, and every week Sean McDermott says they have some mistakes to clean up. The process is supposed to correct the problems and assure that the mistakes don’t recur. All teams, including fundamentally sound teams, get beat on one play or another occasionally, but it doesn’t happen week after week to the best teams. It seems to happen week after week to McDermott’s Bills, and that is one of his on-going coaching challenges. There were other issues with the Bills on Sunday, but there were a lot more positives than negatives. 1. Josh Allen once again showed the kind of quarterback he can be, even if he isn’t yet that quarterback as consistently as he needs to be. Sunday he took another step in the process. He threw the ball effectively, including no really bad decisions, and he stung the Dolphins with a 36-yard option run. Most impressive, perhaps, was his control of the team on the field. Allen was in charge throughout, running the huddle efficiently, directing and redirecting teammates to the proper position in the formations. He understood what he was looking at and he executed against it. His command on the field was noticeably different from a week ago in Cleveland. Does it mean he’s now a master field general? No. Miami’s defense isn’t Cleveland’s, let alone New England’s. But it means he’s learning and he has the ability to do what the job demands. It was an excellent outing for him. The best quick measure of how a quarterback is doing is the passer rating; the best quarterbacks usually have the best passer ratings. Last season, Allen’s passer rating was below EJ Manuel’s rookie year. I said coming into this season (as I said about Manuel as he entered his second season) that Allen needs to make a comfortable improvement in his passer rating, to get someplace around 15th to 20th in the league, and then he needs to improve beyond that. Manuel improved, but not enough. Ten games into the season, Allen’s almost doing it. His rating is 85.4, ten points higher than last season and 23rd in the league. 85 used to get QBs into the top 20, but as the passing game around the NFL continues to improve, 90 seems to be the new 85, so Allen still has a way to go. Allen had only two games over 100 in his rookie season; he’s already had four this season, once again demonstrating that he can be the effective QB the Bills have been looking for. Whether he can stay at, let alone improve on, 85 is an open question, as he faces winter weather and some tough opponents in the coming weeks. 2. John Brown isn’t the best receiver in the league, but his game is sweet to watch. He runs so effortlessly, with speed and quickness. He’s sure handed. He fights for the ball and to break up potential interceptions. It was nice to see him have the kind of day he had against the Dolphins. 3. It was nice, too, to see the Bills return to attacking over the middle in the passing game. Allen throws those short and intermediate balls over the middle really well, and Brown, Beasley and Knox all are good at the crossing patterns attacking that space. 4. Edmunds seems to be becoming the special play maker that made him a first-round pick. Edmunds and Milano together are becoming a formidable tandem. Edmunds reads and attacks, especially in the passing game. His break up of the pass to Gesicki on 4th and 16 was spectacular, running with the tight end down field and then finding and making a play on the ball. He’s a serious problem for quarterbacks in the middle of the defense. 5. Singletary. Nothing much to say, except nice job, don’t fumble. 6. Ryan Fitzpatrick had another solid outing, but the Bills wouldn’t let him find the end zone. Talk about in control on the field; Fitzpatrick lets nothing bother him. He seems to understand everything that’s going on out there. Fitz’s body just can’t quite deliver what his brain can see. He must look at Allen’s arm and running ability and just wonder what he could have accomplished with that kind of physical talent. 7. My wife insists that watching games at the Harp in Boston is better than watching live at New Era Field. I won’t go that far, but the Bills Backers in Boston throw a great party at the Harp. The place was packed and raucous, as it almost always is. The beer was flowing, the food was good, and we all had a good time singing the shout song, over and over. Great afternoon. 8. The Bills defense is good, but all you needed to see to understand how much room they have to improve was to watch the Patriots throttle the Eagles, the same team that ran the Bills out of the stadium a few weeks ago. The Pats pass defense looks like they have 14 guys playing back there. Receivers rarely seem to get open, and when they do, they are tackled immediately. The Pats defense is unspectacular, in the sense that they don’t have a Watt or a Mack or a Clowney, but it is so fundamentally sound, so full of guys who just execute, that it is stifling That’s McDermott’s goal, but the Bills aren’t there yet. 9. One thing the Patriots do, and it’s something we saw more of from the Bills against the Dolphins, is blitz. The Patriots don’t get great pressure from their front four, and the Bills don’t either. The Patriots aren’t afraid to send an extra rusher, and they benefit a lot from doing that. They benefit in two ways: (1) they get better pressure and (2) they create a lot of uncertainty for the QB and the O line, because they know the Pats may very well send an extra rusher or two, but they don’t know who’s coming. We saw the effectiveness of that approach by the Bills yesterday. The Bills kept Fitzpatrick off balance with an array of blitzes, coming at different times from different rushers. They didn’t always get home, but they created enough uncertainty and enough pressure to force the ball out quickly. I expect the Bills will stick with this approach, especially because Milano and Edmunds have the talent to cover a lot of ground in the defensive backfield when the Bills send an extra rusher. There are some tough games down the road, but it’s one game at a time. The Broncos will be a test, even though they are another team in the bottom half of the league in scoring. Their defense is stingy, and to win the Bills will need a quality performance from Allen. He’s still young and has a lot to learn, but it would be great to see him deliver a quality win when the Bills need it. 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.

Oh, yeah. It's happening. I wrote about it in May. In 3 years Josh Allen will be one of the premier QBs in the league. I completely disagree. I saw a QB who can make all the throws who is learning to play against all the defenses the league can throw at him. Game by game he learns.

No, the whole point of the post was even if Tyrod=Josh, the Bills are paying a lot less for Josh than they would have paid Tyrod.

We love to talk about those guys here, but the question is whether any of this talk actually causes people to go read Sullivan or listen to Schopp. For me, the answer to both questions is "no." I don't go to them because they simply are not good at what they do. They don't inform me, either with information or with insights, so I don't bother.

And, of course, I believe that if Belichick had started training camp in place of McD, the Bills also would be 9-0 right now.

Fun question. It deserves it's own thread. I'd definitely take Belichick and Allen. Belichick is the greatest coach of all time, and Allen has more than enough talent for Belichick to make him a winner. Plus, I'd get the benefit of Belichick coaching the other 52 guys. McDermott is trying to be like Belichick, and I think he will have success over time. He'll never be Belichick, but that's like saying Werner von Braun will never be Einstein. And I think McDermott would have success with this team more quickly if he had Russell Wilson today. If he had Russell Wilson to start this season, the Bills could very well be 9-0 right now. But I can't have Belichick and I can't have Wilson, so I have to write about McDermott and Allen. I like them both. As I said, I think McDermott will have success as a head coach, because of his approach. And I think Allen will, too. They're both just climbing their respective learning curves.

I agree. As I said to Gunner, I think a lot of these questions reflect bad reporting. "Are you frustrated with the success of your offense?" Come on, you actually need a quote from McDermott about that. I think a fair question is "you say player X needs to improve. Can you give us an example of the kind of thing you do to get improvement? And don't just say ' we have to continue to work.'" Ask him tell us what kind of things coaches are doing, what are they looking at on film, what are they talking to the players about? McDermott, for his part, needs to be a little more forthcoming about things. He needs to give the press something, and all of this "continue to work, continue to improve" stuff only goes so far. At some point he has to say something. He needs to prepare for the press conferences with some nuggets that he can give the press so that have something write about. If need be, he should talk to, say, Josh in advance and tell him that McD is going to use him as an example about something, so that Josh knows it's coming and knows that however the press spins it, it isn't intended as showing a lack of confidence in Josh. True. The processing part takes years to master.