Shaw66

The Bills weren't going to let Bell beat them. They did a good job on him. And I've been on the Allen bandwagon since last year. I get that the national media don't talk about him, because they won't talk about the Bills until they start winning. He runs the team like a veteran, and he throws like the best throwers you've ever seen.

I think McD is taking pages out of Belichick's book, left and right. Belichick has games like that. If he thinks you can't stop the pass, he keeps passing. I think that's what we saw today. Next week will be different, because the Giants are different. That's what I thought. I'd forgotten how good Bell is. He is just really, really tough to bring down. The Bills' job was not to let Bell beat them, because there was very little chance anyone else was going to beat them. The Bills limited Bell, and that's how they won.

Virgil - I haven't finished reading, and I don't know if anyone responded. Ford was in for a series or two, then Ty came in. Ford came back, still in the first half. Second half I think it was all Ty. Ford was standing on the sideline.

“Winning the Fourth Quarter” It’s been a consistent message since Sean McDermott arrived in Buffalo. The Bills intend to be a team that wins the fourth quarter. Sunday afternoon, the team they intend to be was on display, as the Bills came all the way back to beat the New York Jets, 17-16. Trailing 16-0 in the third quarter, and 16-3 as the fourth quarter began, the Bills needed to win the fourth quarter by 14 points. On the sideline, they looked ready. It was business as usual, no heads hanging, no finger pointing, no panic. Just talk about what they had to do next. In the fourth quarter, the Jets ran 16 plays for 35 yards. The Bills ran 19 plays for 170 yards and two touchdowns. I’d call that winning the fourth quarter. It’s hard to say the Bills were the better team, because mistakes matter, but the Bills clearly outplayed the Jets. The Bills offense was better, and their defense was better. The Bills had a few ugly plays, including one to give up a touchdown and another resulting in a safety. Simply ugly. A couple of Allen fumbles, and a deflected pass for another interception. Five or six really bad plays made the game close. After a week, the Bills look a lot like what many fans expected. Solid defense that features a decent pass rush, gang tackling, and good play in the defensive backfield. An offense that features a lot of short passes and takes mid-range and deep shots as the opportunities arise. Less running by Allen, more effective running by the running backs. Allen looked like a rookie in the first half and like a franchise quarterback in the second. Maybe we will look back and say that the second half of the Jets game was when he came of age, but I doubt it. I think we will see more of the rookie in weeks to come. He still has a lot to learn. Can we put aside the concerns about Allen’s accuracy? 24 for 37, balls on the money all day long, including some pretty throws along the sideline, and including the back-shoulder TD to Brown to win the game. How about his poise? Ran the no huddle beautifully, getting the play called, directing traffic and throwing the ball all over the field. It was a great performance by Allen, mistakes notwithstanding. Allen needs to slide. Man, the Bills threw multiple looks at the Jets: Empty backfields, different wideout packages, three tight ends, DiMarco split wide. Daboll seems to have free rein to get creative. Some impressions from MetLife Stadium: 1. Ran into Harrison Philips’ mom tailgating before the game. She was easy to spot in the #99 jerseys she and her friends were wearing. Very nice lady. 2. After one of Singletary’s several nice fourth quarter runs, a Jets fan sitting near me said “We can’t stop that guy.” 3. Spotted Terry Pegula on the sideline during warmups before the game. He was chatting with Chris Johnson, one of the Jets owners, then with some of the Bills personnel on the sideline. He seems like such a nice guy. 4. The Jets show The Red Zone on the big screen during most of the game. It’s great! They also have cheerleaders, called the Flight Crew. A woman in front of me was wearing “Flight Crew Mom” tee shirt. 5. It’s really loud in MetLife, when fans bother to make noise, which is only occasionally. On the first few plays of the game, noisy On big third downs, noisy. The rest of the time, not so much. 6. Veteran leadership? After Brown’s touchdown, before the extra point, the defense began gathering on the sideline, preparing to make the last stop. Kurt Coleman stopped Ed Oliver, got face to face, looked him in the eye and talked to him. He raised his hands, pointed at his own head, and tapped his temples two or three times, clearly telling Oliver to calm down and use his head. Coleman knew it was a big moment for a rookie, he knew he wasn’t going to be on the field but he could contribute. Cool. 7. I miss Shady. And Singletary was giving me a lot of reason to miss him in the first half. Second half? Oh, yeah! Sweet moves. 8. Bills’ defense sat at the right end of the bench, right in front of me. Saw a. Lawson dancing on the sideline to music piped into the stadium, chatting briefly with a couple of young women in the stands in front of me. Only guy I saw not focused on the game. b. Lorenzo Alexander talking about something they needed to do. All business. c. Ed Oliver energized. He was amped. d. Hyde up and down the bench getting every one ready as the Bills were driving for the winning score. 9. You know how several players on kickoff coverage complete the run by trotting into the endzone on a touchback? No Maurice Alexander. He SPRINTS to the end zone. The guy wants to be out there. 10. Tremaine Edmunds is a big man, and yes, he’s a lot better against the run this season. (11. He isn’t a Bill, but LeVeon Bell deserves a nod. That guy is a football player. The Bills had their hands full but kept him under control, mostly.) It was too close, but there’s a “1” in the Win column, and on the first Sunday night of the season, that’s all that matters. It’s only one game, but we saw a lot to like against the Jets. And the Bills will get better. 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.

That's interesting. Gruden's looked like a train wreck since he got there. When he was a broadcaster I thought he was entertaining but that his coaching career was hyped all out of proportion with reality. He deserves credit for the Super Bowl win, but no one ever called Mike Ditka a great coach, and he won a Super Bowl, too. All in a great, bizarre tradition known as the Davis family Raiders.

One other thing about lukewarm, and some others have said something like this. As much as Beane, or I, may think that Allen is a star in the making, as much as we may think the world is going to see that in the next three months, it's all just talk right now. The passing offense didn't produce enough last season, and it hasn't produced anything yet this year. So from that point of view what Beane said about Allen is exactly correct. I think that is exactly the right take on Beane's words.

I've looked at some combine times. He's near the bottom. He isnt going to run past a lot of defenders. 5 o6 is another bbn piece of evidence un your favor.

This is excellent. Thanks. I will say, however, that Spencer is a different case. Spencer appears to be on the Broncos because they wanted a punt returner, and that is what he was known for in Canada. It's much easier to watch film of a guy and know if he is going to be able to return kicks than to know he can play wideout. So claiming Spencer on waivers, just like the Bills claiming McKenzie last year, is easier to do. And that, in a different, sense, is war I was saying about Duke. The things a pure wideout has to show to make the team are p retry complicated, and if you don't have something else going for you, like kick returning, you have more trouble making the team. Foster had speed last season and couldn't hold a roster spot. Still, I think yours is a very good explanation of why Duke hasn't made it.

That's absolutely true., that is how they will be judged. But as many coaches often say to the press, that kind of judging is what the press does. The coaches say that kind of judging isn't their job.

Like I say to people here all the time, it's fine if that's what you want and it's fine if that's the way you think it should be done, but none of that matters, because that is NOT what McBeane are doing. You may think your kind of goal setting is the best. The people who run Toyota think THEIR kind of goal setting is the best, and unless I miss my guess, Toyota is more successful than you. McBeane are trying to run the Bills by setting goals the way the people at Toyota set goals.

You just don't understand what they're doing. The Bills are operating a system where everyone in the organization has very well defined objectives that are established weekly, I believe. Everyone is told that he's performing this particular task at an 85% rate and he has to improve it to 95%, that he has to make this block more often, that he has to fill this hole, that he has to make this throw. Every practice is filmed and graded, and every player is told every week how he did, and if he hasn't improved, the player and the coach try to figure out why. The guys who get graded out the highest make the team. They're also graded on being on time, on sticking to their diets, on hitting their weight-lifting goals. They're graded on all kinds of things. If they aren't seriously committed to getting better at all these things, if they aren't working at it all the time, someone takes their job. Beane will tell you, I am sure, that the goals they set for players is to do their jobs right. If they all do their jobs right, the winning will take care of itself. Of, course, if the coaches are giving them the wrong jobs to do, it won't work, so all of the coaches are being evaluated all of the time, too. Everyone in the whole organization is focused on getting better at their jobs, and that's their goal. Not winning. I saw a long interview with Belichick after they had the comeback against Atlanta. It was February or March. The interviewer asked him what the Patriots had to do to win the Super Bowl next season. Belichick said something like this: "No one is thinking about that. Everyone is thinking about what they have to do today, and how they have to get ready for tomorrow. We won't start thinking about the regular season games until the preseason is finished, and we won't think about the Super Bowl until it's the next game on our schedule." A goal like "winning the Super Bowl" is the wishy washy goal. It doesn't tell you anything about you actually have to do to achieve the goal. What the Bills do is tell their players that their goal is to do the things they did today better tomorrow. If you missed that block today, make it tomorrow. What do you have do to make it? Maybe move your feet differently, take a different step, deliver the blow with your forearm, cut him, something. It didn't happen today, do it tomorrow, and keep doing it every day after that. That's the kind of goal setting the Bills are doing. It's like this: Think about climbing Mt. Everest. You start at the bottom. As you walk, are you looking up at the peak, or are you looking at the trail? You can't get there looking at the peak, because you'll fall and kill yourself while you're dreaming of the peak. You look at the trail, make the first step correctly, then the second step. When you string together enough correct steps you're at the summit and congratulate yourself. McBeane work very hard to keep themselves and the players looking at the trail.

Thanks for posting this. I read the article. Yeah, Beane's really lukewarm about Josh. That's a good word. I think he's underselling Josh; he doesn't want to put the pressure on him that the fans are creating. I'm expecting him to be a star on the rise, known to all football fans by the end of the season. Beane might believe that, but I think he just sees no point in saying it - it just puts pressure on Josh, and it puts pressure on Beane if Josh underperforms. Carucci was better about McCoy. That guy in the Athletic wrote a piece a week or two ago that suggested Beane has been lying to us for months about McCoy. I really don't think that's the case. What Beane said to Carucci, and I think it's true about what Beane always says, is that he says what he believes at the time (oor he says nothing). When Beane said several months ago that McCoy was the starter, I understood him to mean that as of that time, McCoy was number one on the depth chart. Beane wasn't making a prediction; he was talking about the status of that position at that time. He and McDermott are always clear that it's a competition for every position all of the time, so I understood Beane to be saying it was McCoy's job as of then, but what went without saying was things could change. I wrote somewhere the other day that I'm beginning to understand what Beane and McDermott mean when they talk about position flexibility. I always though it meant you could play two positions, like TE and fullback, or RT and RG, or DB and special teams. It means that, but more importantly, I think, it means combinations of skill sets within the room. He hints at it in this interview, talking about McCoy. I think they concluded that Gore, SIngletary and Yeldon could do more varied things among them than McCoy and any two of the others. Plus, when you come right down to it, the only guy with a sure spot on the roster was Singletary; one of the other three was going to get cut, and McCoy, who's most like Singletary, became superfluous. You can also hear Beane talking about that kind of flexibility in the receiver room, when he talks about the different mixes of speed, quickness and other skills that the group has. Good stuff. Actually, I think he has a very well-defined concept of success, which is sustained excellence. There are several measures of excellence, one of which being winning the Super Bowl. But excellence is the goal, because you always can improve on excellence. If your goal is winning the Super Bowl, what do you do the next year? You've already achieved your goal.

I'm glad this discussion got a little back down to earth. Yeah, Gunner, I really like Williams, mostly because I like his story. And I don't over-value him; unlike some folks around here, I think that the very best evaluation of players you can get is from the coaches, and if the coaches aren't putting the guy on the 53, then that tells me all I need to know about how much he can contribute today. He's not as good as Zay or Foster; if he were, he'd be on the team. However, if McBeane and Daboll thought Duke's lack of speed disqualified from playing the modern NFL where speed is so valued, he wouldn't be on the practice squad. Put another way, I think you're saying that if he had speed, he'd be on the 53, and I think that's right. But the lack of speed doesn't disqualify him. He didn't make the 53 because he didn't offer a good enough package, and he made the PS because McBeane think that he can learn what he needs to learn to be a contributor in NFL games. I don't know what that is, but if it were speed that he needed to learn, he wouldn't be on the PS. I think they're objective is to teach him what he needs to know and do in order to be valuable enough to be added to the roster. They're probably working him out on the special teams, so he can be a contributor there. Maybe his understanding of the passing offense is limited - maybe what he's supposed to do now is completely different from what he learned over two years in Canada. Maybe he lacks precision in running routes. Maybe he's deficient in reading defenses, recognizing coverages. I don't know, and McBeane do know. What I know is that Duke has demonstrated a very unusual and valuable skill - to come down with contested balls - and McBeane think he can learn enough of whatever else he needs to learn in order to play in the league.

Gunner - I don't think that's the right conclusion. Might be, but I don't think so. Anquan Boldin didn't play THAT long ago, and he was a monster ball catcher. I think it's more about the fact that he's still too much of a wild card to take a chance on. The only teams that have seen him in practice are Carolina and Buffalo. (Interesting that Carolina saw him and took Ray Ray instead, I'll give you that.) But no one else knows much of anything about how he practices, what his teammates think of him, all of that. On top of that, no one has any recent film on him except for the CFL, and that doesn't tell them a whole lot, given the level of the competition. Add that all to the constant worry that he'll melt down and become a liability and teams were reluctant to cut any know quantity they had to make a spot for him. We'll see. He will land somewhere, this year or next.

I have no idea what to expect, but I have reaction after watching the first half of Packers Bears: The defenses are way ahead of the offenses. The speed, quickness and proficiency of both defenses last night was impressive. Reveivers could find the smallest of openings, quarterbacks rarely had a lot of time to throw, running backs couldn't find much daylight. The defenders seem really quick and rarely were out of position. If that's what's happening across the league, if the Biills defense shows up, it will be a low scoring game, perhaps even a shut out.

I'm on the 40 yard line, about six rows behind the Bills bench.

And I just said the opposite in similar fashion. The story really is about whether you believe, this time, the comeback story actually is true or. You're correct that to this point, the comeback story is flopping. At least in a sense, though, it isn't. The guy continues to hang around continues to give evidence that you can't ignore. The comeback story isn't over yet.

Frankly, I think Duke was the victim of some NFL bias. When you bust in college like Duke did, then bust in the NFL like Duke did, the NFL isn't interested in your little comeback story. If you have a horrible fumbling problem and get cut from the NFL, you start selling your comeback story. There are dozens of guys with a comeback story, trying to get back in. They almost always fail again, so GMs and coaches aren't anxious to spend time on guys with comeback stories. So I think some of Duke's absence from the league is attributable to that. I'm not saying he's a victim, but I am saying he isn't exactly a retread trying one more time with his comeback story. He is a guy who actually IS coming back. Duke's a talent who's missed a lot of the formative years in college and then couldn't get into the NFL. He's a talent who has skipped a lot of what he was supposed to learn in college and as a rookie and now is trying to make it all up. That's what a lot of us think. He's different from the usual story. I mean, just watch the video of his catches in games and in practice today. Just watch it and appreciate how difficult those catches were. When do you EVER see guys catching the ball like that? You're absolutely right about Zay. He won his spot on the team, and apparently he, too, adds position flexibility. Zay's sort of like Brown, without the speed. He's sort of like Beasley, without the serious shiftiness. He's a little like a lot of people, but he is different from all of them. It's an interesting situation. There was a dogfight among all the receivers to make the 53. Duke was the odd man out, maybe clearly not ready for prime time, maybe ready. But with Duke on the practice squad and performing, Foster knows he's still in a fight. He has to do the things that make him good or Duke will get his chance to do his things. And Zay has to feel the same way - he's still in a fight for his position. In some ways maybe the most important thing Duke can do for this team is keep the pressure on the others. As of today, Duke said to them "I'm here and I'm not going away. Show McDermott you're better than me."

I think this is correct. I think when they signed Gore, they thought the he and Shady would be the 1-2 guys. Then when they got Singletary, the question became whether there would be one senior leader in the running back room or two. Over the course of the summer they decided it had to be one, and Gore was the one. In a sense, it's an example of what McDermott says - everyone is competing for his job, every day. Gore won. I think everyplace you look you see what McD preaches - position flexibility. In some ways, Shady was the add man out. I think they wanted three running backs, and Gore, Motor and Yeldon gave them the most flexibility. Singletary made Shady's shiftiness unnecessary, and Gore made Shady's leadership unnecessary. There are three threads going on right now - Singletary, Oline and Smoke Brown - that all are making the point that the units are all built with position flexibility. The receivers, the running backs, the oline, all can play different positions, different styles. THAT's what's going to be tough on other teams. Can the other teams match sustained excellence?

That's well said. And what McDermott and Daboll are trying to do is come at the defense like that every position - have the tight ends stress your defense. Have the mix of offensive linemen allow them to play different kinds of games - finesse, power, possession. Have an array of running backs. And have THAT QB, with THAT array of talents. AND HAVE ALL THE PARTS SOMEHOW BE INTERCHANGEABLE. That forces the defense to be prepared, in one week, to stop almost any kind of attack. The Bills are built not to be dominant at any one thing, but to be really, really good at everything. In other words, the Bills challenge to the rest of the league is going to be for each opponent to shut down EVERYTHING. And on defense, it's the same thing. The Bills defense is designed to say "you may have some success doing some things against us some of the time, but your are NOT going to have enough consistent success to score a lot on us. On offense and defense, the Bills are saying "we're going to do everything right and you see if you can match us."

And this is what has me so excited. I am not convinced that Mahomes or Goff or Mayfield is going to be a consistently good, long-term star. I'm just not convinced. But I really think Allen will be a star in a few years. It's part of the Bills being built for the long-term. I'm not sure about the Rams, certainly not sure about the Browns. I really do believe the Bills are going to be good this season and better, maybe dominant, in 2020.

I've thought this from the day the Bills acquired him. I've seen plenty of highlights of Brown on deep drag routes over the middle, where the corner just has to run with him for 35 yards, and Allen throws that ball beautifully. There's some explosiveness there that is going to be a problem for defenses.

Yes, this is true for some teams, but it's not true for EVERY team. Each year there are a few teams everyone knows WILL be good and a few everyone knows WILL be bad. What's exciting about these Bills is they look like they're being built to be consistently good, year after year. I feel like this is different, this is a group of young men who have come together to build something that is consistently excellent.

I really understand and agree with this. What ESPN said is true - Buffalo is a collection of really interesting talent that may or may not be able to win a lot. Still, you can't rate them too highly yet, because they haven't DONE anything yet. I think is true and a fair assessment. I happen to believe it's easy to see how nicely all of the ingredients fit, so the experts are likely to be surprised. But some of my belief is just based on how badly I want the Bills to be really good this time. Nothing matters in the end except the Ws and the Ls. Whether these guys actually can win a lot is yet to be seen.

I've always assumed that agents told their players to do exactly that, because it's in the player's interest to stay with the same team, if he can. He knows the system and the coaches.