Shaw66

It's interesting to me that you've seen articles praising Daboll. I don't see it, but maybe the technicians do, and that's good. And of course, as talent improves some things will get better. Losing Wood and Incognito hurt, for sure. But that isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking McDermott failing at the stuff he says is at the core of his process. Things like continual evaluation and training of players to get them to perform. His evaluation of Peterman when he benched Taylor was clearly wrong. His evaluation of Peterman when he started him in game 1 this year was clearly wrong. McDermott failed. His evaluation was wrong, twice. That says McDermott isn't doing his job. I heard somewhere that the Bills have 40 first and second year players on the roster. That's 40 guys McDermott wanted. He's obviously cleared out the guys he didn't want. That means the roster of full of the kind of players that McDermott wants. Maybe not as talented as he wants, but the kind of guys he wants. They say they select their players for character. Okay, if he has a roster full of his kind of guys, and if his mantra is discipline, do your job, play smart, etc., why are the Bills #3 in the league in total penalties against and #2 in the league in total penalty yards against? (Part of it is that the Bills haven't had their bye yet, but there are a half dozen or more teams who haven't had their bye.) Why is it that McDermott supposedly has the kind of guys he wants and he hasn't been able to teach them to play disciplined football? That says McDermott isn't doing his job. You're telling me that there are a lot of factors and things going on that may explain why the Bills aren't doing well and why they should begin to improve. I'm telling you that there is a lot of evidence, things that are actually observable, that suggest that McDermott is failing at his job. McDermott will tell you, he says it all the time, that his job is to put players in postions to succeed. Practically none of his players is succeeding. If his job is to put them in positions to succeed and none of them is succeeding, that says to me he isn't doing his job.

The problem with this is that getting to the playoffs involves a lot of different things, and it alone is not evidence that the coach is a good coach. My problem is the other indicia. The most obvious one, as almost everyone now agrees, is that McDermott thought Peterman was somehow going to be better than Taylor last season and somehow thought Peterman was going to be better than Allen this season. I think he has some fundamental flaws as a coach if his eyes and his process aren't telling him midseason last year and in September this year that Peterman was NOT the best quarterback on his roster. That's really bad coaching. Other indicia like, as I said, failing to have trained Logan Thomas not to take that penalty. The guy is a marginal player. Jerry Hughes takes a stupid penalty, you hold your nose and live with it, maybe, because he's giving you something else. Your second or third tight end is not giving you anything else. Especially if your mantra is to play smart and disciplined, why have you kept this guy on your team? Why did you cut O'Leary, who's also marginal, but who plays intelligently with discipline? Why have you hired two successive offensive coordinators whose offensive style is mired in the past decade, which means that every defense in the league knows how to stop it? Someone asked McDermott after the game Sunday whether the Bills' struggles are causing him to reevaluate his philosophy. His answer told me all I needed to hear. He said something about continuing to work at solid, fundamental football, cleaning up mistakes, etc. was the way to go. In other words, his philosophy seems to be that it doesn't matter what your offensive or defensive style is, so long as everyone does his job and plays hard. That's just flat out wrong. Sunday the Bills did what they always do - try to establish the run. It was a nightmare. They can't dominate anyone with the run. That's been pretty well established. They threw the ball 39 times on Sunday, and they should have thrown it 50. The Bills don't do that because they have a 2010 passing game instead of a 2018 passing game. Maybe McDermott will win in 2019. What I'm saying is that I'm having trouble seeing how that's going to happen. If he's a good coach, he should be able to take ANY group of NFL players get them to play better than what we're seeing. SOME players on the team should be having career years, if he's a good coach. None are. Benjamin is underperforming, Holmes is underperforming, McCoy is underperforming, Ivory is underperforming, Hughes is underperforming, Kyle is underperforming. The safeties are about the only guys on the team who arguably are playing better under McDermott than under their previous coaches. That's pitiful.

You're right. There was something about this game that said HOPELESS. I'm a big Josh Allen, but even if my wildest positive expectations for Allen are true, this team will still be bad. Beyond that, today I have troubling imagining what could happen in the the 2019 free agency and draft that could make it better. Maybe Allen will come back after Thanksgiving, the Bills will sweep the remainder of their schedule, including a dominant win in New England, and I'll feel better. If that happens, Santa Claus also will arrive at my house with eight reindeer on my roof.

Whether the ball was tipped is irrelevant to this discussion. Whether it was tipped is relevant if the call is going to be pass interference - can't have interference if it was tipped. There is no such exception to the defenseless receiver rule. It doesn't have anything to do with whether the receiver would have or might have caught the ball, it doesn't have anything to do with whether the tip messed up the timing of the defender's hit. The rule is that the defender can't drive himself into the receiver in a way that's likely to cause injury when the receiver is in the process of making a play on the ball. The rule was violated and the penalty should have been called, except for the reasons I gave above.

Well, thanks. Everyone knows I tend not to bash the team, generally because I think people on the inside know a lot more about what's going on and why things are done than any of us does. So I've been supportive of McDermott. The problem for me is that when good head coaches come into a new situation, the team starts playing better. They don't necessarily win, but you can see it in how the team carries itself, reacts to adversity, etc. I remember watching the UConn Huskies when Jim Calhoun arrived. The team was pretty bad the last season under the previous head coach. Calhoun came in and with more or less the same players, everything changed. They still didn't win a lot, but they won more. They needed better talent to win a lot more. But even with the same talent, they played better. They rebounded better. They played better defense. They attacked and beat the press better. The same players played better basketball. What troubles me about the 2018 Bills after the Bears debacle is that McDermott has had these players for a year and a half, and they aren't playing better, with the exception of the defense. As others have pointed out, they're taking stupid penalties, just like under Rex. They have no fire on offense. They have no innovation. They just aren't better in any way. A good coach will make ANY team better. Any coach can say, well, this team will get better when we get my kind of players, but only a good coach can deliver when he says "give me any poorly coached team and I'll make it better." If McDermott can't get these guys to play any better than they're playing, that is, if he can't maximize the talents he has, there's no reason to believe he will maximize the talents he'll have next year or the year after.

I think you're technically correct but practically wrong. If that play happens downfield, and if the hit occurs at the instant the ball arrives at Zay's hands, they call a personal foul for the hit above the head on a defenseless receiver. I don't know, but I think that rule applies all over the field - there's no exception within a yard of the line of scrimmage. It's a player safety rule, so I expect it applies all over the field. So I'd guess that, technically, they missed the call. Looking at the replays and the stills, it's kind of surprising that Jones didn't get a concussion on that play. But as a practical matter, I think you're not going to see that called. The Bills were trying to pick the defender, but the Bears played it perfectly and avoided the pick. The pick would have been legal, because the offensive guy setting the pick also was within a yard of the line of scrimmage. The result of the rules and how those pick plays work is that there's a lot of contact within that one-yard zone, and I think as a practical matter, the officials have come to view it as something of a no-man's land as far as contact goes. They're going to call an intentional punch, they're going to call a face mask, and they're going to call a horse collar, but they aren't going to call penalties that just involve contact. I've never heard anyone say that, and I don't think there's a rule about it, I just think that's what was going on on that play. I was in the broadcast booth with Nantz and SIms in New York when the Bills with Fitz and Stevie lost to the Giants. On third and five the Bills faked to Freddie, who ran through the line and turned for about a four-yard pass. Some defender tackled him clearly before the ball arrived. No PI call. The Bills punted, they went to commercial, Nantz turned to Sims and asked "Wasn't that pass interference?" Sims said "they don't call it on running backs." Just like that. Sims admitted that by the rule, it was PI, but the by understanding of everyone it doesn't get called. Now, I think what he really meant is if you fake a handoff to your running back, it's fair game to tackle him, without the ball, anytime within about 10 yards after the fake, but still it was an obvious PI. No interference, Freddie catches it and has a first down. Or call the penalty and the Bills have a first down. The point is, that are penalties that by custom and practice aren't called. The hit to Zay's head in that situation is one of them.

I was really upset sitting in the stadium. It was so disheartening. It was embarrassing. I was ready for Nate to do something, for the team to do something and there was - nothing. I really do think Nate played scared. He made nice throws, but he only threw it when he was sure. Among the things that trouble me about McDermott is his faith in Nate. He just doesn't seem to be up to the NFL.

I really think this is correct. I believe there are probably 15-20 guys in the league who can separation regularly one on one. No more, maybe less. Julio Jones gets open. AJ Green gets open. I'd bet there are 25 teams who don't have a #2 receiver who gets separation on his own. Look at a guy like open. You can't tell me Chris Hogan is getting open because he's faking guys out of their shoes. He isn't. Guys get open with scheme and precise route running. When everyone runs his route correctly and the QB knows what he's doing, guys are open.

Second last play, I guess it didn't occur to me, either, that he should have just let it go, given the penalty. That's a good point, but I can see how a young guy would miss that opportunity. You're absolutely right about the final play. That's a total failure of coaching. That play, as I said in another thread, has three options: throw it, throw it and throw it. Get the ball, avoid a rusher, escape to the right, load it up and let it go. That's the play. You're supposed to run the play. IF McDermott isn't able to teach Peterman to do that in a year and a half, that McDermott is doing a piss-poor job coaching, or Peterman is unteachable and shouldn't be on the roster. Either way, as far as I'm concerned, it's on the coach.

Lots of people hate on Jauron, but Jauron wouldn't let his team get beat the way the Bills are getting bear.

You know, a top running QB, a Taylor or Wilson, might actually have scored on that play. However, you're right. Talk about do your job! Peterman has the most clearly confined job on that play - get out of the pocket, load it up and fire the ball downfield. That's option 1, 2 and 3 on that play, and there was NOTHING to stop him from throwing it. That is simply not doing the job - one more evidence of coaching failure.

It was everything that you saw and more (or less, depending on your perspective).

It WAS interference, except that the rule makes the 1-yard exception. Jones was within one yard.

I was pissed about the hits to the head, especially the second one, which was more than incidental. It was like a stiff arm. And I wasn't happy about the intentional grounding call, either. Those three calls show the extent to which as called, the rules only protect the QBs with a reputation. Brady would have gotten all three calls.

I'm pretty sure the rule - no interference within a yard of the line of scrimmage came into existence to preserve for the DBs the ability to chuck the receiver as he comes off the line. Especially in the old days, when guys played true bump and run, it would have been a way to get an automatic first down by throwing at the receiver immediately upon the snap, while the DB was still making contact. The rule essentially means the receiver has to get off the line of scrimmage if he wants the protection of the interference rules. The Bills did nothing all game to force the Bills to back off. It was tight coverage all day.

The Rockpile Review – by Shaw66 Just Plain Bad It’s 10:30 p.m. Sunday. Several hours earlier the Bills have lost to the Chicago, by a score of, as usual, some big number to, as usual, some number less than ten. I’m in the parking lot of the Blandford Service area on the eastbound side of Interstate 90 in Massachusetts. There on the wet pavement is a standard Buffalo Bills cap. Has it fallen accidentally out of someone’s car as they he stopped to use the facilities on the way home from the game? Or was it discarded intentionally, a deliberate and final act to terminate a relationship simply too painful to continue? Should I drop my cap there too, and my other Bills gear, forming a small, temporary memorial to two former Bills fans? There’s bad football and there are bad football teams. Even good teams occasionally make bad plays or have bad games. In the case of the Buffalo Bills, there is little reason to make such distinctions. The Buffalo Bills are a bad football team that plays bad football and has plenty of bad games. And to go to the heart of the matter, the Buffalo Bills have bad coaching. In five of the Bills’ seven losses, the Bills have been uncompetitive on the scoreboard, demonstrating early in the game that they had no chance to win. In one of the seven, the Texans, the Bills made bad plays at the end of the game to lose. Looking back from the perspective of early November, the Bills’ win over the Vikings looks no less like divine intervention than Jules Winnfield surviving a barrage of bullets unharmed in Pulp Fiction . Someone needs to tell Sean McDermott that he insults our intelligence standing at the podium each week, telling us that the Bills have to study some film, clean up some problems, play complementary football, improve, continue the process. The truth that everyone knows is that the Bills don’t clean up the problems, they don’t play complementary football and they don’t get better. The truth is that although there is some process by which football teams improve and become winners, there is no evidence that McDermott’s process is accomplishing that. The magnitude of the Bills ineptitude is so great that the examination of any single play cannot properly demonstrate and explain the extent of the failure of the coaching of this team. However, one play from the Bills’ embarrassing loss to the Bears on Sunday is emblematic. With a minute left in the first quarter, the Bills punted, and after a return of zero yards by the Bears, Logan Thomas clearly and unnecessarily hit the return man out of bounds. A fifteen-yard penalty was assessed against the Bills. Even semi-conscious fans immediately knew it was a stupid play, it was bad football. (By the way, being semi-conscious or worse for that game was probably the way to go.) The important point is not that the penalty was inexcusable. The important point is found in the answer to this question: Why is a football player who has been part of McDermott’s all-important “process” for one and a half seasons making that play? The answer is that the process is failing, which means that McDermott is failing. Thomas made that play because he has failed to learn lessons that good coaches teach their players. There only a few reasons why he failed to learn the lesson: (1) The lesson isn’t taught – bad coaching. (2) The lesson is taught but not in a way that Thomas actually learns it – bad coaching. (3) The lesson is taught properly and Thomas either can’t learn or refuses to learn it; in either of those cases, Thomas should not be on the team – bad coaching. Here’s another example: How many times yesterday did Peterman throw into the flat and have his receiver hit promptly by two defenders? At least three or four, by my recollection. One of those plays resulted in Croom fumbling and the Bears returning the recovered fumble for a touchdown, giving the Bears an insurmountable (if you’re playing the Bills) 14-0 lead. A couple of the others left me wondering if all of the appendages of the solitary Bill remained attached to his torso. Yes, Croom should have held onto the ball, but it doesn’t help to leave him 1-on-2, defenseless. Now, think for a moment how many times you’ve seen a Bills defender one-on-one with a receiver in the flat like that. Dozens. Why is it that the Bears had two defenders out there, and the Bills have only one? The answer almost certainly is some combination of the Bears knowing the Bills tendencies, the Bears having so much respect for Croom that they decide to double cover him (really?), the Bills only have two or three receivers in the pattern, or the Bears have left some other downfield area under-protected that the Bills are not attacking. Why is Nate Peterman throwing the ball for minimal gain into what effectively is double coverage, where his teammate is outmanned and has no help? Why isn’t he reading the defense, a pretty simple read, and throwing the ball into the under-defended area of the field? Why hasn’t Peterman learned that lesson in a year and a half? (In order to save time, I’ll just copy what I said above.) There are only a few reasons why he failed to learn the lesson: (1) The lesson isn’t taught. – bad coaching. (2) The lesson is taught but not in a way to Peterman actually learns it – bad coaching. (3) The lesson is taught properly and Peterman either can’t learn or refuses to learn it; in either of those cases, Peterman should not be on the team – bad coaching. I’ll say it again: McDermott insults our intelligence when he asks us to trust a process that consistently fails to change how players play. Another example: the Bills scored a touchdown (no, that is not a typographical error) and after a penalty against Chicago, the Bills opted to go for two points. What’s the play? A simple fade to Pryor in the deep corner of the end zone. Now, when teams first began throwing the fade into the end zone, eight years ago or whenever, it was novel and effective. Defensive backs have long since figured out how to defend that play; it succeeds only with a precision throw and an excellent catch. In other words, it’s a low probability play. Good football teams rarely run the straight fade any more, unless they have a great thrower and/or a great receiver. Any semi-conscious fan etc. And please, if you ARE going to the throw the fade, at least throw to Benjamin, who is the one guy on the team who actually has an advantage over the defender. Like a lot of coaches, McDermott is fond of saying that the coaches’ job is to put players in positions in which they can succeed. What part of asking your backup second year QB to throw a pinpoint fade to your brand new, and previously unsuccessful, young wideout (instead of your number one receiver, whose SOLE advantage is elevating for balls the defender can’t reach) is putting your players in a position to succeed? Want another example of the creativeness of the Bills’ offensive approach? How about the wildcat? An offensive change of pace that ceased being effective maybe five years ago and that the Bills had run extensively the week before. The Bears had seen it on film and were prepared for it. But wait, the Bills really crossed up the Bears: they ran it with Pryor instead of Shady. Bad coaching. Want a good play? Early in the game, Croom was split out into the slot, shifted into a tight slot and revealed that the Bears were man-to-man. On the snap, Croom ran a shallow slant across the defense toward the left flat, taking advantage of the mismatch and outrunning his man. Peterman hit him easily. THAT’s modern football. Did we see it again? No. Some will argue that the problem is talent (or lack of it) and not coaching. Some will say, as an example, that the offensive was unable to open any holes for McCoy all day, and it was unable to move the Bears off the ball in multiple attempts to score from the one-yard line. Those examples are true, but it is equally true that the Bears had enormous difficulty moving the Bills off the line, too. The Bears had no more rushing success than the Bills, and the Bills often stuffed them on short yardage. Offensive line talent is spread pretty evenly across the league, and very few teams win by overwhelming their opponents with talent. (The Bills’ offensive line, by the way, did a good job protecting Peterman. Peterman, on the other hand, didn’t always do a good job finding targets and getting rid of the ball on time.) There’s no doubt the Bills are not putting an all-star lineup on the field, but it doesn’t take talent to play smart, disciplined football. That takes coaching, and the coaching is failing. Another example, as though another example is necessary: The punt coverage team losing containment on the return man. Shorthand this time: Either containment isn’t taught (coaching failure), it isn’t taught in a way the players can learn it (coaching failure), or the players are incapable of learning it or won’t learn it (coaching failure). It doesn’t take outstanding talent to cover punts; it takes training and execution of what’s been taught. Bottom line: a mediocre Bears offense comes to New Era Field and is more or less completely shut down by the Bills defense, gaining only 190 yards. The Bills give up 14 points on turnovers They give up another bundle of points by giving the Bears’ offense short fields on the Thomas penalty, Peterman’s interception, and an onside kick necessitated by all the bad football earlier in the game. That was a winnable football game for any decent team. It was out of reach early because the Bills are THAT bad. For years I’ve told disbelieving friends that I travel to see the Bills as much as I do because I’m a loyal fan. I tell them the Bills are working on getting better. Driving home after the Bears game I had a lot of time to think about why I travel to see the Bills. There’s no good explanation other than it’s a bad habit. My Bills caps and my sweatshirts too, and my zubas and my Bills Santa/elf cap are still in my trunk, but to be honest, I don’t know why. 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.

Do you have a link to this rating? FB OUTSIDERS says the Bill's have only the fifth best chance at the #1 pick, so that's some evidence that strength of schedule is tipping our way.

There's no perfect way to do it. Peyton and Manning started as rookies and made mistakes. Rodgers and Mahomes and Brady were rookies in stable situations, playing behind top-10 QBs with great coaches. I don't think Allen would learn nearly as much playing behind McCarron on the 2018 Bills as Rodgers learned behind Favre for three years. On this team, in this situation, Allen in September 2019 will be much better if he plays 5 or 6 more games this year than if he sits the rest of the year and watches some combination of Peterman, Barkley and Anderson playing under an unproven head coach and an unproven offensive coordinator. Assuming, of course, that he's healthy.

I didn't study this, didn't read much about it, but I understood from what I read that this is essentially a sprain - soft tissue injury that heals with time. It's also rather unusual - I think it happened because he happened to get hit in just the right way to cause the injury. It's the tendon that pitchers injure that requires Tommy John surgery, but apparently that injury is peculiar to pitching motions. So I don't think there's any more long-term risk than something like a high ankle sprain. Still, any time your QB gets injured, you worry about recurrence. Has any QB had his career ended with this injury?

Buddo - This isn't so much a criticism of you as it is just how I feel about all this discussion of the QB situation. I am a fan for the games. Although I engage in discussions about whom to draft and what free agents to sign, whether the coach ought to be fired or not, I find I don't care so much about that. I'm disinclined to talk about what McBeane should have done, might have done, could have done, that would have put the Bills in a better situation this week. I just care about the games. The Pegulas can decide if a coach or a GM is doing the job they want or not, and they can fire people if they want, but I don't see much point in talking about any of this stuff during the season. For me, it's all about the games, what happened on the field last week and what might happen on the field next week. I find I have trouble getting engaged in recent conversations about the QB situation, because those decisions have been made, and we have what we have. I think it's pretty clear that the Bills were going to invest in a rookie QB. It became clear as the Bills dealt Taylor and then pretty much declined to participate in the free agent QB musical chairs this spring, opting instead to take the guy who was left over. That was a clear signal that the Bills were going to invest in a rookie. Once that became clear, I think there was no reason to expect the Bills to get a seriously good journeyman QB as a backup. That guy wasn't going to come to the Bills knowing that there was no realistic starting opportunity in Buffalo. In fact, if McCarron was disappointed that he wasn't the presumptive starter, I think that means McCarron wasn't paying attention. The handwriting was on the wall. The fact is that most teams have only one good quarterback, and the Bills have their one. Virtually everyone on this board recognizes that the only chance the Bills offense has to be even below average (instead of hopelessly below average) is Josh Allen. To expect that the Bills would have a quality starter coming off the bench is delusional. Now, having said that, I agree with those who say it was foolhardy to go into the season with Josh and Nate and no one else. Most everyone expected that it was a matter of weeks, or even days, before Allen took the job from Peterman, and that necessarily would leave the Bills with an inadequate backup. I have no doubt that McBeane botched that. They needed three QBs, and Peterman perhaps should have been on the practice squad. But I really don't care all that much about all of this. Once Allen went down, we all knew the offense was in trouble, and there are very few, maybe no, things that could have been done to avoid this. The Bills weren't going to pay significant backup money to a guy who could challenge for the starting job. If that's what they wanted, they could have kept Taylor. So, on Sunday, I'm going to the game to watch my team play. I don't expect them to win but I'm prepared to be surprised. I watch my team because they're my team. They don't stop being my team just because they might have done this or should have done that six months ago or two months ago.

It means he's missing his targets by less than 5 yards.

Did the fans leaving in the mid 80s cause Ralph to open his wallet?

Yeah, I was a Bills Fan from a distance in that era and it was easy to be disengaged. No hope then, I guess. I remember how energized I got when Bruce and Kelly and Biscuit showed up. Wow! Real players!

Clearly nobody knows. But i honestly dont think Allen throws that INT. And Allen's running would have been a factor. On the other hand, Belichick would have game planned differently and might have seriously confused Allen. I hope he's back soon so his education can continue. Look at how much Zay has progresswd from year one to year two. His time on the field last season made this season possible. Allen needs time on the field.

Well, there are a lot of ways to argue with this, but I think you're saying generally what I feel. I'm unhappy that this team can't win, I'm unhappy that the offense seems to be hopeless, but I'm not jumping ship. I like a lot of pieces that I see, and I'm willing to wait.