Shaw66

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.

Bills Fans in the Dumps Bills fans are now resigned to total failure. I don’t remember it ever being like this. I’m sure it has been like this before, but I’ve never seen it up close and personal. I was there in the late 60s, when the Bills got really bad, really fast, but that was only a few years after having been on the very top, and the frustration was the frustration of spoiled fans. Plus, after a couple of years of more or less horrible football, the Bills got OJ, and things were looking up. I didn’t live in Buffalo and didn’t come home for games in the early 80s, so I really don’t know how bad those days were. I’m sure they weren’t pretty. I’ve never seen it like Monday night at New Era with the Patriots on tap. It’s usually fun, standing in the crowd with people inching toward the security check point, people joking and laughing, talking about how the Bills are going to beat this team or how they match up against that team. Buffalo cheers. Joshing with the fans wearing visiting team gear. Not Monday night. It was, very clearly, Bills fans being loyal to their team – “I’m here, aren’t I?” – but it also was, very clearly, Bills fans going to an execution, their own execution. Bills fans knew their offense wouldn’t score, and they knew the Patriots offense would. Sitting in the second deck during pregame, no one talked about how the Bills would do, strategies we hoped to see, how the Bills could win. No one talked about it because no one believed it was possible. Everyone knew the Pats would win. All we could hope was that the Bills would hold the Pats under 40. “Please don’t let them score 50. Not on Monday night football. Please.” I’ve never seen the stadium like that before. And yet, despite all of that, with the Patriots at the line of scrimmage for their first play of the game, there the fans were, the entire lower bowl of the stadium standing, the place absolutely rocking with noise. Loud as possible in the face of their own execution, defiant to the end. And it was like that for a lot of the game. It was hopeless, and we were there behind the team like they were about to clinch home field throughout the playoffs. It was magnificent. I was proud to be a Bills fan. Then, of course, there was the game itself. I was ready to declare a moral victory. The Bills defense was solid; Brady was stymied almost all the way, Gronk was invisible (almost), White shut down Gordon, Edmunds made some stellar plays. For a loss, for it actually was satisfying most of the game. Then Edmunds got knocked out. Then Anderson showed why he was out of the league. When it was all said and done, the Bills had lost, and the Bills prospects for the coming weeks had somehow gotten even worse than they’d been for the past few weeks. How could that be? I’m worried about Edmunds. I’ve been complaining for weeks about his tackling, and Monday night he was better. He displayed his spectacular range, closing on backs and receivers alike, and he made actual tackles with his shoulders, wrapping up the ball carrier with his arms and taking him down. And then it happened, a real honest-to-goodness NFL big-time hit. I had wanted him to hit someone, really hit him, and there it was. BANG! And Edmunds didn’t get up. I feel bad that he has a concussion. I worry that it may be only the first of several. I worry about his durability. I tell myself that Keuchle has had that problem, but he’s back, as good as ever. I hope for the best for him, as a young man, and as the Bills middle linebacker. It was an exciting game, until it got out of control. Close games are exciting. It was old-time Bills football – we may not score much, but you sure as all get out aren’t going to score, either. You know the Patriots wanted to pull ahead and put the game away, but they couldn’t. The Bills defense was that good. I’ve been reluctant to get on the Milano train, but I’m there now. The guy just makes plays. Covers ground, hits people. When he and Edmunds are running around back there in pass coverage, they are a problem for QBs. I think he surprised Brady a couple of times with his cover skills. What surprised me is the Bills’ passing game. It was, in a word, passable. Yes there were some garbage-time completions, but the Bills actually hurt the Pats sometimes with the pass. They should have thrown more earlier in the game. Zay Jones looks like a real NFL receiver. He runs crisp routes. He has pro hands. He just looks different from his rookie year. Second, Kelvin Benjamin continues to make plays. Some stupid plays, yes, but he’s running nice routes and catching the ball, at least some of the time. Even better, these guys and Clay and Cam Phillips and Andre Holmes are running routes downfield, and they’re getting open! Derek Anderson was finding them downfield and making throws, and receivers were catching it. Except Benjamin, sometimes, and Croom on the critical TD drop. A measure of how well the passing game was working is Anderson’s passer rating. IF Croom catches the TD and IF Anderson doesn’t throw the pick six, Anderson’s passer rating would have been 92.7. If’s don’t win ball games, but a passer rating in the 90s, especially with 39 pass attempts, means that the ball is getting downfield and receivers are catching it. It’s what I’ve been waiting to see. Of course, the passing game can be only passable when your journeyman backup QB plays like a rookie. Anderson has 49 career starts. He’s supposed to see McCourty in underneath coverage on the pick six. Earlier, he was supposed to see not one but TWO defenders in position to intercept his throw to Clay in the right flat, another pick six but for the Pats’ inability to catch. Earlier still, he was sacked and fumbled when he should have gotten out of the pocket. Buffalo needs a better quarterback. Buffalo has one; he has a sore elbow. He’s bigger, escapes better, throws better and has shown few tendencies toward typical rookie turnovers. There’s hope for the passing game. I continue to be concerned about the coaching. Kudos for innovating and going with the McCoy wildcat, but there was a lot of confusion in evidence on those plays. If your players don’t understand the offense, why not? And if they don’t understand, why run it? On multiple other plays, there was confusion about who should be on the field and should be off. That shouldn’t be happening at this time in the season. But I can’t complain too much about the coaching. Unlike last week, the Bills came ready to play, and that means the coaches did their jobs. Remarkably, there was hope and even excitement in New Era in the fourth quarter. The offense had shown some signs of life, and even after Brady finally managed to get his team into the end zone, a miracle seemed possible. Then McCourty made his play, and the fans headed for the parking lots. How’d they feel? I don’t know how they felt. I felt like, unlike in the movies, the last minute pardon from the Governor didn’t arrive, and I’d been executed as planned, on schedule. Is there hope? For the long term, sure. I like Josh Allen, and I’m ready for his return. Is there hope without him on Sunday? Well, it’s the Bears, and there’s always hope against the Bears. 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, the Lamonica angst went on for years and years. On the other hand, something that was easily forgotten in those days was that the Bills acquired Jack Kemp when the Chargers screwed something up on the waiver rules, and Kemp proceed to beat the Chargers for two successive AFL championships. Every team has these stories, except the Patriots, whose nearly 20-year run has made the fans forget all of the earlier screw ups. These decisions are hard. In the case of Mahomes and Watson, I can only speculate, but there are reasons that seem plausible. First, as others have said, McDermott had good reason not to trust Whaley's judgment. As for Watson, there were plenty of people concerned that he was the next EJ Manuel. Yes, you could point to things that looked different about him, but when you're living with the consequences of choosing EJ, as McD was, I can understood not wanting to make that mistake again. (And Whaley already had drunk the Clemson kool-aid once with Watkins, so that probably made McD a little reluctant if Whaley was now selling Watson.) As for Mahomes, he was coming from a school that hadn't turned out any good QBs. It HAD turned out receivers like Crabtree, Welker and Amendola. Texas Tech had an offense that seemed to work with scheme, flashy receivers and a good athlete at QB. So there was a reason to be suspicious. Given that, McD probably looked at the 2018 class and thought "let me get my feet wet first, let's get my kind of GM in here and then we'll figure out the QB problem." Finally, I'll say this. Mahomes looks great. So does Watson. I think Allen looks great. Mahomes has an outstanding head coach, one of the best in any era. He also has outstanding talent around him. Watson has a good coach and some really good talent around him (although Fuller just went down). I'd love to have either of the other two, but I'm not unhappy with the man the Bills have at QB. And I think Allen playing on either of those other teams would have been having real success.

This is kind of amazing. I haven't had one PM from anyone. Things are so bad that there's no one who wants free ticket to Monday's game?

With all due respect, Deek, I think my post was completely clear that I don't know what's true. I said "presumably" and "may be." But with hindsight, I think it's clear that the Bills would have been off today if they'd hired a guy who was willing to be a veteran mentor and had kept that guy. Allen would have had help, and the Bills probably would have won the Houston game.

PM me if you're interested.

I'm not selling. I'm giving.

Okay, I will use deodorant.

I have an extra ticket for Monday night. PM me if you'd like to go.

Meanie suggests that McCarron was unhappy and presumably let people know. So that may be why he's gone. The mistake, as someone said, was not getting someone who was willing to be the mentor. So the mistake was in free agrency, not August. Whatever, they shouldn't have gone into the season with just Allen and Peterman.

Nice story.

That's an interesting and plausible theory. McCarron isn't, by definition, a journeyman, because his NFL journey had been to only one city. Sitting behind Dalton, McCarron still thought he was a starter, not journeyman-backup-occasional starter. When Fitz arrived in Buffalo, he thought he was a starter. By the time he got to Tampa Bay, he knew he was a journeyman. So McCarron maybe wanted out, as you say. Of course, any semi-conscious football fan knew the Bills were taking a QB in the 2018 draft, because they didn't sign a top free agent QB, a guy who had been a starter, like a Cousins or Bridgewater. So I don't see why McCarron should have been surprised in Buffalo. He should have known that if he was competed for and won the starting job, it would only be his job until the 2018 draftee was ready. Heck, Brett freaking Favre should have known that at some point the Packers would move on from him to start Rodgers. So McCarron certainly should have known. I didn't worry about it much a couple of months ago, but McBeane certainly did mismanage the QB situation. In the QB free agency merry-go-round last spring they should have gotten a genuine journey, like McCown, who would have been willing to accept the backup role if that's what fell to him. It was a mistake not to have a veteran presence in the QB room.

I'm a reasonably serious Bills fans, but Coke captured how I feel. The Bills have to be alive for me to be interested, and there were very signs of life last week. Any decent NFL team would have responded to the heart-breaking Texans game with a decent showing in Indianapolis. Instead, we got a totally mailed-in performance. Allen is the only thing that's interesting about this team right now, and he isn't playing.

Saying the Rockpile Review is better than the games is faint praise, indeed! Grilled cheese and kale is better than the games. But thanks. I don't agree with much of the rest, although I, too, think they should have taken a quality offensive lineman instead of Phillips. I don't know the medicine, but as I understand it, Allen's injury is tissue damage that will heal. I don't think he has damage. But I'm not too critical of their player personnel moves. They have a system and a plan, and they're following it. As I've said, what DOES bother me, a lot, is how badly prepared this team has looked in multiple games. I think it's the coaching that's deficient, not the player moves.

I agree with you. A GM ordinarily has that power, but few GMs do it without consulting with the owners. I think, as I think you do, that the Pegulas are too committed to McD to let Beane fire him any time soon. I agree. It captures the reality of the current situation.

I'm not saying I like it; I'm just saying that Beane has been very clear that that's what he's doing. And, as I said, it's been the Packers philosophy for years, and it worked for them. If I were Beane, I'd look at this way: I know what kind of players we are looking for, and I've studied the draft really carefully for the past five years. That means there are guys who are the kind of guys we are looking for coming off their rookie contracts. Some of them are going to be free agents. I need some quality veteran help, so why wouldn't I go after some of those guys? But that isn't what he's said. He's said people shouldn't expect to see the Bills on a spending spree in free agency. He's said they probably will look to plug a hole or two in free agency, but other then that, they want to draft their players.

Replying to you and Figster, I agree with you and disagree with him on this point. It seems to me that the Bills are playing an unimaginative offense, among the least imaginative in the league. Now, they're doing that probably because they either want to dumb it down for their inexperienced QBs or they don't think they have enough talent to open up the offense. Either way, I think that's a mistake, because by playing unimaginative offense you more or less guarantee that the opponent is going to stop you, week after week, so all you're doing is reducing the likelihood that you'll win a game. And winning, after all, is the object. But beyond that, if you're playing an unimaginative offense, you aren't giving your young QBs (and your other young players) a true NFL experience. You're asking them to practice playing a game that is different from the game that you presumptively will be asking them to play next year. By doing that, your players are losing an opportunity to play the way you'll want and need them to play. Give your wideouts an opportunity to run screens and rubs and double moves, because that's what receivers on good teams do. Give your QBs the opportunity to learn how to throw those passes, which require a quick release, accuracy and timing. Run some serious misdirection plays. Run those tricky double screens where it looks like you're screening to one side but you're actually going the other way. Do all that stuff and more. The offense that Bills are playing has virtually no chance of succeeding, unless the defense holds the opponent to single digits. Play an offense that may blow up in your face, but it at least has a chance to score 20 a game or more. And in the meantime you'll be giving your young players an opportunity to learn. This is a man's game, and asking your players to take baby steps ain't gonna cut it.