Shaw66

I don't think Allen was the difference. First, the Vikings may have had a good defense last season, but they're struggling this season. 22nd in yards and 22nd in points. Second, especially early in the season, you get these weird games where teams are mismatched for some reason. Second half of the season, everyone knows what everyone else is doing, and these weird blowout upsets don't happen so often. Allen didn't have anyone to throw to against the Packers. Probably the Packers game planned for the things the Bills had success with against the Vikes, and the Bills didn't do any effective counter-planning. Plus, the Packers figured out where the weaknesses were in the Bills pass protection and exploited them, big time. Allen absolutely was a contributor to the bad day. When things are going badly, rookie QBs have trouble responding effectively. They know how to do only those things they were prepared to do, and not much else. It's like a pitcher whose curve ball isn't working today. A rookie is stuck with throwing a lousy curve ball; a veteran finds other ways to get batters out. So Allen was certainly part of the problem. But that's why I pin the problem mostly on Daboll. He has to know that the Packers will adjust to what the Bills did in Minnesota, he has to figure out what those adjustments are likely to be, and he has to prepare Allen for that. Allen wasn't prepared.

I agree. He wasn't the typical rookie QB in panic mode. He looked like a guy playing hard who made some mistakes. I'm far from giving up on him.

I always like your comments, Hapless. Thanks. I really hadn't thought about what would have happened had Benjamin come back for the ball. Completion, probably, without the hit. Still, among the things a QB must learn is to avoid putting his receivers in that kind of position. Problem is, of course, that Benjamin is very passive receiver. He doesn't fight for the ball well, and he doesn't anticipate and fight off defenders. Landry made a great, great catch in the end zone yesterday, and Antonio Brown had one last night. In both cases they found the ball, reacted to the ball and attacked it to make the catch. Other than the occasional jump ball, Benjamin doesn't outfight any for the ball. I do think, however, that Benjamin has been set back by his series of injuries. I think in some ways he's like a rookie again, learning the pro game. First couple of games he got up slowly from ordinary NFL hits, and he seemed to we wondering if anyone got the license number of the truck that ran him over. I had the feeling yesterday that he's starting to realize that you have to be tough to play this game. I thought it was a very good sign that he came back into the game after he got hit on the interception. A wimp (which is what I've been worrying Benjamin is) would have told the trainers he didn't feel right and wouldn't have returned. So kudos for him. He wants to be out there, and if he wants to be out there, he'll improve.

If h's so obviously done, why would anyone trade for him?

I think that during the week they worked with him on throwing the ball away. Early in the game he had a really quick trigger throwing it away. Not so much as the game progressed. All part of his education, I suppose.

I kept looking for a good replay of it and didn't see one. Picks are legal within a yard of the line scrimmage, but it looked to be like the picker came off the line, maybe actually into the end zone, before he set what looked like a basketball pick. Within a yard, it's legal, outside of yard they should have been penalized. Just look at it on NFL.com. LOS at the 3, pick at the 1. Shoulda been a flag, for sure.

I'm a serious believer in Josh. And I agree about the mistakes. That's why it's good for him to play this season - let him make the mistakes this season, when the team isn't going anywhere anyway, than next season. AND, there's a long way to go. Josh will be much better in the second half of this season. Points per game they aren't horrible, and that's what really matters. Yards per game, they're horrible, more or less. If Edmunds keeps learning, the defense should improve in the second half.

I also think that up and down is what you get with McDermott. We saw it last year, and we're seeing it this year. They're world beaters one week and egg beaters the next.

My wife is always telling me what's wrong with the Bills when we watch, but I can't tell her to go away or I lose my benefits.

I don't think he's coaching scared, but I don't think he's coaching right, either. After the Chargers, he got after them about playing with speed, and they responded. He shouldn't have to be after them to dial up the basics all the time, but that's what seems to be necessary. A lot of blocking is just getting to the right spot and getting in the way without giving ground. His linemen don't seem to do even that consistently. And the same about the receivers, although I think it's more about scheme than the players. They always say the defense is always giving you something - the middle, the sidelines, the short, the deep. This teams should be able to come to the line and see, at least some of the time, what the defense is giving and TAKE IT! Take the five yard slant, the out pattern, the dump off over the middle. All Allen has to do is see it and throw it. I'm sure it isn't that simple, but it sure LOOKS simple when Rodgers and Rivers and Flacco do it. Allen has to be able to do it SOME of the time.

“Don’t Look at Me for Answers” Did you come here looking for something that would make you feel better about the Bills’ performance against the Packers? I may be an optimist, but I’m not a psychiatrist. Nothing I write will straighten out those ugly thoughts in your head. Take two aspirin and call me in the morning. I’m pretty good at finding silver linings. I’m still looking for them following the Bills shutout loss at Lambeau Field on Sunday. I was looking for improvement Sunday. Not necessarily improvement over the show the Bills put on against the Vikings, because I knew that game was an aberration. I wanted improvement over the second half of the Chargers game. I wanted to see a young team continuing to put things together. Instead, I saw a mess, pretty much everywhere. Josh Allen finally looked like a rookie. Who but a rookie throws that wounded duck floater near the end zone to blow the best scoring opportunity of the day? Who but a rookie repeatedly fails to read the defensive front seven and identify where the rush is coming from? Who but a rookie holds the ball too long over and over? Who but a rookie hangs his receiver out there to dry on the hit that knocked Benjamin silly? I’m a big Allen fan. All I can say about his performance Sunday is that most QBs have to make those mistakes to learn how not to make them. The offensive line reverted to pitiful. Didn’t John Miller play pretty well his rookie season? I mean, well enough to look like a keeper? Aren’t players supposed to get better through the early seasons of their careers? Brian Daboll should have had a sleepless Sunday night. Every team in the league, except the Bills, seems to be able to get receivers open for quick throws to wide outs on short patterns. Not the Bills. The Bills ran one wide receiver screen pass against the Packers, but they forgot the screen – there were ZERO blockers lined up wide when the Bills tried it. It was bubble screen without the bubble. Who runs a play like that? Where are the rubs, the slants, the sideline patterns? Yes, receivers were covered, but the QB and the receivers are supposed to recognize defenses and take what the defense is giving. Nothing worked, all day. Nothing. Daboll was supposed to send his team onto the field with a couple dozen plays that will work against particular Packer sets, so that over the course of the game they can run 20 or 25 or 40 plays that actually work. The Bills had about 10. That’s like being in 8th grade and getting 10 correct on a 25-word spelling test. How am I supposed to make you feel better about that? “You should feel good, son. You spelled your name right”? The defense wasn’t as bad as the offense. Giving up 22 points when your offense is going three and out and giving the ball away isn’t all that bad, not against a Hall of Fame quarterback playing at home. If that makes you feel better, I’m glad, but it gives me headache. One thing that encourages me when the Bills are losing at halftime is that the McDermott Bills are a second-half team. They played better after intermission last season, and they’re doing it again this season, at least on defense. Of course, by the fourth quarter it was clear to everyone that the Bills could play another 60 minutes and still not score enough to catch the Pack, so everyone seemed to play the second half on cruise control. The really black lining in the defense’s dark cloud is the absence of hitting. The Bills defense against the Packers looked like they were playing flag football. Why didn’t the ref call roughing the passer when Edmunds landed on Rodgers? Because of the total lack of violence, that’s why. The ref would have been embarrassed to say that Edmunds could actually hurt anyone with that hit. Lorenzo Alexander knows how to get after guys once in a while, but the rest of the defense plays patty cake. Look out, Tom Brady, here comes Matt Milano! I don’t think so. The refs, of course, didn’t help, but that’s what you get when you’re a sad-sack loser playing the world champions at home. The Packers got away with an obvious hold of Hughes in open field on the Pack’s first possession. McDermott was right that the clock should have kept running at the end of the half, and it cost the Bills three points. Allen suffered a pretty obvious helmet-to-helmet hit on one of his sacks without a call. The replay clearly showed Allen’s knee on the ground with his hand holding the ball, fingers over the end of the ball, on the should-have-been-reversed fumble call. If the refs had gotten those calls right, and given the Bills a few more, the score would have been closer but the outcome would have been the same. All you can do is forget about it and move on. 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.

Weird as it sounds, this is correct. With some decent offense, the Bills would have put some points on the board and changed the time of possession imbalance. Bills defense wasn't good, but it wasn't flat out ugly like the offense was.

Look at the Daboll presser. He admits it was a fumble. He says the QB has to catch the ball clearly and then release it. He says the timing was bad and Allen had to get rid of it too fast. Frankly, I think that's incorrect, because if I call the video correctly, Allen's fingers clearly closed on the ball - he caught it. Then he released it.

I don't know the rule, but I don't think his arm going forward decides the issue. It was either a forward pass or a fumble. Those are the only two things it could be. It's a fumble if the person with the ball - Allen, in this case, loses control of the ball involuntarily, like he gets it and he drops it, or if he throws it intentionally but the ball doesn't go forward. It's a forward pass if he lets go of it voluntarily and the ball moves forward. In this case it may be true that his hands didn't move forward, but the ball did. If he lets go of the ball voluntarily and the ball moves forward, it's a forward pass. Plus, think of it this way: There's no question Allen released the ball voluntarily, and there's no question the ball moved forward. As a matter of physics, Allen must have done SOMETHING to cause the ball to move forward - he didn't need arm motion, he just needed a small finger flick. I doubt there's a rule that says it's only a pass if his arm moves. If he's strong enough to pass it forward with his fingers, it's still a pass.

as others have said, she writes for BillsMafia.com. Yes, she's from Wyoming and yes she's seen a lot of Allen in college and yes, she was hoping the Bills would get him. All the things people like about Allen now she liked a couple years ago. I agree. I hadn't focused on the "playmaker" comment, but you're absolutely right. The anti-Tyrod. It actually does sound like he was thinking about Tyrod when he said this. What we're seeing from Allen is what a lot of people said Taylor didn't have. It's leadership, willingness to take chances. Taylor didn't lack courage - the guy has guts. But he's cautious, and being cautious made him reluctant to take risks. Allen will take risks. Right now we're watching him the process of learning which riskds to take and which not. Exciting times.

These are good observations. Thanks. I didn't think it was night and day, just improvement. He was pretty good against the Chargers. As for Daboll, I think you're correct. I really liked the TD to Croom, which was designed to take advantage of the fact that the Vikings would be looking for a simplified offense, with swings and screens to the wideouts. That play looked like an easy throw into the flat for the rookie, and the defense bit hard.

Last week I reluctantly got I to a few discussions defending the idea that the Bills aren't agents bad as people think. I had two points: First, the o line isn't as bad as people think. Most teams have problems there and the Bills talent is the same as most teams. This morning Peter King has data from pro football focus (I don't trust them, but broad trend data like this is a little more reliable) that shows that offensive line efficiency across the league is down substantially over the past five seasons. Second, qb is the one position on the team that can improve the play of other players. Allen looks like a keeper at qb, and we are seeing how he can make everyone else better. And it isn't just huddling tacklers. It's the whole package.

Good analysis. What you didn't say but was the real point of what you wrote is that when the holes are there, Shady hits home runs and Ivery hits singles and doubles. Loved Shady's attitude on the sideline.

I agree about Allen. He has a lot learn, but he is certainly on his way. Did Bodine return to the game after he got hurt?

Yes. It feels like anything is possible. Fourth and 8 in the fourth quarter when they lined up and let the play clock expire, I was thinking "it's okay, go for it."

I like this suggestion. The Colts added Coby Fleener, a tight end from Stanford, to give a young Andrew Luck a familiar target. Feeney's best seasons were his early seasons with Luck.

McDermott said they told everyone this week that they had to play with speed. People talk about playing with a sense of urgency. Whatever it is, it WAS like the light had come come on.

The Rockpile Review – by Shaw66 “Preseason is Over” Memo to Buffalo Bills: The preseason schedule is FOUR games, not SIX. The Bills rolled over the Minnesota Vikings 27-6 on Sunday afternoon in Minneapolis. Just like their 31-20 loss to the Chargers the week before, the Bills’ win wasn’t as close as the score. Buffalo’s defense dominated the Vikings from start to finish, allowing only one garbage-time touchdown. The question, of course, is where has this defense been? The Bills’ defense looked good at times last season and figured to be better this season. Then the season opened in Baltimore, and “better” wasn’t the word that came to mind. Nor did “not bad.” Not even “there’s work to be done on the defense.” The only words to be said were “what in the world is going on with the defense?” The first half against the Chargers in Buffalo was no better. The Chargers put up 28 quick points and the game was over. The Bills’ defense played the Chargers tough in the second half, but it was hard to say whether that performance meant the defense finally had come alive or simply that the Chargers dialed the offense back and cruised to the win. Against the Vikings, there were no questions. The Bills defense dominated the Vikings. Period. Coming into the game, the Vikings were seventh in the league in yards and ninth in points. In the first half against the Bills, they were last and last. And don’t believe the press, who immediately attributed the outcome to the Vikings being flat – that’s just the press refusing to believe last season, refusing to believe the Bills could be good. The Bills dominated the Vikings. Just ask Cousins. What changed? The Bills were stout against the run, as they’d been in the previous two games. It was the pass defense that changed. The pass rush woke up, especially Jerry Hughes, with a sack, a forced fumble, and several pressures. What changed? The back seven stopped watching and started attacking. The Vikings receivers were challenged all day, fighting for 50-50 balls and getting hit as the ball arrived. The Bills had done their film study, and they were prepared. They ran to the ball and they made tackles. Mike Milano stood out, with an interception, a fumble recovery, a sack and some nice tackles. Tre White looked like an elite corner. Tremaine Edmunds is learning. On Sunday, he was IN plays, instead of AROUND plays. He was there on Milano’s interception. He made tackles in the open field. He plugged holes and he defended well. He wasn’t a force, not yet, but ten tackles is nothing to sneeze at. If he continues to learn, he can be an important part of great defense. On offense, there is only one story in 2018: Josh Allen. The media continue to follow the script: Allen is raw, Allen is inaccurate, Allen is, is, well, Allen is a Buffalo Bill and can’t possibly be any good. They should forget the script and watch the guy play. He’s special, and he doesn’t play like a rookie. (Except when he got sacked and fumbled. OMG, kid, you can’t DO that!) The highlights show Allen’s touchdown and his amazing hurdle of a tackler to get a big first down, but the real highlights are his pocket presence and his throws. The guy can play. Eventually, the rest of the country will catch on. Allen is doing it with a clearly substandard receiving corps. Clay had one of his characteristic drops, Benjamin continued to disappoint, and Foster couldn’t haul in the best deep ball we’ve seen Allen throw. Andre Holmes may be emerging as Allen’s go-to guy, and Jason Croom could become a weapon. What happened to the offensive line? Nothing, or at least nothing much. The offensive line simply isn’t as bad as so many people would like to think it is. There simply isn’t that much difference, talent-wise, among all but the very best linemen in the league. Most teams have a collection of linemen who are less than lights out, and the Bills are no different. They will look bad at times, but if they’re properly coached, they will do their jobs well enough for the offense to make plays. We saw it on Sunday. And as Allen improves and the passing game opens up, the line play will get easier, and the running game will improve, too. Man, that was fun! I went to a wedding in Portland, Maine on Saturday and planned to watch the game at a sports bar someplace along the route back to Connecticut. I awoke Sunday morning and remembered the Harp, the Bills Backer bar in Boston. It was the first time I’d been there, but it won’t be the last. Nothing like sitting in the shadow of the TD Boston Garden, in the heart of Patriots territory, in a sports bar filled with Bills fans, with 90% of the TVs tuned to the Bills game. They have a DJ who plays great rock during the commercials and plays the entire “Shout” song after each score. Everyone sings along. What a great venue! Thanks to the Bills Backers. 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.

Its true. The Harp is the place to watch the Bill's in New England! Go Bills!!!

I've had this thought for days now, and I'll throw it in here. I seriously doubt that the Bills have the worst offensive line in the league. I'm not saying it's good. As I watch games around the league, I'm seeing a LOT of atrocious line play. Defenders are getting free runs at the QB for many, if not most, teams. I don't think Allen has been in any more trouble back there than a lot of QBs over the first couple of weeks. It's something we've been hearing for a few years now. There are few stud offensive linemen coming out of college. Guys in the pros literally are going to off-season camps to learn how to block in the NFL. On top of that, the defensive schemes keep getting more complex, with more disguises. A lot of teams are rushing linebackers and defensive backs and dropping DEs into coverage. It's complex. One of the encouraging things about Allen is that he scrambles well, and he doesn't go down easily. It's a skill all QBs need now - if you're a statue back there, you're going down.