Shaw66

I wouldn't know it even if I saw the all-22, but that's very much what it looked like. Their qbs could complete the underneath throws over and over. DBs may have looked too deep, but at least they were in the picture. Underneath defenders sometimes weren't even on the screen.

Thanks. I'm sorry to hear that, for White's sake, but glad to hear that I'm not imagining things. My time playing team sports is decades in the past, but one thing I remember is how much I was focused on the game, how much my brain is fully occupied to the actual play. The idea of doing much of anything else was dismissed as impossible. In some ways, it's the height of brain activity, with eyes and ears and your nerves operating at full speed, and your brain processing it and deciding how to respond and then sending messages out to all of the muscles. I think it would be impossible for all of that to happen every play if between each play I slowed my brain down to the point where I was approaching sleep and needed more oxygen just to stay awake. The play itself is a high-adrenalin affair, and sleep is definitely a no-adrenalin state. If he really is that calm between plays, he's not actively preparing for the next play. He's not paying attention to his own body, not paying attention to the body language of his teammates and his opponents, and not actively managing his team. He's listening to his coach on the headset. Essentially what it suggests is that he has to concentrate so hard on receiving the play call and then executing it that he shuts out everything else. I have no idea whether that's where White's head actually is, but that's what the yawn said to me.

These guys really stood out. Bishop. I wasn't just the touchdown; it was on one or two earlier plays, too. Off the ball, late to react, no closing speed. He is no place close to ready. Moore. Oh, I've been so hoping he'd make an impact, waiting for him to show something special. Instead, he looked like just another joe, and then the drop. I'm ready to let him go and put Shavers on the 53. White. Maybe it was the camera angle, or some other quirk in how the picture looked to me, but I could sworn that while he was on the field, the actual quarterback on the field, White yawned between plays. Whether he did or not, that summed up how a feel about White. Total lack of energy. He seems to be working so hard to be steady, no highs and lows, that he's actually numb to what's going on out there. He seems to think executing is knowing what to do and then going through the motions to do it. Trubisky has some passion and some brains. He's my guy now. Van Demark. Sorry, the false starts were just unbelievable. Two or three years on the team (whatever) and he doesn't know how to get off on a silent count? I watched only the first half. Best thing I saw, by far, was Dorian Williams playing like he was on fire. Everyone else seemed to be sleepwalking, and Williams was playing with passion.

Love these! Thanks!

This is funny to the old timers, but it's been so long it isn't surprising that people never learned the historic terminology, or forget. FL is for flanker. The history helps make it clear. In the 30s, I believe, most teams ran a single wing offense, with seven men lined up tight - essentially two tight ends. Those guys on the outside of the tackle were called ends. In the backfield there were four backs in some formation, and the guy who received the snap was in a short shot-gun formation. It was a running offense, with the ball carry following a convoy of three backs blocking ahead of him. Both ends were what we would call tight ends. They never were wide. Then in the 40s, somebody invented the T formation, with the QB under center and three running backs, a fullback and two half backs. They began throwing more regularly to the ends out of that formation. Eventually, someone figured out that it would be easier for the end to get open if he split away from the tackle - that is, to get wider but still on the line. Initially, both ends were still called ends on the roster, but if one split wide, then in that formation he was called a split end. They never split two ends, just one, I think because they always wanted the sixth man blocking on the line. Then someone realized that if one guy could open by being out wide, another guy out wide on the other side would be that much better. But they wanted to keep one end in, so they took one of the halfbacks and split him wide. He couldn't line up on the line because that would cover the end and make him ineligible. So, they said the halfback was "on the flank," meaning he was at the outside of the formation. Hence, a "flanker." A lot of times, the flanker was just one of the two halfbacks lined up wide. You had guys like Lenny Moore, who was a devastating ball carrier, and he was probably better when he lined up as the flanker. That is, you had more guys like Deebo Samuel and Christian McCaffrey. But eventually, the flankers became more specialized as just receivers, and they were generally a speedster. Why? Because coaches still wanted the end to line up tight sometimes to support the run. So, split ends generally were bigger and tougher and slower than flankers. So, the routes they ran were different. Over time, of course, the split ends and flankers became interchangeable in the offense, sometimes even lining up with the split end wide and the flanker in the slot. That was revolutionary. But as they became interchangeable, they dropped their historic titles of end and flanker and both became simply wideouts. WR is a position like Edge. After a while, nobody cared whether a guy was technically a flanker or a split end, just like nobody cares much now whether in the guy is a defensive end or a linebacker. When Lionel Taylor was playing, it was unusual that he played both split end and flanker. That alone denotes that he was an exceptional player. In the fifties, most every team was splitting an end to one side and flanker to the other, so that end changed on the roster to a "split end." In those days, the split end would line up on the same side every play, and flanker would line up every time on the other side.

I noticed this quote from the article about the Bills on the Bills website; Now, of course the Bills wrote it to promote certain ideas. Who knows if those are exactly his words? But even discounting for the fact that the Bills have presented whatever he said in the best possible late, it's still an important statement about the Bills culture. We've heard it before, of course, but McDermott intentionally built a culture that is powerful, a team-first culture. There seem to be differing views about whether the Bills overpaid, but even if they did, they got Cook for less than the highest bidder would have paid, and for less than Cook wanted. In that sense, there was a hometown discount. And the other guys who extended earlier this year all took less than they likely would have gotten in the market. Beane keeps signing quality players at discounts, so what does he do with the savings? He generally tries to get other guys at discounts, guys like Bosa and Hoecht and others. He doesn't bundle it to buy the really high-priced talent, the top ten receiver or edge. It's just not their style. The question is whether the team mentality that Cook is talking about creates an advantage in big games, the kind of advantage that an all-pro skill position guy gives his team.

But he had a great debut as a Bill. The Bills scored 20 points in the fourth quarter to beat the Jets 20 to 17, and Powell had two TD receptions.

And then Otis Taylor showed up. Some special guys.

Great video! The speed and power of those athletes is amazing. And as someone said, Lofton running with them. Great stuff.

The old timers remember Lionel Taylor. Dead at 89. Awesome receiver for the Broncos in the AFL. First receiver in history with 100 receptions in a season, a number that was almost inconceivable in that era. He was as close to unstoppable as you can get. There was a story about him that may or may not be true, but at the time he was about the only receiver in pro football who could have done it. Story was that in one AFL game, on each play when he came to the line of scrimmage, he told the DB across from him what route he was running. Caught something like 11 passes in the game! He just abused defenders. RIP

Elway, for sure. Toughness, running ability, arm strength, accuracy, and a gamer. Favre was a loose cannon. Allen already has gotten his game more under control. Allen will be like Ben later in his career, when Allen stops running. Newton isn't on the same planet. Bert Jones? Really? Allen's a top 10 all-time QB and he hasn't peaked. There are not 10 QBs I would take ahead of him if I were building a team. Allen has it all, and there aren't many like him.

Sorry - I've read only the first page of this thread, so I don't if others have talked about what I say here. We've had an ongoing discussion, years, about how the Bills need a a true playmaker or two, someone in addition to Josh, most likely on defense. They need a Chris Jones or a great edge, or a really special DB or linebacker, a guy who is the highest paid guy at his position, like the Cowboys linebacker wants to be. And we're frustrated, because the Bills rarely go after those guys. I've been saying that McDermott's view of the team is that he wants great all-round athletes, buys who are superb competitors and who have really good physical skills. Good speed, good strength, a good collection of skills - all purpose guys. Spencer Brown can pass protect and run block and get downfield and use power. He's not the best in the league at any of those things, but he's really good at all of them. So, when the time comes to talk contract, two interesting things happen. First, if the guy is what I described - really talented and is a great contributor to how the team wants to play, the Bills extend him. That's what we saw this off-season. Second, if he is good but less likely to be a core player for the future, the guy goes to the free agent market. Those guys are rarely big successes on their next teams, because they aren't big-success kinds of guys. Spencer Brown is great for how the Bills play, but if he went to another team, it's not likely he'd ever become a true All-Pro kind of star because, well, the Bills aren't looking for All-pro kinds of guys (other than QB, and they got one of those). (And for those of who want to argue that Spencer Brown may in fact turn out to be a true All-Pro, I won't argue. But if a guy they like has that potential, that's just another reason why the Bills extended him.) And that is why free agents who leave Buffalo don't become stars someplace else. The process, yes, the process the Bills have in place to manage football personnel is very, very good. The roster keeps getting better and better. There's plenty of discussion to be had about how the Bills draft, but I don't have any complaints at all about how they manage free agents, coming in or going out.

Allen to Kincaid for another TD

Well, I hope the can get together. I don't think Cook is worth what what he wants. He's a back who has to be in the right situation to be productive, and Buffalo is the right situation. If someone gives him a big contract and he underperforms on a team less successful than the Bills, one day he'll be sitting at home counting his money and wishing he'd played for a winner. It's his choice, and I'm sure that's what Beane is telling him.

All true. OJ always played in short sleeves. Someone asked him why, and he said that somehow the skin on his arms could "feel" the presence of tacklers nearby. Sounds, improbably, but that "innate sense" you talk about was real, and there must be some explanation for it. Barry Sanders had it, too.

He was just spectacular.

Yeah, Happy. These threads are great; it's like reading play by play. Thanks to everyone who contributes this stuff.

You know what's great about the Bills these days is how many guys the Bills have who could be believably described as "the best player on the field." Think about skill players. Who might be called that? White, Johnson, Rapp, Bishop, Benford, Bernard, Milano, a half dozen dlinemen. That's a lot of good football players. And on offense, the same thing. Is anyone surprised when any of the wideout has a good day in practice? I'm not. It's almost a matter of who's turn it is to make some plays. Running backs? Good players. O line? Quality players across the line. The Bills have a really solid lineup.

Yes. Total no-brainer as far as I'm concerned. Experience starts, youth works its way into more snaps as the season progresses. He does it that way all the time. The objective for McDermott's players is to execute the play as called 100% of the time - that means go in the right direction, go to the right place, react to what the offense is doing in the right way. If White does that 100% of the time and Hairston is at 95%, White will play even if on Hairston's 95% he's a half-step faster. McDermott does it that way he abhors having 5% of plays where a player has left a hole in what is truly a team defense. The result is that the younger players sit until they can execute more or less flawlessly. Bishop sat, Bernard sat. It wasn't so true in the earlier years, because no one knew the defense as well as McDermott wanted, so Edmunds and Milano played a lot, even though they were making mistakes. Now, it's different. The only way Hairston starts in September is if (1) he's a really quick learner or (2) White has nothing left and Hairston has learned at least enough to make him better than Jackson and Lewis.

I have no stats whatsoever, but I think that there are a few guys who are accurate on the deep ball - no more than a half dozen - and Josh isn't in that group, but he's in whatever the next group is. Ten or 12 starting quarterbacks don't have the arm strength to get the ball deep with any accuracy at all. Josh's arm strength alone puts him above all of those, and his accuracy is in fact decent, as we've seen often enough. Most QBs, including Josh, are going deep only once or twice a game, if that. It simply isn't a big part of the game. So, I don't get worrying about him being mediocre on a play that most QBs are mediocre or worse and that only happens once or twice a game. If I could be a fly on the wall when Brady and McDermott are discussing the passing game, I seriously doubt that discussions about Josh's deep-ball accuracy would come up very often, if at all.

A lot of downtown hotels are booked for Saturday night. You may want to start looking.

Yeah, and frankly slightly below average is what I would have guessed.

Actually, on the first page Old Coot said this: I don't know where he got his data, but if he is correct then 75% of second rounders play out their full rookie contract with their teams.

Thanks. Amazing how difficult it is to draft well. Teams should be better than that.

I know you didn't say it was bad. Interesting that you think 50% is better than average. I don't know at all, but I'd like to get starters on more than 50% of second rounders.