Shaw66

You know, your comment about minor details reminds me of my reaction to the penalty as called. When I saw there was a flag, my first reaction was, "It's on the Bills, touchdown." When they announced the Offside and we saw the replay, I thought it was an overly technical application of the rules. Then their expert said it was a point of emphasis this season, and it's been called 9 times, or something like that, and I felt better. Finally, when I realized it was Toney, I was completely okay with the call. Why? Because I'd bet that Toney came out of the huddle all excited that they were going to run his gadget play, lost his concentration, didn't notice that he was offside, and forgot to ask. In other words, he lost focus in the heat of the moment. Why are receivers trained to ask the official if they're line up properly? For exactly this reason - so they won't be offside. It was all on Toney, and on the coaches for having failed to train him to perform under pressure.

This is all really good. I agree, more or less, with all of it. A few comments. Miller, he didn't look to me to be all the way back. He used to be even better than he was on Sunday. But having said that, in the second half it was plain that he's now made real progress recovering. He had an impact. Yes to the Oline. Yes to Cook. When you write two paragraphs side by side saying there's something wrong with both wideouts, I think something different. I think Brady needs to go back to the drawing board, because some the Bills should be springing a free runner in the defensive backfield at least once in a while. It simply isn't possible to cover everything - someone has to be getting open somewhere. I mean, the Bills are throwing Diggs, Davis, Shakier, Harty, Sherfield, Cook, Murray, Kincaid, and Knox at teams. NOBODY can get open? Seems like scheme to me. Still, I agree that Diggs is in an odd funk. I'm fine with Davis. Actually, this makes me wonder whether Diggs isn't banged up in some way that they're not talking about. He's not a big guy, and the way he plays, he takes a lot of punishment. I think he gives himself up often just to avoid the wear and tear.

Maybe the Ravens. I've dumped on Lamar for years, but I'm coming around to giving him his due. That defense is monstrous, and Lamar and Beckham are dangerous. But, yeah, the Bills are right there. It's very much like several seasons the Patriots had in their hey day. First half, they'd look vulnerable, stumble through games, pile up some losses. But when December came, we all could see that the Patriots were still the Patriots. Well, the Bills are still some version of what people thought they were. And it's very possible that we haven't yet seen their best football. There simply aren't enough emojis to say how great this is! Every once in a while someone raises the level of conversation around here to new heights (usually it has something to do with Schrodinger's cat!), and you've done it this morning. Great stuff!

Yes, it does, but I'm sure there's a reason. For example, maybe he had some UB duties he wanted to deal with before he left. Maybe he had to do season ending evaluation of the offense and the players. Maybe he had recruiting duties to hand off. And if he was the guy the Bills wanted, and he asked for an extra week, the Bills certainly would have said okay.

Well, okay. But as I've said, I've stopped trying to figure it out, and you give me the perfect opportunity to show why: If you're correct that they check into those passes when they see the soft coverage, then McDermott and his defensive staff have seen that too. So, why don't they adjust? Is McDermott really content just letting them have that pass whenever they want it? And if you're correct that Josh likes the out pattern over the quick screen against soft coverage, McDermott and his offensive staff have seen that, too. Why don't they adjust and get Josh to take the quick screen when it's an easy 5-7 yards? After all, we've all seen defenses sitting on Josh's shorter sideline throws. For me, the bottom line has become this: The coaches have reasons for doing what they do. I don't know what their reasons are. Some of their decisions are wrong, just like every other coach, but I don't understand. I've stopped trying to figure it out.

I won't take the time to write a full Rockpile Review today, but as I'm doing other things I keep having thoughts about the game that I want to share. My real bottom line from the game is that there are a half dozen or so really good teams in the league, and the Bills are one of them. (Sorry, Bill Parcels, it's not as simple as you're as good as your record. The Bills are better than their record.) There are a half dozen or so teams in the league that present big challenges to any opponent, and the Bills are one of them. The Bengals, the Eagles, and the Chiefs all thought the Bills were one of their toughest games (and they were), and the Cowboys and the Chargers and everyone else on the Bills schedule feel the same way. Who are the others on top? Eagles, Cowboys, Chiefs, 49ers, and pick a couple others. My second bottom line is that they may have stumbled their way to the finish line yesterday, but the Bills finished first, on the road, against one of the other really good teams. We never look at the Bills' bumbling losses from the opponents' perspective. For example, there had to be a lot Eagles fans saying, "Yeah, it's nice we won, but it only happened because Allen and Davis couldn't figure how to complete an easy touchdown pass." It's no different from Bills fans saying, "Yeah, it's nice we won, but it only happened because Toney lined up offside." Well, guess what? Close games against good teams almost always could have turned out differently but for one little dumb thing or another. The object is to win, and the Bills did it. Their last defensive stand may have been a little ugly, but they made the stand. In particular, the pass rush showed up, sometimes with crazy all-out blitzes where guys either got home or at least pressured Mahomes, and sometimes with the front four making the most of their considerable talent. Especially Miller. Yesterday was the first time we saw Miller starting to play like Miller can, not every snap, but late in the game when it counted, he was after Mahomes. He's something to look forward to in the coming weeks. How close was the game? Look at the team stats (Bills first). First downs: passing - 12-14, rushing - 8-6, penalties -1-1. Conversions: Third down 6-15 vs 6-12, fourth down 1-1, 0-1. Total yards: 327, 346. It was two heavyweights slugging it out. As the defenses around the league continue to get better at stopping the offenses, the games get messier, with more mistakes and missed opportunities, and the scores drop. Romo said yesterday that earlier in the week Allen told him that the team that scored in the 20s would be the winner. One, good for Allen for being that perceptive of the realities of the game. Two, it's a measure of how the NFL game has changed - who would have thought a year ago that 20 points was enough to win a Mahomes-Allen battle? My third bottom line is one that everyone talks about in one way or another: Josh Allen is phenomenal. Tony Romo talks about it as "putting on the Superman cape." If at the end of every season you made a highlight reel of the six or ten greatest plays of the NFL season, Allen would make every highlight reel. Allen rolling to his left, falling out of bounds and dropping a touch pass into Murray's arms is already on the 2023 highlight reel. I've given up pretending I understand the game, except in the most general terms. I simply don't understand why practically every team in the league stops the Bills and everyone else on all those short receiver screens and rubs, and the Bills sit back in their zone and let teams take an easy seven yards. I simply don't understand why, if teams are going to attack the Bills' short passing game like that, why the Bills can't find Diggs or Davis or Shakir or Sherfield or Harty or Cook or Kincaid or Knox (man, what a list!) downfield anywhere. There are reasons, I'm sure, but I accept the fact that it's complicated. It's too bad the Bills have six losses. They never should have let that happen to themselves, but that's where they are. If they can find a way to beat the Cowboys, there'll be no reason to keep looking in the rearview mirror. If they can beat the Cowboys, they'll be 8-6 with their future in their hands. GO BILLS!!!

What happened to going with the call on the field unless you have convincing evidence. Wasn't there. Incomplete.

Allen's playing great, but if he's going to be a truly great QB, he can't throw the INT. A truly good QB knows that at that point in the game, the #1 objective is to score and the #2 objective is to eat clock and win the field position game. So, you don't throw that ball in that situation. Run, throw it away, find something else to do, but do not risk an INT. He'll learn.

McDermott would tell us that it's his job, and his coordinators' jobs, to make sure that their players execute correctly, particularly under the stress of the game, whether that means the stress of the pass rush or the stress of being in a close game in the fourth quarter.

I think the point of Romo's comment was that it was Davis's job to know the Eagles were in cover zero. He had pre-snap plus a 20-yard sprint upfield to figure out that there was no one deep to pick him up. So he's supposed to see that, assume the Eagles are blitzing, and therefore look back to find the ball. I think it's the case that on most plays, most plays must recognize the defense in order to adjust their routes. So, for example, on back shoulder throws, the receiver must read the defender and, if the defender has the deep route covered, the receiver must look back over his inside shoulder to find the ball. This was (I think) the opposite - see cover zero, look back for the ball, make a play on the ball. Again, I don't know. Maybe you're right - maybe Davis was supposed to read the defender and cut away from him, and Josh was supposed to make the same read and throw it. And that would explain Josh's comment about guessing wrong - maybe he couldn't see the leverage (he was under pressure), so he guessed. But I'd say that even if that's what happened, it would make sense that it STILL was Davis's job to look back early and find the ball.

I'm not saying I'm right. I don't know. But I also think you don't know. Have you bugged the wide receiver room at the Bills facility? Is Brady your brother-in-law? How do you know? As I've said before, what Romo (who actually played pro football and has been in hundreds of meetings about how the QB and receiver play the game) said was that in that situation it's the receiver's responsibility to find the ball before he makes the cut. Now, what I assume he meant is that that's the way the Cowboys trained their receivers. Whether the Bills do the same thing, I don't know. But I don't know how you would know, either. As has been said, over and over by me and others, is that one thing is certain: It was failure of training. Either Davis failed to do what was expected, or Allen failed to do what was expected, but in either case, it's the coaches' responsibility to train the players so that they WILL do what is expected. It's different from failure of execution, like Davis dropping the ball or Allen overthrowing him. That's on the players. But when Davis cuts the wrong way or Allen throws to the wrong spot, that's because they may have been taught something, but they didn't learn it. It's the coaches' job to see that they learn it.

Actually they aren't ridiculous. People are just in different stages of their life and their feelings about many things that go by, including the Buffalo Bills, change from time to time. I'm feeling somewhat the same as the OP. It just happens. And when the Bills are playing good, you ignore your children!

I hear you, and there's some truth to it. But losing Milano and Jones for the season hurt, and the D has nevertheless held up pretty well. Yes, struggled late in games, but overall the defense has always had the Bills in the game. It was the offense that really underperformed. I'm just hoping Brady will be the savior of this team, this season and next.

Great admission! But it's a good theory. I mean, an OC taking over in the middle season isn't throwing out whole schemes and installing new ones, but he may very well be tweaking things in just the way you described.

This is correct. No defender came close to making a play where the ball landed. Davis was open whichever way he broke.

I hadn't considered that Brady might have changed the technique on some plays, in which case he would really mean that the problem was on him. I understood his answer to be a the-buck-stops-here answer. That is, regardless of whoever installed the protocol for a play like that, as the OC he is ultimately responsible whenever a player misses an assignment. And I agree with you - the inside read is a better. At a purely amateur, touch football level, as a receiver I would find that both finding the ball and catching the ball would be easier with the throw down the middle. As I mentioned earlier, I think throwing the ball into the corner immediately causes the receiver to begin worrying about the sideline - I'm much more comfortable if I know I can just roam into the center of the end zone and concentrate on the catch. And lest we forget as we slice and dice this play is the bigger problem, which is at the end of close games, the Bills always seem to find a mistake to make that costs them the game. So, as plenty of people have said, there is a level - an important level - where this is a McDermott problem, not a Brady problem.

Bottom line, I would like to have Brady or someone explain what happened and what should have happened, but we aren't going to get that. I agree that going to the corner makes the catch tougher for the receiver, because he's looking over his shoulder and running away from the QB. I think it's tougher also because either the backline or the sideline may come into play, so the receiver has to worry about his feet, too. On the other hand, as someone said, going to the corner pretty much eliminates any possible safety help. What Romo said still makes the most sense to me, but who knows how the Bills operate in this situation. Romo said that in this situation (at least when he was playing), it's the receiver's job to know he's going to be open and to look back to find the ball before he makes his cut. It's cover zero, everyone knows the QB may have pressure and may have to let the ball go early, and the QB is going to have to make a choice. The receiver is supposed to find the ball first and just track it. I agree that where Josh threw it, it was the easiest pitch and catch. What we don't know is whether in the Bills' system, Josh had the option to pick that throw, or whether he had no reason to believe that Davis ever would expect to find the ball in the middle of the field. When Davis made his cut and looked for the ball, he seemed surprised to see where Josh had thrown it. I'd really like to know, but as is pretty much always the case, no one is talking.

You're response is completely driven by your distrust of Gabe Davis. If Davis were as bad as you seem to think he is, he wouldn't be on the field. Dorsey or Brady or McDermott would have insisted he be on the bunch or off the team entirely. The Davis criticism on this board is like the Bernard criticism here this summer. This board was almost unanimously of the view that Bernard was incapable of being the middle linebacker, because of his size, inexperience, and what people saw when he was on the field last year. Finally, late this summer, I asked why it was that McDermott didn't seem worried about the position and Beane had done absolutely nothing to bring in anyone to get a real middle linebacker on the field. I suggested that the reason McBeane had done nothing was because they decided they already had someone on the roster who could do the job. That turned out to be completely correct. The same is true for Davis. There simply is no way that Davis would still be on the field if McBeane thought Davis is as bad as people think here say he is. If he were really that bad, then Daboll should have been fired for playing him, and Dorsey should have been fired for playing him, and Brady would have been instructed when he was hired that he must insert someone else in the starting lineup. None of that happened for a reason, and the reason is that the Bills organization does not agree with your assessment of Davis's ability. As for "an important clutch play going to Davis," you seem to misunderstand how football, and all games, are played at the professional level. At this level, everyone is expected to do his job, and play calling is not done by excluding a player because he isn't trusted. If a player isn't trusted, he isn't on the field. That's why, for example, Cook got benched after fumbling on the first play of the game. He wasn't trusted, so he was given a rest. Gabriel Davis obviously IS trusted - that's why he's on the field so much. If he's on the field, then the offense will be executed without regard to the fact that he may have dropped a pass or anything else. On the play in overtime against the Eagles, Davis wasn't necessarily the primary receiver on the play as called. He became the primary receiver when he and Allen recognized that the Eagles were in cover zero and Davis had the deep route that would be open. As I've said before, the problem with that play was that someone made a mistake and didn't execute properly. It was either Davis or Allen (I think it was Davis), but the real problem was that Allen and Davis hadn't prepared themselves well enough to execute the way they should have.

Cook was drafted BECAUSE of his receiving skills. That's what made him attractive to the Bills. And he catches the ball pretty well. And no one's talking about the rain. That was tough weather to play football in.

I don't know that we know for a fact that this is why Dorsey was gone, but it certainly makes sense. And, really, that play represents what looks like a problem, but it was only one problem. The thing that was troubling everyone, starting at game 5, was the disappearance of any offensive flow or effectiveness. The Bills are 6-6 because the offense substantially underperformed its potential. With decent offensive performance, like we've seen in the last two games, the Bills would be 9-3 or even 10-2. It's really frustrating to have blown (absent a miracle) another opportunity.

Interesting, as well. The real point, of course, is not who did it right or wrong, but why they weren't on the same page. It doesn't make a lot of sense to run a play where there's a 50-50 chance it will fail because two players are both guessing at what to do.

That's why I see Dorsey's fingerprints. I'm sure, as you say, that they've connected on the same kind of plays in the past - heck, he caught so many TDs against the Chiefs, ONE of them most have been the same. The disconnect between the two of them this season suggests they haven't been working on aspects of the game in the same way as they'd done in previous seasons (or under Daboll). The great players all show you that they ALWAYS are working on the details of the game. I remember watching a Colts game late in the time when Peyton and Harrison were playing together. During the game, they showed video from pre-game workouts. Peyton and Harrison were running short out patterns, over and over, working on the timing of the throw, the brake, and the placement of the ball. These guys already were perhaps the greatest passer-receiver combination of all time, and late in their time together, they were still working on details of a simple play. I would guess that Dorsey didn't lead Josh and Gabe to continue to work on some details, and that's why we've seen what we've seen.

Well, I don't disagree with that - ultimately it's on McDermott. I've told this story before: Several years ago a US Navy submarine surfaced and accidentally struck a Japanese ship carrying several dozen Japanese students, like middle school or high school. Several kids drowned. I saw the captain of the sub on Larry King one night, and King kept asking him to identify who was responsible. Was the guy studying the sonar to see if the area where they were surfacing was clear of ships, or his commanding officer, or his? The captain said, immediately - "it's on me. I'm responsible for the boat, for everything that happens on the boat, and if something goes wrong, it's because I didn't cause my crew to be prepare. That's on me." In that sense, absolutely, it's on McDermott. And I don't think McDermott would argue with that conclusion. But in a different sense, when you're trying to fix the problem it's important to find the place where the system failed (the system that McDermott is responsible for and the system that McDermott has to fix). The point where the system failed, in my mind, is at the OC level, because the HC trusts the OC to train his players to execute, and they didn't. I think on the org chart, that's Brady, and so Brady said it's on him. But in truth, he couldn't be expected to train these guys in that kind of detail after only two weeks on the job. It was Dorsey's failure, and although they're working on it, the real fix can only be accomplished by a competent OC in the off-season. The coaching techniques and the attitudes of the coaches and players has to change. Now, there is a broader question that is squarely on McDermott. McDermott had the wrong OC. He knew there were problems with Dorsey after his rookie performance, and McDermott decided to give him a second season. He probably should have pulled the plug on Dorsey earlier than he did. So, there's all of that. And there's the question of whether he is the right leader to get his coordinators to be good at their jobs. He certainly didn't get Dorsey straightened out, and that IS his job.

I don't think it's as simple as both guys needing to make the same read about which way to cut. On the broadcast, Romo said that in that situation, it's the receiver's job to look early and find the ball. He's supposed to know it's cover zero, and therefore he knows the QB is likely to throw before the break. It's essentially Josh's option, to pick a side, and it's the receiver's job to find it and get it. This is operating on the assumption that he's going to beat the defender. Now, maybe that's just the way the Cowboys ran it, and other teams have other rules. But he said it as though everyone runs it that way, because the QB is likely throwing under duress and it's up to the receiver to make the play wherever the QB can put the ball. We don't know what his actions on the bench meant, but it certainly looked like Davis was reacting to his mistake and not just to a missed opportunity. And Josh's press conference was diplomatic, to say the least. The important point, as many have been saying, is that it's the coaches' job at this point in the season to have players on the field who can be depended on to execute the play as it's intended. If they can't run the play correct consistently, then you can't call the play.

I really do lay this on Dorsey. The Gabe-Josh disconnect began last season, so far as I can recall - prior to that they seemed to be truly together. This season there have been multiple occasions when Davis broke off the route and Josh threw deep (including that intentional grounding call), and several others when the opposite happened. Then Sunday. If a rookie had multiple disconnects like, the rookie would sit until he figured it out. It wasn't a problem for Davis as a rookie or afterward, until Dorsey become the OC. I don't agree. I think everyone runs option routes. It's standard - receiver has to read the defense and make the cuts, and the QB has to make the same read. That's the fundamental of the back shoulder throw - beat your man, go, side by side or covered, break it off. Happens all the time. But this season, for some reason, Davis and Allen aren't reading it the same way. It's a problem that is the coach's job to fix.