Shaw66

I agree with what you're saying, but I think some of it is on Allen, too. As I said in what I wrote, above, a truly great quarterback instills in his receivers that they MUST execute for him; there is no other option. It's not enough to have competitive fire; he has to have that fire consistently, in practice and in games. That consistent demand on himself and on his teammates is what's necessary for greatness personally and for his team. Someone the other day says that football has to be an obsession with him. I think that's true, and I don't think we're seeing that out of him. Again, I am not for a minute blaming the loss on Allen, but I think he (along with McDermott) needs to lead the team out of their tendency to fail when the game is on the line.

Understanding full well that Allen already is contributing more to the success of this team than probably any other player, I nevertheless believe that Allen should do more. Plus, what I believe is not in the stupid category, like kick field goals. It's about becoming an all-time great QB. 1. Be a leader. Not just a "rah-rah" leader, but a leader who demands more of his teammates. Year after year, Tom Brady was the hardest working player on the Patriots, and year after year he was a demanding leader. So, for example, on the assumption that Gabriel Davis blew the last pass play (I haven't read anything about the game, so I don't know), that's a failure of leadership by Josh. He needs to be absolutely demanding of his teammates, and particularly his offensive skill players, to get it right all the time. It's one to thing to practice something, it's another to practice it with the intention that they'll do it like they practiced it. If you haven't prepared mentally to do it right, your practice has a tendency to fail you when the pressure is on, and that seems to be what happened to Davis. If you asked him a day before the game what he was supposed to do on the route, he would have told you the right answer. But put him on the field with the game on the line, and his practice failed him. Josh has to hold Davis accountable for his play, not after the fact, but before hand, in training camp and in practice. Josh doesn't strike me as doing that. 2. Related to 1, Josh has to demand more of himself. A truly great QB does not throw the INT he threw yesterday, and it cost the Bills the game. Not blaming the loss on Josh, but if he doesn't throw that INT, the Eagles get one less TD. And, like Davis's screw up, Josh broke down when the pressure was on. Eagles had just scored to cut the lead to three, and the Bills needed at least a drive and at best a score. With the pressure on, Josh failed to recognize what was happening on the field and gave the ball to the Eagles. With a short field, the Eagles scored and that was the beginning of the end. Josh has to hold himself accountable, not after the fact, but before hand, in training camp and practice. He has to be prepared for everything, and when the pressure is on he has to play the way he prepared. Instead, I think Josh relies on his incredible physical skills to make plays. The problem is that that is not leadership, because his teammates don't have generational physical skills, so they can't follow his lead. He has to prepare himself meticulously, both because it will make him play better and because that is an example that his teammates CAN follow. That's leadership. 3. Josh has to be consistent. He has to be consistent in the preparation I described above, every day. He has to be consistent in his emotional preparation for the game. I can see it in his face. Yesterday, he came out in the first half with a calm, dispassionate look on his face. He was a warrior who was ready to battle. Other times, he has the deer-in-the-headlights look. Other times, he's overly excited, a sort of goofy cheerleader on the sidelines. He has to model discipline, energy, and excellence all the time. He needs to do that to lead. 4. When Josh does those things, when he plays with discipline and based on constant, thorough, and committed preparation, his skill position players will do it, too, and the offense will perform better, even better than yesterday. When that happens, then Josh can lead the defense, too. That's critical, because the defense is infected with the same problem that Davis had on the final non-TD: They prepare, but somehow they're never really ready to make the big play when the game is on the line. Now, there will be people who have stopped reading by now, and they will post saying it's not Josh's fault, it's McDermott's fault, and I won't argue with that. Even I, the tireless McDermott defender, have to admit that McDermott has to take responsibility for the string of close losses that resulted from end-of-game breakdowns. There simply have been too many without an equal or greater number of wins. Hail Murray, the Vikings, the Broncos, yesterday. And that's not close to an exhaustive list. Just as it's true for Josh, it's true for McDermott: It's not enough to practice it in order to be prepared. It needs to be practiced in a way that translates into playmaking at the most crucial time of the game. Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer being close to making the play in the end zone isn't enough; it isn't enough to say that they knew what they were supposed to do and couldn't quite do it. They have to do it. But McDermott can't do it if his quarterback isn't leading the way. Josh has to be demanding of his teammates, but he can succeed being demanding of them only if he is demanding of himself. The difference between McDermott and Allen's Bills and Belichick and Brady's Patriots is night and day in this regard. Night and day. Brady made the plays and demanded of his teammates that they make plays. Belichick practiced to prepare his players to make plays when the game was on the line, and Brady led the team in practicing that way. McDermott has to fix this problem from a coaching point of view, and Josh has to fix himself, too. So, yes, Josh can do more

No. Middle linebacker and offensive line were the two biggest questions, and the Bills seem to have gotten both correct.

Dodson's looked excellent to me on occasion, and the occasions keep increasing. He still is out of position some of the time, but he's learning. That was a huge hole, and he's filling nicely. I think back to the end of the summer, when the consensus here was that the Bills had no one at middle linebacker. People here talked about Bernard and Dodson like two guys who had no business in the NFL. My conclusion is that McDermott and Beane knew something about those guys that most of us didn't. That's why they were on the roster, and that's why Beane didn't go after anyone else. Both guys still need more time on the field, and as someone said, Williams isn't embarrassing himself out there, either. All three are growing into solid contributors. Gotta give Beane and McDermott credit.

It helps in both cases on replay. On replay, they can play the sound and stop the video when the whistle sounds. The chip will show where the ball is. On replay, they can stop the play when the knee is down. The chip will show where the ball is. Of course, if you can't see where the player touches the ground, it's a problem. The NFL is way behind technologically when it comes to measurements and placing the ball.

There's so much wrong, it's appalling. Here are some things on my list, in no particular order: 1. Ease up on the ineligible man downfield. It kills a lot of good gains, and it's dumb. It usually comes when the QB is scrambling, and in that situation the defense simply doesn't care if an offensive lineman is three yards past the line of scrimmage. 2. Have an automatic review of every play that would have been a scoring play if the ref had spotted it differently. Refs didn't call a safety in Steelers-Browns even though it was pretty clear on the live play, and definitely clear on replay. It makes no sense that scoring plays are reviewed, but not scoring plays that depend on the spot are not. It means if your defense gives up a score, you don't have to ask for a review, but if your offense just misses a score, you have to waste a challenge and lose a timeout to have someone look at it. 3. Every year they have some things that are points of emphasis. This season they decided to lighten up on ticky-tack interference calls, and it really improved the flow of the game. Last couple of weeks, the officials started falling into the same old habits, and calling interference on dumb little contact and sometimes on no contact at all. 4. Change the holding rules. The defensive linemen and blitzers are so good that no one can protect the quarterback. They have to let the o linemen hold a little more. And do something about those holding calls when the back cuts back, the defender changes direction and essentially creates a hold. The o lineman can't do anything about it. 5. Put a chip in the ball so that spotting the ball and measuring for first downs is automated and accurate. Also so that reviews of goal line plays make sense. On a QB sneak, on review you usually can't see the ball. If they had a chip, it would be simpler.

Shakir's TD reminded me of Foster's, for some reason. Foster's run after catch wasn't nearly as good, but he came to mind as soon as Shakir went up the right sideline.

And one other way to look at it. I've been saying it for a week now. Josh Allen is just so incredibly good, that his offensive team should be a top-5 or top-3 team every year. Dorsey was failing to meet that threshold. Yesterday, the offense wasn't top-5, but it was better than it's been. We've seen what it looks like when the offense really is humming, and yesterday wasn't it, not yet. Now, Brady has a full week to prepare, without all the emotion about the change. Let's see if he can take the next step.

Scott - Thanks for this. I agree, they did dominate the Jets. That was Logic's point about seeing Kyle Allen, and I agree about that. But my point was more about what it means for the future. As I said, one good game doesn't make a mediocre team a good team, and for more than a month the Bills have been mediocre.

I guess I'm like a lot of guys - I only notice the special teams when they screw up. In that sense, it was a more or less total turn around from a week before. Obviously, Gilliam was enjoying the opportunity to make a contribution. The kickoff coverage was energized all game long so, yeah, I guess they woke up. Harty is a great addition as the punt returner. I love his share hands, and I really don't ask for anything more than that. But he's one of those guys with the knack - he knows when to take the return, and he generates serious returns - 10+ yards - when he does. So I like that. Hindsight is 20-20, but seeing the Bills yesterday made me wish they'd pulled the plug on Dorsey a week earlier. Broncos game definitely should have been a W.

Yes, you're correct, all of that seemed nice, but even you point out the reasons why it may not have been as good as it seemed. And, maybe only two turnovers result directly in points, but the other two affect field position, which is of great value when playing a team that has trouble moving the ball. I mean, I get. Maybe they actually were good yesterday. I saw a lot I liked. And NFL games don't go according to script, ever, so they're going to be messy in part, almost all the time. What I'm saying is: The Bills have looked like a mediocre team for a month. When you look like a mediocre team for that long, there's a good chance your team is - yes, a mediocre team. It happens almost every week in the NFL: a mediocre team has a good game. When it happens to most other teams, I don't jump to the conclusion that the team is actually good - it may just have been a mediocre team having a good day. This week, it happened to the Bills, and I'm not prepared to jump to the conclusion are a good team. We thought the Bills were a good team coming into the season, but they did enough to convince a lot of people they aren't so good. People were so convinced as to declare that McDermott must go. One game shouldn't convince any of us that the team we thought we had in September actually just reappeared.

You're correct. My memory isn't what it used to be.

Thanks for this. I saw your comments in the other thread, and I found them very interesting. I think we saw the same things, but reacted to them differently. From my point of view, a lot of what I saw yesterday were positive changes, so we agree there. I'm not ready to ascribe it to evidence of actual change, because it's still only one game. If the offense can have something like that kind of effectiveness moving the ball against the Eagles, then I'll say what we saw yesterday was something more any given Sunday. The sight Kyle Allen taking over in the 4th quarter? So true. That's something we used to see, pre-Dorsey, from Barkley or Trubisky. If the Bills offense truly turned a corner on Sunday, then the Bills search for an offensive coordinator already ended.

The Bills beat the Jets in Orchard Park on Sunday afternoon, 32-6. A win is a win, but beyond that, ascribing some greater meaning to this game is difficult. Has the offense turned a corner under new offensive coordinator Joe Brady? Hard to say. Do the fans love Sean McDermott again? Ask after the Bills play the Eagles and the Chiefs. Will the injuries stop, or will the Bills simply run out of players on the defensive side of the line? Pick ‘em. Is there something wrong with Stefon Diggs? No. Was the emotion we saw on the field a one-game thing, or have the Bills rediscovered the competitive edge that’s been missing? Tune in next week. Did the Bills dominate, or are they just an ordinary team that will win by a big score when the opponent turns the ball over four times? To me, it looked like the latter. Were the Bills good, or are the Jets just bad? Yes. Here are a few reactions to the game: 1. I’m really getting to like James Cook, now that he has remembered to hold on to the football. I always marveled at LeVeon Bell’s ability to wait, to wait and look, and then attack the opening that develops. Increasingly, Cook is running that way. When it’s time to go, Cook accelerates like a Tesla – instant burst. We’re seeing some real football intelligence from him. 2. Gotta give the offensive line credit, both for creating the opportunities for the running backs and for keeping Allen upright in the pocket against a defensive front that has been tough for a couple of seasons. 3. The Bills were showing a lot of emotion on the field. Actually, I prefer it when their actions speak louder than their words. Dotson should not be showing off every time he makes a tackle, especially because he misses, too. The question for the Bills is whether they’ve begun to raise the intensity of their play for the stretch run, or was the emotion a one-time explosion following weeks of frustration and then the Dorsey firing? 4. Joe Brady had to be happy with his debut, but there’s plenty left to work on. Getting three field goals on the first three possessions was nice but not enough. The Bills still didn’t display a truly diverse offense – they sort of traded Diggs and Davis for Kincaid, Shakir, and Cook. The offense Brady is hoping to see is one where they all show up on the stat sheet. 5. Josh Allen looked comfortable with what he was doing. He saw the opportunities and took them. I’ve said in recent weeks that the team doesn’t need his special talents on every play – most of the time Allen needs to manage the offense, make the throws, keep things moving. His special talents are needed on only a half-dozen plays or so. Like on Shakir’s touchdown – Allen was looking left, maybe knowing all along that he was coming back to Kahlil, maybe not. Then he looked right, found his man and without ever really resetting his feet, fired a 30-yard rocket for the completion. Allen is one of the few QBs in this or any era whose body can make the plays that his mind can see. 6. Josh ran, too. He didn’t have one of those big, dazzling runs where he’s free in open space, but that isn’t the point. The point is that he has to be on the move just enough to make the threat of his running one more thing in the minds of the defenders. The Bills’ offense should be a load for any defense, just with Diggs, Davis, Shakir, Kincaid, and Cook (plus an occasional dose of Harty and Knox) – images of #17 blowing downfield is the special sauce. 7. Just an observation: After all the years, all the decades, of watching the Bills, it’s quite amazing to have a quarterback who, on his own, makes the offense very good with the potential to be great. Kelly needed his skill players, Ferguson was special, Kemp was a field general; none of them on their own made the offense. 8. The injuries on the defense have to stop. They can’t afford to keep losing players like Johnson, Douglas, Rapp, and Jackson. There’s no hope if the Bills are putting new players on the field every week. Good to have Benford back. The young linebackers are getting a lot of experience – critical for the stretch run. Shaq and Oliver and Floyd are showing up. 9. Lest we forget, McDermott gets defense. He’ll get the most out of the talent that’s available. It’s actually pretty impressive to see how well the defense has continued to play through the dual adversity of the injuries and the offense being MIA. 10. The key to the defense, however, is having Hyde and Poyer healthy and on the field. Every part of the pass defense works better when they’re out there directing traffic. Their health from here out is critical, especially with Rapp down. And looming in the not-so-distant future, they will become big holes in the lineup. I tend to look four stats when I want to know how my team is doing: Yards per game, points per game, offense and defense. For the past few seasons, Bills fans have gotten used to the Bills being comfortably in the top five, sometimes top three, of all four categories. This season, the Bills are essentially top ten, except that they are 4th in points allowed per game. That says that they are a very good team, but not at the top of the league. The defense, with the injuries, is good and very stingy. The offense is showing signs of being very good or even scary good. A big run actually is possible. 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 every-day 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.

Yeah, I noticed Sauce give up, too. Always a sign the player is focused on himself rather than the team.

And Moss did pretty much nothing after he was traded last season.

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He doesn't like the Swiss army knife only for the reason you give, which is a good reason. He wants to be able to play every style, so he doesn't want a true road-grader at guard, because the guard has to be able to pass protect and pull downfield. He wants a kick-returner wideout who can run the jet sweep, so he can threaten you in multiple ways. The trouble with Swiss army knives is that nothing about them is really good at a single thing. A real corkscrew is a better cork screw, a real can opener is a better can opener, a real screwdriver is a better screwdriver. And where we started, a real dog is better than a Swiss army knife dog.

Yeah, it's funny how different people have different perspectives. Maybe I'm just waking up! Calling it a rule doesn't make it a rule. It's just a statistic. I think it was in that movie Sully where a member of the board of inquiry says "no one ever did that before, and the Tom Hanks character replies that no one ever did anything before until someone did it for the first time. It's like to the Wright brothers that they can't fly because no one ever did it before. As has been discussed here several times, one reason that you can't find any coach combos winning after five years is because either the coach gets fired or the QB leaves or gets traded. In other words, the impatience of the owners and GMs is probably the reason you don't see winning combinations beyond five years.

That's an interesting point. Who are the dogs? I'd say they are Diggs, Murray, probably Spencer Brown, Hyde, Poyer, Bernard, Taron Johnson. If your point is their aren't enough, I agree. I've been commenting for a while that McDermott's love affair with the swiss-army-knife guys has gone too far. At some point, you gotta have guys who are really tough to deal with at just their position, even if they're the only positions the guys play.

I love how people just trot out random stats and think it proves something. It actually proves the opposite. Tomlin's been the head coach in Pittsburgh for 15 years, been to the Super Bowl twice and won one. In the Super Bowl era, the ONLY Bills coaches to have playoff success are the two longest-tenured coaches in Bills' history - McDermott and Levy. Other than those two, the Bills have been turning over coaches every two or three years, so how well has the coaching carousel been working?

Great point! But if McD is in trouble, you go there and make the offense hum, and they win a Super Bowl, McD gets extended. You still get a HC job, but not with Allen. Well, I agree with that statement, but if you're going to have a winning football team, you're going to have dogs on the team, and the dogs want a dog to lead them. And, in fact, until this season, Allen's teammates said he was a dog.

I remember saying that. Have I changed my mind? Maybe a little, but I really was just asking the question, because I don't know. In general, I'd say that if I'm a position coach somewhere and McDermott called and asked me to be the OC, I'd jump at it. If I have confidence in myself, my thinking is I can do the job AND I get Josh Allen. But today, having read things here and thought about the situation, I can imagine that if I'm one of the hot assistants coming up, a McVay or someone with that kind of buzz about him, I'm looking to be a head coach, and maybe I worry that things are screwed up in Buffalo and things outside my control might limit what I can do there. I don't know if that's true at all, but I can see that a smart guy coming up would want to consider that. Two years ago, when Daboll left, pretty much every talented up-and-coming assistant would have grabbed the job Dorsey got. Today, it's not the same slam dunk.

Yes, nothing wrong with it, but it's not ideal wiring for a quarterback. Diggs doesn't want a QB who doesn't share Diggs's passion. And it's the unusual well-rounded person who drives himself to excellence. If the fire isn't burning hot inside him, then Josh almost certainly is the wrong guy. Tom Landry wanted to start Craig Morton, because he had all the tools, and he stayed on script. He didn't like Staubach because he was less talented and his passion for playing took him off script sometime. Staubach's passion got results that Morton couldn't (until one season when it all fell together in Denver). There has to be fire.

No you weren't mistaken. The basic rule of good offense, I'm convinced, is make every play a positive play. Throwing the pass you can complete 80+% of the time for 5 yards and a possible run after catch is a much better play than throwing a pass you can complete 50% of the time for 15 yards. Josh has to understand. Yes, there are situations that demand something else, but most of the game, that kind of decision making is what wins. The Bills were winning early in the season, and Josh had completion percentages in the 70s and 80s. He can do it, but the coaches need to give him the open guys to throw to and the reads so that he can make those kinds of decisions. And this is where Josh's running comes in. I've come to the conclusion that the Bills don't need the 800-yard rushing Josh, but he needs to have a couple of good runs a game, some designed, just to give the defense another element that makes the Bills offense truly multi-faceted. Josh needs to get down and avoid injury, but he needs to run often enough so that every play the defense has that threat in the back of their mind. With that added element, any good coordinator should be able to create route trees that generate open receivers on a regular basis. Josh needs those trees, and he needs to know how to recognize where the open guy is. That's all on the offensive coordinator.