Shaw66

Sort of related. But it doesn't change the point. CB2, like every other position, has certain responsibilities. The players are taught what they're supposed to do under various play calls and circumstances. They get graded on how well they execute the job. Elam didn't start because he didn't execute as well as the others in games. Yes, maybe he was best at aspects of man coverage, but the others were better at other aspects of the job. It's very simple.

This is not in nearly large enough font. It needs to be all caps, bold, and big.

Yes. And they get graded against what they were supposed to do. It is a certainty that Elams grades were lower; that's why he didn't play more. Why would anyone have a problem with that?

Don't know if I'd ever seen Phillips interviewed before. This man is so cool. Nothing bothers him. And frank. Says Floyd and Ford are special. Says that's what you need to have a great defense, you need to be loaded. They asked about Rousseau, and he said he's now a grown man. Compared him to Mario Williams. Said he's big and fast. Phillips is clearly excited to be on the field with these guys. Also talks about the difference between Frazier and McD. McD has an edge, which I'd hope would be the difference. He also said McD is more colorful, and I think that meant that his words are more direct. Love it.

Nice story and perfect photo, capturing the moment, even without Josh in the picture. Backup offensive lineman, doing his job in a good-natured way, young girl thrilled to be up close with any of the players, happy to get an autograph, even though she probably doesn't know who 72 is. Then Josh runs by, gives the high five, and the girl goes nuts. Doyle already knows he's NFL chopped liver and didn't need the moment to remind him, but he gets it, waiting patiently for the girl to come back to earth to get her cap back. When she takes the cap to school, she'll show her friends the autograph and tell everyone that while she was getting it, Josh Allen high fived her. If you're a good dad, you'll be sure she knows Doyle's name and understands that he's an important part of the story, too. Great photo. A keeper. Here we go! Love it!

Well, I never once looked at this thread during its short happy life, but I happened to look at it when Warcoded brought it back. Actually, I was disappointed with the Robin Williams clip; I was hoping actually to hear from people who joined this parade with Josh. They must have a really interesting perspective on the Bills and all of us junkies who've been living this life for a few decades. I often tell this story here, and I won't repeat all of it here, but I saw the Bills in Fenway Park in 1967. There was on section in the stadium that was full of Bills fans, and they were really rowdy. So, I left my seat and walked over to where the Bills fans were. The reason they were so rowdy was that they got on the train in Buffalo at midnight, drank all the way to Boston, and then went directly to the game. Sometimes on the Buffalo Bills message board I would think we're all still on that train (sort of like a Bills-fan Snowpiercer), drunk beyond belief, yelling at each other. Sometimes lately here it's gotten a little like that, but never quite so bad. I think fan forums have a personality, and the personality keeps changing over time, as the people change, as their points of view change, as the fortunes of the team change. It's unreasonable to expect it to be the same every week, let alone every year. This off season was particularly bad, because I agree Bills fans are better losers than winners. Bills fans were more realistic about the players on the team when the team was losing. Nobody's point of view here was the Bills just need one more player and Tyrod will take us to the Super Bowl. People understood who Tyrod was. There are plenty of people here who have proclaimed Josh to be a god, and they are amazingly angry that Beane and McDermott have disrespected Josh by not acquiring 25 of the 50 best players in the league to assist him as he climbs Mr. Olympus. That are others who think Beane and McDermott are gods too, and they can't understand how anyone could complain about anything they do. There are still others who think Beane and McDermott are hacks and should be put on their own train somewhere. I've been waiting for training camp to start so that all of that off-season noise would stop, but surprisingly it hasn't. Threads about a day in training camp turn into long-winded debates about why Beane didn't acquire a better backup right tackle. Really? Can't we just watch the team as it begins to get ready for the season, watch the progress of the new guys, be amazed, again, at some of the balls Josh throws and some of the catches Stefon makes, and be excited about what's to come? I guess not. Anyway, it'll change, so I don't worry too much about it, especially because the worst days hear are not close to even average days on the BBMB. It's 25 years and counting for this forum, and if we have to put up with some whining once in a while, so be it.

All of the above. The GM brings in talent to compete for roster spots, including PS spots. They drafted Torrence with an expectation that he'd start, but the real bottom line is that he was brought in to compete. If Shell wins the starting job outright, so be it. If he's the backup to Brown, so be it. If he's the second back up tackle behind Quess, so be it. I don't think they expected one outcome or another - they just brought in talent to compete.

I agree. Quess is a journeyman right tackle. You know what you're getting. By comparison, Brown is an adventure. He'll make some plays for you, but then he'll disappoint. Quess's consistency is worth something.

My recollection is that what Beane said, in so many words, they'd like him to be an answer in the middle, and they might look at him a bit there, but that primarily he'd start outside and learn the game. If he'd turned out to be some kind of savant in OTAs, we might be seeing him in the middle now, but that isn't what was expected. What I understood Beane to be saying was that the guy could be a factor in the middle at some time, but probably not right away. That is exactly what we're seeing.

Yes, if this is the latest in endless problems with his back, it's much better to start working his replacement into the first unit now. Much better.

Got you. Thanks for the explanation. I've been in plenty of those discussions. It's funny for all of us to have these discussions on the fly as we're seeing info from the early days of training camp. Fact is, it seems that if we'd just waited until the end of practice today, we'd all be saying it looks like Elam is starting to win the job. Reality is, none of us knows.

He gets reps every day in training camp. Every day. First team reps and second team reps. It's exactly the same as JV football in high school, varsity, college. The best players get the first team reps, because the coach wants the first team to play together. Coaches essentially never play the second best guy to give him reps. That would be like saying sit Davis and give Shorter the first team reps. Coaches don't do that. When Shorter shows he may be better than another guy, he'll start sharing reps with that guy. That is exactly where Elam is. You don't play because you have potential. You play when you do your job better than the guy ahead of you.

How hard is this to understand? They aren't sitting him to make a point. CB2 is a job, and someone is doing the job better than Elam. And he isn't sitting. He's playing, but just not full time.

That's very much what I see. Frankly, I think it also carries over from rookie camp and OTAs. The Bills knew before they got to St. John Fisher that Torrence would get these early first-team reps. Everyone is being evaluated every day in every imaginable way. It's also why we see rookies working their way into playing time as the season progresses. Cook was a good example. I, along with a lot of people, was disappointed that he wasn't in the regular rotation from day 1. I was disappointed because I wanted to see him, but also because I knew it meant that he wasn't yet doing some things the staff needed to see before they were willing to give him significant snaps. As the season progressed he got over the hump, earned some reps, and by the end of the season he was looking like the back the Bills hoped they were getting. Elam's been even slower; I hope he makes it. I'm happy to see Torrence getting these early reps, because it is/was a position of great need.

It's funny. Some people expect rookies to be plug-and-play and blame McD when they aren't seeing a lot of playing time. Some- Sal, I guess - expect rookies to have long learning curves and work their way in slowly and blame McD for playing his favorites when they aren't ready. In fact, McD is doing what your high school coach did: study all the guys who are trying out and pick guys for the roster and to start based on how well they seem to do what's expected of them. The fact that Torrence is getting a lot of first team reps and Dorian Williams isn't is an early indication of how these guys look to their coaches. As I said, that's an encouraging development out of week 1.

You make good points, but unless Torrence is flat our better, I'd guess they start Bates and work Torrence in for a series or two in the first half. Better way to deal with first-NFL game jitters. If they like what they see, Torrence can play the second half.

As I think others have said, that ignores Hyde and Poyer being out, White coming back. It ignores that his season, barring injury, the Bills will have Miller and Floyd rushing off the edges. I don't think this is going to be the same defense that has struggled in the playoffs.

No, it isn't puzzling. They studied him, they interviewed him, they talked to his coaches. They did a lot of research and decided he was a guy who could play the scheme they wanted, that he could learn it. That could make him a great corner, like White - another cover corner who learned the defense. Whether they were right remains to be seen.

Yeah, it's too early, but Bado's point is correct. A guy like Shakir doesn't create plays; he takes advantage of opportunities that are created by the guys who DO create, like Allen and Diggs and Cook and (we can hope, Kincaid). If you're a player who takes advantage of opportunities then, well, you have to take advantage. In other words, you have to catch it when it comes to you. One drop in 20 may be too much to ask, but I'm concerned when it seems there's a daily drop or two.

Dawkins catches most the balls they throw to him.

It isn't scary having a rookie starting on the offensive line. It happens every season with a lot of teams. For the linemen, some guys just have it. That's why I'm excited about Torrence. If he's good enough to start, he's going to do nothing but help. Will he make an occasional mistake? Sure, but everyone makes mistakes. If he's good enough to start, he's better than Bates, and that's a good thing. And as others have said, and I repeated yesterday, the problem with the pass protection has been the middle. If the middle is solid, and if Dawkins is good enough, having a weak right tackle is a relatively small problem, because that's the easiest direction for Josh to handle the pass rush from.

In a way, we all were better off when there were no instantaneous publications of anything, and we all just waited a day to read the coverage that people wrote after watching the whole practice. Living in this social media world, we all get confused by the timing of info, by the less-than-completely-valid observations some people make, etc. But if we're not there, these tweets give us the feeling that we're talking with someone who is there, and we can't help ourselves. Add to that that we've all been starving for football to start, so we're gobbling up anything we can get. It's crazy. In some ways, it would be better for me if I just went with radio silence until September. Like, I'd actually do that, right?

Sounds like Cam Lewis broke it up. I'm not done with Shakir.

I didn't listen to the interview, but from the clips here, that's exactly what it sounds like. And exactly what a lot of fans have been saying for a year. Elam is a natural cover corner, and Benford really gets the coverage schemes that McD's pass defense thrives on. I've always thought that's why McDermott didn't keep Gilmore. And as lots of people have been saying, it's up to Elam. If he internalizes the schemes, he'll be the starter, because Benford simply can't "learn" some of the physical skills that come naturally to Elam. Also, I don't see how a platoon system works with corner back. When you platoon running backs, you're always sending some signals about what you might do, because the running backs have different skills. That's okay, however, because offense is all about putting a combination of threats on the field. DBs seem different to me - putting a different DBs in the game signal your weaknesses, not your strengths. Benford's in, if the offense puts a #1 receiver out there, the offense knows the defense is in zone or double coverage, because the Bills won't leave him out there alone. Elam's in, and the offense knows he's the soft spot in the zone. Jackson gives you the best disguise. What the Bills really need, really need, is for Elam to step up. If he can win the job (if he can get good enough playing the schemes), then the Bills have the best option out there, and Benford gets freed up for a possible move to safety, maybe as early as next year.

You're definitely in the wrong forum.