Shaw66

Just watched it the other night. Love it.

Well, then you're just stuck watching a team that won't play defense the way you want. I suppose they might go against tendency and blitz a lot because it's such a good way to pressure if the guy your playing doesn't have much experience. But the Bills won't do it out of the 4-, 3. If everyone is healthy (except Miller), it'll be 4-2, as we've seen. I don't see the Bills sacrificing the pass coverage scheme just to get another linebacker on the field. If they blitz, they'll send Johnson, Elam, Poyer, maybe even a corner in the right formation. And sprinkle in Milano and Edmunds. I was looking at Football Outsiders today. Their system shows that the Bills have a very successful run defense playing the way they've played for several years now. Where the Bills have struggled is in the passing game, which isn't surprising given that they played more or less the whole season with Dane Jackson, Kair Elam, Damar Hamlin, and Christian Benford. Get Poyer and White back out there full time, with Milano and Edmunds back, I expect the pass defense now will tighten up. The big beneficiary of the Bills getting healthy will be Hamlin. With the veterans around him, Hamlin's responsibilities should narrow, and I expect that will help. I hope they get Elam back, too.

I think he just got a big head. The media always love it when they find someone who can talk and who is funny, because he tells them stuff about how the game works, and he's always good for a quote. So, after only a few years in the league, he thought he was special because he was a media star while still playing. He was too full of himself, and I don't like that in ballplayers. As an announcer, however, he can get away with the same act that always bothered me when he was a player.

I think you're correct and I was wrong. I was under the impression that both Chase and Jefferson had 3-4 inches and also arm length on Diggs, and that made them better on jump balls. Actually, all the differences are negligible. 40 times were close, too, He's only an inch or an inch and half taller, and I have longer arms than he has. Jefferson and Chase. It sure looks like Jefferson plays bigger, but the numbers don't suggest a major difference. I wouldn't trade Diggs's tenacity or leadership.

And there's another thing about packaging picks. Beane and McDermott told their own that they were going to blow up the roster, and in four or five years the team was going to be good. Then they traded Cordy and all kinds of picks and unloaded a lot of people and ate dead cap space. If Belichick told Kraft that he thought the way to rebuild was to do a true rebuild, Kraft might agree, Kraft would recognize that Belichick is too old to be the leader of the rebuild. Declaring a rebuild is the end of Bill's reign in New England.

I agree about both points. I thought it was really interesting, however, that Beane essentially admitted that even with all his maneuvering, he wasn't in a position to outbid the Jets to get to the third pick overall. Belichick hasn't had as much trade ammunition as even Beane had, because he hasn't had a good first round pick in about ten years. It's just tough to maintain quality personnel without picks in the top third of the first and second rounds.

Yeah, he's big into trading down, and that's a good strategy when you have your studs, because the object then is to surround the studs with as many quality football players you can, so those second-and third-round guys are really valuable. But as we've seen with the Bills, it's really hard to have enough ammunition to trade up into the top 10, unless you're willing to give up future #1 picks. Beane isn't trading up into the top 10 from #28, and Belichick didn't, either. And Belichick hasn't been willing to go into total rebuild mode by trading his best talent for future picks that he then could package. We can say whatever we want, and there's plenty of what-ifs, but I think at the end of the day the draft and the salary cap will not let you keep your team on top forever. Sooner or later, you're trying to make Cam Newton work at quarterback.

Yeah, he'd look less helpless. They'd clearly be better if they'd had better success late in the first round and in the second round. But so would every team, because it's very unusual to have big success with those picks all the time. Look at Elam and Cook, and Boogie, and etc., etc. It's just very hard to find the true leaders of you franchise at that point in the draft. Maybe Mac Jones will grow into a big success in the NFL and just needs time. But assuming he doesn't, then the question is whether Belichick screwed up the search for a QB post-Brady. I don't know what opportunities he's missed, but it isn't immediately obvious that he blew it. Did he have a shot at Jalen Hurts? That would be on Belichick.

I wasn't thinking about the trade deadline. Obviously, there are rules about this stuff, but if I'm Mayfield I'm letting the teams who might claim me off waivers that I'm really not interested in going there. I'd do everything I can to clear waivers or to make the 49ers with a waiver claim. Heck, not only is SF thinking he's best hope out there, he's thinking, "the future doesn't even matter, I could go start for a playoff team with McCaffrey (who I know) and Samuel and a superb defense. " Of course, McCaffrey may be telling Shanahan, "you don't want this guy."

But I think the problem is that you need some true stud players, and those guys you've named aren't those guys. They aren't Wilfork or Brady or Jefferson or that 88 guy for the Cowboys or a top three running back or a shut-down corner. Yes, people can argue all day about the guys he missed, but those guys he missed (that everyone misses) are nice guys to have but not cornerstones for your franchise. The cornerstones are in the top 10, along with guys who come later who turn out to be more than anyone thought, like Cooper Kupp. So, yeah, he could have better guys than he has in the just-below-stud category, but he wouldn't be winning a lot more games if he had them. He needs a QB, he needs a stud receiver or corner or both, and it's hard to find those guys where he's drafted year after year.

Wow. He was pretty much everyone's #1 QB coming out, although there certainly was a lot of room to argue. My sense of the guy is that he isn't great in the locker room. I think he's too much of a me-first guy. And although he's shown that he can be a pretty good playmaker, he's not a big-time thrower. Obviously, he can't throw like Allen, but he can't throw like Mahomes, either, or like Burrows or Herbert. If you don't make any eye-popping throws, it's pretty hard to be big success at QB in the NFL. My take is that no one who's looking an answer at QB is likely to be interested. Can't see why Houston would bet on Baker instead of someone in the draft, and why would you want in camp as your rookie is working his way in. Colts shouldn't want to take a run an another retread. Rivers then Ryan then Baker? No. Not the Ravens. They have their #1, and Huntley fits better as a backup in their offense. The 49ers are a different situation. They've been looking seriously at a Super Bowl run this season, and now they need someone who can run their offense. They may or may not like Baker for the long run, but if they may very well want him for the short run. Look at it this way: If someone told you at the start of the season that after week thirteen, you'd be 8-4, leading your division and in excellent position to make the playoffs (93%), and they asked you what you'd like to do from a personnel point of view, you'd say, "whatever I possibly can do to make myself better, this year." That's why they went out and got McCaffrey. So, here they are, staring at the playoffs, and needing a QB. I think in that situation, you go get the very best QB you can find. Colts might let you trade for Matt Ryan, but, no thank you. Jets might give you Flacco or Zach Wilson. Broncos might give you Russell Wilson. Ryan Fitzpatrick might hang up his mike and come off the sideline. The choices just aren't very good. Baker, you actually could plug and play and have a shot at winning ball games down the stretch. By the time the playoffs start, he'd be integrated into the system. He has the mobility Garropolo lacked, he's got an arm for at least the intermediate passing game. He's a gamer.

I'm a big Belichick fan, but I don't enough to even try to defend how player personnel has worked within the organization. I do think, however, that drafting at the bottom of the first round for so long is likely to leave a team in the situation the Pats are in now. It's pretty clear that to be a really good team, you need some superior talent leading your lineup. As many as a half dozen guys, and it's . almost a given that one of them has to be a QB. With the Bills, you have Allen, Diggs, White, Miller, and then a collection of guys who I'd put just below stud level - Poyer, Hyde, Edmunds, Oliver, Dawkins. (Looking at it, it's obvious how the offense has been neglected.) Getting a stud-level occasionally happens by accident (like Brady), but most of the time it happens by having a draft pick in the top ten. At the bottom of the first round, if you draft well, you will miss sometimes, and sometimes you'll get an Edmunds, an Oliver, or a Dawkins. You can't count on getting a White - from today's perspective, he's a guy who should have gone much earlier than he did. When you draft at the bottom of the first round for as long as the Patriots did, you simply are going to have great difficulty coming up with the true stud players you need to threaten opponents. You have trouble getting a Diggs or a Justin Jefferson, you certainly have trouble getting a QB, you have trouble getting a top offensive lineman or a stud edge guy. They always go before you draft. Belichick won by having a team full of really well-coached role players, guys really committed to excellence and hard-nosed football. But a team full of guys like that can't go very far in the modern NFL without some real studs leading the team, particularly a QB. Belichick hasn't had many opportunities to get those studs - he's had to count on some guys developing (like White developed for the Bills), and that hasn't happened. He certainly hasn't helped himself by surrounding himself with "his" people, but in some ways, he's a victim of his own success. He got lucky with Brady, and he's had his collection of studs, like Wilfork and one or another stud shut-down corner. Working in his organization has not been a stepping stone to success. (Actually, Daboll is looking like the most successful guy in his coaching tree, and it's interesting to consider whether Belichick or McDermott gets that credit.) Hard to imagine any up and coming GM candidate wanting to work in that organization - subject to both Belichick's quirks and Kraft's. End of the day, Belichick was exactly the right coach with exactly the right quarterback, and he had an unbelievably long run. His creativity resulted in sustaining his offense for a long time with a truly odd couple - Gronk and Edelman. Still, the leveling effect of the draft caught up with him, like it catches up with everyone. He needs to get himself back into the top 10 in the draft for a few years to reload, but he's too good a coach for things to come undone to that extent, and anyway, when he gets down to that level, Kraft will move on. As much as the Patriots are always a threat when you play them, I think we've seen the end of Belichick's glory days.

I always thought Sherman was a jerk when he was playing, but he sure is entertaining. He enjoys himself. "You see those blinks ..." Great stuff. I read an article in SI once about linebackers. One guy said he loved how when you really hit someone, everything goes white for a second.

The announcers pointed it out early in the game about White, and it was accurate. When White isn't hurried in the pocket, he's deadly. When he begins to feel the pressure, he really struggles. If your pass rush is anemic, the Jets can throw the ball. As for the Vikings (and the same for the Jets), no team is complete. The Vikings' offense has big-time potential, even though it may struggle occasionally. (The Jets' defense is really impressive.) It's a team game, and the Vikings team is in the game every week. Plus, their defense was really stout in the red zone yesterday. If NFL insiders made a list of teams you don't want to play, the Vikings and Jets are both on it. The Bills, the Chiefs, the Bengals, the Ravens with Jackson, the Niners with Garoppolo, the Cowboys, the Eagles. Maybe the, Dolphins, but I still have my doubts. The Titans. And I'll always put the Belichick Pats on the list. Looking at that list gives me a better sense of just how tough the Bills' schedule really was this season. Pats twice, Jets twice, Dolphins twice, Titans, Ravens, Vikings, Chiefs, Bengals. I just check Football Outsiders. Bills were #1 DVOA last week and the week before. They've played the 7th toughest schedule, and they have the sixth toughest schedule remaining. It's a measure of how tough the NFL is. The Bills haven't looked like world beaters, but so far as FO is concern, no team is better.

I'll pay him the market rate, wherever it falls. I think that salaries will go up next season, so his contract is probably going to look like he's getting paid at the top. It will quickly be surpassed by others and he'll be only around the top 10 in a year or two.

The Bills played the Patriots on Thursday night. I was tense for hours before the game, because the Patriots can play defense, because Belichick is a football genius, and because the Bills haven’t been dominating, not by a long shot. Or so it seemed. The Bills beat the Patriots. They played a solid all-around game, were smart with ball, took what the Patriots gave them and won with what they took. It was workmanlike. It was a very good team winning a prime-time game on the road against a solid opponent that the Bills should beat. It was, by the way December 1. Welcome to December football. And then someone pointed out that Sunday afternoon’s games lined up to be of particular interest to the Bills and Bills’ fans. Division rivals Miami and New York, just ahead of and just behind the Bills in the division standings (the Patriots having fallen a bit out of the hunt, thanks to Buffalo) had tough road games at San Francisco and Minnesota, respectively. The Chiefs, leading in the race for the playoff bye, were at the Bengals, a good team once again in a dogfight in the AFC North. The Titans, another potential competitor for the bye, was at Philadelphia. Wow! One weekend of games falling the right way, and the Bills would lead for the bye, be on top of their division, and have put some distance between them and other competitors. “Forget it,” I thought. “Can’t happen.” Well, it did happen. So, here we are, as the first week of December football is winding down, and the Bills are back in the top spot in the conference. The only game that didn’t fall the way the Bills would have liked was the Ravens against the Broncos. Lamar Jackson was injured, but Tyler Huntley rallied the Ravens for a 10-9 win. But the Bills already have a one-win lead on the Ravens, and they have the tie-breaker, too. I spent all Sunday afternoon watching first the Vikings beat the Jets and then the Bengals beat the Chiefs, while I kept checking the score as the Dolphins failed to keep up with the Niners. It was a great afternoon of football. Several reactions: 1. There are some really good football teams out there. Really good. The Bills, the Chiefs, the Eagles, the Vikings, the Jets, the Bengals, the Titans, Cowboys. Others, I’m sure. Teams that are focused, disciplined, and fierce. 2. The games suddenly are intense, exciting contests. They’re must-win games for most of the teams that are playing, and the fans and the announcers are into it. The Vikings and Jets slugged it out. The Chiefs and the Bengals slugged it out. The Ravens slugged it out. The Titans no doubt went down slugging; they don’t know any other way. Great football. 3. Stefon Diggs is great. Diggs makes himself great with his brains and attitude. There some receivers out there who are out of this world. Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase in particular. They do things that Diggs literally dreams of. 4. The Jets simply are no picnic. Their defense is absolutely for real. And Mike White? Few NFL quarterbacks ever have thrown as accurately as White did on Sunday. Throw after throw, precisely where each should be. I mean precisely. If he stands undisturbed in the pocket, he can pick anyone apart. 5. The Bengals are a bigger nightmare. They have Chase, Burrows is what Mike White dreams he could be, their running game is excellent, and their defense is tenacious. 6. Bill have losses to the Vikings and Jets, close losses. No shame in that. Those are tough teams. Bills have wins over the Ravens, Chiefs, Titans. For those teams, no shame in losing to the Bills. Point is, the Bills have earned the position they’re in, but there’s no easy road to stay there. The Bills have to play and beat the the Jets, the Dolphins, the Bears, the Bengals and the Patriots. That’s a tall, tall order. If they stumble, well, the other teams can stumble, too, but I’d always rather be the lead dog. December football games. Playoff caliber. Call it what you will. It’s time to prove you’ve got it. 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.

Deek - Unbelievable post from a few days ago! I was pumped for the games today, and the outcomes were amazing! With thanks to you, I'm working on a Rockpile Review about the parlay.

The two of them have been my whipping boys this season, and they both showed up as pleasant surprises against the Pat. I think it's a sign of things to come for Cook; I think Mc will continue to be up and down.

I've read some of this thread, and I think people simply need to get in touch with reality. Receivers get injured, sometimes seriously, when they take big hits just as they're making plays on the ball. It's been a reality in pro football since the Raiders and others figured out that big-time violence as the ball arrives causes incompletions. The league finally got to the point in the past few years where it's said the dangerous hits will stop, and it's done so by putting in place the current rule. The current rule essentially is that dangerous hit will be punished with penalties, ejections, and fines. Faced with penalties like that, players will change their behavior, just like they changed their behavior about hitting QBs in the head. Forget the technicalities about whether the guy was hit in the head or whether he was actually defenseless. Forget that. The league has been clear that they're going to penalize dangerous hits. We've all seen dangerous hits on receivers and we all know what they look like. Hamlin's was one of those. It was obvious. The receiver could have been severely injured. There was no question a flag was coming, and there was little question an ejection was coming. The way the rule is being enforced is that they are over-penalizing until everyone stops with the dangerous hits. That's just the reality. A really quick-thinking football player put in Hamlin's situation, knowing that the hit was probably going to get flagged, would have made the hit just like Hamlin did. I don't know if Hamlin actually thought about it - I hope he did. It was the only way to stop the touchdown, and stopping the touchdown was important at that point in the game. As it turned out, it ended the game. Pats stalled, ran some more time off the clock, then kicked the field goal. And, yes, for those of you who are saying they're ruining football, turning it into flag football, all of them, wake up. This has been going on for twenty years, people whining about rule changes to make the game safer, but the NFL's popularity keeps increasing. Fans have not stopped watching games because defenders have stopped breaking the bones and scrambling the brains of quarterbacks and receivers.

I wasn't complaining about Q. He did what I could, but it's not often that you see an offensive lineman whiff on blocks over and over. My comment was more about the fact that Pats didn't attack him more. I was surprised the Bills didn't just go with Hart. One thing I really didn't notice was how Q did in the run game. I would guess that his problem was moving laterally, but that in the run game a lot of his assignments were moving forward and he could do that okay.

There are a ton of good posts here. Great stuff. And honestly, I think it's all of the above. I think Edmunds and White being back made a big difference on defense. They and Poyer seemed to settle everything down in the backfield. They needed Rousseau back just to help make up for the loss of Miller. Interesting theory about Josh getting his brains scrambled. Yes, I think Dorsey is learning. Third and one late in the game, Josh hit Diggs with a quick mini-post for the first down. Finally, a solution for short yardage. And they had a real commitment to running, and a commitment to getting touches for Cook. That's on film now, and teams have to prepare for it. I was worried going into the game, because they hadn't been playing well and because you knew Belichick would be prepared. What we saw was what I had hoped for: a team totally committed to winning December football games. Whatever it takes, find a way. After the game Allen mention "playoff caliber." That's not so much a reference to the quality of play as it is a reference to the intensity level necessary to win in December, January, February. This reminds me of Hamlin's play. I thought it was a great play. First, absolutely no question it was a penalty, and as the league wants to play, it absolutely deserved in ejection. But at that moment, it was a major play. It stopped a touchdown, and ultimately saved three points. It also forced the Patriots to run more time off the clock before they got the field goal. I have no idea whether Hamlin knew he'd get flagged and did it anyway, or if he thought he was making a clean play. Either way, losing him for a couple more plays was worth it to save the touchdown and run the clock. Point is, Hamlin played that play like Patriots were threatening burn down his parents' house. I think he showed the attitude that the Bills try to play with at this time of year, and it's what makes them such a tough out. Just like last season, I think we've gotten to the time of year when no one wants to play the Bills.

Yes, he was different last night, and it was impressive. When he's decisive and just goes, he get stopped sometimes, but everyone gets stopped. What was impressive was that sometimes he just zips through a pile or out of the grasp of someone who thought he had him, only to see him cruise by. I've dumped on McKenzie all season, too, in part for his refusing to turn it upfield and just go. Last night, receiving, he redeemed himself in my eyes. He had a really solid game - and I'm not talking about his status. I'm talking about his awareness, his ability to make catches with people around him and hits possibly coming. And, yes, Diggs has had a few losses where he's tried to make something by going laterally, but generally he has such elusiveness that he can get away with stopping and assessing before he goes. Most guys can't do that, but he has lateral quickness that is really amazing. He can burst in any direction almost instantly, and he's able to avoid direct hits from tacklers. The guy is a special talent.

That's pretty amazing, that all the teams the Bills care about have tough games on the road. We can probably expect that two games will go our way, and three's possible. Four would be great. Only an idiot would bet on a five-game parlay. Of course, I might fall into the idiot category.

Michaels really is horrible. All he says is biographical stuff that he gets right off his computer screen. "Hines, of course, came over from the Colts a month ago." "Cook, of course, is Dalvin Cook's brother." All season long he's complained about how boring the games are that they've broadcast. Hello? It's your job to make it interesting.

This is exactly what I was talking about. Cook waits to look over the scene before he makes a cut. That doesn't work, except maybe from Derrick Henry or Chubb. For most guys, like Singletary, the only way to succeed to take the ball upfield as soon as you can and then deal with whatever comes at you. And in Cook's case, that strategy is very important, because every once in a while that quick burst upfield will get him away from tacklers and into the open field. Once that happens, Cook's big-play ability will open up.