Shaw66

Has anyone else noticed how, where the Bills sit right now, is eerily like their Super Bowl run? Who was the big team of the era, a Super Bowl power house, that never faced the Bills in the Super Bowl? San Francisco. What was odd about the Bills opponent in the four Super Bowls. Three teams from the NFC East. Who's left on the NFC side of the bracket today? San Francisco and three teams from the NFC East.

I agree. And let me add one tangential thought I had sitting in the stadium Sunday: Josh's deep ball is simply magnificent. The easy motion, the release, the arc, the flight of the ball. I've never seen anyone throw the ball like that.

That throw, and several other misfires this season, are sloppy mechanics or concentration. He'll diagnose and work on it in off-season. That's a regular off-season activity for quarterbacks.

Oh, that's the throw. Befoee the injury. He will fix it in the off season.

I heard only highlights, too, from the Pats game, and I thought it was night and day. Love Murph, but his play by play is bad. His signature call - "TOUCHDOWN!! TOUCHDOWN!!! TOUCHDOWN BUFFALO!!!" - really is just filler while he tries to figure out out who scored and why. He doesn't so much call the play as it happens as he tells us what happened after it's over. Brown calls it as it's happening, which is what a radio play-by-play guy is supposed to do.

This is an excellent point. On the bomb to Diggs, it was Cover 0 with Diggs left and Davis right. I sat in amazement as no one for the Dolphins rotated back. Josh could take his pick. The Bills' philosophy is that they are going to attack every opportunity to go deep. If they see, they'll take the shot. The INT on the throw to Brown, Shakir's drop, all of those deep throws were single coverage opportunities, and when Allen identified them, he took them. I'm sure he was doing it with Dorsey's blessing. Why did the Dolphins do that? Well, they knew they were outmatched, so they had to take some chances. Maybe as they were designing game plan on Monday and Tuesday they decided that cover zero was a good bet because maybe, just maybe, the weather would make the deep ball tough to complete. Maybe there'd be wind. Maybe snow. Maybe cold. So, they stacked the defense to stop the run and the short passing game and took their chances downfield. Thirty degrees, bright sunshine, little wind - the Dolphins were done in by the Buffalo weather.

I suspect somewhere in this thread someone has talked about this, but I thought the quality of the visual work in the Cowboys Bucs game was outstanding. Buck and Aikman were way over the top, hyping the Tom Brady story any time they weren't hyping the Jerry Jones-Cowboys story, but the images were spectacular, showing off the athleticism and power of the players.

These are great observations. You're correct about Elam. I watched him some, and blanketed is a pretty good description. When I saw him, he was consistently in position. Playing with awareness. I haven't been a Cook fan, and I want Singletary in on big downs, but Cook already is a good number 2 threat. The two stress the defense in different ways - Singletary with power and shiftiness, Cook with his big play threat, his burst, but his willingness to go inside, too. I think the offense has to be reshaped to give a bigger role to Shakir, not now, but in the off-season. I think Diggs, Shakir, and Davis on the field together challenges the defense - all three can run tough inside routes, out routes, crossers, whatever. They all can get deep, not with blazing speed, but at least with sneaky speed. I don't think McKenzie ever will play that role. Benford's more than depth. He's going to fight for playing time. He's part of the reason I think that Poyer will be gone after this season. Maybe Benford is a slot corner and Johnson becomes a safety. Maybe it's White moving back to safety, but I don't think so. Four solid additions. Plus Bernard. They took him for a reason. Maybe they're discovering he can't do what they wanted, or maybe they have a development plan for him. I thought they might have wanted to go more 4-3, but I would have expected to see that some this season. He hasn't seen the field on defense very much at all.

I don't remember well enough, and that may be true. I also recall hearing one of the QB talking heads sometime during the season saying that elbow injuries are consistent with how Josh is throwing - fine most of the time but then something happens and a throw comes out ugly. Like missing McKenzie on a big throw earlier this year, and overthrowing Shakir Sunday. I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised that during the off season he has surgery AND we hear that accuracy on some throws has been a point of emphasis with Palmer or whoever. Whatever the cause, he hasn't been as deadly a thrower as in the previous two seasons.

Well, it's not worth arguing about, but everyone always can get better at everything. As you say, it's a fast game. In addition, there's really good talent on the other side of the line. They are paid to break tackles. If they never made anyone miss, they wouldn't be in the league.

First point I sort of agree with. It's not a slam dunk, but the Bills do things with a team orientation that makes them tough to beat. As to the second point, which is that Josh wasn't a disaster, I agree. I was at the game and didn't see the game, but I assumed what happened is what you said - that the free rusher was Josh's responsibility and he blew it. I don't know if Brown ran the wrong route, but he was in just as good position as the defender to make a play on the ball, but that's not what he's good at. Diggs would have broken up the interception, if not actually caught the ball. And I didn't see the replay of the Beas INT, but I too thought it was one of those bang-bang bad bounces. However, I will say this: The throws on the two INTs weren't good decisions. Brown needs to be running free to be a good probability throw, and it just wasn't necessary for Josh to throw to Beas on that play. It's not unusual to make a half dozen mistakes in a game. I think the Dolphins game was unusual in that a high percentage of mistakes turned into points. Points off both INTs, points off Josh's fumble, points off the kickoff out of bounds, and points off lousy punt coverage. I think the correct way to look at what happened Sunday is that in that unusual circumstance, the Bills' defense held the Dolphins to field goals on three of the mistakes, and the Bills' offense put up 34 points. That's evidence in support of your first point - it's a good team that overcomes adversity.

I think this comment shows how unreasonable our expectations are. During the regular season, the Bills defense allowed 319 yards per game. The 49ers allowed 300. Against the Dolphins yesterday, the Bills allowed 231. But the Bills didn't tackle well enough?

Beasley played a lot. Receivers were on and off the field almost every play. Diggs, Davis, Beas, Shakir, with Brown sprinkled in. And Hines was used wide some of the time. I've ignored the noise about his elbow all season, in part because there's no way for us to know how bad it is, and in part because he has to play through it. You could be right, though, because his inaccuracies this season are puzzling. (Elbow doesn't seem to bother him on the deep ball. The two in a row to Davis were well thrown, as was Gabe's TD. Hit Diggs perfectly on the completion and didn't miss by much when he missed Diggs on the first play, the long interception was well thrown but a bad decision, and the throw to Shakir was fine, too.) As for the demons, who knows? Know any witches?

What other NFL QB goes head to head on a defensive lineman like that? Loved it!

In the playoffs, only one thing matters: Survive and advance. That’s it. No style points. The Bills survived and advanced against the Dolphins in the Wild Card round. If style points had mattered, they may have been one and done. Commentators said the Bills struggled against the Dolphins, but that really wasn’t the story. The Bills dominated and won the game. The Dolphins offense was ineffective for almost the entire game. The Bills beat the Dolphins, 34-7. The game seemed like a struggle only because the Bills’ demons, the demons that seem to haunt this team, repeatedly gave the Dolphins short fields to work with, and the Dolphins moved the ball just enough to put points on the board. Consider the Dolphins’ scoring drives: After a Tyler Bass kickoff went out of bounds, the Dolphins drove 38 yards for a field goal. After a Josh Allen interception, the Dolphins drove 18 yards for a field goal. After a 50-yard punt return, the Dolphins drove 8 yards for a field goal. After a Josh Allen interception, the Dolphins drove 18 yards for a touchdown. After a Josh Allen fumble, the Dolphins returned the fumble 5 yards for a touchdown. Add it up. 24 points. 82 total yards of offense. That’s 24 points that more or less ANY team in the NFL would have scored. 24 points that the Bills’ demons gave to the Dolphins. The Dolphins had one real scoring drive – 11 plays, 75 yards. In a sense, the final score was Bills 34, Dolphins 7, Demons 24. It won’t show up that way in the records of NFL but really, that’s what happened. The stats pretty much prove that there were demons on the field. The Bills outgained the Dolphins, 423 to 231. The Bills were 9 of 16 on third down; the Dolphins were 4 of 16. Skylar Thompson, the Dolphins’ rookie quarterback, finished the game with a very un-Tua-like passer rating of 44.7. Demons. No other way to explain it. Random comments: A beautiful day in Orchard Park. Fans were asking what that bright yellow thing in the sky was. Remember Kair Elam? The first-round pick who seemed to be doing his best to become Mr. Irrelevant, of a sort? Well, he wasn’t irrelevant on Sunday. An interception on a perfect drop into deep coverage on the sideline, two passes defensed, including a critical pass break-up on 4th and five on the Dolphins last possession, and nice work in the run game. The offense just looks better with Cole Beasley on the field. The Bills sacked Thompson four times, but only two sacks came from the down linemen, who struggled to get pressure on the QB most of the day. Ed Oliver had his moments. Von Miller would have looked good out there. Sometimes, it seemed like I was watching Josh Allen in his second season. He was in love with the deep ball. It didn’t matter who was running deep – Diggs or Brown or Shakir or Davis (did I forget anyone?) – Josh threw to him. He connected just enough to get the win, once to Diggs to set up a score, once to Davis for a TD, and once, almost miraculously, on third and one to Shakir to extend a late drive. Still, the Bills didn’t need a homerun on every play; a few more singles and doubles would be nice. Josh also missed, often. He air mailed one over Shakir, he tossed a short out over Beasley’s head, he forced Davis to make a circus catch over the middle, and he often threw behind receivers. He wasn’t the deadly accurate guy we’d seen the last couple of years. Devin Singletary’s final run, for an improbable first down to end the game, was simply amazing. Yes, he got some help from his linemen but really, third and seven, everyone knows the Bills will keep it on the ground, and he should have been on the ground yards short. The Bills do what they need to do to win and on that play, it was Motor’s turn. Tremaine Edmunds was fun to watch. A monster hit, some passes defensed, and solid tackles. Tre White looks like he needs some injections of speed juice, but no one’s better playing defense as the ball arrives. A hand on the ball, a hit on the receiver, a distraction, something. Tyreek Hill is a certifiable talent. You can just feel it when he’s on the field, but not Sunday. 69 yards on seven receptions, five yards on two carries. Hats off to Taron Johnson, Tre White, Dane Jackson, Kair Elam. Survive and advance. Can the Bills bury the demons? 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.

Gunner - think about what you just said. In order for Michaels to be good, he needed a high energy. That's like saying I'm good at QB so long as I have Diggs and Kupp and Chase to throw to. It's the same as the comment that he wasn't good because he didn't have good games to call. The reality is that he isn't good is in his own right, and hasn't been for years.

Hallelujah!!! You're absolutely correct, and it wasn't just last night. It's been at least the last couple of seasons. Michaels is a self-centered old fart who doesn't care about much of anything except his wealth, his comfort, and his convenience. For example: He often mentions the dollar amounts of players contracts. It's obvious he cares about money is impressed by people who get big money. He often slips in comments about what a late game field goal might do to the outcome of bets. He mocked Herbstreet all season long about the podunk towns he had to travel to for the college games. No podunk towns for big Al. Someone said he got stuck with a lot of stinker games this season. You know why people thought they were stinker games? Because MIchaels kept telling us they were stinkers. It was obvious that Al feels entitled - he's a great announcer so he should only get great games to call. Well, no, Al, you are an entertainer, and your JOB is to be sure the show is entertaining. Jimmy Fallon doesn't open his show by telling his audience he has a bad show for them tonight. There's always a story to tell about a game, and it's his job to tell it, not to whine about the fact that he doesn't find the game interesting. It culminated last night, as you said, by his more or less completely blowing his opportunity to call a historic game. You could hear it when the Jags got the TD near the end of the first half. That was a big, big drive. Down 27 is a blowout; down 20 is a football game. He had already decided that the game was over and he had switched into bingo-mode. It was completely ho-hum to him. Then, when the Jags stopped the Chargers on the first possession of the second half, stopped them easily, it looked like the game could be changing, and Al said more or less nothing. Throughout the second half, there was a lot of drama. Important possessions, changes in field position. Then, when it was over, all Michaels could say was that the game was "crazy." That's the only word he seems to be able to find when something exciting has happened - it was "crazy." Guy gets paid umpti-ump millions of dollars a year, and all he can do is talk like a fourteen-year-old kid. If you ever get a chance to hear call another game (I hope I don't) notice how when he tells you how much time is left it seems like he's counting how many minutes he has until he has a break and doesn't have to do his job. It's not "the Gophers have another 1 minute 16 seconds to work with." It's "another 1 minute 16 seconds to the end of the half." He says "of course" a lot. He uses it when he's telling you something he knows you already know, but he doesn't have anything else to say. "Wilson, of course, got that big contract in the off-season." In other words, "you know it and I know it but I'll say it anyway. He got a lot of money. 47 seconds left in the half." "Diggs, of course, came over in that trade with Minnesota. That touchdown with two minutes left put the Bills up by 13 which, for the time being, made a lot of people out there happy, if you know what I mean." Please, please, please. No more Al Michaels.

What pass rush?

Murph - Get well, man. We need those TOUCHDOWN!!! calls. All the best to you and your family.

Why? Because anyone who knows you thinks it's a miracle you have a sex life?

Thanks to all for the compliments. I appreciate them.

Not that this thread is about the subject, but I agree with you. You're dead when there's nothing else to be done. But the distinction doesn't really matter. The faces of the players told me that they understood that they were witnessing either death or imminent death, and the emotional impact on them was the same either way.

All I know is that it's going to be different. And there's going to be a lot of love in the air. I think most everyone understands, including the Bills, that there everyone needs some healing. It wouldn't surprise me if it were Damar's parents, or Damar's uncle. Dawson Knox's parents. The Bills know there is a unique opportunity here to create an experience that is meaningful to a lot of people.

I think you missed the point. I wasn't arguing that they SHOULD forfeit. I was talking about how I feel as a fan, how it feels to have this odd PTSD. In my perfect world, I'd have a few weeks off. My guess is that every person in the Bills organization today is thoroughly committed to going forward in these days, doing their jobs as well as they possibly can, while also doing what they need to do to deal with the emotional impacts. It's what you said - moving forward as compassionately as possible. Sean McDermott wouldn't have it any other way.

Buffalo. I was born in Buffalo and spent my childhood in Buffalo. Well, I spent my childhood in Eggertsville, just outside Buffalo, on the city line to the east and north. By my late twenties, I was married and living in various towns around Hartford, Connecticut. Ask me where home is, and I’ll tell you I have two homes, Buffalo and Hartford. Buffalo continues to be home to me, even though I have no family and only one good friend in Buffalo. I own no property there. It continues to be home to me for two reasons: The Buffalo Bills and my sister, who lives in Seattle. My sister because she is more attached to Buffalo than I. She reads the Buffalo News, for Pete’s sake. When she and I talk, my attachment to her attaches me to Buffalo. It's the Bills that make me feel a part of Buffalo, feel like I can call myself a Buffalonian with a straight face, despite the Connecticut addresses where I’ve gotten my mail for the last 50 years. I lived in Buffalo for only the first seven of the Bills’ history, but I’ve been a fan ever since. I’ve been a serious fan for the past 20-25 years, and a season ticket holder for about 15. Being a fan ties me to Buffalo and somehow, almost magically, allows me to feel akin to these people, those fair, honest, hardworking, community-driven, loving people. And they accept me as one of them, because it’s my birthright, and because of the Bills. The Bills are near the very core of Buffalo culture, and Buffalo is at the very core of Bills fan culture. Part of the shared Bills-Buffalo culture is heartbreak. The Bills have a heartbreak list too painful to recite here. The Bills are one of the very most star-crossed franchises in NFL history and would be in that position even if the only thing that ever had happened to them was to lose four Super Bowls in a row. Bills fans know the list; if you’re not a football fan, trust me. It’s ugly. Bills heartbreak is only one category of Buffalo heartbreak. I’m not the expert, but the nearly total economic collapse in Buffalo, a collapse that began in the fifties and blossomed in the sixties and beyond, was and is an enormous tragedy. Western New York struggles to overcome the impacts of that collapse, even today. The national jokes about Buffalo’s weather, no matter how well intentioned, have a psychic reality. Heartbroken, maybe, but not defeated. Never defeated. Buffalo always gets up. Buffalo always helps its neighbors up. Buffalonians do it not to survive, but to help their neighbors survive. They fight hard, and they fight side by side with smiles on their faces. They’re proud that they always will face the challenge. Impossible as it might seem, Buffalo heartbreak reached new levels in the past twelve months. I can’t presume to create the definitive list, but hanging heavy on me have been: The murders at the Topps Market. The apparently-serious health issues that afflicted Bills owner Kim Pegula. The lake-effect snow that moved a Bills home game to Detroit. The devastating Christmas-time blizzard, as devastating as many of the worst hurricanes and wildfires. The loss of life, the deprivation. Damar Hamlin’s collapse in the first quarter of the Bengals game. I’m not suggesting that each of these events was of equal importance or significance. I am saying only that Buffalonians and the Bills and Bills fans everywhere recently have borne a lot. It’s all taken its toll on me. I’m grieving for Damar Hamlin, his family, and the team, even though for all I know Damar will make a complete recovery. I’m grieving for all those people who lost parents and children, spouses and siblings in the blizzard. I’m grieving for Buffalo’s east side, for the decades of neglect and for the tragedy of the murders. When Damar Hamlin collapsed, the looks on the faces of Bills players were looks of grief. This was, for the moment, almost more than they could bear. Those looks told me that they could not resume the game that night. Football is no more dangerous than it is only because the physical strength and the commitment to hitting is more or less equal on both sides. The players’ faces told me that they would not be able to muster the emotional commitment to play the game with maximum physical aggression. It would be too dangerous to play, because they were emotionally unable to stay focused on hitting and being hit. The conclusion of the game has not been rescheduled, and it is not at all clear that the game every will be concluded. For now, the Bills must prepare to play the New England Patriots on Sunday. Are they emotionally ready to prepare? I don’t know, but they are Buffalonians, too. They earn that name every weekend playing for this city. Ready or not, they will go out and compete, because that’s what Buffalo does. If it were up to me, I’d consider forfeiting the Patriots game, regardless of the playoff consequences, and trying to regroup. Don’t ask these men and this city to suffer more, not right now. Regroup and go the playoffs, home or away. Heck, for my personal well-being, I’d forfeit the playoff game, too. Let the wounds heal. Give us all a little time to rest, to take stock, and to let our indomitability take over again. Should I drive 400 miles on Saturday to see the game? I’m strong enough for the drive, but am I strong enough to survive another day of heartbreak? And yet, because Sean McDermott, Josh Allen, Stefon Diggs and Tre White, because all the Bills, are Buffalonians, too, they may, they probably will, rise up to deliver the most glorious of wins over everything that’s happened – over the murders and the storms and the tragedy of Demar. Yes, I’ll go. I’ll go, but I’ll be a different fan this week. I’ll watch and cheer, like always, but that’s not why I’ll be there. I’ll be in the stadium to hug this team and to hug this city. They’ll hug me back. That’s what we do.