Rew

The NFL and officiating group did not set out to make less holding penalties or higher scoring games. The change was well intended and inline with what most of us would hope for. They wanted to only call "clear and obvious" and get rid of judgement calls by officials (https://www.nfl.com/news/referees-focusing-on-clear-and-obvious-calls-as-penalties-drop). This was a focus made due to growing frustration with the perception of officiating bias or game deciding "ticky-tacky" calls(https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/28022721/the-nfl-officiating-crisis-why-sound-alarm%3fplatform=amp). I'm not sure how they decided the line of "clear and obvious", but offensive holding and defensive pass interference are the 2 most "judgement call" type plays. It makes sense that these two penalties would have been the most impacted. Also, I agree that this could have been communicated to teams. Usually they bring up points of focus to teams with new things that will be focused on calling. This is sort of the opposite though, it's more a point of focus on calling more consistently across officials. It's hard to bring that up as a point of focus without saying "we screwed up" or "you can now get away with things".

It was an option route. Allen threw a great ball to the right guy but diggs and allen read the option differently. Sucks, but that wasn't an example of bad football. These are the routes that allen/Beas thrive on.

No, we statistically don't

Awful to me is when a qb under pressure throws dumb picks and takes bad sacks to put you out of field goal range. Stellar play makes all the off balance throws. Josh is somewhere in between at the moment, but far from "awful".

I believe that the run heavy plan in game 1 was very intentional. They want teams to know Josh can run well, and run at will. They will continue to keep enough of it on tape to affect defensive play calling. You won't see a run heavy game again until the defense stops guarding against it.

How do people not know that forward progress isn't challengeable?

Win 2 and we're still a wildcard team. Win 3 or 4 and we're actually there.

Given our extensive depth at DB, I think we should play a few of them on every ST coverage.

The very likely path looks like Houston, Ravens, winner of KC/NE.

Totally wrong. If 5 seed and 6 seed both win first 2 then 5 hosts. Not very likely, but it is possible for a wild card team to host a game.

Additionally, AFC opponents tend to have a better chance of contending with us for a wildcard spot. A win against such a team counts "double". You get the record and the tiebreaker.

Smart timeout by the Browns. They didn't want Allen to have a shot for that in the 4th quarter. It's said he's the best in the league once the clock strikes 15:00 left. Analytics agree.

6 plays in a row

I don't see them pulling Rosen in the 4th to change their plans. He starts next week and Fitz is in sometime in the 3rd. Likely Rosen gets 2 drives in the 3rd to screw up.

If anyone was curious, 31 punts is the single game record for both teams. This game is on track to tie that.

Two reasons that you could desire a dolphins win and have already been stated in this thread. 1. A dolphins win will help our strength of schedule more than Washington in a hypothetical tie for wildcard spot. It will not change anything between us and NE. 2. A dophins win will reduce their chance of #1 draft pick, theoretically decreasing their competivness in future years that we play them. Both are fairly small benefits, root for who you want.

He doesn't have to show any symptoms of a concussion to be in the protocol. A player can be placed into the protocol solely based on video evidence (this was changed in last few years after the Savage hit). After watching the hit in slow motion and Allen's reaction after the hit, the independent observers would have decided that taking a day or two for observation was the right plan regardless of reported symptoms. If Allen has no symptoms he'll progress through and play. If he had any symptoms yesterday, it is exceedingly unlikely that he plays against TEN.

To your point, helmet to helmet is a penalty regardless of intent. It was appropriately called that way. Ejection and suspension are reserved for when intent to injure is clear. Burfict lined up on an immobile player getting up from the ground. There was no motion of the player, change of direction, or need to lay a big hit. Burfict had at least 4 steps to make a decision on how we was going to hit the not moving target and he chose to accelerate and throw all of his body weight behind the crown of his helmet. It was not a football play, clearly intentional, time to correct, and a play that few others in the league would make. Jones was involved in a very fast play where a runner was fighting for a first on third down. This was an important play that any safety (including Hyde and Poyer) should attempt to make. Like any good safety he was aiming to get a hit on the runner hoping for either a stop, fumble, or at least a reminder to stay away from his part of the field. In the brief period of time after he committed to his angle, the runner's path was first voluntarily changed, and then was altered further by the hit from another defender. The speed of these two changes allowed no window for the safety to correct his path. From the safety's perspective it was a glancing blow on the head and he followed through with his shoulder as intended. Like most other defensive players that feel they made a big stop he immediately popped up and celebrated. The hit on Allen is not unusual to him, plays like like that happen every week. The difference of a couple inches turns it from a big play that we cheer and watch a game for into what the result was. If it were any player other than Allen it would be a non issue for everybody. The excitement with the way Allen runs does expose him to the possibility of taking a big hit. Either we're ok with that playstyle or we're not. I don't want to see football where the quarterback gets special rules everywhere on the field.

Titans, Browns, Broncos, Ravens. Win 3 of those 4 and there's very few paths where we miss the playoffs. We do that and the rest of the games we don't even have to split.

Pretty sure Webb is still on practice squad. Interesting to see who gets dropped to make room.

Where do we stand after this "disaster"? https://twitter.com/bostonsportsinf/status/1178441112018653186?s=20

Allen seemed to better than Brady today. Both went against a good defense and struggled. Only difference being Brady knows how to throw unintentional grounding. You have to give some credit to the defense on the other side.

The heavy numbers are lazy and counter to the intent of a "power ranking". If you want to see rankings based on record just go to nfl.com standings. Looking at last year's results, combined with the bottom feeder perception of the teams we beat, I would put us in the mid teens at this point. While we as the fans saw a game where the Bills clearly outplayed the Jets for 4 quarters as a team, it doesn't matter. The result is that we beat the giants and almost lost to the Jets. If we embarrass the Bengals we could go up a few spots. Playing the Pats tough, even if we lose, will have the greatest impact on where perception falls. Personally, I feel the Bills can be a top 10 team this year. But we (and the media) won't know until we play another top 10 team and are competitive.

What does everyone think about creating an AB section of the forum so everyone can start their own thread and mods don't have to keep merging? Edit: /sarcasm

Shout-out from top of the stadium. We own 336