VW82

One thing about Allen is you have to take the long view. That's not an easy thing to do in this era of results or bust QBing but he just isn't like the other QBs given his history (or lack thereof). He still requires some kid gloves at times from an evaluation standpoint. I don't agree with the posters washing away his (at times) bad play over the last month. You can blame some of the turnovers on his teammates but he's had a bunch of near misses that easily could've been turnovers, and his (delayed) decision making vs. Pats really stood out. He still has a ways to go. I didn't think he'd get to be this good so he's already proven me wrong and I'm ecstatic to admit that because it means we have a QB. Let's let this thing play out a little longer to see if he can continue finding counters to good coaching like he's faced in three of the last four weeks.

I think this is a good team as appose to very good. Our coaching has helped us to a 6-2 record which is perhaps a little better than our play has warranted. The defense has some glaring weaknesses this year with Edmunds and White playing banged up and no beef on the Dline. The offense is improved but not to the degree where it can win games vs. good teams all by itself.

I think some of it is Josh is still a little slow sometimes to decipher coverage and make quick decisions especially vs. dime and nickel. On the plus side, all this zone coverage help mitigate the accuracy issues as Josh can wait for someone like Beasley to find the soft spots and sit in them. Not everything has to be perfectly placed with the receiver running full speed.

Look for the same blueprint we used vs. KC. Hawks are going to have to rush for 250 to beat us. If we let Russ cook they'll score 40.

We're winning games in multiple ways now. Last week we shut down the Jets with suffocating defense. This week we turned into a mauling running team. We're flexible and not afraid to go after opponent weaknesses even if it's not our strength. That's a sign of a good team.

Which series exactly are you referring to where our conservative run approach hurt us? 1st series: TD 2nd series: Josh overthrows Davis on 2nd down and then misses Moss short. Punt. 3rd series: Josh loses yards in the "sack" running OB then misses to Diggs who was covered and short of the first down anyway. Punt. 4th series: INT Second Half 1st series: TD 2nd series: Josh misses Diggs open on 2nd down and then bails on the pocket and runs OB short on 3rd and long. Punt. 3rd series: TD 4th series: FG. three of the four plays prior to the FG were passes including the drop in the EZ by Davis. Sure seems like our non scoring drives ended because we didn't execute in the passing game.

Yes no one player can account for it. In fact it's been so many players that luck has to be a big part of it. How is it that we've been so good at picking defensive players over the last three years and then all of a sudden a huge percentage of those same players suck all at once? This is not a scheme issue. We're not scheming to get blown off the LOS by 2-3 yards every few plays. If anything our opponent specific game plans have been excellent. I mentioned the KC game. We gave up a million rushing yards but kept that game within reach by taking the ball out the hands of the best player in the league, and would have had a chance to win it had we stopped one of those late 3rd and longs. If you're arguing that we should have pre-emptively traded Hughes or Hyde I don't see how that makes us better. If this is just about Edmunds and Oliver and Epenesa then that's a discussion worth having. Like, I don't know if McD had Epenesa lose too much weight or how that evolved. Beane deserves a big share of the blame. Big guys like Star don't grow on trees but you can't go into a season without one. And Daboll has done a wonderful job imo. Today we controlled the ball and the clock and kept our crappy defense off the field so they didn't have as many chances to lose us the game.

I assume most fans are probably fine with the state of the offense and this is really just about the defense. Maybe I've just forgotten but where were all the off season threads predicting doom and gloom for our defense? If it's such a horrible roster devoid of talent we must have all seen it coming right? I agree McBeane deserve criticism for how this has played out but I doubt anyone saw this level of drop off coming. It's still too early to call Edmunds and Oliver busts.

I've now read through most of this thread and still can't find a coherent argument why the coaching was bad. Let's see. We can't stop anyone regardless of how we scheme. Case and point: we load up the box vs. Tenn and get destroyed in coverage and then we flood the secondary vs. KC and give up 300 yards on the ground. What do you do when your defense can't get off the field? Control the clock. We had 38 rushing attempts today and a bunch of clock killing drives. We rotated all our DL guys through and they all got blown off the LOS. What exactly are we supposed to do? Bills had strong defenses the last three years and an anemic offense, so we we use draft, trade, and FA to fix the offense. Clearly we need to upgrade some spots in our front seven but anyone who claims they knew we'd go from top 3 to bottom 3 just because we didn't replace Star is full of it.

Hughes coming to life was a good sign. We're still getting blown off the line though and it's leading to clock killing drives like the one Jets had mid first into the second where we turned them over on downs. It puts too much pressure on the offense to score.

Pats gave up almost 470 yards at home today. Looking forward to the Josh revenge game. Bet he gets up for that one.

Yes it was a ground forced fumble but I'm kind of past litigating each one when the ball comes out multiple times in a game. At some point he has to do a better job hanging on. I don't mind taking the shot one on one in the EZ either. As you said it wasn't a great throw. He had some other throws in the first half that weren't great either and we only scored 3 points. I thought he'd come out a little better than that vs a bad team after the last two games but he picked it up in the 2nd half.

I agree but the almost fumble on the series before was a little lucky and so were the dropped picks.

C+ He was much better in the second half despite some questionable red zone play. The first half he had one fumble, an almost fumble, and two dropped INTs. Not great given the opponent and after the last two weeks.

Ugly win but maybe this will lead to some confidence for the defense.

He has more than enough "weapons" to be successful and the line isn't bad at pass blocking. Josh is still at the bottom of the league in time to throw at over three seconds, only ahead of Baker. He's only being pressured on 15% of drop backs, down from 23% last year. He still needs to work on his recognition in addition to accuracy. This group gets open for him though it'd be nice if we could hang on to the ball.

We tried loading up the box and blitzing last week and couldn't get home once. We just benched two of our regulars to send a message. This isn't about the coaching.

Yes we are struggling. As I pointed out in another post we got gashed last week using a completely different (and also defensible) game plan. It looks like we might need to overhaul some position groups. Hopefully the guys who are hurt start getting unhurt.

You don't get to top 5 by being secretly terrible.

Fair enough but if we'd gone that route like we did last week and got smoked on the scoreboard the same way I guarantee they'd have faced more criticism for it. Not that they should be letting that dictate their game plan but this one was defendable given the opponent. Wish we had some defensive play makers that inspired our coaches to want to take more chances.

is the best Bills coach in over 20 years.

D+ Way too many mistakes throughout the game. He had like 50 passing yards going into the 4th quarter. That's four good games and two bad ones. Not time to panic.

It wasn't our strength tonight. McD kept the game close and we actually had a chance near the end if we'd have just stopped one of those 3rd and longs. Would you have preferred putting our guys on an island again? I liked that we protected our corners vs. Mahomes. It's too bad that we get no rush and can't tackle.

Let's see. We successfully took the ball out of the hands of the best player in the league daring them to run (and they did, and it sucked). As a result, we held them to 13 points at the half and only 26 for the game. When our QB came out playing like crap, we adjusted and started using a bunch of runs and read options which got us back in the game. We just got outclassed and beat at our own game, that's it. Our front 6 aren't good enough.

Yeah this is year one Josh. Weather or no weather he's not nearly good enough today.