WideNine

Yep...even a blind nut finds a squirrel now and then.

Have to admit, the knee jerk reaction to that face is "very punchable" or I would settle for "slappable"

If the Bills had kept Roman as a coordinator I think I would have been fine with Lamar or Allen. I thought they would both excel at running the read option offenses. As they seemed to shine most when on the move. Longer term this may be better development for Allen. Jury is still out on all these guys as it is only year 2 and not all of them had a full year 1.

Honestly, this is what every coordinator has been doing to Allen - hemming him in and mirroring him with a spy. When he has had success picking that apart they have started to send more blitzes at him 5 and 6 odd man rushes to force quicker throws. The latter strategy has been more successful disrupting his timing and ability to progress through his reads. The struggles are not particularly surprising as it is true for every rookie QB and especially true for Allen who did not face a lot of complex defenses when playing JUCO or at Wyoming. This is why I think Daboll has to be willing to stick to his run game and not abandon it. That gets much harder to do if the Bills fall behind early, so one of our keys to the game will be to get up early and pound the rock steady - not go into a shell, but enough to keep them guessing. That will slow down the pass rush and keep Allen upright, take time off the clock, keep more defenders in the box opening things up deeper, and keep NE's offense cooling their heels on the sideline. The Bills have to play smart and not put our defense in bad field position. This may be a game where special teams plays ends up tilting things one way or another. I feel they have been much better this year than last, but we will see. I expect a flag fest even with Tom's mandate to the refs and the thought gives me heart burn.

Safest money is on NE. The Bills have not taken the respect they want by beating NE, and NE has not given it away. If you are not a Bills fan this is the take most would have. And Sharp looks like Mr. Ed wearing glasses.

This. Bill will bank on his rush getting to Allen and forcing inaccurate downfield passes or turnovers. Will mix zone and pressure underneath. I don't think one guy can keep Beasley covered, they will try to keep him bracketed, but we should test that. If they go man on Beasley or try zone I think we can let Beasley use Sweeney or Knox to create rub plays. Nothing too obvious, but have one of our TE's line up near Beasley and just post up a few yards deep for a pass. Beasley can adjust his route accordingly and either slide underneath our TE if he is being covered with outside leverage, or break towards the sideline if covered from the inside. Good luck jamming him at the line, and let him run some stop and goes. Folks assume short yardage when thinking of Beasley, but I think he could surprise folks deeper. Would do that till they commit 3 men to cover our TE and Beasley. Get grandpa Gore some shoes that stay together, and apply a steady dose of pounding off tackle. You have to slow down that rush and make them respect the run, or they will pin their ears back and life will get ugly for Allen. I don't see NE being fooled by our reverses, but if they are aggressive in pursuit I would try some misdirection to keep them honest. If Allen is going to keep the ball for god's sake can someone teach him the basics of ball security. I know he has big hands, but he needs to learn to switch the ball to his hand that is away from defenders and towards the nearest sideline. Maybe Gore can give him some pointers. I think we have to hit Brady. Even if he is hit as he throws, he needs to feel it. I would love to do twists and delayed stunts up the middle, but we got pantsed last year losing contain on runs off the edge. It is risky vacating that area to bring pressure from the outside up the middle. Will be a tough game, but if the Bills are ever going to advance as an org, this is the monkey we have to get off our back.

Yep. The story line would be how NE played an uncharacteristically bad game, and gave it away, not that the Bills won. I would not care what the media said, would just bask in the afterglow of a rare NE defeat.

It is a mindset some folks have to learn to avoid becoming the next enabler. Drug abuse and the mental health issues that are often associated with it are not things that are simply "cured". They are a battle those clean and sober folks have to win each day. And yeah, relapses are pretty common.

No flaming. Have not noticed the safeties making the adjustments, but would not be shocked if they and Lorax with their experience take that on more often than not. Will look for it, but as a group they all seem to communicate a lot which is a good thing. The defence overall is pretty solid, but that does not mean there are players that do not need to step up their game, or areas that the team does not need to work on. Last year NE had a lot of success running the ball on us. Our LBs were late hitting the holes, we did not set the edges, and blockers were getting out to the second level. Never know what ol' Belichick is going to cook up for us this time.

Not going to disagree with him and no surprises. A few of us have been saying Edmunds has struggled, especially needs work learning to shed blocks. We have to remember he is really young, but he needs to pick up his game and improve his ability to diagnose plays, so he can anticipate better and be in the right position to stop them. Same with Ford in pass-pro, he struggles against speed rushers. I am pretty sure we have beat the Star L. deal to death here as well? The coaching staff and this team have things to work on.

I watched Mayfield in all his bowl games and just was not overly impressed. He had a more pro-ready offense and lots of talent around him, but I did not think his arm was all that. He could read some defense and knew where he needed to go with the ball and had some ability to extend plays. I felt he would be a good fit in a pro offense with good weapons throwing shorter passes with anticipation like Brees. He is also a shorter QB like Brees. Was not sure how much more of a ceiling he had, but he does not lack confidence. Allen on the other hand had all the tools, but no talent around him, an improvisational offense at Wyoming, and as raw a product as you could find, but I felt his ceiling in the right system could be much higher. Neither are finished products and the jury is still out on both, but Allen has faced a lot of adversity early and more often than not has elevated his game and gotten better. He keeps it interesting with the throws you don't want him to make that go badly, then you watch him get tripped up by his running back, get up off the ground, run for his life, and side-arm the ball back against the grain on a rope thru a tiny window to his tight end with defensive linemen hanging onto him. I am content with his progress to date, but the kid is going to give me a heart attack as I cannot recall ever seeing a QB quite like him. I have no idea where his ceiling is, but it is going to be a wild ride finding out.

Had a decent game against Barkley, was disciplined in his gaps, and has been bringing some pressure up the middle. Damn, he was really turning the corner and coming along this year. Wishing him a speedy and full recovery.

If it's a tendency, they will see it. I do think Allen is his most dangerous on the move. Should be able to throw it away sans flag once outside the tackles. Needs to get that BS call out of his head.

I think Ford is a rookie who is learning and will get better. I like him, but expect growing pains. He certainly is better in run blocking than pass-pro at this stage and is better suited to manning the guard spot as he just has not developed the foot speed yet to handle the speed rush off the edge. That being said I think Nsekhe is playing hurt as he comes out a lot and I don't think it is just a rotation thing.

None of the former NE coaches have been able to outcoach Belichick. So there you have it, advantage zero. Does not mean the Bills curl up in some corner sucking their thumb. Have to come out and execute, be physical, win their 1 on 1 battles, and let the chips fall where they may.

Hmmmm... Ok???? So we're not going to have a thread to "Caption that photo"? It's almost too easy McD.

Been slapped. I used to like to raz guys in my younger days when I worked in a warehouse in Jersey. Remember walking alongside a coworker from NYC who went about 3 bills just lipping off (all in good fun) when he casually back handed me in the nuts. Surprisingly effective, and he just walked away chuckling as I sucked wind. Another life-lesson learned.

I got to think slapping men in the nuts is a good way to get punched in the mouth. McD may want to rethink that as a sideline reward. From my own experience, it doesn't take much of a slap of the boys to double a man over in a cold sweat.

I think we have to find a handful of plays that work well against the 5-6 man rushes teams have thrown at Allen the past few weeks. Each time teams have brought extra bodies our offense has sputtered. We need an answer cause NE is going to bring those extra rushers from every direction. Get the protections and a scheme where Allen can get rid of it more quickly throwing to soft spots in the zones underneath and we should find more success.

Not surprising. Double TE, single TE, empty backfield, trips left or right, full back all over the place, I formation, TE's on a reverse or pitch, screens, draws, QB keepers.... Yeah, Daboll has a lot of different plays, just has to be sure we have the right personnel to pull them off against the right fronts and coverage. Not a bad thing for Josh's development to learn a complicated NFL offense out of the gate.

I think he would be good on slants, shielding defenders off from the ball, and would clear things out underneath for Beasley via rub plays or just because a LB or Safety would have to skate with him. He is a playmaker and does the best with what he has. This offense misses Singletary. Yeldon is not the answer.

"The sky is falling." "Grab your pitch forks and torches" "I told you so." "They should have picked Mahomes" for the 1,000,000,000th time? Just throwing out scenarios.

This is where I was at before the season. The injuries are starting to pile up though so we will see, but definitely don't see an outright collapse.

We had a few around the neck take downs of Bengal interior d-linemen that in years past would have resulted in penalties. They were letting them slide for both teams. Guess Brady's call worked, or the overly officious jerks finally realized they have been killing the game. I expect several roughing the Brady calls next game. I am ok with that, because disrupting their timing is the best way to attack NE.

Nice call out on the Bills cleaning up much of the penalties. Missed that positive.