CincyBillsFan

Say what you will about Belichick but between him and Shula the AFL East/AFC East has had some damn fine coaching over the years.

I'm hearing a lot about how the bad weather will be the great equalizer. But that bit of conventional wisdom applies more to high school & college football where the discrepancy in talent between two teams can be enormous. But in the NFL playoffs how big is the difference in talent between the eventual SB champ and the worst PLAYOFF team? BOTH teams passing games will be impacted by the weather. How do we know that considering all that Allen brings to the table compared to Rudolf that the bad weather might actually favor the Bills passing game? Will the weathers impact on the Steeler's passing game allow McD to be much more aggressive with the run blitzes to shut the Pittsburgh rushing attack down? These conditions might actually hurt the Steelers as much or more then the Bills. Think about Pitt spending half the game setting up that play action strike to Pickens that in the past went 70 yards for a TD only to see the ball flutter into the ground before it reaches it's target. When a loaded Ohio State plays a bad Northwestern team awful weather can be a great equalizer and turn a 40 point Buckeye win into a 10 point win. But I just don't see it having a big impact in the NFL. BOTH teams will be negatively affected.

Call "heads I win, tails you lose".

In a worst case white out situation the Bills could opt to run Allen to the right, up the middle and to the left on almost every play. The conditions would make everyone move slower and the risk from injury even if Allen carried the ball 30 times would be significantly lowered. I also remember growing up in Western NY and getting so excited when the forecast would all for a snowmegedon. I also remember that more often then not I would be bitterly disappointed when the snow storm failed to appear.

Of course there are multiple moving parts that complicate assigning blame. I was responding to a post in which it was being conclusively stated that Allen cost the Bills 3 points on that play. Are you saying that the blocking on that play was acceptable? Really? And yes it was essentially instant pressure on Allen up the middle. So IMO the correct context on that play is that Allen was pressured immediately up the middle and as he tried to get away from that pressure the ball was stolen from him.

Instant pressure on a QB, either from around the end into his blind side or up the middle, often leads to fumbles in college & pro football. Allen was throwing to where he thought Davis would be to beat a zero blitz. It's disingenuous to claim he was throwing to nobody. Over the years I have seen many QBs throw the ball to the one yard line at the end of a game or half with no TO's. More often then not, the guy gets into the end zone. In this case the Dolphin defenders made a great play - they do get paid to. And if the flag had been thrown and we had an untimed down from the 1 yard line do you think we would have gone for it or kicked the FG? My sense is we would have gone for it meaning that scoring a TD and not kicking the FG was the goal at that point on that drive.

Allen "alone" cost us 3 points on the strip sack? Doesn't Torrense and maybe Morse get an assist there? Or is it real rare when a great DT gets into the backfield instantly and hits the QB a fumble occurs? And is Cook responsible for costing us 7 points when he dropped a perfectly thrown pass right before the Johnson throw?

McD said the injuries were "day to day" and not "week to week". This means there's a chance one or more of these guys will play Sunday and there's a very good chance they'll play the following week if the Bills win.

Not to mention, and I'm knocking on any wood I can find, that Allen hasn't missed a game since his rookie season. I didn't know this and IMO it's an amazing stat:

Yes you should. But it's been my experience that when it comes to Allen the comments from guys who played in the NFL and other guys who coached in the NFL is all over the place. I can find you a guy who says the INT is on Davis, another who says it's on Allen and another who says it wasn't on either and should be filed under s##t happens. So who am I supposed to believe? Maybe what this comes down to is that I choose to put more value on the final result of how a guy played over the course of the entire game then I do over a couple of bad or good plays. Overall production and wins & losses matter a lot more to me then focusing on a couple of bad plays. I'll give you an example of what I consider over the top criticism of Allen. After the Eagles game there were some on 2BD who just wouldn't let up about Allen's ONE INT and the missed communication with Davis in OT. They claimed that those two plays were the reason the Bills lost and demonstrated real limitations and concerns with Allen's play. I watched that same game and saw a QB who played great, put the team on his back again and was the guy LEAST responsible for the loss. If that is being overly sensitive about criticism of Allen then so be it.

Fair enough. But isn't the point of a Bills message board to argue over things that we disagree on? And I've repeatedly agreed that Allen makes a lot of mistakes. I bet during the game I get as mad at Allen as most people do after one of his dumb plays. But in football I practice what I've learned works for me in real life. It was a simple concept I took from Corporate training by a guy named Steven Covey (fun fact his grandson is the Eagles punt returner) decades ago involving keeping an "emotional bank account". The idea is straightforward, you put up with a lot more from people who are regularly depositing positive stuff in your emotional bank account then taking withdrawals. This has really worked for me with football. Allen's mistakes definitely are making big time withdrawals from my emotional bank account. But his great play and his accomplishments as the Bills QB from 2020 to now represent an avalanche of deposits into my emotional bank account. For me these deposits overwhelm the withdrawals. So I won't apologize for being an Allen fan boy. IMO Allen's style of play which leads to excessive TO's is in his football DNA and except for tweaking things here and there this is the best Allen we can expect. And IMO this version of Allen is elite and more then good enough to lead Buffalo to a SB win. One of my points has been that the Bills need to recognize what they have in Allen and move their priority from the D to the O. And in building their O make sure it involves surrounding Allen with the type of players that will be most comfortable and effective working within his unique skill set.

But here you are calling people who disagree with you "haters" and "Allen worshipers". I can only speak for myself when I say I don't hate you or any of the group that IMO is way to hostile to Allen. It just rubs me the wrong way when you guys throw so much shade at Allen. And I was a lurker on 2BD when the Bills drafted Allen in 2018 and I read the posts of a lot of you guys. And sorry but the venom thrown at Allen on draft night and in the months after was over the top and IMO has leaked into these later seasons. And like you I lived through the drought years with terrible QBing but I also lived through the mostly terrible QBing of the late 1960's - late 1980's. With the exception of a couple of good but not great seasons from Ferguson. Before Allen arrived the Bills had great QBing for 6 (Kelly, 88 - 93) of 50 years. So maybe I just appreciate how good we have it with Allen today. I don't want to make the same mistake in my older years as a Bills fan with Allen that I made as a younger fan who used to chant for Garry Marangi over Joe Ferguson. And Fergy wasn't in the same zip code of being as good as Allen.

This is typical of the passive aggressive stuff that is thrown at Allen all the time. IMO it's weak as hell: * "our highest paid player". I love this one. I guess because the Bills are paying a lot of money to their elite franchise QB he should get more criticism. What I see from a contract standpoint is that Allen is underpaid relatve to his production and the teams results on the field. I believe that Murry, Herbert & Watson all make more money then Allen. * "Allen himself will say he played really bad". One of the great things about Allen is he takes responsibility and never throws a team mate or coach under the bus. I love that he's hard on himself. What I wonder is why some fans insist on being as hard on Allen as he is. It makes me think they never lived through the purgatory years where bad QBing was the norm for 20 years.

But the fact is that you and some others do not "objectively discuss Josh Allen mistakes" you dwell on them and refuse to consider that other factors were involved. You are hyper critical of Allen even in situations where there can be reasonable disagreement about what happened on a play. Then when you get push back by those of us who are looking at the big picture of what Allen has brought to the Bills you cry "homerism" or accuse us of "Allen worship". So cry me a river with your complaint that what you guys are doing is objectively criticizing Allen. We read your damn posts and that is decidedly NOT what you people are doing.

I suspect that it is only a vocal minority of "fans" and a smattering of trolls on 2BD who are like what you describe. The vast majority are thrilled to have Allen at QB and to have come back and won the AFC East. They are also quietly confident that the Bills will get it done this Sunday. If the wind is as bad as they say the Bills will be able to take a lot more chances with run defense blitzing by their LB's & Safeties. This will make it very hard for the Steeler's to just run the ball down the Bills throat. On the other hand Allen has shown repeatedly that he can handle wind reasonably well and almost certainty better then Rudolph will be able to. And when all else fails Allen is far more dangerous then Rudolf running the football. And with Watt out the chances of multiple Allen TO's are reduced significantly.

True but that isn't who Allen is and IMO will never be. And over the course of a season his aggressiveness will lead to far more points on the scoreboard then he leaves on the field.

And Greeny.

Also the Jags/Titans game served to remind Bills fans that actually watch other NFL games that hitting long throws to wide open WR's is not easy and these passes are often missed. This is a great point. You can't just install a whole new offense during the season. We won't get a true read on Brady until next season after he's had the off season and preseason to implement his offense.

It was an all out blitz with guys closing in on Allen. He didn't have the luxury of confirming that Davis was where HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN.

Also Allen threw the ball low to better protect it from the DB BEHIND Davis.

I think it was PFF that measured something called turnover worthy plays and noted that Allen actually was excellent and near the top of QB's who did NOT put the ball in danger. This stat caught me and a lot of others by surprise. PFF then concluded that there seemed to be a bad luck factor involved in Allen's case and when he put the ball in danger it resulted in a TO at a high rate. I saw some of this Sunday night. BTW anyone who has played poker knows how you can go on good luck/bad luck stretches for long periods of time. Sometimes it takes years for things to revert to the mean. With the exception of the tipped TD throw to Sherfield where the Gods of chance were smiling on Allen he was unlucky again. That first INT never happens if the refs call an obvious PI the play before and the throw at the end of the half should have led to a targeting call on the Dolphin's player who clearly led with his helmet. IMO the only really bad pass he threw was when he missed a wide open Diggs. The first INT was a miscommunication and the 2nd a 4th down hail Mary to the end zone.

Also add Cowherd to the pro Bills/Allen group. He gushed over Allen more then I've ever seen him do. For a lot of these talking heads Sunday night was a crushing loss. It was personal for them because a couple of months ago they were pounding the table claiming that the Bills were done and would miss the playoffs and the Dolphins were an ascending SB team. Sunday demonstrated to all the football world just how little these so called experts actually know about the game of football. The Bills have embarrassed a lot of these talking heads and it gets personal when someone embarrasses you. Allen has embarrassed many of these same cretins who proclaimed that he would never by a successful NFL QB.

That's where I netted out. * The strip sack fumble would have been a fumble for almost every QB in the league given how fast that DT got in on Allen. * The 1st INT may be filed under "nobody's fault" as it was a case of the WR zigging when the QB thought he would zag. And had the refs thrown the flag on the previous plays clear PI then that first INT never happens. * The 2nd INT didn't take points off the board nor did it hand the Finns good field position. Allen made a choice clearly to go away from his first read and then rather then take a sack on 4th down (something I've seen a lot of QB's do) he threw up a 50/50 ball to the end zone. Missing Diggs was the really bad mistake Allen made that was all on him.

To be fair dropping from 3rd to 6th is hardly moving in a 32 team league. And given the caliber of the teams played in weeks 11 - 18 versus 1 - 10 it's easy to see that for all intents and purposes the Bills O performed better regardless what the stats say. In contrast the defensive improvements were substantial. This bodes well for the playoffs. Also the Bills beat 3 teams that won their division this season.

I think it's more like 5 to 1. And how do I know this? First the eye test, then his stats but most importantly his record over the last 4 seasons where he has been an elite level QB. IMO the goal of the Bills franchise should be to understand what Allen is, stop trying to change him fundamentally like they did this off season and just tweak his strengths and weaknesses. And this first involves surrounding him with the type of talent that compliments his style of play. I believe the Steeler's are 1 - 10 when Watt is not playing.