CincyBillsFan

One other point. Against Atlanta and against Carolina today Allen fired 3 great passes to WR's at the boundary that just missed being in bounds. I believe all 3 would have resulted in 3rd down conversions had they been caught. I am very confident that Diggs & Davis catch those 3 passes keeping their feet in bounds. I watch a lot of football, both NFL & college, and the good WR's make those catches. In fact last season Cooper made a couple of those kinds of catches at critical moments. We are 7 games into the season and I can't recall a Bills skill player making an exceptional catch. Maybe the Coleman snag of that batted ball against the Ravens but where I often see multiple WOW catches made in almost every NFL game the lack of those kinds of catches in Bills games goes a long way towards explaining the passing game struggles. Thankfully, Shakir has had a couple of elite RAC moments or we would really be in trouble throwing the football.

What we are seeing is by design. if they limit the TO's and offensive penalty's and play decent D they will win the game. The two game losing streak featured a lot of bad offensive penalties, 5 TO's and terrible defense. The goal is to stay at or near the top of the AFC/Division standings through game 10 then go on a run fully unleashing Allen. Allen and the passing game looks off because I'm not convinced Allen has entirely bought in. No matter what Allen says he seems to be the type of player that treats every game as the Super Bowl. Allen is a sprinter, not a cross country runner. He's trying but he's uncomfortable playing with an engine governor engaged. Today, Allen was great within the scheme that Brady & McD want - 3 TD's, NO TO's & a QB rating of 108, a dominating offensive performance courtesy of Cook & the running game (the Bills only punted once through 3 quarters scoring on the other 7 possessions) Contributing to the odd look in the passing game is the inability of the WR's to make plays downfield or routinely get separation. This is true on structured and more concerning unstructured plays. With the exception of Shakir's nifty run after catches there is no credible WR threat on this team. And Kincaid, our biggest downfield threat, was out against Atlanta and was on a pitch count today (only in on 14 snaps). Throw in the fact that Samuel has been hurt and missed games and practices limiting his work with Allen, Coleman has underwhelmed, Moore is a gadget player at best and Shavers is a blocker who is at best a practice squad receiver and the Bills passing offense will look off. But there is reason for optimism. An Allen/Palmer connection was developing and he's shown that he might be that deep boundary receiver desperately needed. I expect Kincaid to get fully healthy and as teams do everything in their power to stop Cook, Allen's runs & passing will become more productive. And I do expect Bean to make a move and bring in a legit #1 WR. Last season our offense really took off after Cooper was added even though he himself didn't post big numbers his presence forced teams to defend the Bills differently.

Kincaid was limited today and according to a poster on another thread he was only on the field for 14 snaps. Palmer being out leaves the Bills without a downfield WR passing attack. Allen's 2 throws to the sideline were vintage Allen throws and missed by inches being completions. Outside of twp bad throws he seemed pretty accurate to me. I do think he's not trusting his WR's and he's not fully trusting the O line on pass plays. The play where he got sacked on the first FG drive in which Dawkins took the wrong guy has been happening a lot lately. Then you had the play were Allen sneaks for the 1st down getting a 1st & goal only to see it come back on an inexcusable mistake by the WR's not lining up correctly. I agree that there is a mental component here. When you almost never see separation it starts to drain the brain. On the positive side Allen finished with a QB rating of 108 and the offense piled up over 400 yards. There was one play where Coleman did not come back to the ball and again let a DB get by him to knot down and almost intercept the pass. This has to shake a QB's confidence in a receiver. All I could think of is that Diggs or Davis would have taken a couple of steps towards Allen to catch that ball for a decent gain. It's NFL receiving 101 and it's not being done by a couple of our WR's.

They also were load managing his return from injury. This is very frustrating to fans but hopefully over the fullness of a season it will pay off.

No.

It allowed Bishop to play faster IMO.

Great win. the passing attack was out of kilter in the first half mostly due to mental mistakes: Dawkins on taking the outside blitzer and not the inside one; not lining up properly on a 3rd and short that Allen converted giving the Bills a first & goal; and a bad holding penalty. Looked better in the 2nd half. Cook was on fire in part because the O line blocked the run great and partly because the Panthers focused on stopping the Bills short passing attack and Allen runs. This is what complimentary football looks like. The D looked very good with the 2 suspended guys having a big impact. 55 was around the QB on almost every pass. Epenesa had a great game as did Poyner. The rookie was glued to the WR while in the game and had a great tackle where he closed the gap very fast. Oh and Bishop played very well.

I agree and Dalton isn't as mobile as Young.

Again this is post draft pick comments. What else would you expect Allen to say? After the pick. Allen has shown over and over again that he always can be counted on to say the right thing. And after Bean traded down with KC to get Worthy it was important that Allen show solidarity with the pick.

And your evidence that this mattered in Bean making the pick is? Sure AFTER they drafted Coleman word got out that Allen "wanted" Coleman. What else was Allen supposed to say? Now did Allen talk to McBean about getting a big physical WR that could open up the boundary and turn 50/50 balls into 80/20? That I could buy. But whether Bean traded the pick to sign a vet or move up in the draft as opposed to moving down to secure Coleman was all on Bean. There were a number of ways Bean could have secured what Allen likely expressed an interest in getting at WR.

What evidence do you have of this?

I think he would like to be WR rich.

This is a great point that I hadn't thought of before. And given McD's time as Head Coach and making the playoffs in 6 of the last 7 seasons the lack of a robust coaching tree is interesting. Outside of DaBoll has anyone else been a HC or long lasting Defensive or offensive coordinator?

Agree. Sure Allen has the occasional average or even poor game but he is so far from being the problem that it makes no sense to talk about it until the other problems are fixed. It's like your pipes burst in your house and your roof caves in but all you can talk about are the dandelions in the lawn.

The same could be said about Daniels in Washington.

If a player can mess up a crossbar dunking the ball I would consider finding a new manufacturer of goal posts. I think the dunk is cool, kind of like the Lambeau leap. It is not aimed at the other team and is visually interesting.

Why is that a penalty? It wasn't aimed at the other team all the Seahawk did was spike the football over the goal post. Does the NFL just like making up rules that will be broken so their refs can throw a flag?

Agree as Detroit challenged the wrong thing. What is the rule about if you challenge X and they see a clear cut Y? I thought, but could be wrong, that they only looked at what was challenged and if they see something else they are to ignore it?

It was close but also it was obvious that he didn't make the 1st down. The camera angle was perfect and if you extend a plane down from the ball it would not have touched the 41 yard line which was the line to gain. Had the not reversed what was an obvious bad spot by the refs things would have gotten very interesting in the Motor City.

It looks like if it was a catch he was short of the first down.

I think he was referring to contenders.

Wow, some great NFL officiating going on tonight.

The problem is that the same play will be called differently every week in the NFL. Remember the Drake Maye intentional grounding that wasn't called? Tonight they were sticklers for the rule and likely took Falcon points off the board. Tomorrow night they won't call it on an even worse violation.

Agree.

I am under no illusions that modern big time college football involves "student athletes". At minimum they are semipro players. My only point is that the quality of the college football is better then in the NFL. Not only are the games better but are often more exciting and feature huge rosters that lessons the devastation of injuries. Sorry but today was just another in a long line of Sunday's in which the NFL games sucked. I notice it more on weekends the Bills don't play as I'm not that invested in the outcome of these other games and just want to relax and watch some good football. On most Friday & Saturday's I can do just that with college football but it's a rare Sunday that the NFL delivers the goods.