CincyBillsFan

I would be disappointed. But a bad outing by Allen in week 1 wouldn't exactly shock me. With a whole new cast on the offense and having only played about 4 quarters in pre-season I would expect the Bills O to get off to a slow start. Honestly what would shock me the most is if the Bills offense & Allen start off hot in the 1st quarter. And lets not forget what others have noted: the NFL season is a marathon not a sprint. Remember how after we traded for Drew Bledsoe we opened the season by crushing New England 31 - 0! And Bledsoe was SHARP. Then the next week we go on the road and beat Jacksonville 35 - 17! Talk about visions of Super Bowls dancing in our heads. But how did that season end? As I recall we finished 8 - 8 and missed the playoffs.

Maybe not playing your starters at all in the last preseason game is contributing to the poor offensive play so far.

I'm thinking 10 - 11 is achievable as long as the Bills stay relatively healthy. I'm not sold on the idea that the Patriots are better then they were last year or that the Jets are improved a whole lot.

Nice article, thanks for posting. Bottom line is that Allen now has to show us on the field that he can be that guy at QB. I'm optimistic. As an aside I couldn't help but notice that some folks are still talking about that across the body pass he threw in the Detroit preseason game. Has ANY single play in a Bill's preseason game ever been analyzed to death like this one has? I choose to focus on the sharp two minute drill Allen & the offense executed when Dabold took the shackles off. That is worth talking about a week after the game.

I feel bad for Zay Jones. Obviously he doesn't need a distraction like this. But bottom line is that what his dad says on Twitter has ZERO relevance to what he needs to do to make this team and contribute. And for the record, what do you think Josh Allen's parents thought if they were foolish enough to read some of the posts on the Stadium Wall after the Bill's selected their son in 2018? Talk about BRUTAL. Or hell just think back to last Friday's game. If Zay's dad thinks Cole Beasley took crap from the fans for the fumble (which he didn't BTW) what does he make of the obsession on Josh playing Hero ball? One bad pass that was called back by penalty has been diagnosed to death with a number of Bill's fans pronouncing it as evidence that Allen has not made any progress from his Green Bay outing. Me thinks Mr. Jones needs to develop a thicker skin or stay off social media.

Me to! All I thought was - wow, great pass and catch. Glad he got the fumble out of his system in a useless pre-season game.

Exactly right. And now that Allen has his version of the classic NE slot receiver in Beasley it's a good idea to study every throw Brady has made to his slot. Think about how many yards & TD's Tom has generated with those throws. Allen's willingness to LEARN and more importantly admit that he has a lot to learn are one of his strengths.

I watched a lot of Farve over the years and he would make that kind of bone head pass on 1st & 2nd down all the time. he also converted some spectacular plays throwing the ball back across the field. I'm not worried. I watched Mahomes the other night in his 2nd game and he looked off hitting on only 2 of 5 passes while I watched and one of his completions was a crappy throw that the TE made a nice adjustment to catch. Allen looked very sharp in his 2nd possession against the Colts and looked sharp in both of his possessions against the Panthers. And the only time the coaches let the Bills run their offense, Allen looked very sharp leading them on a 95 yard two minute TD drive. For some reason we hold Allen to a higher standard on his ball placement while holding our receivers to lower standards on their catching ability. Other QB's throw the ball real hard and it's caught and the top QB's routinely put the ball in the vicinity of their receivers rather then placing it perfectly on the numbers. In just the last 2 weeks of watching football I've see the top QB's make throws that were not perfectly placed only to have their NFL caliber receivers still catch the ball.

McCoy looked great and I suspect that the Bills screen game will be much improved this year. There is an awful lot that the Bills aren't showing yet. Last week it was work on the short pass and Allen carved Carolina up and Beasley showed us what a load he'll be in the season. Last night the BIll's focused on the run and Shady, Gore and Singleterry all shined,. The Bills rushed for 126 yards in the first half and that was WITHOUT the threat of play action passes. But we haven't seen to many screens and not much down the field either. Look for a very different offense in week 1 against the Jets.

First off Farve was making those types of bone head throws from his 1st preseason game as a rookie until his last game in the NFL. He didn't earn the right to do it, it was in his football DNA just like it's in Allen's. What Farve did though was refine & improve his game to the point where he was able to overcome the mistakes he made from being a gunslinger. And if Allen actually can attain the level of play that Farve did I would be the happiest Bills fan in America. We couldn't ask for more.

Perfectly put! The two minute drill is what people should be focusing on. Allen was in there to get his timing down on the hand offs and making line of scrimmage run adjustments. It's one thing to do it in practice it's another during the chaos of a game where a 300 pound DT penetrates into the backfield to disrupt the hand off.

The fixation by some posters on Allen's bad across the body throw would be wrong headed if this was the regular season and the INT hadn't been cancelled by a penalty. That it's happening after a meaningless preseason game is bizzare to me. As others have noted Allen channel's Favre in this respect. Hopefully he'll be as good as Favre but that remains to be seen. But every once in a while he's going to do this kind of thing. And over the course of a season he may get picked once or twice throwing that ball but I suspect you'll also see a couple of huge gains off this type of throw. Last night the only truly awful decision/throw Allen had was the INT. * His first pass was on the money to Jones. His 2nd pass wasn't a good throw but it was the right decision to target Beasley and it wasn't a horrible throw. * His 3rd pass was a dime to Beasley that unfortunately he fumbled. * His 5th throw to Brown was on target and a good decision that was broken up by an excellent pass defense play. * His last 2 throws to Brown, after he was allowed to throw on 1st down and out of the shotgun, were both excellent and went for long gains and 1st downs. Allen also had a nice run for a 1st down as he led the Bills on a 95 yard TD drive to take the lead at the end of the half. All in all a pedestrian performance with a flash of brilliance in that last drive. That 2 minute drive is what Bills fans should focus on and be encouraged by. Instead some choose to focus only on the bad INT.

Agree. And that play was beautifully set up by back to back 1st down passes that chewed up big yardage. That was the only drive where the Bills used most of their offense in the 1st half. That drive was also the only time in the half that Dabold called plays that built off each other. After a nights sleep it's even clearer to me that the Bills went into last nights game wanting to hone the offenses running game. My guess is that the final starting O-line and more importantly where each guy lines up was decided last night based on their run blocking. The first two preseason games were designed to evaluate their pass blocking. As an aside compare last nights game to the 3rd preseason game last year. the Bengal's absolutely blew up the Bills O-line. It was so bad the brain trust decided they didn't want to Risk Allen at Baltimore in week 1. The result of last years 3rd preseason game set the stage for the Bill's offensive disasters in their first two games that year. This year, I feel a whole lot more confident about the Bills O-line, their QB, their offensive coordinator and their receiving group then I did after last years 3rd preseason game. And that's progress.

I thought they ran the ball well. What they need to work on is to many holding penalties on the O line. On the plus side, they had two red zone rushing TD's and I don't think any run lost yards. Second & 7 sure beats 2nd & 13! Don't let the naysayers get you down on Allen. He was highly restricted as the Bills worked almost exclusively on their running game. Through their first 6 possessions the Bills DID NOT throw the ball on 1st down. And they only lined up in the shotgun a couple of times. They also didn't throw the ball more then 15 yards down the field. It was only near the end of the half with the Bills backed up against their own end zone that they took the shackles off Allen & the passing game and the result was a 95 yard TD drive to give Buffalo the halftime lead. In that drive Allen was in the shot gun a lot where he threw two dimes for nice gains to John Brown with BOTH passes coming on 1st down. Allen also had a nice 10 yard run for a 1st down in which he got out of bounds. McCoy had a great run out of a shot gun hand off and Singleterry was the beneficiary of a Ford pancake block that sprung him for a 9 yard TD.

It's really sad isn't it? I mean these clowns are PAID to do this job and yet a bunch of folks on 2BD will actually have a better take on what the Bills were trying to do on offense tonight then the so called "experts". And unlike the experts we were drinking while watching! But Thad Brown is a particularly goofy commentator. His bias is pretty evident. To focus on one bad play, that was cancelled out by a penalty, in a meaningless preseason game tells you all you need to know. Why not highlight Allen's two minute 95 yard TD drive? Or how about talk about both but keep the "INT" in perspective. Living here in Cincinnati they all talk about the Super Bowl game that Montana threw that last second TD to beat the Bengals. What NO ONE except Cincy fans talk about is that on the play before that Montana threw a terrible pass that should have been intercepted but the INT was dropped by the Bengal player.

Barkley attempted 13 passes in the 3rd quarter alone compared to Allen attempting only 6 passes in the entire first half. The coaches used each half to work on two very different offensive things.

I don't get focusing on one bad play in a meaningless preseason game. Sure it was a horrible decision and throw. But in his sideline interview Allen explicitly owned up to it. IMO it was good that Allen was reminded of what he shouldn't do under game conditions. And for the record he's going to do it at least once in the regular season. It's in his competitive DNA. But if you're going to call out that one bad pass how about Allen's fantastic 2 minute drive. That was a big time drive at the end of the half.

I think they treated it as a practice in which you keep rerunning a play until you get it right. The coaches didn't care whether Detroit knew we were running the ball. They wanted to see that the right pre-snap adjustments were made at the line and that the blocking was sound. I suspect the only reason they even threw the ball on 3rd & long was the desire to get a 1st down so they could run the ball a couple more times.

You're speaking with your head and not with your heart and I agree 100% with you. It took me 3 series to realize what the Bills were doing (partly due to beer and partly due to my high expectations & wishful thinking). But at the same time a lot of us were hoping for Allen to light it up especially with our new TE & WR's. Unfortunately we still care way to much what the outsiders say about the Bills. Lucky for us the coaches don't give a crap and they did what they needed to do tonight to get this team ready for the opening game. This is why I'm actually more confident after this game about the Bills season then I was before.

As an aside, pay attention to what certain writers/commentators say about this game. If they were paying attention they'll clearly explain what the Bill's offense was trying to do. But if they have an agenda they talk about Allen's bad throws and how the offense regressed. The summary's of this game will tell you who the experts really are.

It was tough to watch because we all wanted to see a wide open gun slinging Allen tossing the ball to Beasley, Brown, Sweeney & Jones. Instead we got an incredibly dogmatic game plan that didn't have us pass on 1st down until the last drive of the half. hell, we hardly were in the shotgun formation the first 28 minutes of the half. On a night in which the Bills were featured on national TV we all desperately wanted the nation to see how much better our offense, especially our passing offense, was. We wanted them to see the Josh Allen of the last 6 games last year and form this years TC and 1st 2 preseason games. We wanted them to see our two new WR's running free. But it wasn't to be. Instead it was BORING. Run, run and then pass. And no pass over 15 yards. So now the Allen haters and Bills doubters can get on the radio, their pod casts or TV and trash Allen & the Bills. Certain writers are just licking their chops to take shots at the Bills. But thank goodness the coaches didn't care about winning a meaningless game. And for damn sure they cared even less about what the "experts" might say. They wanted to work on the run game and damn it that's what they did. They needed to get the blocking assignments down and the timing between Allen and the RB's down. They wanted to work on both the linemen and Allen making audibles to set the blocking scheme pre-snap. And my sense is that they got done what they wanted to get done. But we saw a glimpse of what this offense can do when the hand cuffs were taken off. In the last 2 minutes Dabold let them go for it and did they ever. Throwing on fist down and executing some clever running plays the Bills drove 95 yards to score a TD and take the lead. Overall I'm happy with the outcome.

What I like about our going 3 - 0 is that it hasn't resulted from any coaching acts trying to win these meaningless games. The coaches have focused on working different aspects of the Bills game and stuck to it in spite of the score. I believe the Bills starters have won all three of their games and those starters haven't played all that much. Ultimately this might all be an illusion and we're not very good. But I think what we're seeing is real. This is a much better team then last year.

Now who's insane? NOBODY is saying Allen should be guaranteed to start for the next "3 or 4 years". But if Allen doesn't pan out Barkley won't be the answer another blue chip 1st round draft pick will be.

Kudos to Barkley for coming in and playing well. I think he can be a quality back-up QB here for a number of years. Hell he may even get a chance to start on another team before his career is over. But the reality is that over his career he's been less then a competent QB. He has thrown 10 TD's and 18 INT's; his career QB rating is 68 and he's completed just under 60% of his passes. And this includes that amazing game he had last year against the Jets. This is why IMO there is no QB controversy. Which is a good thing.

Am I the only one impressed with Allen's sideline interview? I'm not talking about the boiler plate stuff I'm talking about his calling out his one bad pass of the half. He owned it and called it what it was "hero ball" and that he can't be doing dumb stuff like that. Like I said earlier, that terrible throw in a meaningless preseason games was the best thing that happened to Allen tonight.