CincyBillsFan

Why don't we admit that this is the real issue here. Bill's fans are way to sensitive about what the media, particularly the national sports media, says about us. And yes they have been brutal about all things Allen. You can see the venom drip down their chins as they rip Allen apart. Funny how Allen is getting ten times the grief from the sports media then Burrow or Jones are getting. Joe threw 31 passes for 82 yards and his team lost 24 - 3. And Danial Jones was 15/28 for 104 yards & 2 INT's including a pick 6 in losing 40 - 0! And no TD's for either Burrow or Jones. But 95% of the national media's bile is reserved for Allen. I find that a bit strange and you people should to.

Let's give Allen a little credit for pulling his own self out of the sand and executing on that 52 yard (10 yard penalty to overcome) drive.

And you think that will play out over the whole season? Judas Priest Allen had a terrible game with the emphasis on GAME. It happens to every QB be they elite, great, good, fair or bad. The only difference is the frequency of sucking. Allen has demonstrated over 3 FULL seasons and the corresponding 7 playoff games (56 total games) that he rarely sucks and plays at an elite or great level most of the time.

For what it's worth, Aikman who is no big fan of Allen said that Davis did him no favors by not faking hard that he might take an inside path. This allowed the guy who intercepted the ball to run hard to the spot Allen was throwing it. I also thought that the Bills didn't produce a lot of the YAC needed to make the short passing game work. Kincaid had some nice YAC as did Diggs but Harty had very little YAC and he was targeted multiple passes. IMO going forward more short passes to Kincaid and fewer to Harty.

Actually early on Allen completed 9 of his first 10 passes. At one pint he was 17/21 passing with 1 INT & 1 TD. So if this is how you play right from the start with no practice or film work then sign me up. Something changed in the 3rd quarter. Did the Jet's adjust and start taking advantage of something? Did Allen get "bored" and start pressing? And let's be clear here. The first 2 INT's were not a big deal. The first one was thrown on 3rd and long and pinned the Jet's back on their 4 yard line with Wilson at QB. That was the equivalent of a 65 yard punt with no return. That the D let the Jets and Wilson out of that hole is as concerning to me as some of the Allen misfires. The 2nd Allen INT gave the Jets the ball at their own 20. Neither of these cost the Bills points or handed the Jets a short field. My guess is that Allen was trying to stick a fork in the Jets ad kill them off with the big play. Now the last 2 Allen TO's are what lost us the game. These happened late in the 3rd quarter & in the 4th quarter. This is what they should focus on.

Exactly so you embrace what Allen is: a HOF level elite talent that plays the game like Favre. You design your offense & offensive philosophy to best exploit Allen's style of play and you surround Allen with the kind of players that thrive in his Helter Skelter world. Or you try to take the edge off Allen and get him to not throw those 50 yard bombs into double coverage or try to run over safeties and maybe if you're lucky he'll turn into a big Drew Breeze or a Kirk Cousins! More likely though you'll ruin what Makes Allen great and we'll see more and more games like last night. And if Allen's play is incompatible with how defensive minded GM's and head coaches like McD & Bean need in their franchise QB then we can trade Allen now and get multiple 1st, 2nd & 3rd round picks over multiple years from 15 - 20 NFL teams. Imagine how many stud D linemen & corner backs we could accumulate. And I'm not being facetious on trading Allen ( well maybe a little) but all I'm seeing are people slamming Allen for playing like he does. Sure maybe lightening can strike and he can turn into Brady or Breeze. I just think that is a long shot with the downside risk of ruining Allen. So IMO you choose the 1st option and go all in on Allen being Allen. I really believe there is at least one Super Bowl in our future if we do. Like the one we should have gotten in 2021. Mahomes says hi. Can we at least give the Jet's D some credit here. They may have been boasting about being the 85 Bears but their defense is one of the best in the NFL. They might have 2 of the top 5 corner backs in the league, superior safety's & LB's and a fierce defensive line.

As Al Davis said: JUST WIN BABY! An NFL season is a marathon. All I want to see is a W. Don't care if they look like a Super Bowl team and blow the Raiders out or look crappy and barely win. It simply doesn't matter at this point in the season. The ONLY thing that matters is W/L. You want to have a good enough record so you can win your division and be a 1 or 2 seed going into the playoffs if you catch fire at the end of the season. Catching fire in the 2nd half of the season and roaring through the playoffs is how most teams win SB's. This is what makes 2021 & 13 seconds so frustrating. The Bills and particularly Allen did everything you're supposed to do to win a SB that year only to be let down by inexplicably bad coaching decisions at the end.

I believe precedent is important in almost every aspect of life. And I believe that it's most important in sports. It's rare you see something that hasn't happened before. Allen had a really bad day at the office Monday night particularly in the 2nd half. I would be concerned if we had never seen HOF level, elite QB's S##t the bed in week one games before. But guess what, we have and I didn't have to look to far to find a couple of examples. In fact I got them off the top of my head: Living in Cincy you can't not be aware of all things Joe Cool and here are his last two season openers: 2022: 33 of 53 for 338 yards with 2 TD's & 4 INT's including a pick 6 & 1 lost fumble. 5 total TO's in an OT loss. 2023: 14 of 31 for 82 yards with no TD's or TO's. No TO 's is good but 82 yards on 31 attempts! Oh and a 24 - 3 blowout loss. How about the GOAT, Tom Brady? I'm sure Bills fans remember this opening day game: 14 of 28 for 123 yards(!) with no TD's and 4 INT's including a pick 6 in a 31 - 0 blowout loss to the Bills. The Pats went on to win the Super Bowl and the Bills had a 6 - 10 record. Taking a quick look at Jim Kelly he played pretty well in week one but he and the Bills laid a big egg in a week 2 game against division rival Miami in 1990: 14 of 23 for 140 yards with no TD's & 1 INT & 1 lost fumble. The Bills lost that game 30 - 7 and trailed 30 - 0 going into the 4th. So sure if Allen keeps playing crappy like he did against the Jets, which boast a superb defense, then we might as well get used to having our Sunday's back and enjoying the Fall foliage. But I suspect people are way overreacting to this game and Allen & the Bills will be just fine going forward.

I suspect the Jets changed what they were doing and took away most of the short stuff.

All I'm talking about is TO's. That's a clear metric.

I agree. And yes Allen played terribly last night. But man look at the haters coming out of the wood work today. It's unreal. I like Allen because I think the guy gives his all, is a great fit for Buffalo, and he's the main reason this franchise has become relevant again after nearly 20 years wandering in the football wilderness. Allen is an elite QB talent who is far from perfect. Over the last 3 seasons we may be seeing the best that Allen can be. And that is good enough to win a Super Bowl as was clearly shown in 2021. But Allen can't win it by himself. Because football is a team game and even the elite QB's occasionally lay an egg and stink up the joint. I'm not sure Allen can get much better and trying to make him something he's not will squander the special talent that he is. I'll say what many have said previously: the Bills have to improve in other areas and that includes coaching. Not blaming McD but defensive minded head coaches are not working out in the current NFL.

My bad. I misread the post. I'm getting whacked from all sides today so it's easy to get confused. Thanks for admitting that. I was about to apologize to you. I thought I saw what I read.

No it's not fair. When you pair total fumbles with INT's you are trying to mislead people. An INT is a turnover a fumble may or may be a TO. Allen LOST one fumble that day and had 2 INT's which equals 3 TO's. Any other way to describe it is lying IMO. If someone wants to talk fumbles and argue that total fumbles are bad, do it and show us the data. But the way it was presented was meant to make people think Allen committed FIVE TO's.

I'm sure there are 20 teams that wouldn't hesitate to give the Bills their 1st, 2nd, & 3rd round picks for the next three years for Allen. We could then add a couple more D linemen and corner backs to the roster. You can never have to many of those guys. They were throwing all sorts of short passes early and Allen was 9/10 after his first 10 passes and all they had was 3 points to show for it. But hey I'm sure we could a lot of draft capital if we traded Allen now before all his TO's reduce his value! No, no, no! Allen is a TO machine didn't your read all about it here. Of course in the Bengals game, the one Allen supposedly lost because he refused to throw to all those wide open guys running short patterns, he had only ONE TO and that was a meaningless INT at the end of the game with the score 27 - 10. But hey Allen is a TO machine!

No he didn't. The game I was clearly referring to was the Saturday night match up that essentially won the division. In that game Allen was brilliant rescuing the Bills from a poor defensive performance that saw the Fish take a 29 - 21 4th quarter lead. Allen threw for 304 yards & 4 TD's and rushed for another 77 yards giving him 381 total yards and NO TO's. And for crying out loud I wish the Allen haters would quit lying by omission when it comes to fumbles. The playoff game you're referring to Allen lost 1 fumble. Don't say he had 2 INT's and 3 fumbles when he lost only ONE. He had 3 TO's that's the honest and correct way to describe it.

I disagree. IMO this is wrong headed thinking about what constitutes losing a game. You look at the play in the whole game and you add up the plusses & minuses. The expectation for Allen appears to be that if he plays less then great the loss is on him. It's like saying that a FG kicker that nails 5 FG's including 2 of over 50 yards lost the game because he missed a 40 yarder in OT that would have won the game. I agree that Allen's poor play was not compensated by his great play against the Jets in their first game last season. But against the Vikings Allen had 414 total yards, 1 TD & 3 TO's. Not a great game by any measure but more then good enough to win if the D doesn't let a guy run off tackle for an 82 yard TD with Buffalo up 27 - 10 and a D doesn't allow the Vikes to covert a 4th & 18. As for the Miami game - you have to be kidding. Allen was under center in those brutal conditions to take 99 snaps. He had 447 total yards and 2 TD's with only 1 TO. He played great against Miami even though he missed a TD throw late.

All tat chipping away led to 1 FG. The TD was a result of Allen pushing the ball downfield a bit (the strike to Davis comes to mind) and Allen doing freaky things outside the pocket for tyhe Diggs TD. Allen completed over 70% of his passes and hit 9 of his first 10 throws. The first 2 Allen INT's did no damage to the Bills. The first was on 3rd & long and was the equivalent of a 65 yard punt pinning the Jets at their own 4 yard line. The 2nd was a heave from midfield that gave the Jets the ball at their own 20. Now the 3rd INT and the fumble cost us the game. But IMO the Dorsey short passing game/take what the Jets gave us, was not working before Allen tossed his first INT. At least based on points scored.

I thought Allen was brilliant in the Division winning game against the Dolphins late last year. He basically was the reason they won that game. Allen had an overall good game against the Dolphins in the playoffs not great but solid if you go by the numbers. In the playoff loss to the Bengals Allen only turned the ball over once and that was a meaningless INT late n the 4th with the Bills down 27 - 10. In the 2nd half of last season Allen played poorly in only 2 games: against the Jets twice. In the Vikings game Allen was average as his TO's cancelled out his great play. But average isn't poor. Allen was solid against Cleveland, Detroit & Chicago & the home NE game and was outstanding at NE.

I didn't read through this thread (I don't want to get depressed) but last night was almost a carbon copy of the opening game loss to the Steelers in 2021: * In the Pitt game the Bills led 10 - 0 at half. Last night we led 13 - 3 at half. * In the 2nd half against Pitt the Bills scored only 2 FG's last night they had 1 FG in the 2nd half. * Allen and the offense looked out of sorts in both games especially in the 2nd half of both games. * While the score line would say the D played great in both games at critical moments in each game they couldn't get key stops and allowed to many 3rd & long conversions. And Big Ben was no more effective at that point in his career as Wilson was last night. * In both games the special teams had a major breakdown giving up a TD. The differences were that the Bills were home in the Pitt game, Allen didn't turn the ball over 4 times and the Jets have a better D and better offensive skill players then the Steelers had.

Wow the knives have really come out after Allen has a terrible game. For only the 2nd time in the last 3+ seasons (2020,2021,2022 & 2023) you can lay a loss directly on Allen. The other being the Jacksonville game. There isn't a QB in the NFL over the last 5 years who hasn't had games like this and that includes Mahomes & Burrow. I guess you have to ignore that the hype about the Jet's defense was real. They're either the best or 2nd best D in the NFL. Allen was very bad last night. But so was Burrow & Watson and Mahomes was average. Even the best will have nights like last night. Get back to me with the venom if after 5 games Allen plays like that in 3 of them and the Bills are 1 - 4. Right now this thread is a massive overreaction. While I agree in principal our O line isn't close to being good enough to do what the Eagles do.

Disagree. Their D looked very bad particularly against the run. I thought Fagio was going to deliver an upgrade?

Another Herbert stat fest - wow look at the 99.9 QB rating! And again a Chargers loss as Herbert shows almost no pocket awareness under pressure. Color me unimpressed with this guy.

Knowing that the opposing QB/OC are watching tape on you forces a defensive coordinator to watch their own tape looking for patterns that their opponents might see and exploit. Once they find their own defenses pattern a D coordinator can design their defense to trick a QB into thinking they're seeing the same pattern they saw on tape. Then slip a LB into the pass route.

A measured response regardless of the outcome. As Bills fans we can never forget how the 2003 season started: First a 31 - 0 win over NE then the Bills went on the road and beat Jax 38 - 17. It looked like a Super Bowl year for the Bills and a bad season for NE. In the end the Bills went 6 - 10 and NE won a SB.

I agree. I thought Mahomes was a bit off but overall the loss was on his receivers who dropped to many balls.