Old Coot

Played in high school. We ran the T Formation in the early '60s. Passing, what's that?

Early 70's, guy from the stands runs out & grabs the ball. Mike Curtis, the Colts' MLB hits the guy so hard he knocked him into next week.

I don't think we would have beaten Tampa. That said, its hard to judge because KCs OL was patchwork. The Chief's Grabby man defense did not work today I think in part because the refs game planned for it.

Point taken. He's better than I thought. I appreciate that you gave supporting facts rather than just an unsupported conclusion.

Brown had only 33 receptions but then he was hampered by that leg injury. He seemed to be a non-factor in several games. Perhaps someone who has studied the all 22's could comment on his performance. It's difficult to judge a WR's performance when he's not targeted all that much (52 times in 9 games but 4 games with 2 or fewer targets).

I pray for Andy Reid. His kids have been a mess for years. When Reid was in Philly both his kids had hard drug problems (one or both on heroin). Andy may have given Britt a job with the Chiefs to keep an eye on him but the high stress that comes with being an NFL coach can't be good for Britt's demons. I hope Britt gets the help he needs.

Wentz has a huge contract that someone will need to eat (either the Eagles or a new team) so I doubt that the Eagles will find any takes at 2 first rounders, especially with Wentz's poor play this year (much of which I attribute to his OL) as well as his injury history. It may be that the Eagles can't get out from under W's contract even if they trade him. I have seen reports that his dead cap hit would be something like $33 million.

The link to the Cover 1 video that I posted does an excellent job of analyzing the BIlls' run game. While they recognize Singletary's limitations they put most of the blame on the OL. Last year (when the run game was better) they used mostly a gap run game. This year it was mostly zone blocking because the line made too many error in the more complex gap blocking scheme. This was partly a talent issue and partly the result of injuries that forced a shuffling of the line. You can't have a good running game if the blocking isn't there. Most of the great runners (Thurman, etc) ran behind good O lines. Derrick Henry runs over people but even he would not have the success he's had if his OL had not been blocking for him. A question about Harris: How good is he at protecting the QB? Blitz pickup is pretty complex with the way D's disguise their blitzes and with our passing offense you need a back that can block for the QB.

Cover 1 video on the Bills' running game issues:

A well designed play targets a conflict defender. The play is designed so that whichever way the conflict defender moves, the pass play goes in the opposite direction. Similarly, if the defender plays run, QB passes & if the defender plays pass, QB makes it a run play. The way to defeat the conflict is to disguise the coverage so the conflict defender makes a move not anticipated by the offense. This is, of course, much easier said than done.

That's a significant problem. The trend now seems to be to sign good QBs to monster guaranteed contracts. That's ok if the QB continues to perform at a hign level but if his performance trails off it's a hugh problem for the club. Other teams would likely take that risk to sign Josh so the Bills may be forced to give a humongous guaranteed contract and hope.

"Cut Singletary" I think Singletary stays. Our line wasn't great at opening holes for him. Plus he's good at protecting the QB. That's not a skill that's easy for a rookie to pick up. Star RB's out of college tend to specialize in "look out" blocks.

It worked for the Giants in the Bill's first Superbowl loss. BTW the Giants' defensive coordinator was so guy named Belichick. What ever became of him?

Josh surely deserves a monster contract. That said, I'm sure manangment will want the deal structured to avoid the Wentz/ Goff problem. Both are due large guaranteed money -- over $50 million -- and that makes it difficult to trade/ cut a player if his performance drops off. LA had to give up much more than it would have had to, had Goff's contract not been guaranteed. Perhaps Josh gets a contract loaded with incentives but also protection against injury. Opinions?

The only rationale that makes any sense to me is that Frazier/ McDermott conceded the underneath completions to prevent big plays and then when KC got into the red zone to run the types of defenses that had caused KC previously to have trouble scoring TDs in the red zone. Remember that KC was said to have red zone scoring troubles. My 2 cents

Well said. Belichick takes away what you do best. We certainly did not take away Kelce. As for Hill, he was quiet at the beginning of the game so we may have been double teaming him.

I'm no expert on D but jamming a WR-type TE like Kelce at the line with an LB is a common technique for disrupting the TE's patterns and timing with the OB. Kelce makes his living with intermediate over the middle catches. This is no surprise. It may be that Mahomes will find him anyway but it seems that we could have tried jamming when our planned coverage did not prevent him from getting multiple catches.

Could someone with access to the all-22 video and some knowledge of defense principles please explain why our D gave Kelce a free release off the line on almost every play? Is it because we did not want to spare a LB to do that? If we are in Cover 2 (with presumably one S over the top of Hill) and our CB's covering their WR's that leaves only our 3 LBs if we rush 4 DL. Were we so concerned about KC's running game? Romo suggested having a DE jam Kelce at the line and then rush. What is the down side to that? I realize that this is Monday morning QB'ing but I am mystified at Frazier's decision not to use the obvious technique of jamming Kelce, especially after he lit use up.

Mr Tambourine Man (with Josh Allen starring as the man):

Excellent analysis. The classic way to defend a WR-type TE like Kelce is to jam him at the line.

Congrats, brother. "Buffalo: where men are men and tables are scared."

If Mahomes was a full participant in a non-contact scrimmage, that's an indication he's in stage 4 of the 5 stage concussion protocol. I'm betting he'll play against the Bills. His turf toe may be a bigger issue. Though he limped it did not seem to affect this running or scrambling in the Browns game. Apparently it gets worse after 24 hours or so. Who here has experience with turf toe and can speak to how it might affect Mahomes' game? For example, will it affect his passing footwork?

There are many ways to skin a cat

Until we know later in the week whether Mahomes will play I offer these observations from Reid's post game presser. Reid is usually a straight shooter. I don't think lying comes naturally to him. When asked questions he usually gazes straight at the questioner (or the Zoom screen). When asked about Mahomes' condition in the Presser he said several times that Mahomes was "good" but each time he said that he looked down. This is often a tell that the speaker doesn't believe what he is saying. I think that Reid is concerned about Mahomes. This is not to say that Mahomes won't recover sufficiently to play next week. He did, however, look pretty bad today and that may explain Reid's concern. As far as I'm concerned, to be the best you have to beat the best. My 2 cents.

The Buffalo All Americans were swindled out of the 1921 NFL Championship by George Halas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1921_NFL_Championship_controversy