Old Coot

Some pre-NFL Buffalo Bills / Bisons history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Bills_(AAFC)

Possibly, yes. Remember the game when the Pats gave up the winning score to the other team? They had Gronk at the 1 yard line. It was one of those endless lateral plays. Gronk took the wrong agle and the ball carriers get by him for the score. Remember, TEs practice offense everyday. They don't practice D. Against an elite athlete another elite athlete who is playing "out of position" will often lose.

In theory, yes. In practice, not unless the substituted "hands" players are competent DBs also. Remember, the O gets a look at who the D put on the field before calling/ executing the play. If you have several "hands" guys who don't normally play DB then you call a play to take advantage of that. Exaample: I recall an end of game score against the Patriots (can't remember the team they played). It was, I think one of those "endless laterals" plays. I think the Patriots were expecting a "Hail Mary" and had some taller players in including Gronkowski at the goal line. He took the wrong angle against the ball carrier who took it in for the winning score. Why don't teams prectice D against the Hail Mary? Because the play isn't run very often. Practice time is limited during the season so you can't waste it practicing against a play you might see no more than once every few seasons.

Start Bishop. What could possibly go wrong?

If Josh goes to see a concussion specialist he should have his head examined.

Great contribution to the forum. Thanks for doing this. Based on what you saw, does it appear that, on the unsuccessful passing plays, Josh locks onto a receiver early in the play (maybe the receiver running a mid to deep pattern) or does he seem to go through his reads?

I agree with the posters who say that our WRs are mediocre but remember that we were in Cap jail this off season. We didn't have the money to sign any top free agent WRs. This leads me to a question for our salary cap gurus: How did we come to be in Cap jail? Where is our salary cap tied up? Of course there's the cap hit we took from trading Diggs and Josh's monster deal but where is our money tied up beyond that?

I agree with much of what you say in your perceptive post. Most of our WRs are just average. That's not on the OC. I suppose those who want to fire McD and/or Brady would point to the Chiefs' year when they had mediocre WRs but still succeeded. In response, thye didn't succeed by scheming their WRs open. They succeeded by using Kelsey (who distorts any D) and RBs. There's only so much an OC can do with average talent at the skill positions. BTW, on a different topic: what's happened to Knox in this offense? Why is he not getting targets? Is it the scheme? Is Knox not getting open?

I agree that the DC did well in the 2d half. He's doing it with smoke, mirrors and rubbing alcohol fumes because of all the injuries. Problems with the O are more difficult to diagnose. Not one of Allen's better days. His ball placement could have been better on some plays. At times it seems the OL filed to pick up blitzers or were disrupted by same. Receivers often had no separation. It's difficult to put this all on the OC. I'd need to see the all-22. The quick game we saw in the three wins has disappeared the last two weeks. The Ravens played man alot and the Texans did not seem to play a lot of two deep. If they took the short game away then medium to long game should be open but I don't know that Allen had enough time. All-in-all the O looked out of sync and that speaks to execution rather than lousy play-calling.

Perceptive post as usual, Shaw. Re the defense, I'd like to address what I think is a key factor: injuries, lots of 'em. We had guys playing on D last night that I'd never heard of. NFL D's must play as a unit and that takes experience. When you combine out D with so many backups playing and the Ravens offense with all their motions and misdirection you get what we saw last night. With so many inexperienced players on D now we will be vulnerable to misdirection plays. I think our D right now can't handle the top offenses in this league. On a related note, we gave Lamar too much time on passing plays. What happened to our DL? On a positive note I like how much more active Josh is on his pre-snap gesturing and yelling. That shows growth.

The Ravens have an excellent D, particularly the back seven. Most teams don't have a D that can replicate what the Ravens did. It is worriesome that the best teams (read playoff teams) do have such Ds.

Gambling & the NFL like night swimming & alcohol -- winning combinations. What could possibly go wrong!

Ghost to the Post -- a classic Raiders' play

Geez, you guys are very critical of McDaniel. Maybe he didn't know that Tua was concussed. A player will sometimes "man up" and cover up an injury because of competitiveness or not wanting to let the team down. Mcdaniel isn't a doc & if the docs checked Tua for concussion and cleared him, then McDaniel is ignorant of the concussion. Also, Mcdaniel risks losing the players if they see that he values winning more than their health. I don't know what McDaniel knew when he allowed Tua to play on that Thursday night so maybe he did know. It's possible he did not; that's my point.

The OL played very well in the power run game. Cook looked so good because he was able to get through the DL essentially untouched. Not taking anything away from Cook -- just sayin'. The OL had some trouble with the blitz and the Cards blitzed often. Nowadays with the ability of Ds to disguise who is blitzing, it's difficult for the OL. We are lucky enough to have Josh whose escapability makes up for the Os failure to pick up a free blitzer.

With the "Brotherly shove" mechanics 1 yard plays are now gimmies. Ol fires out low and takes down the DL. The LBs and safties need to commit immediately and the QB go straight ahead aided by the RBs push. Of course, it's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the essence of the play.

I hope you do keep giving us your thoughts after each game. I enjoy your perceptive analyses.

This play design is at least 20 years old and is often called "vomit" because the underhanded throw looks like the kind of poor punt that would make an ST coach vomit. Here video of the play: https://coachtube.com/course_lesson/viral-shield-punt-fake-vomit/viral-vomit-pressbox-view/21540734?a=0d90ee66aac64614b00ca7657&utm_source=sendfox&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-viral-fake-punt-vomit-by-jeremy-plaa-at-downey-high-school

This is the so-called "Winged" helmet. The red colored part of the helmet goes back to the old days of the leather helmet. Some styles of leather helmets were constructed with front winged leather pieces and three leather reinforcing ribs that were then colored in the team colors. This style of painting on modern helmets still exists at the collegiate level. Examples are Michigan, University f Delaware and Princeton.

This is basically true but they worked so well together as a team. It's like each was living rent-free in the other's mind.

I, too, am concerned about the WR corps. But remember that the Bills were in salary cap jail. They could not keep everyone and they could not spend big on a top quality WR. What are your thoughts on how the FO might have made the WR room better?

We don't have the WR horses we had in the early '90s. The K-Gun had receivers running free in the secondary. When is the last time you saw that with the JAGun? Plus it requires special conditioning to go no huddle for a half or a game. The No huddle might work as a change-up during a drive -- it forces the D to play its base defense, which should make JA's reads simplier.

Keith McKellar. But the "K" comes from his nickname "Killer"

"Got a Hellhound on my trail"