Wraith

Yup, this x1000. Somehow these guys must’ve missed the fact that our line (and receivers) were decimated in the second half and that affected both playcalling and execution.

Thank you! I feel like I’m in bizzaro world with some of these opinions. Allen was by far the best player on the field today. Gee could the reason he finally missed a throw at the end be because he was exhausted? My god, it’s possible he was the only player on offense who didn’t crawl off the field at some point. He was incredible today.

Wow, a whole lot of misunderstandings occurring in this thread. The Patriots weren't playing for the tie nor were they depending on the two point conversion. Six minutes to go, down by eight. You can't plan on having a third possesion, so it's a TD+2 point conversion or a TD+FG. Either way, you need a TD. This drive was the deepest New England hand managed to drive on their own all game, as far they know it was the last best chance to get a TD. When New England beat the Giants earlier this year we saw what happens when your 2:00 drill only has to get in field goal range rather than score a TD. If they score a TD on that drive, then they go for two and they're either tied with 5:00 left or down less than field goal with timeouts still available. The Patriots made the right decision, it just didn't work out. Happens all the time.

What are you watching? The ball not only goes past the line of scrimmage, it appears to go past the first down marker as well.

Suh created a false dichotomy and you are falling for it. Suh had the option of attempting to finish the play with a normal, legal tackle. In this case it would have been difficult because Suh would've had to release his grip on Taylor's collar, but that is Suh's own damn fault for grabbing the collar in the first place.

Aaaaand this is why there won't be any constructive discussion on this subject. Multiple people seem to think that the 30 yard touchdown pass, thrown on the run, was so horrible it caused an injury because it required the receiver, who was lightly jogging, to plant his foot (!!!!). Oh the horror. Do you people actually watch other football games? Completely unreasonable expectations.

Yes. I love that Taylor is a gamer and will try to gut it out, but without his legs our passing offense is going to be very simple and easy to defend. Jeremy White hit on something during his All-22 review this week, that the Bills do not pass into the middle of the field. I believe he counted 4 pass attempts that went past the line of scrimmage and weren't to the sideline. The data backs that up. The split stats on ESPN have passing by area of the field (Left sideline, left, middle, right, and right sideline). Taylor passes waaaay less to the middle than either Kyle Orton last year or E.J. Manuel the year before. He passes to the left sideline 40% of the time, which is about double the rate at which the other two do. See the chart below (which lumps "left", "middle", and "right" into middle while leaving the sidelines unchanged. About 20% of passes that Manuel and Orton threw to the middle of the field go to the left sideline instead, this year. Whether this is on Taylor (unable to see as well to the middle due to height?) or the design of the offense (Manuel and Orton's data comes from the same OC while Taylor's obviously does not) is not knowable. But, that is a biiiig difference. If the Bills pass 30 times, that is six throws going to the left sideline that used to go to the middle of the field. With Taylor's scrambling ability, the defense still had to respect the middle of the field. All of his big runs start up through the middle before going to the sideline. Without it, our passing game is likely to be very limited unless the Bills offense can dramatically change their M.O.

That stat was not accurate. CBS probably knew it, considering how fast they pulled it without actually speaking to it. Think about what a 26 yard air yard average would be: 260 yards through the air on a QBs first 10 attempts, plus whatever yards come after the catch. Believing a QB is averaging 26 air yards/attempt is just silly. Through week 2, Taylor was in 3rd place behind Ben Roethlisburger and Carson Palmer with 6.69 air yards per attempt. Still very good and I would expect that number to go up after this week is tabulated, as there was almost no Trent Edwards in Taylor's game this week.

Not familiar with the concept of score effects, eh?

....very slowly.

You are aware that the Wilson hit occurred before the Chargers game, right?

Coller has driven me crazy this summer talking about our QB situation, but he actually nailed the Hodgson situation early on. Here's an article he wrote about Hodgson's terrible defense.

Yup. Still an odd statement because a few of them are likely to be valuable contributors who the Bills would like to resign (I'm thinking Harvin and Lawson, for example).

Got any data to support this claim? I don't recall an exceptional number of three and outs or failed drives in general relative to the league.

It's hilarious how bad you are at keeping up the "I'm just a realist" facade.

The shooter is not dead yet. In critical condition from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Being helicoptered to a trauma center now.

I am grateful that I didn't actually watch it.

The madman recorded the shooting from his perspective and posted it to Twitter.

1) I think the Bills should, and will, keep all of the big three. 2) I'd like to point out how terrible the local media pack (and national guys like Rodak) has been when it comes to covering our quarterback situation. I live in Rochester and have been to many training camp practices over the years, including three this year. After all three, I've come home to read about how terrible the quarterbacks have been and it just has not matched up to what I've seen. Then the games start and all three quaterbacks have played very well. I swear the few reasonable members of the media group must be getting group thinked by the louder, stupider ones, of which there are many. 3) I chose "Too early to tell" because I would be fine with either Taylor or Manuel at this point. Anybody but Cassel. I knew Taylor had good wheels but I have been impressed with his ability to manage the game with his arm. He doesn't appear to be any worse than Cassel when it comes to managing the game but has the added threat with his legs. I have been disappointed by Taylor's arm strength however, which appears to be even worse than Cassel. He has hit on a few intermediate throws using good timing and accuracy but there isn't much margin of error due to the lack of velocity. I am also worried about how effective Taylor's running will be in the regular season, either due to defensive strategy or injury. Manuel has really impressed me with his accuracy. If we want a consistent intermediate or long range passing game, it's going to have to come from Manuel. He's not a threat with his legs the way Taylor is but is far more mobile and elusive than Cassel. He is starting to really remind me of Roethlisburger from a style perspective. The only negatives I've seen from him during the games is his accuracy on the run outside the pocket. This has been partially offset by his ability to be elusive within the pocket, where we've seen him evade the rush, reset, and deliver accurate throws multiple times. Based on this, I just don't see a reason to play Cassel. Yes, they can have regular season success with him but they're going to need one of the young guys to develop into something more than that by the end of the season to be a threat in the post-season.

That game was in Toronto. In a dome.

Matthew Stafford absolutely sucked at Day 1 (and Day 720-ish). Warning: Actual Data for Making Comparisons The data set linked to is all Quarterbacks, through their first two seasons, from 2005 through the present day, who were good enough that their teams started them 8 or more times (or 25% of the 32 team games). The total list is 52 quarterbacks. There are a variety of quarterback summary statistics to choose from in the table. I advise you to sort the table by one of them and check out the results.Comparing E.J. Manuel to the field, and specifically to Sam Bradford and Matthew Stafford, shows that Manuel has started out his career average/slightly above average while Bradford and especially Stafford were horrendous. Below are the rankings for each of the three (versus the 52 man field) in this order: Completion percentage, QB rating, Yards/Attempt, Adjusted Yards/Attempt (summary metric that factors in interceptions and touchdowns), and Adjusted Net Yards/Attempt (another summary statistic that factors in interceptions, touchdowns, and sacks). Manuel vs. 52 man field: 22nd, 20th, 29th, 24th, 24th (14 games) Bradford vs. 52 man field: 27th, 31st, 43rd, 35th, 35th (26 games) Stafford vs. 52 man field: 37th, 43rd, 45th, 46th, 42 (13 games) Check out Matthew Stafford's proximity to J.P. Losman on most of those lists.

Speaking of the Patriots cheating, am I the only one who retroactively wondered about the Nate Solder touchdown reception after the Patriots were penalized later in the game for the wrong lineman reporting as an eligible receiver? If I remember correctly, the penalty occurred because lineman #71 reported as eligible but lineman #77 went down field instead. It made me wonder who reported as eligible during the scoring play and what the officials announced. The fact that #77 and #71 are about as similar looking jersey numbers as you can get from two offensive linemen came to mind as well. These are the kinds of things you have to worry about when playing the Patriots, it seems.

How about Kyle Orton himself, who had a completion percentage of 55.3% over his first 33(!) games spanning three seasons?

You're overthinking this. It's not about trying to decide what the route was supposed to be. It's simply watching where the receiver was when the quaterback let go of the ball.

This is the text of the rule: "Intentional grounding of a forward pass is a foul: loss of down and 10 yards from previous spot if passer is in the field of play or loss of down at the spot of the foul if it occurs more than 10 yards behind the line or safety if passer is in his own end zone when ball is released. Intentional grounding will be called when a passer, facing an imminent loss of yardage due to pressure from the defense, throws a forward pass without a realistic chance of completion. Intentional grounding will not be called when a passer, while out of the pocket and facing an imminent loss of yardage, throws a pass that lands at or beyond the line of scrimmage, even if no offensive player(s) have a realistic chance to catch the ball (including if the ball lands out of bounds over the sideline or end line)." Nothing about distances at all. Mike Carey's "explanation" is complete crap. The name of the penalty is "intentional grounding" after all. A miscommunication is, by definition, not intentional. Carey claimed a lot of things that are not supported by the rule book. I wonder what CBS is paying for his dignity.