Billl

You make a fair point in your last paragraph. Here’s how I see it. There is no point in complaining about the officiating. Can’t be controlled, and it shouldn’t have mattered. Focusing on that just deflects from the real issues. The fact is that you can’t win anything of consequence in this league when your QB repeatedly fumbles...and throws jump balls to double covered fullbacks...and can’t get rid of the ball when you can’t take a negative play...and literally throws the ball backwards for no good reason. Its okay to acknowledge this and not hate the Bills. It’s unacceptable play from an NFL QB. There is simply no way to start an honest conversation about this franchise without acknowledging the elephant in the room, yet 90% of this board is gushing about the 6,000 pound end table that keeps shitting on the floor. If JA can’t cut that stuff out, he’s not going to win in this league. This isn’t 1993. QBs can throw for big numbers without putting the ball on the ground or in the defenders hands multiple times a game.

I’m not asking you to be bothered by the fact that your QB is getting laughed at after losing his mind in an overtime playoff loss. I’m just saying it happened. Doesn’t seem like a great thing IMO, but I only speak for me.

You think there’s ambiguity regarding whether Ford forced that contact? Like maybe he wasn’t trying to block? You’re trying to have it both ways.

I don’t think anything I said about him was harsh. I still think Allen has a chance to be a good QB, but absolutely nothing he did prior to being drafted said that any coach who can’t win big with him right away must suck. I don’t ever remember a QB who never excelled at any level by any objective measure prior to coming to the NFL coming in and excelling in the league at age 23. Doesn’t mean it can’t happen, but you’re asking a coach to do something that’s literally never been done before lest he be called McShitty.

Daboll literally interviewed for a HC position today. As far as ESPN goes, three people were given time to either praise Watson or laugh at Allen. They chose to laugh at Allen. Maybe that’s just multiple people in the same segment and not technically multiple segments. Congrats to Josh apologists. His play that this board is somehow praising only got laughed at by multiple people in a single segment on a show that gets aired multiple times rather than single people in multiple segments.

I disagree. That was a terrible call. It’s maybe the most famous example of common sense not being used. Nobody remembers that play if it’s called a fumble. Even Brady admits it was a fumble. That said, I want you to commend the referee who called that blindside block on Cody Ford for throwing that flag. It was a TECHNICALLY correct call that (IMO) shouldn’t have been made because it has nothing to do with the intent of the rule (which is protecting player safety by eliminating cheap shots). That wasn’t a cheap shot, but you can’t perfectly define a cheap shot. It shouldn’t have been called. The official should have used common sense. In sports, the “spirit of the rule” matters. If you want to spend your weekends watching Robert’s Rules of Order, have at it I’d rather watch football.

NFL execs think he’s fantastic. Every JA apologist on here thinks Daboll is incompetent, but he’s getting consideration for HC positions. ESPN is devoting segments to laughing at how bad Allen is, and the league is impressed with how the coaching staff made the playoffs in spite of him (and damned near won in spite of him). Daboll and McDermott scripted a perfect drive to start the game. They called multiple forward sweeps and screens to get Josh some easy completions and let him use his legs before scheming a perfectly executed trick play. (Why nobody is even mentioning the fact that JA slowed up and took a shot for no reason is another story). There were zero reads for Josh to make on that drive. He made immediate predetermined passes, ran a QB sweep, and caught a pass...a perfect formula for a great athlete who struggles with processing what he sees. Hell, people are complaining about the way the first half ended. How did it end? It ended with the Bills starting a drive at their own 4 yard line with five and a half minutes on the clock that killed the entirety of the clock and put three more points on the board. That’s an incredible drive.

McDermott has taken the Bills to the playoffs twice in three years. One of them was with the 29th rated QB (Allen) and the other was with the 25th ranked QB (Taylor). What in the hell is he supposed to do to please people? Pegula: Hey coach. Here’s the keys to a team that hasn’t been to the playoffs in 17 years. Looks like you’re all set. You’ve got Tyrod Taylor at Quarterback...and that’s the GOOD news about your roster. Don’t worry, though. We’re going to use that pick that we got for passing on Pat Mahomes and Deshawn Watson and use it to trade up for Josh Allen with Lamar Jackson on the board. Yeah, he was a 0 star prospect out of high school. Yeah he had lousy numbers in JuCo. Yeah the only team that wanted him was Wyoming. Yeah he put up terrible numbers and didn’t win anything there. No problem. We’re so confident that this is a good idea that we shipped off Cordy Glenn. We don’t need linemen. We’re SO sure this dude will be good that we’re actually going to make him throw to Charles Clay and Kelvin Benjamin. This is going to be great. Good luck with all that. Bills fans: OMG, our coach is holding us back!

It’s not, though. At least that’s not the intent of the rule. That rule in meant to refer to the team that snapped the ball. As in a hold in the endzone or intentional grounding in the endzone because if the player with the ball went down in that situation it would be a safety. In the end, common sense has to apply. It’s simply not possible to write a perfect rule book, and you don’t start spontaneously enforcing something one way during the playoffs after it’s been enforced a different way all season long. Sports are meant to be settled on the field for our entertainment. There is nothing sportsmanlike nor entertaining about deciding a game via procedural interpretations of an imperfect rule book that never attempted to legislate this situation.

Should have been an easy interception. The DBs both played it poorly. That same play happens 100 times, the FB comes down with it the fewest of the three. He MIGHT come away with it 5 times. It’s picked 25 times minimum.

Exactly. 80% of this place is asking Mrs. Lincoln how the play was other than that whole assassination thing.

Allen made more ridiculously terrible plays in one game than most QBs make in a season. It’s a testament to the ineptitude of the Texans that he almost got away with them. It’s okay to admit that. He’s like a point guard who turned the ball over a dozen times in the back court but the other team missed uncontested dunks 11 times and won by a single point. Yeah, the other team’s point guard had a turnover as well, but that isn’t the story of the game.

What is the number of that rule? If a player intercepts a pass in the endzone, his teammate pushes someone in the back, and the intercepting player doesn’t leave the endzone, I don’t believe it would be a safety. Never seen it happen, though. I’d like to see the rest of the verbiage from your quote.

The crazy thing is that there are several people on here saying that Kroft scores if the pitch was on the money...as if there weren’t 2 DBs right in front of him and a LB right on his tail.

There literally isn’t a rule written to address this situation. If anything, it’s an illegal forward pass. That would create a dead ball (touchback) and a 5 yard penalty. In this case, that would place the ball at the 15. No matter how you look at it, it’s neither a touchdown nor a safety.

I don’t think you need the bold. If you remove the last comma, it works. As written (poorly), the “no effort to advance” portion applies to the entire section. Rules simply can’t be written perfectly enough to cover every eventuality. This is why common sense must be applied. If it’s going to be enforced differently, it needs to first be made a public point of emphasis.

Not to mention the fact that judges absolutely take clear intent as well as precedent into account when making their ruling. No judge is going to overturn hundreds of cases of precedent over an Oxford comma.

So a runner who steps out of bounds isn’t down as long as he still has a desire to advance? ***** is about to get interesting on the sidelines.

The reality is that this same play has happened scores of times this year, and this is the first time the ref didn’t use common sense and call it a touchback immediately. Not a single mention of it would ever have been made by anyone had the ref not been an idiot in the first place. The time to start changing the way a rule is being enforced is not during the playoffs. That would be like saying the refs in the NBA should decide to call a carry on an unguarded point guard in the backcourt halfway through game 3 of the Finals because he rolled his hand over it a little...like every player in the game does every single time.

.

Had the penalty been declined or not called, it was still out of field goal range unless you think Hauschka has 56 yards in him.

Ridiculous. If you start a drive with 5+ minutes left from your own 4 yard line and a 10 point lead on the road, you'd gladly go into halftime 10-0. Ending the drive with a FG as the half expired was a huge win. Sure, a 96 yard drives that kills the rest of the half would be incredible, but that can't possibly be the expectation. To call it horrific play calling and clock management is the height of absurdity. The Texans have NFL players on their roster, too. Remember that earlier in the game with similar field position, Allen threw back to back passes directly into the hands of defenders that would have been walk in touchdowns. 13-0 at halftime feels a little better than 10-7. You go into the locker room on the road in the playoffs up 13-0, your coaching staff gets gold stars across the board. Hopkins is the one who lost a fumble, right? The one that gave the Bills a free three points?

The year he completed 70% of his passes for 29 TDs and 11 INTs and a QB rating of 102?

Yeah. He really sucked today dropping a dime 50 yards downfield and then a perfect fade to the corner of the endzone to knock the Saints out of the playoffs in New Orleans.