Einstein's Dog

IMO, Cook needs to be slowly integrated back into the lineup, 3 fumbles are inexcusable. He didn't even play the whole game. He sat because he fumbled and yet two more after that. What Joe Brady can bring is a spark, a positive focus/jibe. I think Brady gets the luxury of unleashing Josh for the remainder of the season. Josh's bullets to Diggs, high percentage to Kincaid, and increased use of Shakir along w bringing Cook back in still has the potential to be an excellent offense.

There is a Bills fan scenario where a Bengals victory could be beneficial. The logic is that for the Bills to get to the playoffs they must win the division. This game is meaningless to our Divisional aspirations. If the Bills win the AFCE the next hope would be to get out of the 4th seed, the 4th seed will most likely get the path of having to go into KC. The best chance for the Bills to get the 3 seed is to be above the AFCN div winner Balt (because game behind and lost hth to Jax0. If Balt loses they will only be one loss better than the Bills, all AFC losses.

If you can't say "scapegoat" would you accept "sacrificial lamb"? Because this had the look of a premeditated response to a loss. If we won, would this have been done? While I believe there was a lull in the offense for a few games starting in London, it seemed like they were on the verge of breaking out of it. My evaluation of Dorsey for the year was going to be based on overall stats, running Josh less, developing Kincaid quickly, progressing for the playoffs. Didn't occur to me he wouldn't make the end of the season.

Why the Ekeler diss? LA has been much better with Ekeler back in the lineup. Ekeler is more than a decent back, he is legit good. When Ekeler went out Johua Kelley took over and did nothing. Joshua Kelley seems the same tier as Singletary or Cook. Kelley is in his 4th year and was a 4th round pick. The Bills were hoping Cook would be like Ekeler.

but Kincaid will have to overtake LaPorta to get it. Looks like LaPorta has 43 receptions and had his bye already.

What letter of the rule are you talking about? There is a subjective element to determining intent. You can finger point and not be called, the OL does it all the time presnap, Players do it after first downs. So no, it's not the letter, but what Josh did has been called because intent is assumed You know when intent is also assumed is when the ball carrier is taken down by someone's legs. It's generally assumed if the defender takes down the ball carrier with his legs there was intentional tripping. Huge non-call. It's 15 yards and a 1st down, the Bills ,safely in FG range, with time on the clock.

More than that they need to be consistent. They call the point by Josh as taunting but don't call the take down of Kincaid by the defenders legs as tripping (and I don't even know if you need intent for the tripping call).

Normally I would suggest looking at a replay of the telecast but as a fellow Bills fan I would not do that. It was infuriating. My recollection of this farse goes something like this. First they showed the replay of the pass and commented that it looked the two weren't on the same page, Josh going long while Gabe broke it off. I remember wishing Josh had just gone for the short pass. They didn't even mention a flag. Then they showed a replay of the earlier Kincaid play from a different angle and there was a clear tripping. I hadn't noticed it during the play, Kincaid went down hard. The replay of the trip made me say "whoa". Collinsworth said something like "isn't that a trip?" the other guy "yes" and went silent, there was really nothing more to say. Then they talked about the decision to go for the long FG as Bass was going out. Then the penalty must have been assessed. They showed the replay but concentrated on where the pass went. Collinsworth questioned the call but the other guy said "by the definition of the rules" stuff - not even mentioning the "under duress" portion of the call. Two days in and going over this still pisses me off. While the Intentional grounding was more WTF-ish, the non-call on the trip was more game changing that would have been 15 + 1st with time remaining while clearly in FG range.

Running that play in the first place had some risk. L Joseph coming down on that calf could have set back Burrow/Cincy in a big way.

I didn't realize they thought about it and had a delayed flag. That is just wrong. IMO, this could have been a after further review, pick up the flag situation. And from a game situation, it would have made the game more interesting to see if the Bills could have hit the long FG.

I think the rules dork messed up and didn't even bring up the "imminent loss of yardage because of pressure". To me, It seemed like a convenient overlook of the rule so they didn't go back and look at the lack of pressure on Josh on that call.

Tyreek was using the peace sign and then it was being used by the defense and the league didn't like it. So the peace sign, much like "the finger" would be understood to be flagged. However, a finger point is not the rule. You routinely see linemen point at the line of scrimmage blocking assignments and no flags. The ref determined intent, and it was a rinky-dink, unnecessary call (very easily could have given a discreet warning). For me, there was the larger point of cumulative BS. The unnecessary finger point call, the uncalled tripping, and then the out of ordinary Intentional grounding call. But a finger point can mean more than a taunt - as it is with the O linemen. The action he did was not by rule a flag, the ref had to interpret intent and think Josh was taunting instead of identifying a player that needs to be blocked.

That's right, that added to it. They were lining up for the FG attempt and then in kind of a delayed fashion came back. I wish the other refs could have talked the one out of it. As a Bills fan watching the broadcast of that sequence of events was extremely frustrating.

Didn't see a thread on this. How could they call that? The ref purposefully called a terrible non-challengeable penalty. It's one thing to miss/not throw a flag on something. Like the tripping -even though it was on the person with the ball. You can somewhat think they didn't see it or think from their vantage point it wasn't a penalty. But Intentional Grounding - that really annoyed me. Where did they see "imminent loss of yardage because of pressure". The ref should never have made that call. Josh wasn't throwing that ball because of pressure. It was a terrible subjective call. And with the broadcast you see the replay of the non-called tripping, followed up with the inexplicable bogus intentional grounding call was a double whammy. The broadcasters saw the tripping and said a little something and kind of movedon/went silent. Then the Intentional grounding and at least Collinsworth was like "what?". Then the rules dork tried to make like it was definitely by the rules correct. But the rule dork clearly left out the whole under duress element of call, dork. It was very frustrating.

Seems a little short sighted to me to think we should have gone all out to beat Tampa. While running a sneak would have a greater chance of scoring, running a sneak would also have a much greater chance of having Josh's shoulder get hit and hurt. I wonder how many of the same people here complaining about not running a sneak would be looking to fire Dorsey if he ran the sneak and Josh is out for the next 3 weeks because his shoulder is too sore to continue.

First, you started the snark with your "Do you know how to look it up" bit. And yes, I find the idea that a QB sneak is safer than the QB handing the ball off not only to be counter-intuitive, but also not to be true.

If your objective is to not have your QB hit, running a sneak is not a good play. I don't know how to dumb this down any more for you. Everyone in the FO wants to extend Josh's career. Having him get hit less was thought to be a good way to do that. They have been executing that strategy.

A shot to Josh's shoulder could limit his effectiveness for multiple games. Another aspect of that is hard to track is the effect of cumulative hits. We see this in RBs all the time, the talk of the wear and tear. Our Carolina connections are all to familiar with the short time span of Cam. They are trying not to have that happen with Josh.

A safe play? If your objective is to limit the number of shots your QB takes, having him run a sneak is not something you do. Extending the career of Josh by intentionally limiting his hits was a stated goal this year. They are doing that. Playoffs you may see an expanded playbook.

I think Josh got hurt in college running the ball. Anyway the concept is pretty straightforward, the more Josh runs the ball the higher the odds he can get hurt. Especially in short yardage/goal line where there is no sliding or avoiding contact. I do believe the reduction in Josh's designed runs has been part of a deliberate effort to extend his career. I commend Dorsey/McD for sticking with their overall objectives. I think you will see Josh run more in the playoffs.

Actually the worst case would be Allen out for the year with an injury. People seem to have a hard time realizing one item of emphasis has been to run Allen less to minimize his chances of getting hurt.

Royale is not telling him how to react, he is saying many of us don't want to hear it over, and over, and over again....and I agree with him.

But you said earlier "a lot of teams don't do it". Now when shown statistics to the contrary we get the "it doesn't matter". Secondly, after being shown a study concluded there was an advantage you say "One thing that's clear is that there is no evidence to support...." Huh? You may not like the study or its conclusions but there is some evidence. To me, this pre-criticism comes across as planting reasons to dislike or blame McDermott. The overwhelming majority of coaches would defer. But you have McDermott set up with statements like "Show some f**cking balls and confidence" and "that's the only way we are going to beat them"

Absolutely Not. You win the toss you defer. Much more ability to control the game.

For me, I'd like the WR upgrade the most - I know Gabe had a good game but give Josh/Dorsey 2 excellent WRs and let Josh cook. Choices: Mike Evans - c'mon Beane. Tampa is starting to look pathetic like we thought they would, deep down they know it. They need draft capital for a real QB. DHop - Tenn can claim they want to test what they have, but most know they got nothin', and need draft capital. Our third for a FA they picked up. J Williams - Elam and a third might get it done. A Thielen - I'm luke warm on this guy, but he seems dependable. RBs- seems like we need a guy who can get a yard over 90% of the time. Short yardage and good pass protector. Plus I don't know if Harris can come back. D Henry - kind of out of character for the Bills to pay RB but for $5M for the remainder of the year, he would be interesting AJ Dillon - kind of King Henry lite. a cheap version, get him for one of our extra 6ths.