Einstein's Dog

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.

They threw the flag! And the replays showed the guy was, in fact, down the field. You don't then get to pick it up because you feel it didn't impact the play after the fact, that's not how this is supposed to work. If they never threw the flag I wouldn't be bothered. But picking it up when the replay showed the guy was down the field, didn't make sense.

I'm with you, hope for a move for DHop. We will never really know how much the recency bias affects the moves (unless we get him) but Gabe had a good game and it doesn't feel on the board as a crisis anymore. Conversely, the poor short yardage problems were more present. We don't have a practically guaranteed yard from any of our RBs (and not even Josh). It does make D Henry more attractive but his salary and just one year are not what the Bills usually do. Maybe AJ Dillon for the budget version.

I agree, helmet swinging is a different level of wrong. And saying the refs couldn't determine what happened is weak. They should have stopped play and figured it out. There was a commercial break anyway I believe.

I didn't see that. But even so, it doesn't explain swinging it - which is the real crux of the problem. Because to me it was a totally inexplicable non-call by the refs for something that should have helped the Bills. It drove me nuts and the broadcast dropped it.

Certainly seemed like the Broadcast just covered up for the inept non-officiating there. They weren't even able to highlight the original supposed offset - they didn't show what Settle did to get the violent reaction from the center. Even with Settle/center offsetting, swinging a helmet is a different level of Personal Foul.

Also the little guy wasn't even part of the original scrum -which was according to the announcers something T Settle was involved with. But I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary from Setttle, but did see the Tampa guy have a personal foul type reaction. They didn't even cover that well.

I agree, I thought he would get kicked out. Didn't something happen like this with Cleveland.

I wonder if he will get fined. He should. As for the official ruling, I guess they must have swept it under "offsetting". But it is a whole different level of offense to me.

The lack of a penalty on the Helmet swing baffles me. They replayed it and it seemed to me the announcers were covering it like they assumed that was going to be called. Then things got murky, I guess the call was offsetting penalties, and the announcers dropped it quickly. But when I saw that replay it looked like the little guy was deliberately swinging his helmet and it grazed someone. We already had the Giants nonsense where they had what looked like 3 different guys doing personal fouls to our one and saying they offset, now this? Does anyone have an explanation on what happened there?

I agree with you. And while I usually like the aggressive mode, sometimes I think you need to back off. Our short yardage offense is no gimme. I am hoping McD learned from the Giants game. i didn't like the long field goal attempt vs the punt in that situation. This time he was going to make them go the whole field, and while it was still scary, it wasn't as scary as when the Giants got down to the one.

The way it could make sense is if Tenn actually wants to unload Henry to give Spears a chance while avoiding the PR hit of not extending Henry. It could be a throw-in to the deal with the Bills for DHop and where the Bills kind of throw in Elam. It makes evaluating the trade difficult. The Bills have to finish out paying Henry's salary for the year but get great value out of DHop. I think this year's salaries are $5M for Henry and only $1.1M for DHop. If they could do something like DHop and Henry for a 2nd and Elam both GMs move on from situations they don't want to deal with.

It might not be a late rounder for DHop because of the potential for a bargain price. Tenn gave a signing bonus so the remaining salary is reduced. I believe it was this kind of arrangement that had Beane's interest when DHop was with AZ. But AZ didn't want to eat any salary. I'm hoping Beane is thinking big, a package deal for both - Dhop and King Henry. Henry would just be a remaining year rental, which looks like around $5M. DHop I would like to secure for the remainder of this year and two more. You would get his excellent salary but add to it and extend him 2 more to go beyond Diggs (kind of insurance against Diggs losing it). This would mean the end is near for Gabe. If our extra third for Edmunds along with Elam could get this done, I would take it. Maybe go to a 2nd if Tenn eats a huge chunk of the money needed.

I want a WR, an upgrade over Gabe Davis. Gabe hasn't been getting as many targets because he doesn't deserve them. But a good WR would get more looks and make our offense much more dangerous. It would take advantage of one of Josh's strong points, creating time in the pocket then firing a laser 25 yards downfield. This would have to be a good WR to be an upgrade.. A veteran that will be able to be used quickly. M Evans/D Adams/ DHop/A Thielen/T McLaurin DHop is the most realistic at this point IMO. I would like his contract extended to add another year, making it two and half going over what we have for Diggs, for insurance there. We would need give Tenn a decent draft pick to have them eat a significant portion of the contract. The Edmunds third might do. DHop only has a $1.1M salary because of the $9.8M signing bonus. A lot to work with there.

DHop - make it happen! Just read an article in the WA Post by Jason La Canfora, he mentions DHop and how the Titans might look at the $9.8M signing bonus as a sunk cost. DHop has a $1.1M base salary.

Yes, we want Josh to learn to take the short pass, to take less of a beating. We have better personnel this year with Cook/Kincaid. It looks like a priority that Dorsey has emphasized (and doesn't seem to be getting much credit for). There is a big benefit to the future of the team and Josh to learn this skill. In the playoffs you take off the restrictions.

I disagree, the hope is for Kincaid to be much more pass catching oriented. Kincaid's role will be different, much more slanted towards a big slot, a hands guy. Knox is a more rounded, traditional TE. There is plenty of room for both IMO.

Who is your replacement? J Smith, H Hunter, D Njoku? All in the same range. D Waller at $17M? Good, experienced TEs cost in the range of Knox.

I think Knox has good hands and should be included in regularly receiving targets. This catch and drop % stuff is highly subjective and subject to large movements based on the small sample size. For instance, do you call the incompletion at the end of the Giants game a drop? For a player with about 25 targets and 14 receptions these subjective calls make a big difference.