Beck Water

Going from 11-6 to 3-13 tends to focus the attention

Scout team reps as QB is what I can find online. It seems to me the more likely thing the Vikings do, if they're smart, is franchise Darnold and trade him. The model in my mind is what the Chiefs did with Mahomes, where they drafted Mahomes while they had Smith under contract for 2 more years, let Mahomes have a full year to watch and learn, and then traded Alex Smith to Washington with a year left on his contract. Darnold has had a very very good year for the Vikings, and he's going to get paid. It seems like a very low-risk thing for the Vikings to try the tag-and-trade on him.

The strange journey of Baker Mayfield -Mayfield's 1st year, looked pretty good under Hue Jackson and Todd Haley, then Freddie Kitchens. Looked like he was worth the #1 pick. Then Hue Jackson was fired and Freddie Kitchens hired; @BarleyNY may correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the rumor was that Mayfield was given a strong voice in those decisions -Mayfield's 2nd year, big fall-off. Lower completion %, as many INTs as TD, just looked like a hot mess -Mayfield's 3rd year under Stefanski and Alex Van Pelt was like "Jim Dandy to the Rescue! Jim Dandy to the Rescue! Completion percentage back up, Interceptions way down, TD up - looked once again as though the Browns had something. -Mayfield's 4th year, played through an injury (was it a shoulder?), missed some games, did not look so good. Then of course came the organizational decision to ditch Mayfield for You_Sick_*****. My feeling was, Mayfield is confident, which is needed, but at times it verged on cocky or arrogant early in his career. He's had some of the arrogance knocked out of him, and replaced by solid football knowledge when he had a chance to work as an understudy to a Great Football Mind out in San Francisco, and he's solid now - absolutely a QB a team can win with.

Lead the Bills with 9 combined tackles but stats are far from the story of course. Thoughts? Did anyone see any noteworthy plays? Any noteworthy gaffes? I saw neither, but I thought he looked solid.

The Fish have already said they are keeping him. So the point is moot. Oh hell to the no's, Dorsey did unto his bridge, the bridge equivalent of his tablet smashing tantrum in the coach's booth at Miami. Then he poured charcoal lighter onto it and threw matches. A man with sense.

Nice resource - doesn't seem to include much along the routes we're interested in, but good to know

It's not just the KC backups. KC was running the most vanilla preseason defense possible. The Bills, from what I could decode on the TV broadcast, were mixing it up a bit more more on D, I presume because they wanted to see how Buffalo Joe handled adjusting the play call for presnap changes, and how well Ulofoshio and Bishop and the other players knew their assignments after those adjustments

Well hey, Hendrickson, I know a team...

I think, when you give Darnold enough time to find Jefferson and Addison down field, he can be accurate and deadly. But when you harry and harass him, he starts to look like a disheveled mess. Also, I'm not the greatest at figuring out the route designs from the TV broadcast, but it honestly didn't look as though the Vikes were giving Darnold any answers. He either had checkdowns to the RB behind the LOS (where the RB got blown up immediately) or deep balls. It was very clear on a couple of those plays what a difference a QB who is a significant run threat makes. You can not just blanket his receivers in the EZ, he can run it in (and run over you in the process) and has, and will.

And now that the game is over, you still saw very little of them They've tried a few (both teams). Got blown up by guided missiles shooting into the backfield, Lions blown up worse than Vikes but nobody got much. To be honest, Sam Darnold was doing a clever impersonation of a statue today so it was relatively easy to get near him.

Do you feel that's inevitable? My take would be well-coached teams don't do that....but whaddo I know?

Class of 2018 has 4 QB starting in the playoffS, Mayfield, Darnold, Allen, and Jackson 1st, 3rd, 7th and 32nd pick In 2018, when this was a highly regarded QB draft class coming out, people would not have been surprised (though many might have picked the “wrong Josh” but In the intervening years, it certainly looked like pick #1 and #3 were busts

Ya hate to see it

Serious question?

Ho then me Hearty Your shivering Timbers should be over the yardarm we’re marked safe from Cincy for playoffs this year

LOL Romo just bringing up Bills loss to Denver last season, in Buffalo - you know, the loss that got Dorsey fired? Denver has declared victory and pulled Nix. It’s 38-0 and they’re still showing Denver here

Duuude. When Mitch was in there, 15 of 21 for 101 yds and a passing TD. White 3 of 11 for 28 yds. It doesn’t look either clear or legitimate to me I am …. Concerned.

Too soon to tell. I think some of us are just making the point stop shivering your Timbers over the Bengals and being grateful we don’t play them, it’s the playoffs.

Right. It’s basically scar tissue from two years ago IMO. News flash, the Bengals aren’t the same team as they were two years ago. We’re in the playoffs with at least 2 games at home, bring on Whoever. I would say Denver looks more formidable based on D ranking and run game as well as a dual threat QB who is hard to contain, but as you say. It’s playoffs so ***** everyone in our way.

Hey. Hey. Hey. Some of us are not “everyone”

Historically I would agree with you, but I feel as though the Pittsburgh roster as a whole has no confidence in Wilson right now. And when the roster doesn’t believe their QB has the ability to lead them to a win, the wheels tend to recall off all around

Romo agrees with you.

Mahomes looks as though he’s in pain, watching Wentz at QB

My guess would be he knew he was gone in favor of Vrable so he said “screw you!” On the way out.

We’ll play who we play. But I don’t think it should be overlooked that Denver has one of the best D’s in the league and that Nix looks like Truth, with an arm, wheels, and a couple of legit weapons. Based on that fluky double deflected TD catch I would have to say they have the horseshoe up their butts right now Edit: I’m not conceding a game to the Broncos, not at all. My points are: 1) Bills fans need to stop shivering their Timbers over the Bengals because of 2 years ago. They aren’t the same complete team 2) I’m tired of some Bills fans calling for McDermott’s head if the outcome of a playoff game doesn’t match their preconceived expectations. Denver is a good team, they aren’t at all scared of playing in Buffalo weather, their defense looks fierce, and Nix looks like he’s going to be very very good.