Beck Water

LOL you do know that one reason the OL hustles at high speed to wherever Josh just got tackled is that he's apparently a World-Champion Junk Talker and they need to protect him from himself? Josh has a different public persona than Joe Burrow, they're different people who had a different path - Burrow through two Big Time programs and a national championship, one through zero scholarship offers out of high school, one Division 1 offer after JC, and the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl as his biggest stage. It's not like Burrow is all "cocky ass" either: https://www.bengals.com/video/joe-burrow-bengals-bills-week-17-press-conference About a minute in, he says he's hung out quite a bit with Josh Allen, they're friends. Says it's no secret why Josh is so good, he's fun to watch. He runs around and makes plays, makes throws nobody else can make, he's an exciting player, a great player, and it's going to be fun to go against him. He's asked "what do you like about him, why do you hang around with him?" He says (Allen's) just fun to be around, he's an outgoing guy, fun to hang out with. Asked "when did that relationship for you guys start?" says "we both train with the same guy in the off season, so that started when I was training pre draft" He comes across as straightforward and down to earth, and maybe I mis-read Allen's response when he was asked about Burrow. [I also might not be mistaken in that there might be a bunch of competitive smack-talk out there between them, too - I'm sure they're both ultra-competitive guys] Anyway, he didn't come across in that interview as particularly cocky much less sounding like a cocky ass.

I don't think you can make that conclusion. As you point out, the Bears OL is not good. We've been watching Basham all season against some very good OL. So how can you look at a few reps against a bad OL and reach a justified conclusion that there's "basically no drop off"? I agree with this. Part of it is, as you say, that the Bills in AJE and Basham drafted guys they asked to re-model themselves physically, which is always a bit of a crapshoot. I will add that part of my disappointment with Basham is the fact that Creed Humphrey was on the board when they drafted Basham. On the other hand, you can't make much of a case that they signed Von Miller because Basham was a disappointment. They weren't expecting Basham to become Von Miller. They were expecting him to be a rotational DE. The Bills recruited and signed Von Miller because they wanted an elite, game changing DE, and they didn't want to expend the draft resources to trade up as high as they would have had to go to pick one.

Sorry, but anyone who can look at a DT set of Jordan Phillips, Ed Oliver (taken a step), DaQuan Jones, and Tim Settle and think it's "no better" than Vernon Butler, last year's Ed Oliver, Star Lotulelei, and Harrison Phillips, and say "no better than last year" - well, I gotta question whether you're really watching much, or whether you know what you're watching. Yes, we have no "Mario Addison". Wow. We really miss his 7 sacks, 8 TFL, and 7 QB hits playing 45% of the snaps. Add in 1 pass defenses and 1 FF Hughes has had a rejuvenation for the Texans. Whether the scheme suits him better or he had a fire lit under him when the Bills moved on, I can't tell you, but the difference between Hughes his last year here (2 sacks, 1 TFL, 7 QB hits, 3 passes defensed, 2 FF) We are getting better production from Rousseau and AJE this year. That's just a fact. AJ Epenesa has 6.5 sacks, 7 TFL, and 9 QB hits playing 38% of the snaps? 5 passes defensed and 2 FF. Rousseau this year (7 sacks, 9 TFL, 12 QB hits, 4 PD, 1 FF) is not "marginal" Shaq is playing on a 1 year "prove it" deal and he is out to do just that. He has more sacks, TFL, and QB hits than Hughes had last year in B'lo (3.5 sacks, 6 TFL, 9 QB hits, 1 PD, 1 FF in 47% of the snaps. Von Miller is a huge loss for the Bills, there's no sugar coating it. But anyone who brings up missing Jerry Hughes as he played last year for the Bills, while saying Shaq is a "JAG run defender" - again, one has to question whether you're actually watching or just here to troll. "Grade out that well" according to whom? Yeah, OK, we get to the official "this guy makes no sense here". Well, All Righty Then. I mean, it's not like we've already faced the top 3 WR in the league or anything for Y/G, or like we've faced 5 of the top 10 WR in the league for Y/G, or anything. Did they make some plays on us, Yes. Did their teams "Boat race" our D? I guess it depends upon your definition of "boat race". Our D certainly played well enough for us to win both games.

https://thespun.com/nfl/afc-south/tennessee-titans/football-world-impressed-by-titans-performance-tonight I thought Dobbs did well. He didn't have much OL; he didn't have much run game; he kept throwing catchable balls his receivers failed to haul in.

So my understanding, which could be wrong, is that a lot of teams weight their game prep on the most recent 2-3 games. [Evidently, we had some inside info that at times, Pete Carrol and staff just use the most recent game, which is how Daboll double-suckered Belichick and then Carroll in 2020 by having the Bills run the ball down the Patriots throats (which they weren't expecting), then pass all over a Seahawks defense that "had a nice little plan for the run" and had Carroll saying after the game "we were surprised they passed so much". I think Boyd has been shown a lot of stuff from the Bills most recent 2 games, played in horrible conditions. You don't want to do a lot of disguise and extra running around when conditions are slick. You also need simpler game prep when you're playing 3 games in 12 days and your prep and practice time is limited. I think earlier in the season, we did indeed play more disguised coverage than he seems to think. I think this perhaps: https://thespun.com/more/top-stories/joe-burrow-makes-his-thoughts-on-bills-game-very-clear He does acknowledge they haven't played us yet.

We all would. But either the DL is improved enough without Von to bring pressure with 3 or 4, or we are going to struggle in the playoffs, because that was the whole goal of Beane's off-season: improve the DL to where we could affect the QB in the playoffs, while leaving the OL and the WR corps "good enough". The idea is, that protects the secondary

Got some other gems besides Boyd?

I think Simms is more an Allen fan than a Bills fan. He’s especially not a fan of the Bills offense. He say we can’t run, and that our passing game is Allen making things happen.

Thought most people seemed to think that was a broken coverage/miscommunication Tre should have had safety help over the top .

Screen name checks out

Looking pretty likely that Dallas will have more points, and that’s what matters. Style doesn’t

SOOOOOooooo many missed tackles by the Titans And OK, if that is roughing, Titans should definitely have gotten a roughing They are Cutting Dallas slack too

It’s entirely reasonable to point to the Bengals accomplishments this year, especially recent accomplishments, and say they look dangerous and it’s going to be a tough game It’s entirely not reasonable to look at the Bengals last season and say “they’re a better team until proven otherwise”. Last season was last season. This season the Bengals are 11-4 and the Bills are 12-3. The Bengals are an excellent football team, but so are the Bills.

WOOOT! WOOOT! Dak 2nd pick

Should have been RTP. Hit in the helmet. I give it to this Dobbs kid he’s got poise and cojones.

Bobby Trees kind of sucking this game. He doesn’t haul in a 3rd down pass that hits his hands. That ball was pretty well thrown, but he just falls down. C’mon woods

If you look at it as David being sent out against Goliath with his slingshot leather frayed and without enough ammo, it has its points Titans run game is like watching the 2018 Bills try to run, where I used to spend more time than I should have trying to figure out what the run play intent actually was

I was thinking of 7-9 this week and tie next week

Except they didn’t last year, right? They were the #1 seed, the Bengals were their 1st playoff game, and the Bengals won And the year before, they lost to the Ravens, who were a pretty physical team battling a lot of injuries

Joshua Dobbs. He gets a lot of slack from me, Titans claimed him off the Lions practice squad 8 days ago. His first 2 drives were OK. He had a drop on the first and Woods shoulda had a 3rd down pass on the 2nd drive. Nice deep completion too

Tie?

I mean, do you really think they try to be that much more physical than every other team? OK, now I want the Titans to win. I don’t think they can, but I’m rooting. Is that wrong of me?

I hate this make the coach talk to reporters during the play of the game stuff

I “get” why it doesn’t matter to Dallas too much (though the announcers were talking about Parsons playing with a club on his hands because Dallas is pulling out all the stops to win) But why would it not matter for Tennessee?

TNF just put up a stat about how many players the Titans have lost to IR. You’d think a team might re-consider its S&C and training staff?