Virgil

90s team had HOFers at positions we don’t. You give this current team a Bruce Smith and Thurman Thomas….watch out

I watched the whole thing. It was difficult at times to keep track of who was on the field with then subbing people in and out so much. My apologies

I was sick this weekend and on meds. I was struggling to stay awake.

Gilliam is another player I wanted to talk about. I think he could be a real threat in situations this year. I’m curious to see him next week. Good call out

Agree to disagree. Take the one deep pass out of the mix and Dalton was dreadful. I know they to support their team and keep it interesting, but it felt like they were watching a different game. However, I watched on NFL network and maybe we had different announcers. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t fully coherent in the second half and may have missed that. I didn’t remember his jersey standing out to me.

Fair enough. I felt like I saw him out there a lot more, but they may have spread them out

Basham is a concern for me above everyone else. I’m not really seeing anything from him and he was considered to be the most pro ready. I’m going to focus on him more in the next game to see what rotation he’s in I could be wrong, but I remembered the announcers saying they just pulled their starters on the play before. Yes, it’s a little scary honestly

If ever there were a game to remind yourself "it's only preseason," this was probably it. Call it the Trubisky revenge tour or whatever you want, but this was a preseason game that felt like anything but. To the contrast of our previous run happy game, Daboll came out firing and drastic difference between where the Bills and Bears are as programs was ever apparent. With that being said... 1 - Mitch - Trubisky had a really good game and showed well enough to give comfort to a lot of fans in case Allen should get hurt. However, as I watched him play, it made me appreciate just how great a talent Josh Allen is. Overall, Mitch played well. However, that's not to say there weren't opportunities in how he played. There were a few passes where the receiver had to adjust to the ball, which cost them a step and extra yards. Mitch got happy feet a few time and found ways to take unnecessary steps as he escaped the pocket. There was one play in particular where I wish Josh were on the field as I have zero doubt Allen would have delivered the throw on the run to a dot for the touchdown. Mitch did show off a strong arm and made quite a few passes in the flat to the sideline. Preseason or not, 200+ yards at the half is something to be proud of. Especially in the stadium of the team that didn't want you back. 2 - Motor - In another "it's only preseason" thought, it's hard for me to not think the starting running back job is Motor's to lose. While I understand that Moss is still hurt, Motor is making the most of every carry and is showing a burst to the outside that hasn't really been seen since he got here. He's decisive, breaking arm tackles, and looks overall like a starting back. Also, kudos to Daboll for running a lot of misdirection plays that delayed the linebackers just a step slow enough to give Motor a head start. 3 - Groot - Okay, I'm officially excited to see this kid play in the regular season. While I assume it's because he's now locked in as a started, Rousseau played less snaps in this game than he did in the previous. Even so, Groot was an absolute monster pushing through the right tackle for the Bears and notched another sack. So far, technique has meant nothing to this kid because he's so powerful that he just runs over people and can sack quarterbacks with just his hands. For my first painfully wrong prediction of the season, I see Groot getting 10 sacks minimum this year. 4 - If you haven't seen the movie "Return to Paradise", I recommend looking it up. The movie stars Joaquin Phoenix, Vince Vaughn, and Anne Heche. I don't remember if it was an independent film, but it didn't get a lot of attention. The plot, acting, and ending are top notch and guaranteed to hit you in the feels as well as telling your friends about it. It's older, so you may have troubles finding it. If you do, I strongly recommend it. 5 - Epenesa - This is where many of us are about to disagree. Epenesa logged a lot of snaps in both preseason games so far and I believe it's because the coaches still want to see more from him. Yes, he had a monster of a sack where he bull-rushed over the 3rd string left tackle and delivered a monster hit. However, I'm not see Epenesa get the same push against the starters or back-ups. He gets very close to the quarterback almost every time but he just can't quite finish. If the coaches were sold on him, I don't believe he'd be out there as much and into the second half. Same goes for my opinion of Obada, who had a very quite game. 6 - McKenzie - I only wanted to see one thing from McKenzie this preseason and that was solid hands in the punt return game. Unfortunately, he muffed a punt this game and now I'm just waiting to see how long it takes to cost us in a real game. As a receiver, he was a main target for Mitch and made the most of his catches. However, as we know, there aren't going to be a lot of snaps for him at receiver and he needs to looks punts into his hands before taking off. 7 - Haack - Speaking of Haack, he didn't get a lot of opportunities in this game, but did boot one off the side of his foot. His other punt was a beauty and pinned the Bears inside the 20, but I can already see the threads about bringing in some competition for him. Haack isn't going anywhere and while I didn't like to see the miss, his track record in Miami indicates that's more of a fluke than anything else. 8 - Defensive Playcalling - The Bills ran a lot of single safety with extra coverage in the box. The Linebackers did a great job of staying close enough to the line to reach to the rushing attack, but jumped back in coverage quickly. It was the most aggressive defense I've seen Frazier call in recent games and hope it's a sign of things to come. I'm not sure if this was because Hyde and Poyer sat out or if they wanted to see how the DB's handled man coverage, but it led to many 3 and outs. Additionally, we didn't play contain when Fields was out there, which gave him a few free scrambles, but I don't believe we cared honestly. 9 - Press Coverage - The Bears played a lot of press coverage and I was happy to see the Bills receivers not be phased by it. Each receiver got off the line fast, ran slants or shallow crosses that didn't allow the defenders to initiate hard contact with them. Our speed was on display as there was YAC yards multiple times. Again, it's nice to see the coordinators try new things and be effective. I personally believe this team is going to be that much more effective with halftime adjustments as we are becoming so much more versatile in our schemes. 10 - Hollister - This is hard for me to say, but I believe Hollister should be given the starting job at TE. Knox had both a drop and a missed block in his limited action while Hollister continues to be effective blocking, catching, and with surprising speed. He looks like a receiver in the open field and a match-up nightmare for some linebackers and cornerbacks. I'm sure Knox will continue to get the start and we haven't see what Josh's rapport is with him (should be strong since they played together before), but I think Knox is on a short leash this year. Bonus Question - The Play - After the first Motor touchdown, someone on the Bills made a monster tackle on the Bears kick returner the next play. Any idea who that was? There weren't any replays from the homer Bears broadcast.

I’m working on it today. It’ll be out this evening

Why yes, yes I have. Feel free to tell me where I said I would hit a woman. It’s okay, I’ll wait. I’m saying that the moment anyone initiates an incident with an unknown, they don’t get to dictate how the other responds.

The moment you put hands on someone, you open the gates for however they want to respond. You don’t get to tell them to only hit you as hard as you hit them. There aren’t rules once you decide to initiate a fight. I’m not saying what I would do in the situation, just that you can’t control how people will respond once you put them in “fight” mode.

It looks like they were almost pushing against each other’s hands, he pushed her hands back when he said “don’t touch me”, she slapped him, then he messed both of them up

On the first pass to Jake, the defender was holding his other arm. I can’t fault him for that first one.

Are we worries about the cap or something? Do we have too many good players we can’t keep or something? Are we worried about hitting Cam too hard?

20-0

There was another article I didn’t link that said others heard it and knew it was bad. I’m going to edit the title

Can't say I saw the original. My best friend is really into it so I'm going to give this new one a shot

I didn’t know you wrote those and I’m actually a pretty big movie person myself. I have the AMC pass where I get unlimited movies for $20 a month.

I know we aren’t a Jets board, but as a rival and their biggest defensive threat, I thought it would be relevant

I agree with most of these, but I didn’t dislike them while they were here. Whitner was drafted way too high and really burned bridges as he left. Poz hurt because he was a fan favorite and I feel like he just bounced for money and never cared about being here. McGahee was a head scratching draft pick to me. I was never really a fan as he made comments about being the best runningback in the league, when accomplishing nothing close to it. I can’t fault the other guys as they just had bad plays, but I believe they always wanted to be here and gave their all. Marrone is interesting to me as I’m really curious to know what happened as he quit. As time passes, I think he wanted more control. Jauron is like hating your grandma for being stuck in her ways. She just is who she is

Yes, as much as possible

Are you sure it’s not me? 😋

I don't remember the game, but I didn't post it until Wednesday and I thought people were going to put out a missing person's report on me. That was a terrible week at work and an overall stressful time. I've learned my lesson to not allow things less important such as work get in my way

I'm not really sure if this is worthwhile to anyone here, as most of you know me and the weekly thoughts review, but I'm trying new things this year and figured it couldn't hurt. MODs, if this needs to be moved, I understand. In deciding to put “Thoughts” out there on more social media platforms, I began to think about the endless amounts of content that is out there between fan and professional writers. To be very clear, I am a fan writer and have zero affiliation with the team or any other news outlet. I did receive my English degree and debating sports journalism for a short while, but then decided being able to eat and place a roof over my head was more important. With that being said, if you’re a first time reader of “A Few Thoughts about the Game” or a long time reader, I decided to write this introduction about myself and why you may want to keep reading. With that, here are a few thoughts, in no particular order… 1 – First Bills Memory – Bills football didn’t become an obsession to me until I was around 12 years old, but I remember wide right. My father and sister were watching the game and incredibly into it. I didn’t fully understand the magnitude of the moment nor would the chain of events that missed kick set off. By the time we accomplished the biggest comeback of all time, I was fully invested in the team and cried my first sporting tears after the following Super Bowl because I just couldn’t understand why they couldn’t win just one. Since then, I have never (and I mean NEVER) missed a game. 2 Dedication – When I took a commission sales job at Circuit City, I told my manager that I could not work on Sundays during football season. Unfortunately, they didn’t allow that for an availability, so I had to let them know my next rule: If I work when the Bills playing, I will be in the projection TV section with the DirecTV remote. If a customer needs help with projection TV’s, then I will answer them. But, if they want to shop for anything else, I would hand them off to other associates. Now, other associates learned to appreciate this because I also promised to give away any commissions from large TV’s that I happened to sell. I did this for two reasons: One, projection TV’s were the highest commission items in the store and I knew they wouldn’t like me camping out there. 2 – The register was too far away from the TV’s to be able to see the game. I was at work during the Music City Miracle and had to leave early that day. 3 – I’m Wrong….A Lot – Let’s go ahead and get this out of the way now. I was beyond pissed off when we drafted Josh Allen. It’s nothing personal against Allen, but when have you ever seen a college player fail at the collegiate level and have poor accuracy, but then magically figure it out at the NFL level? My QB ranking was Mayfield, Darnold, Rosen, Allen, and lastly Lamar. I never believed Darnold would be in play for us and figured the Browns or Jets would take him. Mayfield was such a wildcard who showed me just enough accuracy and swagger in college to believe he would fit perfectly in Buffalo. Now, to be clear, once 48 hours passed and I calmed down, I accepted Josh as our quarterback because at the end of the day, I support the Bills above all else and he was immediately my quarterback. 4 – Bill from NYC – Every week, this spot is reserved for lyrics from a band. In the beginning, these thoughts were actually written by someone I now consider a friend, Bill. He wrote these recaps every single week after a Bills game and it became a staple in my post-game review process. Some years back, Bill stopped writing his reviews and I really wanted to see that tradition continue. Bill and I spoke, and I’ve since carried on this tradition with his blessing. The title and format are all originally Bill’s and I’m incredibly thankful to him for helping me start on this writing journey. It’s just too bad that he’s an Alabama fan. 5 – The Grind – Writing a weekly review of the games was an undertaking that I didn’t realize would be as daunting as it is. You never want to write the same things week over week, but if you forget to mention Josh Allen once, people will lose their minds. For me, I make a point to mention key plays or players that had the biggest impact on the game. If a player is trending in a positive or negative direction, I will write about it maybe two or three times before I stop mentioning them at all because it simply gets old. This season, I’m really going to be paying attention to players in their third year, defensive evolution, the rushing attack, and how we fair against tougher competition. This is not to say that I’m restricting my topics, but more so the more pressing concerns I believe this team needs to figure out if they want to be Super Bowl Champions. 6 – Rules – What? Rules for a fan review? Having done this for a few years and reading feedback from fellow fans, I learned very quickly that you can’t please everyone and stats can be very misleading. With that being said, I have three rules that I do my best to adhere to with each weeks Thoughts. First rule is, I don’t google or reference any stats online when writing Thoughts. If I can’t take it as a note or pay attention to it while the game is happening, then it’s not going to be mentioned or it’ll be done as more of a reference. The second rule is, if you respond to my posts by singling out one sentence and ignoring the context of the thought, then do not expect a response. I can’t tell you how many times I’ll mention one bad play by a player in one sentence out of a paragraph praising him, and then read how I’m a hater. The final rule is, and this is more from me, never write angry. Like anyone else, I am very capable of having a temper tantrum following a tough loss. In those cases, I might not write my Thoughts until the next day because coming in level headed is incredibly important and vital to the success of these posts. 7 – Favorite Players – I’ve always been an underdog kind of guy. Frank Reich and Kenneth Davis were my early 90’s favorite players. While there were so many hall of famers on that team, I still don’t believe Thurman Thomas gets enough credit for what he brought to the game. He was Marshall Faulk before there was a Faulk. I wanted JP and EJ to succeed as they seemed like good kids, and quite honestly, felt desperate at that point. Taking current players out of the mix, it was impossible to not love Fitzpatrick and Stevie Johnson. I still hope Fitz signs a one day contract and retires as a Bill. He’s the one guy I still can’t root against. 8 – Most Disliked Players – While I have nothing against the name Chris, Kelsay and Watson were two of the most head scratching players I can remember watching during the drought. They stole every penny of their contracts here and the only two players I can ever remember rooting to against. Kelsay was the king of standing next to a pile up, but never in it. Watson was so consistently out of position and burned by opposing receivers that you had to wonder if it was intentional. 9 – Favorite Memories – While still trying to keep this in the drought and not wanting to reference other teams, my favorite memory was when Fitz beats the ***Patriots on the last second field goal after a 21 point comeback. Fitz, Fred Jackson, and really the whole team fought back in the most amazing way that game and I wish I was at the stadium because it seemed like the most electric atmosphere of the entire drought. It’s easy to want to mention the Bengals win over the Ravens, but we weren’t part of that game. However, I can say that I’ve watched the locker room reaction video more times than most. 10 – Thank you - I will be the first to say that I’m not an expert on the Bills more so than any other fan. I genuinely enjoy watching them, rooting for them, slowly making my daughter into a fan, and learning more about the game through footage reviews and other analysts. I’m so incredibly thankful to those that have been reading my Thoughts over the years and pushing me to put myself out there more for others to read. I don’t know where this will lead to, but I’m happy to find out.