Virgil

Today hurt. It was the most upset I've been over a game all season, win or loss. Knowing those two things, I probably shouldn't post this. But I'm pissed and human. Today's loss brings back all the old feelings of the past decade with blown leads, coaching changes, roster turnover, etc. Like all of you, I so desperately want to believe this team has turned a corner and we are on our way. Today, the past few weeks, the upcoming schedule, all make that tough to know. With that, I think I wanted to comment on 5 key things 1 - Allen - I wasn't a fan of drafting him. In the time since, I've grown to really like the kid. I like the way he presents himself off the field, on the field, and with the media. I like his skillset and genuinely believe he can do anything on the field. He had a bad day today and you could see that in the post game presser. He puts the entire loss on his shoulders and speaks to the things that we, as fans, complain about. Last year, he showed that he could throw the ball anywhere on the field, especially the deep ball. He made some dumb throws into coverage for INT's, but was a rookie. Here's where I am on him this year. Allen is a gunslinger. The way that he seems better on 1st and long than 3rd and short says something about him. I don't think you can magically forget how to hit a deep throw. I think he might be a bit oversensitive to his mistakes and either through coaching, or his own inner-monologue, he's afraid to be himself out there. I complained as much as the next guy about his cross-body throws into coverage that resulted in INT's, but now I'm afraid that he's losing the edge that made him explosive. I don't know which one it is, but he needs to be encouraged to let it fly. I think Allen can absolutely be the guy, but needs to put in situations that benefit his skill set. He's proven that he can play the short game, the long game, can scramble, avoid blitzes, and make game winning drives. He just hasn't been able to put it all together. I don't care if we lose the game, but let him just throw the ball 15+ yards down field the entire game. Stop being cute with him. Hell, let him run shotgun hurry up the entire game, but get it out. I'm afraid that he's regressing into a conservative player that he will never succeed as and he needs to be unleashed before it's too late for him. 2 - Daboll. I firmly believe that Daboll needs to be fired. I worry that McD isn't an offensive minded enough coach to really understand that side of the ball so he may not know quick enough where the real issue is. Daboll has never, and I mean never, succeeded as an offensive coordinator. His ranks have always been in the bottom half of the league. I think he's ruining Allen, not utilizing our weapons (8 carries for Singletary?!), and overall doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. Does he call a total trash can game? No. But that doesn't excuse the entire body of work. My only fear for firing Daboll is Allen having to learn a new terminology and starting over again. I'd be okay promoting from within or finding someone who works a similar system. I genuinely believe the talent is there on this offense to be better than what we've seen. Do we need a genuine #1 still? Yes. But that's not why we are underperforming. 3 - Defensive Box - Outside of Edmunds and Milano, I'm nervous that we are going to blow up our front 7 over the next two years. Between expiring contracts, age, and performance, I don't want to see us put the focus back on that side of the ball again, where McD favors and we spend the first 2 years focusing. The amount of money we've spent on that part of the team is inexcusable for the result we are seeing. Oliver is showing bust potential (for as much as you can see in a first season). What was meant to be a strength of this team is getting worse each week and we only seem to generate solid pressure when sending extra guys. I don't know who has what gap assignment and who is playing contain, but the result is poor. 4 - Schedule - I hate I told you so's. I think you should be able to punch people in the face who imply it and then get a reward. Many have complained about our lack of media respect, but our most respectable win was against the Titans. We've been beat by all 3 teams with any semblance of talent. I'm not saying we are going to miss the playoffs. I don't know right now. But there's no reason for me to say with confidence that we will convincingly beat any team left on our schedule after today. We've only put one team away this whole season, and that's the Giants. We've been within one score up until that last 8 minutes in every game this season. Miami easily could have been a loss if Tre didn't bail us out. For those saying 6-3 is all that matters, that's true for your record when deciding who is in the playoffs. But how you win is an indicator of how your next games will go. 5. McD and Regime - I'M NOT FIRING McD or Beane. We are midway through year 3. Even if we finish 8-8 and miss the playoffs, I think they are safe for next year. However, the rest of this season and next season is going to be where we figure out if it all gets blown up again. And this is where I'm at in writing this. I shouldn't even be thinking about that possibility after a 6-2 start. But tell me you didn't think about it a little today or that it hasn't been creeping in. Let's be honest, the AFC sucks this year. The bottom dwellers will become more competitive. Many of our wins won't be as easy next year. To stand by your GM and Coach, you need to know you will be competitive, you have areas on offense or defense with a winning identity, and you show progress towards getting better. Our offense isn't showing any progression at all. Our defensive front 4 is regressing. Our stars are still performing like stars and we have a lot of question marks. Mcd and Beane have 23 more games to show us the result of the process. We've seen glimpses and understand the goal. Will we see the finished product?

I was referring to the result of that particular play being a one off. My point is overall going forward if the play is going to continue to gain steam.

Show the snapshot from before he decides to make the throw. It's only a second sooner, but that can make a difference. Regardless, Allen said in the post game that he audibles the fade but missed the throw. I don't think Allen even look at another receiver after he snapped it.

Brown and Beasley are still on pace for one of their better overall seasons.

What makes you think he would have made those?

The loss was a team effort. It never should have come down to Hausch, but we throw fades to our 5'10 receivers on 3rd and 4 when we haven't hit on that play all season

We dropped two INT's today. If we generated more of a pass rush, you'd see more errant throws by opposing QB's

His name is mentioned way too much in penalties and he doesn't offset it with positive plays If he fired McD tomorrow, my wrist would be in so much pain later. From all the high fives I'd give McD

I get that this situation is a one off, but if this play is going to keep happening in the league, I think it should be evaluated from an officiating standpoint. By what he know to be a pass, that wasn't a pass. I don't know if it's worth the time to change the rules for, again a one off, but what's the difference between a forward hand off and this play? It was underhand. You could argue he more dropped that ball than pushed it. If you'd never seen the play before, you could argue it was a bad hand off. You can't officiate intent, but that wasn't meant to be a pass. Either way, I fully understand based upon the rules why it was ruled an incomplete pass. For the intent of the play, should have been a fumble.

You aren't wrong. But it still doesn't excuse him to miss both kicks. He's not right this season. You have to be able to expect 80% from your highly paid kicker 45 yards or less

It's hard sometimes to write these and not let my thoughts on the overall player or season creep in. The purpose, as stated in the title, is to talk about the game as it was played, recognizing that things change from week to week in the NFL. The other thoughts, and I assure you I have plenty of them, I think I'm going to put into another thread. With that being said.... 1 - People talk about passing yards as a stat like they are the golden key to quarterback success in the league. By that logic, Allen had a career day today as he through for a career high in yards while adding two rushing touchdowns. However, Allen had an off day and, in my opinion, his least accurate day of the season. Granted, some players didn't help Allen out with drops, but he also was throwing at players bodies or behind them on catches that were made as well. Allen, like the rest of the offense, never seemed to get into a good rhythm today. When they seemed like they might get something going, they'd hit a brick wall in regards to some of the play calling. His arm was on display as he made some great 10+ yard passes that were on a rope. He did fumble again, but I'm not going to hold that against him unless he loses it. Allen's deep ball is also something that still hasn't come back to him, which is a major frustration point for many, especially since he's proven capable of this in the previous season. Two of his deep balls seemed like prayers to me, but Allen missed a wide open McKenzie that would have absolutely been a touchdown. As for the final throw on 3rd and 4, I'd love to know if that was Allen calling that play or Daboll. 2 - Either the play calling is bad or the execution. As the game goes on, if the execution isn't there, then it's the coordinators job to adjust to what's working for his players. Today, that was the deep ball on 3rd and short. I remember at least three times where we took deep shots on 3rd and 4 or less, most importantly at the end of the game. Why that play was called when the offense showed zero ability to execute that type of play all game and season is beyond me. More so, on multiple plays with less than 5 yards to go, I didn't see Beasley, Singletary, or Knox running any form of shallow or crossing routes. There's been talk of Daboll trying to be too smart or cute on certain plays, but it seemed like the Bills didn't call plays that either matched their situation nor success rate this game. 3 - This thought fits somewhere into the first two, but I'm not sure where to put it. In previous years, if the Bills were so much as in a 1st and 15, they might as well have brought out the punt team. In this offense, the team shows up at their best in those situations. On 1st and 25, Allen made two great throws to get us to 3rd and 4. Then, we take a deep shot, miss it, and punt the ball. This series is a perfect microcosm of our offense today. The talent and ability is there, the execution and rhythm to keep it going is not. Our quarterback is a gunslinger. Our primary receiver is a burner. Our second receiver is a possession guy who works himself into space. Our halfback has one of the best averages per touch in the league. We didn't play to our strengths enough to get or maintain any of those skills. 4 - “I’ve been this close and I ain’t stoppin’ and neither should you. This is a road block. You got two choices. It can drive you to be better or you can sit here and sulk. I want guys in our program that get hungry.” 5 - I don't like to look at the box score after a game. I like to write what I saw, let one of you correct me, then fix it. For this game I had to look and I couldn't believe that Singletary only had 8 carries. He had more passes thrown his way, but 8 carries? I don't know their rank, but I'm pretty sure the Browns are one of the worst teams against the rush in the league and Singletary showed some good moves today. Not giving him the ball more was a sin against football, especially after the week he had against the Redskins last week. Like I said with points 2 and 3, we failed to utilize one of our better weapons today. Also, Oliver's name wasn't anywhere on the box score. 6 - Tre played a hell of a game today for a guy who was asked to do a lot. It would be easy to look at OBJ's numbers this season and say that Tre did what everyone else did. Today was different because the Browns were doing everything in their power to get OBJ involved. I'm not sure how many targets he had, but he only caught 4 of them I think. Tre made a smart penalty in the end zone, because he got beat, but overall shut him down. I think the longest catch OBJ had was when the Bills swapped to zone and Tre wasn't within 15 yards of him. I've been a big Milano fan, who also showed off some good stuff today, but Tre is now my MVP for the season and definitely this game. 7 - Regardless of the outcome of the game and what you think about the overall unit, that goal line stand of 8 consecutive plays were the Browns couldn't get a positive yard was amazing. The Browns tried every type of play they had for that situation and the Bills shut down all of them. I'd be curious to know if there's a record for plays in situations like that as I'd like to think the Bills had it or were close. Great job of shutting them down today in those situations, even if they did give one up at the end. I don't blame Wallace on that TD as he was left on an island where only he and the receiver were on that side of the end zone. With that much time, the receiver usually gets open. 8 - If Darnold saw ghosts against the Patriots, Mayfield has been living in the Poltergeist house this season. I've seen many games where he takes off from the pocket too early or sees a blitz that isn't there, forcing early throws. Safety aside, great job by Edmunds, Mayfield had very little pressure on him. In the beginning of the game, he was taking 10-12 step drops to give himself space. As the game went one, he was able to sit in the pocket fairly clean. Our front 4 didn't generate much of a pass rush today against an offensive line that's been shaky at best. I'm sure McD will call it gap execution, but they also were opening up holes. We did miss some tackles again today, one really bad by Edmunds, but this highly paid defensive line had another poor showing today. If you want to know what a solid pass rush looks like, simply watch Miles Garrett in this game. He blew up double team blocks and came up big in crucial times. 9 - I really hope this is the Bojo we will see for the rest of the season. He's been crushing punts lately and really helped in the field position game today. Genuinely impressed with the kid who I thought wouldn't last this long on the team. I've heard rumor that his hold on the last field goal wasn't great as the laces were pointing west, but I don't know how much stock I put into that. Hausch was a killer today. I'm more upset about the missed field goal before half than I am at the end of the game. I can't remember an NFL season that's had more kicker turnover within the active season than the current one, nor do I think Hausch should be cut because there isn't a clear successor available. What's more interesting to me about our kicking game is that the McD didn't give him changes early in the game for long kicks. From what I'm told, wind and field conditions weren't issues. It felt like the confidence in Hausch wasn't there early and that was justified later in the game. You never want to blame a game on the kicker, but on a team that struggles to put up 20+ points, we have to get more from him. 10 - Today was a tough loss as it will only add fuel to the first that the Bills can't beat a team with any semblance of talent. It hurt more than any of the other losses because, despite all the things they did wrong, they still had the lead with 6 minutes left to go. Then, in typically Bills fashion, our defense fell apart when it mattered most. We thought we won the game once on the Hughes play, which I have a lot of thoughts about. Then had them at 4th and short, took a timeout to get the call right, only to give up the biggest pass of the day. Then, we Allen gets us downfield in two big plays and we get to relax a bit knowing we will at least tie the game. A terrible, and I mean worst call of the season, call on 3rd and 4. Then wide left. For a boring game with poor execution, it turned into an emotional roller-coaster in the final 6 minutes. Sadly, we played like the .500 team we've been the past month and found a way to lose a game that neither team had any business winning. With that, we leave the factory of sadness and head off to Miami. Go Bills!

Hausch missing two is on him. He makes either one and it’s in overtime at the minimum. No excuse for an NFL kicker and many have been cut for less. Not saying that should happen

From someone on here? If so, tell them to kick rocks because none of us should have to look at that turd

I think even Allen will tell you he doesn’t deserve that high of a grade. He was off on a lot of this passes, even many that were caught. Receivers had to slow down or reach back for the ball on quite a few plays, which also killed a drive

wtf is that avatar?

We don’t learn from our losses. The only adjustment we’ve made is making Allen timid with the ball

Gotta be quicker than that ?

He knows they’ve lost too many close games and need every one going forward for a chance at the playoffs

Waffles on most days, French toast as a change of pace. Pancakes are for peasants

My sister is at that bar with her husband. She sent me a pic with them and Elvis. TheY swung by the Hilton where the players are staying too (creepy?) I had the invite to go, but had other obligations

And that’s why she never returns the favor or pay it back

My grandma locked me in a room with Uncle Touchy. I behaved after that

If loving you is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.

I’ve thought about this a lot. I’m glad someone had the courage to create this thread because only one of pure bravado, intelligence could do so. I’m going to take my best shot.... Strawberries wear shorts that are too long for the warm winter nights. When you look into someone’s eyes and smell their Tuesday, then you know carpets can’t dry with ketchup. Fire cramps bottle openers from a newborn baby. I challenge anyone to find a more logical representation. Oh yeah, and Epstein didn’t kill himself.