Long Suffering Fan

The snap was a couple of seconds later, but this was their alignment at snap. After the snap, Trey nervously shuffled his feet, but didn't move. The other three defenders were practically statues. When the ball was on its way to Chase, Trey began to move up.

I have no problem with keeping everything in front of you on early downs - make them earn it, but you can't play that way on third and fourth down.

Third and 4 (see below). You all remember it. This play is important for two reasons: 1. It shows a complete lack of defensive situational awareness on what can be given up on a play. 2. It is the exact same mistake that was made during 13 seconds. On this play, they are guarding the end zone, but will easily give up the first down. On 13 seconds, we were guarding the end zone, but willing to give up the two quick plays needed for a field goal. It is actually worse because this play typified our defensive philosophy for most of the day. I'm a level headed guy who does not normally call for firings (as if that matters), but this is beyond belief. There is simply no excuse to give so much space in this situation. I know I am not an expert. In my mind, this only makes it worse. Like probably half of Bills fandom, I was yelling at my screen before the snap. Shouldn't an expert been able to see what we all saw? I can be patient: Trey - He wasn't what he was last year, but at least I can have hope that he will be back to his old self next year. Poyer - Not his best game, but he was playing with Hyde, Hamlin, Marlowe, Johnson so I'll cut him some slack that he couldn't be himself. Dorsey - Not happy with him, but I can at least talk myself into the fact that this was his first year as a coordinator. But with Frazier I can have absolutely no confidence that he has learned how ridiculously bad this is. Last year I was hoping that he would be hired away from us. This year I don't think I have any hope of that. He's smarter than me, he knows more about defense than I ever will, yada, yada, but you don't have to work for NASA to realize that spacecraft need to be air tight.

It is its own language, like - I am Groot.

Maybe, but that doesn't mean you can't ask. 😀 My kids would get off the boss and always have some unimportant story or detail from their day that they wanted to tell me. I was never interested in the substance or the conversation, but always loved having them none the less. I became interested in things that were "beneath me" because I loved my kids. This. The key to eliminating hate is remembering we are on the same team. So true. Tom Brady was "humble" on the surface but it came across as soooo fake. Josh seems genuinely humble, good dude, guy you would like to hang with, etc.

There are so many major advantages that go with the one seed. 1. It means a first round bye and one less playoff game that you have to win. 2. The bye means that in the next round you go in rested and prepared while your opponent doesn't. 3. It means that you get to play the weakest team (usually) in the next round. That is especially huge this year. There are three teams that stand out above the rest in the AFC. If Buffalo gets the one seed, that means they would only play one of KC/Cinn. Finish 2nd or 3rd and you will have to beat both. 4. And you also get home field advantage in the playoffs. Everyone is always talking about home field. That is not even close to the most important thing on the above list.

I agree with Warriorspikes51. Forfeiting or cancelling the season just doesn't make any sense and I am NOT speaking from the standpoint of a fan. Many of us have put ourselves in the shoes of the players on the field and correctly came to the decision that the game had to be suspended last night. Their brother was getting CPR. If I keep myself in those same shoes, while I am still reeling today, eventually I am going to care. Meaning the players will begin to care about playoffs at some point. For us football is a distraction/entertainment. For them, football is their life. They work their entire lives to get to the point where they are in the NFL. They often work 12 months of the year training and getting ready. They shoot for personal and team goals. They dream. The Superbowl matters to them. It defines careers and impacts contracts and they only have a very short window. I can't imagine putting in the work that they do and not caring. Today, yes, Damar is all the matters - praying. Eventually, the players will also care about the thing they have devoted their life to, while still caring about their brother. Forget the fan. Forfeiting or canceling the season? That is not fair to them.

I haven't posted, but I have been reading and following along everything in this thread. Like most of you, I was shook by what I saw and this thread was helpful for me to process it all. You guys are great. Just as the Bills and Bengals players came together over this, we should as well. Everybody probably needs a little more grace tonight. I'm going to bed. Thanks again, everyone.

Nice. Buy that wasn't a tell. Ryan needed a break. 😀 I too am going to watch for these. I'm sure every team has tells, like the old Josh Reed in motion slowly behind the line meant a run with him as a blocker. And every team should work hard to eliminate them. As you say, if we can see it, so can the other team. If you are right, I tip my cap to the OP because these are pretty detailed.

Shaw looks like a modern QB when he drops. The Lions QB doing that run backwards for a drop back looks so awkward, especially since it is so deep. No three step drops here.

Unless you have him on your fantasy team because of his TD production last year and you thought he would get even more usage after his big contract. 😭

My problem with Frazier is his stubborn refusal to blitz more, even when the situation calls for it. I get why we don't blitz Mahomes, but Goff is not Mahomes. He is TERRIBLE under pressure. There we are with our top two DEs out and he is refusing to blitz. I am begging my TV to blitz all game. Finally in the fourth quarter he pressured Goff two straight plays and it led to a three and out. And on those two plays Goff's throws were way off target. There is Josh under pressure constantly (mainly because of our oline) and fighting thru like a gamer. Goff can't do that consistently.

Yeah, I think I like what Brady wrote for two reasons: 1. From the outside looking in, that is what AB looks like to me. I agree with him (with my very limited knowledge). 2. I have had situations with self destructive people and it takes a mixture of caring and bravery to confront them. You have to do it if you care about them and want to help them. OTOH, you know that those are usually the exact people that lash out at you for trying to help them. Props to TB.

FIFY. It is the Vikings game after all!

Have we? I think he has done a great job possibly underpaying some of the home grown talent - Josh, Milano stick out the most to me. Your second point is amazing and needs to said. When comparing a GM to perfection by listing a handful of mistakes, the GM will always fail because every GM has those handful of "mistakes". This. True, but we've all seen backup QBs perform well. I think this is based on three things: The QB, the coordinator, and the run game. As an extreme example, obviously a backup to the 90s Troy Aikman Cowboys should have an advantage when their offense is built on running it for 5 ypc. The Cooper Rush cowboys got wins, but did not exactly light it up through the air. Although it has performed better this year, the Bills don't have the strongest running game. That is one strike against us and puts more pressure on the coordinator and the QB. Personally, if Josh is out, I will be very curious how the early scripted plays go. I have memories of some bad Bills QBs (Emanuel?) having good early drives because of the scripted plays and then struggling when they had to just run the offense.

Here is why this is a good thread....if Miller had signed with the Rams again for similar money (or a little less) and we had just traded a second or third round pick for him, I would be psyched and excited about him coming in and being that final piece we needed to get us over the top this year.

Exactly. There has to be more going on. He has a max of a few years left. She can see the end in sight. If she wont wiggle, then why would he sacrifice so much against so few years. If they had marital bliss, they both had to weigh the moment against 40 more years of rich, marital bliss. It leads me to believe that their relationship is not so blissful. If there is not more going on, they are both the most near-sighted people in the history of the world...and the most selfish.

...and all of us who had to always deal with numerous Captain Checkdowns say Amen. My favorite line from the whole thing is when he says something like - we get enamored with the hurdle, but it is this stuff, the stuff with his brain and his eyes that make him great. Side note - I love the arm talent - not so that he can complete a pass in the air for 64 yards, although that is nice - because it means he can so easily flick the ball to a 20 yard out when he is off platform, being knocked around, and can't step into the throw.

Exactly. Shakir and McK are not an either or for this year. They both should play for many reasons: There is not enough difference in them at the moment, what about injuries, what about 4WR sets....they both need playing time. Then there will be the occasional game where we rely on one much more than the other. For the future, however, Shakir will be better. He's a bigger target, blocks better, has better hands (I'm basing this somewhat on his college tape), and seems to have a higher top end speed. It makes it a little more obvious what the future will be when you put them in context. Lil Dirty is a seasoned vet. If we compared him as a rookie to Shakir as a rookie, I think Shakir would stand out significantly. The counter would be that Shakir still needs to make the trip that McK did, but Shakir appears to have "Bills DNA" and will work like a madman to get there. Here is my prediction - In two years we will be shaking our collective heads wondering how we ever compared the two because Shakir will be that good. EDIT: For his college tape and some amazing catches: (No, I'm not his agent - just becoming a fan)

When I see Isaiah run, he looks fast, almost frenetic. When I see Shakir run, he looks smooth...and then he gets the corner or somehow covers more ground than I expect. I know his 40 time is great, but he is faster than he looks. It is a good sign that he plays fast. The other thing that stuck out to me was that, despite the drop, he has shown the ability to make difficult catches. However, he has had a relatively small body of work with the Bills, so I decided to re-watch his highlights from last year. I'm sure I watched them already around draft time, but you know how that is when you are consuming a lot of content and this 5th rounder is just a name at that point. Lots of people have good college highlights and it doesn't translate. Watching them now meant more to me. These highlights are over 7 minutes long. If you don't have the time, watch the next 2 plays at 55 seconds and the next 2 plays at 2:47. I think this rook is going to be good.

Awesome play. Thanks for posting. In 2019 and 2020, I used to say that Po is good, but Micah is great. I really feel like Po has taken a leap forward the last two years and now I wonder if he is better than Micah (it would be great to have them both, of course). Po was very public about the negative influence alcohol had gained in his life right about that time. Good on him for recognizing it, doing something about it, and being willing to talk about it. I wonder if that had anything to do with his improvement. If it didn't then maybe it was the coaching. Either way, I'm a big Po fan - so much so that I am thinking about getting his jersey. (Of course, this is assuming that I am right that he has gotten better and hasn't just been this good all along.)

In this analysis, I love the sheer volume of plays that are covered. The minimal on screen graphics and the voice over were enough for me to follow even though things were not super slow mo or frozen. This allowed a lot of plays to be covered in a short amount of time. Kudos to cover 1. This video shows the value of Edmunds. You can argue about how much that value is worth salary cap wise, but there shouldn't really be an argument about whether he has value. One reason why the Edmunds arguments have been fierce on this board is that one side argues that Edmunds is trash. The other side, in response, will argue that he is great...and maybe oversells the case some because he is obviously not trash. This has made the arguments very polarizing. The coaching staff obviously believes Edmunds has value. Instead of Trash or Great being the argument, how about Good (but replaceable) or Great being the argument? Nah. 🤪 The other thing I like about this video is that it talked about his reads, pattern matching, fills, etc. Very little was even mentioned about his length which (IMO) impacts QBs.

I very much respect the reference to Hank, who I loved, but I think Poyer is better. The Poyer-Hyde combo at safety, which we may not see again, has to be the best duo at safety ever. It is not just that they make big plays, people can't go deep on us even when we are fielding rookie corners. It is like their play has scared QBs away from the deep half of the field.

Here is a better "what if" - given that the ball was going off the backside of someone bending over, it could have easily gone forward. Instead of the safety (it only went out the back by about 5 yards), it could have gone slightly forward and we could have has a TD...or maybe had it at the 10 or 20.

I was actually thinking that this is one of the worst things about this loss. 😀 This would have lived in infamy, but instead will be reduced to a footnote.