PoundingDog

Just for comparison, here is the defensive snap counts fotr the Saints game. ABout 10% more total defensive snaps in the Saints game. They reduced Bosa's by about 10%. Doubled Solomon's snaps (9 to 18). Walker has the biggest snap increase in actual numbers (19 to 34), and they played T Johnson a lot more this game. I still think Bosa's snap count is still high but I understand the game situation and Epenesa has an injury that they kept his snap counts to around 20 the last 2 games. So they have to increase Bosa and Solomon's snaps as they are probably the healthiest DEs (other than Jackson who is definitely not ready for action in coach's eyes). The coaches seem to trust Walker more now.

I admit I never caught on the MVP thing just like last year, the year before last year, and so on... Josh is likely to have the MVP cause in his contract, but I care much more on him winning a Superbowl MVP. Let's face it --- if the Bills are to win a superbowl, short of James Cook running for 200 yards and having 3 TDs, they will give it to Josh Allen.

So Epenesa, Jordan Philips, Sanders, and Solomon were the D-Line on that play. Taron Johnson, Bernard, and Williams are the linebackers. Sanders took the bait (fake handoff) too much and left a big gap in the middle.

Pete Prisco said on ESPN radio this morning that the scoop is Liam Coen and Robert Salah developed bad blood as the finalists for the jags HC gig. It is inconceivable to me how candidates for a job can become so hostile without any other stories behind it.

My take is a bit different. Ty & Ray got so few carries because when they are in there, they were NOT effective, which forces Brady to give Cook more carries, kind of similar to Joey Bosa had to be out there taking so many snaps because no one else can get close to the QB. Pre-season game time to find out is over. If this continues post the bye, I'm willing to give Gore Jr. some try as a PS call up.

I don't know how D is coached. But definitely not 2 guys taking the same gap. Either Bosa should go outside for containment and leave Williams to control the inside gap or Williams should read Bosa and go outside in this case.

Not sure. Walker was still pushed around in some run plays, too much for the Coach's like. I'd say both he and Sanders are not quite there in terms of what Daquan Jones said "you gotta understand what they (offense) are trying to do first." He's still get by with pure physical ability so far but that's the exciting part: physically he can overpower people now, what happens when he knows who and where to overpower people on individual plays? I don't have inside info on him, but every his interview, looks like he's kid eager to learn and take coaching to heart. There are talks about he does not anchor well due to him being top heavy. I think with offseason plan, nutrition, and technic improvement (like getting low at stands), he could develop into a more complete DT. Ideally he's more suited to an aggressive attacking defense.

I don't know there is more "opening up" on offense people are expecting, unless you are talking about letting Josh sling the ball all over the place like the late 4th quarter Ravens game where we are desperate to catch up. I don't care for offense "flare" but I do agree it lacks creativity now under Brady. We can all agree Joe Brady is not someone of McVay or Ben Johnson class where there are innovative designs, IDing defense calls (not Patriots style of stealing signs illegally). Innovation means something new to take advantage of specific player/talent, call sequences etc. It looked like we are focusing on execution and key guys like Cook, Allen are really executing consistently on a high level. I will point out that Allen seemed to have moved into this high level execution level (yesterday might be his worst game from execution standpoint), which is NOT people quite expected, even after his breakout season of 2020. To execute 10, 15 plays on offense to score TDs consistently is HARD. In fact many defenses, including our own McDermott, build defensive philosophy around forcing offenses to execute play after play and eventually there is a mistake to be capitalized on. So far we are doing it. Allen, like Mahomes, uses his special traits to work out the occasional negative plays along the way.

Please don't use this argument. There are people all over question what the Bills have beat. The Bills are 4-0 and their opponents have 1 win TOTAL so far. 1 WIN. if not for the respect of Josh Allen, Bills would be treated like the Colts prior yesterday.

This is my worry, as I have stated many times here. At a minimum, you have to have capable backup to spell Cook, your offensive driving force, and so far the result says nada. Now I do get it that Beane and McDermott thought Davis should be better than he has showed so far - he showed flashes as a rookie and you expect a jump in production in year 2. But I see a trend now with the older rookies (Kincaid, Davis coming to NFL at age 24), you may get satisfactory result year 1 but not year 2 jump. The optimistic side of me expects that as the season goes along, Davis figures out and overcomes the book that defense have piled based on his rookie season.

I know this thread is about Cook and so far he's the engine of the offense this young season. What I'm worried about is both Davis and Ty Johnson being so ineffective that something may have to be done if they don't pickup their play. Just look across the field, even for the Saints they have 3 RBs each can make some plays.

Nothing to see there to be honest. I'm just interested in the personalities of the players. Josh is playful - he's veteran probably heard too much of McDermott post game speech. Cook is just socially shy, didn't really want to say anything being given a game ball before being propped to open his mouth. Bishop, well you can tell he's kind of a "new" guy there; I'm guessing he stayed well back from the center and McDermott wanted to get him out for a hug

Gotta justify his roster spot with something. Hasn't been able to run much at all 2025.

Yes we won. And we may have played our C game. But we have to remember two things. 1) the Saints are likely the team drafting #1 overall next year. In other words, they are probably THE worst team in the league and we played them at home. 2) We looked sloppy on both sides of the ball. We made unusal amount of mistakes. Even on offense: Josh had the first pick of 2025; Josh is sacked 3 times; we went 4 consecutive drives having to punt. We even failed a short 4th down conversaion. I think fans and McDermott have every right to be upset about the performance.

Without Bishop's INT, we might've had to do a comeback second half. Speaking of Bishop, that got to be a huge confidence boost for his young career. Definitely his first biggest play in NFL. It showed why the Bills wanted him in the 2nd round and even looked to trade up for him, as he disgnosed the slowing develping play correctly. I just hope he gets to ID the faster developing plays faster.

He's up to Thurman Thomas level as far as importance to the Bills offense.

Babich looks bad - the team just seems surprised at other offenses are doing too often.

It depends on the defense as well. If the safeties refuse to come down to the box, then just keep running the ball. Those who do All-22 said Miami refuse to load up the box even when Cook was running successfully. Instead, they opted using 4 DTs at some snaps. One complaints from me is the lack of successful runs behind Cook. Davis looked regressed this year. If we are able to run successfully with Cook and Davis, I think opposing DC may think twice about play for pass.

Around the 12 minute mark, he talked about Benford. I'm particularly interested in the 12:35 mark where he got into specifics on Benford skills on football IQ, having a feel for the game, understanding formations, understanding coverages, knowing how to eliminate things on the run. Looking back, I can't help to think those are things Hyde was great at (Poyer at a lesser degree) and I don't know either Rapp and Bishop has it now. Of course White at the time as well which made a great secondary even though none of them were superstars from physical perspective. Elam was a 1st rounder vs Benford's 6th rounder. Elam probably fooled McDermott with his notebook of college mistakes at the draft time; that guy has no football IQ/feel of the game kind of stuff.

How many young guys are playing now? On offense it is Hawes, which is a revelation and we secretly hope can be better than both Kincaid and Knox down the road. On defense, it is the rotation of Sanders and Walker, and 2nd year guy Bishop. My question is if we had started Strong for all 3 games, would the result be the same for the Bills, i.e. 3-0?

Common sense says that if an offense has top weapons, pressure on QB is more important than coverage. Conversely if you have a super QB but so-so weapons, you can do well by coverage. The Bills has done reasonably well against Mahomes in recent years is because the Chiefs don't have a lot of big time weapons (Kelce is aging). And the Bills always have a hard time against the Ravens is because we can't pressure Lamar while taking care of Henry and covering guys like Likely, Flowers etc. If you can cover well and pressure, then you are a dominant defense. Phily showed that against the Chiefs. We are not that. So for me, I still put the blame on Miami's 3rd down success on us not able to generate pressure without doing blitzing all the time. The kind of issue Tre White experienced (as well as the limitation of safeties IDing the likely pass direction) is exactly why McDermott and Babich are afraid to go man and blitz the hell out of Tua. And they probably thought we could pressure enough against Dolphins OL with our 4 man front. The Tua INT play is exactly the kind of pressure + backend play McDermott and Babich expected walking into the Dolphins game. The question is one such a play a game is good enough? That's bare minimum - one play, and so far Josh Allen and the offense make it stands. Come playoff time when everything is tighter and opposing team offense is of higher quality, you may not get that ONE play; we've seen that in our previous playoff exit games.

Year 1 Josh Allen if I remember correctly. What kind of high bar is year 1 Josh Allen in his 1st 3 games? Even he admitted he didn't know what he was doing as a QB then. He said it wasn't until the Houston game where he got injured on a pass to Benjamin that he "got it" in terms of reading defenses.

Right. They are not going to sit Bosa to see if Landon Jackson can work well or not. They are not going to sit Cook and use Gore Jr. Game day you dress 45. At a position, you have a number, say DE, not more than 5. You can't activate both Bosa and Jackson, Cook and Gore Jr. etc. because otherwise, other area will suffer. Between the starters and backups, you may see backups taking more snaps if the game going our way. That's it. For example, if the Bills are up big and the Saints are into passing mode exclusively, you may see more of Epenesa and Solomon in the 4th quarter than Rousseau and Bosa.

He got beat a few times in the Dolphins game. Maybe that's the reason. I think Dawkins is not up his play last year, either. Hope they play into their level thru these games to the bye week

Someone here said the Colts do not count because their opponents have a 1-8 record. Guess what, the Bills opponents so far is 1-8. After next week, people will point out the Bills are 4-0 because their opponents are 2-14.