BigAl2526

Especially big kick-off or punt returns.

Supposedly, the home and away games are all assigned according to some formula, and it should balance out over the years. I'm still waiting. The London game was a clear and obvious screw job by the league. The only consolation is I don't think the league can do that to the Bills again in the next couple of years. Buffalo goes back to 8 home games next year, but I'll be shocked if the league deliberately robs Buffalo of their extra home game in 2025.

My concern is that the last two times that Buffalo has faced the Bengals, they were critical games for the Bills and the Bengals beat them convincingly. I ask myself what is different about this Bills team, I the answer is that the differences are not earthshaking. As has been pointed out, the Bills are down a couple of key defensive players. Linval Joseph may help at the 1T spot, but it's expecting an awful lot to think that a guy who's been sitting at home watching football can come in on a day or two of practice and adequately replace a guy who has proven to be one of the better 1Ts in the league. I think Dodson is probably at his ceiling now. He's not going to get a lot better, and his best is a long way below what Buffalo got from Milano. Dorian Williams is on a learning curve and we have no idea how quickly he can improve. We just know he has a long way to go. Overall, Buffalo has to give evidence of a lot more self-discipline and mental toughness than the team has shown the last few weeks. That said, I picked Buffalo to win in out Pick-em league.

I'm trying to figure out why I should care. There must be on average 4 or 5 birthdays a day of NFL players on active rosters. Every one of them has some story to tell. Some may be more interesting than others. Jimmy G's is far from the most interesting.

I just have one thing I wonder about. How comfortable will he be if the Bills play him versus the Bengals? Yes, I read the post about him coming in and playing right away last year at Philadelphia, but I don't know how similar the defenses are. Is Buffalo's defense pretty similar to what he's played in the past? At his age, I imagine the Bills would view him as a rotational player.

McDermott has to figure out the Bengals and the team has to execute far better than they have in the last few games, but it is absolutely not an impossible task.

I imagine Buffalo keeps him on the roster through the rest of the season. Next off-season, I think they'll try to trade him again. Whether or not they succeed s anyone's guess, but I think the odds are better for a trade. Why? Teams looking to acquire players in the middle of the season are looking for immediate help to make a playoff run. With the questions surrounding Elam, he doesn't give that. In the off season, however, trades are made for team building. Immediate production is not the criteria that it is in mid-season. Teams acquiring players in the off season have all of training camp to get new players acclimated to their system. Under those circumstances, Elam could have some value to a team that plays mostly man coverage. NY Giants maybe?

I see Douglas as kind of a Levi Wallace type player, only better. He's not a great athlete, but technically sound. He's well adapted to a zone defense and doesn't make many mistakes. He's bigger than Wallace and won't get abused by big, physical WRs the way Wallace does. He's not fast, but he's faster than Wallace, who is extremely slow for a cornerback. I would think Douglas can be a solid starter at CB. He's not going to be a star, but he'll have a few interceptions and he won't be a guy opposing QBs can always pick on.

This helps balance out Buffalo's loss of DaQuan Jones when Buffalo has the rematch.

I heard it is the pick they got for losing Edmonds. They get a fifth round pick back in the deal

The main drawback with Fournette versus Damien Harris is that Fournette has never been a special teams player. You get an offensive contributor and nothing more. Teams tend to look for special teams contributions when a guy is not a starter. Cook is the unquestioned starter.

It makes sense to me. It's not just the fact that Damien Harris is hurt. It's the fact that he tends to get hurt. I was looking at the running back combine results and was impressed that Fournette ran a 4.51 at 240 lbs. I think he played lighter than that in recent years and might be a bit faster. There are a number of running backs from that draft class who are still productive in the league. Why not Fournette?

I imagine that the Bills will be giving considerable thought to how they might attack that defense, but there probably wasn't enough time to implement much of anything this week.

I imagine Buffalo will call up Joel Wilson to give them two bodies at TE.

Jones was a huge loss for the Bills IMO. He was the one defensive lineman the Bills had to really anchor against opposing teams' running games. Ankou is not nearly the defensive tackle that Jones is, but at least he has the size Buffalo lost when Jones went down.

I am surprised, and pleased.

I'm guessing that this stat has to involve a certain amount of conjecture. I'm sure there are times when a really good QB will look off their first read initially in order draw coverage away from him. What might look like a checkdown could in fact be the intended target all along.

I never approach a game with zero concerns. As for the game against the Patriots, I am mainly concerned about the fact that Buffalo will be missing close to 40% of the starters Buffalo began with on defense. The four they are missing are arguably too best four among eleven defensive starters at the beginning of the season. That said, my concerns are minimal because Buffalo has great depth and New England's offense is anemic at best. Despite Buffalo's lack of a dominant performance on offense the last two games, I'm really not worried about Buffalo's offense in this game. I don't think New England can stop it or even slow it down that much.

I agree that this will be NE's game plan on offense. It will be a challenge for NE to pull it off. Stevenson's ankle injury probably is a non-issue, but the Patriots have real problems on their offensive line, particularly at right tackle. To pound the rock, you need more than just a couple of physical runners. You need an offensive line that can get some push and open holes. The other side of the equation is Buffalo's offense against a Belichick defense. Recently, Belichick has been pretty much helpless in trying to slow down Josh Allen and the Bills' offense. I don't see that changing. If Buffalo gets up by a couple of touchdowns or more in the second half, they will be more than happy to let the Patriots keep trying to pound the ball.

Ty Johnson does have nice measurables. His yards per carry over his career have been ordinary though. Not bad, just ordinary.

Somebody will draft him high in the first round. Then there will be a long holdout. If I were to bet, I'd bet that he never gets his share of ownership. The team that drafts him will regret it and he will be an epic bust.

Let's hope he isn't inclined to be nice to the Patriots because he has made mistakes that hurt them.

He has a completely different skill set from Milano. If you stick Miller in Milano's spot, you've got nobody to do many of the things you depend on Milano to do and you have to figure out how to compensate somewhere else. I don't know that it's worth the effort to rework your defense so that it can function effectively with Miller in that outside linebacker spot.

Jeremy Chinn is listed as a safety/linebacker. How well could he handle being a full time linebacker? He was listed as 6'3" 221 lbs coming out of college. That's not far from Milano's weight. He would be one of the fastest linebackers in the league.

I refuse to try and define a formula for how many yards the Bills have to gain on the ground. However, they do have to demonstrate the ability to gain yards on the ground with some kind of consistency. There were other things that went wrong in the Jacksonville game as well, that might have changed the outcome.