Sierra Foothills

Great topic. 1. I love the commitment to the run game and the fact that they don't abandon it when it's not "effective." Running the ball doesn't have to produce chunks to benefit the offense. The Bills RBs and O-line are good enough that teams have to honor the run. This is a good thing. 2. Not really sure. It's the same every week... the Bills base D is nickel and they mostly play light boxes... inviting teams to run. FWIW, KC rushed 17 times for 78 yards for 4.6 ypc. They had a total of 259 yards of offense. Continuing a season-long trend of being balanced as their only "tendency."

You're right. Mahomes had zero rushing attempts. Josh led the Bills with 12 carries for 56 yards and a TD. Kareem Hunt led all rushers with 14 carries for 60 yards.

And Von was disciplined in his rushes. Only a couple of times did he try to go wide for the sack. Mostly be played a contain/push game. Also Von's very good at lurking and disengaging. This makes him a better run defender than most fans appreciate and this ability to lurk and disengage also makes him good at picking up cleanup sacks... which didn't happen in this game as Mahomes was getting it out pretty quickly.

To your point, Terrell Bernard and Taron Johnson didn't play in the week 4 debacle at Baltimore. Also Cole Bishop played most of that game after Taylor Rapp was injured. There's a lot of people here who don't understand how the loss of "smaller" players could hurt a run defense but all 3 of these players are assignment sound which is the first job of fitting runs... and secondly all are good at using instincts and angles (instead of anchoring) to defeat blocks. Many here just assume that Detroit and Baltimore will run all over this defense. If the Bills are healthy I don't think that happens.

Piece of shiiiiit. Please don't post this ass hat's stuff here. Thank you.

That was a very brave position for you to take. Kromer didn't want Torrence? Please do tell. Agreed. Mark Super Duper is too small and old to play OT in today's NFL.

I reaaly like this... like hockey/soccer/lacrosse... essentially make it into a goal. It'll never happen though. But good "thinking outside the box" LOL.

Yes but also his 10 yard catch on 3rd and 9 where he was popped while catching the ball was incredible. I think most of us are amazed that he held onto that one.

As @folz pointed out, it was a total team win with almost too many players/coaches to mention. Yes, great defensive game plan, well executed. Lewis has improved a great deal this year. So has Dorian Williams. The injuries to starters have had a substantial silver lining. The same could be said for several players but the Bills don't win this game without Cooper. That one-handed contested catch while he was being interfered with was clutch as was his "Andruw Jones on the warning track" catch. I love how the fact of him being 20 lbs heavier than Diggs really comes into play quite a bit. On the latter catch the ball just instantly glued itself to his hands, ensuring that both feet were down. Disagree strongly. Von and Epenesa were outstanding in their rush discipline. They rarely looped too deep. Mahomes was getting the ball out pretty quickly or there would have been a few more cleanup sacks. Mahomes (like Josh) is now subjected to something like "The Jordan Rules." Teams have figured out that it's important to keep him in the pocket. The Bills, like Denver last week were great at this and Von was part of that. Almost every rush was a bull rush, trying to take away run lanes and space for him to step into his throws. 100%... very well-stated. I'm so glad we can put that shiiiiiiiit to bed. The Bills have won every game this year, except for two games where they were injured and not yet playing well... on the road against two pretty good teams.

Luckily the other guys picked up the slack and we didn't need you this week. 🙂 Samuel, Coleman, and Cooper have VERY LITTLE time on task with Josh. That critical chemistry is still a work in progress. We have not seen the best of this offense by a long shot.

Talk about dialing up the perfect play... it was great to have seen the Bills leave so much on the bone and still win. And I mentioned this week how great it would be to win despite all the injuries. And then on the play Dawkins missed due to his injury he swung over to the left side when Gouraige came into the game. The kid can play. Absolutely. In last December's game against the Chiefs at Arrowhead, that Kelce-Kadarius Toney lateral for a TD that was negated by Toney being egregiously offside (the play which looked eerily like Homerun Throwback) happened one day after Frank Wycheck passed away. As you point out the Worthy game planning was psychological warfare as was the Kelce-Toney lateral play. Zero coincidence. The failed 2 point conversion by Lamar vs Pittsburgh is in stark contrast to Josh's 26 yard TD run. I pointed out earlier this week how that power component is something that no other QB has. In this game Josh converted: 3rd and 2 3rd and 1 3rd and 1 4th and 2 In his career now (according to the Buffalo News) he's 52 of 63 (83%) for his career converting 3rd and 1 via the run and 29 of 32 on fourth-and-1 runs (90.6%). There is zero way Lamar Jackson is even close to these numbers... he weighs 200 lbs dripping wet. To put it differently, Mahomes now has 25 ints in his last 27 regular season games... I disagree with you though... Mahomes is still incredible. Those 6 passes he completed on the TD drive that narrowed our lead to 23-21 were incredible small window throws made on the run. That said the Bills did a great job of containing Mahomes in the pocket. We were seeing a lot of bull rush and containment rush. Another thing that jumped out at me was that Epenesa continues to improve. Twice he peeled off his pass rush to cover the swing pass. On one he batted the ball down. On the other he caught up to the running back and limited what could have been a long gain into a 7 yard gain. As I've been saying all season this team has as good a chance to win the Super Bowl as any. The season is long and there's many ups and downs. Too many here hit the panic button after weeks 4 and 5. It was laughably and predictably sad... as were those throwing Von Miller, Curtis Samuel, etc. on the bust pile not even halfway through the season .

Compare Josh's 26 TD run on 4th and 2 with Lamar's "going out with a whimper" fail in today's loss to Pittsburgh.

I've heard of him!

You must love the jersey exchanges!

Exactly. Now with the PSL's, the investment in season tickets is greater and the likelihood of season ticket holders selling to visiting fans is only gonna increase. It wouldn't make sense for McDermott to unveil anything in this game if he wants to maintain the advantage of secrecy in the playoffs. The Bills should be biting the bullet and playing vanilla in this one. Again, this is not a win-at-all costs game. A loss by either team is unlikely to have much impact on their playoff seedings. And how great would it be for the Bills to be shorthanded for this game and still win with a no-frills game plan?

I'll disagree again because I wasn't talking about the % of excellent pass rushers... that'll always be pretty constant. I was talking about % of pass rushers who rely on speed... the Von Miller types. For instance you've brought up Charles Mann, Kevin Greene and Jim Jeffcoat. All of them were excellent but none of them were speed rushers and that was my point.

The point I was making is that it is more a matter of degree... meaning that the prevalence of speed pass rush specialists is greater than it was then. Back then you still had guys more in the traditional mold, Ray Childress, Howie Long, Joe Klecko, LeRoy Selmon... these guys that didn't have a speed aspect to their games.

All great players but they also played at a time when the speed rush was in its advent. There was no such terminology as "edge rusher." I might be forgetting someone but I believe the first pass rusher who combined speed, explosiveness, and power was Lawrence Taylor. The above O-linemen didn't have to deal with a speedy edge player on a weekly basis... for the most part defensive ends were different back then. I'm pretty sure you're mostly facetious but it opens the discussion to others that were in the next tier. Yes, Bruce Smith had high regard for Bruce Armstrong and for Richmond Webb. He played them twice per year so I'm sure they developed a great mutual respect. Bruce also had respect for Lomas Brown who also was a borderline HOFer. FWIW, my top 2 are Ogden and Jones.

Gesundheit!

In 10 games. Yep, gotta tighten that up.

Yes. At 8-2 there are no more must win games. The real question is to what degree the Bills value playoff seeding above player health. With 8 weeks and 7 games remaining in the regular season it'll be interesting to see how McBeane plays this.

Many people share that opinion. I have a Josh bias because most QBs are really finesse guys. This includes Burrow and Lamar who have zero power element to their game. Jayden's 2 point conversion was a wonderful play and a lot of these guys have great skill but no one has that power element like Josh. Josh's ability to shrug off sacks, stiff-arm D-linemen and truck linebackers is the reason people view him as a unicorn. There's really never been anyone who plays QB like him and I'm just really spoiled watching him play.

I'm not falling for recency bias. Josh, Mahomes, and Lamar are head and shoulders above the rest.

Josh, Mahomes, and Lamar are head and shoulders better than the others.