notpolian

Sorry for the late post after the "no more callers" post. 🥴 The two central issues that bother me about the current Bills team are: 1. Not enough talent / game changer players. This is a GM problem. We have good players at many positions but no great ones except for QB. I think this year we have less talent than we've had since probably 2019. Don't give me the injuries excuse BTW, they happen in a collision sport. 2. I think McDermott's basic defensive philosophy is just flat wrong. You can beat bad and mediocre teams, but when the chips are down, especially in the playoffs, we will never get there IMO. Players are just too small, and the penetration objective on the DL can be beaten as we have seen many times over the last few years. I measure success as playoff success. If you are ok with regular season success, fine. Thank goodness the drought is over. But I just don't think you are ever going to get past one playoff victory per year with the current coaching and GM philosophy.

To me this is the "fork in the road" game. If they beat the Texans, anything is possible. If they lose, then I see the snowball loss against the Jets, and we go the mediocre route. Can the coaching staff find a way to pressure Stroud? Can they scheme our receivers open and utilize the one mismatch we might have (Cook as a receiver). I hope the Ravens game was an anomaly is basically what I'm saying.

I watched the entire Jets game with a friend yesterday, and their offense looked bad. First half both QBs were doing poorly in the rain, though Nix looked like he had forgotten how to throw entirely. Second half Rodgers threw several ground balls. If the Jets play like that against the Bills, the Bills will win IMO. But our DT, LB, and safety play really has to improve.

Gotta be available but the metrics are sweet https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-advanced-coverage-grade-week-4

Good writeup. The Jaguars game could not have gone better for the Bills. Point 10 is the key for me. These next 3 games will go a long way towards defining the season. Three big games against good teams. Each team can and has been beaten already, but it probably won't be easy on the road. I think the defense should be able to get some stops this week, we just need the quality offensive game plans and terrific execution from Allen to continue.

Bills 26 - Ravens 20. Make no mistake, Baltimore is a real team unlike our first three opponents. I'm counting on Allen continuing to play almost mistake free. Our offense should be fine if we keep doing like we've been, but it'll get slowed down by the Baltimore defense IMO. Our defense is going to have to load the box to stop the run. The Baltimore crowd cares and it will be an adverse environment.

Man every kick from Bass is a stress test. I was watching Atlanta yesterday and the ball come off Koos foot dead straight

Shakir is the YACmaster general

Ah that's my man Cook with the hands

It's bad enough to have $40-60M tied up in a QB. To have one who is on a 7 game losing streak or whatever it is. Yeesh.

Nice throw Trev

Allen embracing the occasional check down, decent play calling. This team can be dangerous.

Well that went rather nicely

Need some push from the DTs here

I think Samuel etc is the man coverage person. Coleman is not due to separation issues . Just a thought.

Another great drive. Did they not go for 2 just to help out Bass' confidence?? Hm.

Great first drive...Bass must go

Any AFC team, and then I enjoy seeing Dallas and Cincinnati lose especially. It'd be nice if KC would go in a protracted losing streak, but what can you do?

Bills 31 - 28. This could be a tough game if Lawrence gets his head out of his backside and we have early trouble with the Jags DL.

Allen-Hines often causes us major issues. Its all about our OL IMO. Give Allen time and open up a few holes and we can get past 24 points. Force Lawrence into a couple mistakes. This game may be more about our offense than our defense. I'm glad this one is at home and not in London or Jacksonville.

Link, hope it works The link worked fine. I also watched the live replay several times and it was clear it wasn't blocked. The other view shows he didn't slip, is the hop normal? It seems like kickers just keep getting better and a 50+ is sorta commonplace. It is not good to have a kicker who is questionable even from 40+.

Benching Young this early is the right thing to do, but wow. Drafting a QB can be a crapshoot. The killer is what they gave up to move up from #8 to #1. Carolina is pretty screwed for a while. Speaking as a Buffalonian who is now an Alabama resident, I think you need to be careful evaluating players from Georgia and Alabama (and maybe OH St, UM, etc.). They are almost always physically gifted, but they might not be all they seem to be because they are surrounded by superior talent and face inferior talent at almost every position. So their shortcomings (Young has an obvious one 😉 ) are often covered up. Prime examples are various recent OL such as Alex Leatherwood. Physical specimen, but bad things happened when he played. He was drafted 17th overall, was waived in less than 2 years, and is now bouncing from practice squad to practice squad. Alabama QBs often have the luxury of throwing to wide open receivers and are mostly well protected. When he had to, Young could run around and seemed very clutch and calm at UA, but its not surprising he can't succeed when surrounded by average to poor talent. Mac Jones won a Natty throwing to wide open NFL WRs while OH St played a 4-4-3. You may have noticed some issues at NE with him. The only exception used to be defensive backfield at Alabama, that was Saban's personal domain and if you weren't competent, you were not getting on the field.

I may be in the minority, but I dislike the Bengals much more than the Chiefs. Plus I've met a few really decent KC fans.

KC never in doubt.

Somebody needs to pay a poor college student to do the research and see how often a defensive timeout is successful. I hate them!