Ralonzo

You mean, a game against the Dolphins?

I'm concerned but not going to panic until I see Ingram out on the field. He could play for the Ravens.

Karma, and a 3rd round comp pick.

Better to be Larnel Coleman than Carnal Lolman.

I'd have to think Emili is the guy at #53 that gets waived to the practice squad on the next roster move. Bryant, they might not be able to get away with that, but he would have been subject to waivers after two elevations from the practice squad anyway. Mancz can at least snap the ball, which is an improvement from Van Roten. Ja'Marcus Ingram was by far the worst Bills DB I saw in preseason. Eww.

What happened to him, pulled or splattered? Just flicked over and see Trent Edwards Jr in there.

Neal is primarily backup at nickel CB. He's struggled on the boundary.

The running joke the last couple years has been: The best team in the AFC East is the Bills. The second best is the Bills' backups. If that's the case, then no worries.

The Bills don't really define their safety roles like that, it's not going to be a Leonard Smith in the box and a Bill Simpson roaming deep. Part of that quarters defense, and the thing that makes it tough, is each safety has their side of the field to patrol and handle both pass and run defense on their side. As long as Jaquan or Hamlin can execute the role, it shouldn't be beyond their physical limitations. The lack of experience is the biggest thing.

That was always Marino though. After taking that first whack, his main concern would be getting rid of the football before getting whacked again. The color of the jersey catching it - if any - became less important.

The ball is mostly going to the first read. When that isn't available can he get to the second? If he doesn't have time to get to the second, can he buy that time and get the ball there?

One other thing that seems different so far this season, is on both sides of the ball, the traditional Billsy tendency of getting whacked in the 3rd quarter after adjustments are made, has actually been flipped. Both Rams and Titans mainly hung with the Bills for the first half, but got terminated in the third quarter. See Allen's catchphrase of "not being a guy who gets figured out, but being a guy who figures it out." Looks like the coaches have adopted that as well? To take a tangent off the above, Allen is finally reaching the game-experience point of figuring it out on the fly and being a sub-coach on-field, showing ability to attack defenses on his own beyond play design. Cases include ad-libbing Diggs to the 9 route past Ramsey, or the throwback TD to Diggs against the Titans. I mean, on the latter, I figured that was a pick. The cameraman didn't even think it was possible to make that throw and by the time they panned down I saw nothing but white jerseys until 14 popped out of the mess with the ball. On-script, on-platform, or off-script, off-platform, it's all the same: the ball is going where it needs to go to succeed. That should prove to be the most stark difference in the game and what gives me the most hope for the Bills. Allen is how many years in the EP offense now? He knows where his answers are as well as the play designers do. We see him go down multiple reads every series. I haven't seen that yet in Tua, in his 3rd game with the MM zone-spread offense. He's been mainly executing the first-read and attacking wide within 10 yards, with some infrequent second reads or off-platform stuff. Credit him on the Cracroft score last week, it was good work to extend the play. But basically, I don't believe he's been in that offense long enough to know his answers consistently when the first read is closed off, and I do believe the Bills coaches will be able to scheme away the first read at least some of the time. I also don't think that when all else fails he can physically pull something special off with a crazy run or throw. Unless the Bills plan to let the first read run free 5 yards past the deep safety, I'd expect something more similar to Bills-49ers a couple years back with Nick Mullens, who can execute the offense sure, but isn't going to give the special plays, or threaten enough of the field, or have enough game experience to answer the defenses at game speed.

The Dolphins tried man with pressure Week 2 2020 and got deep-crossered for 400 yards. It went badly then, it'll go worse now because their best personnel for playing man (and still getting torched) are unavailable and/or limited, and it's 2 years of experience beating the hell out of such coverage for the Bills. It was actually a Fins fan that commented on their board (there's some knowledgeable posters there) that both the Rams and Titans played shell to take away the deep shots until the games started slipping away, but the very first play - the VERY first play - they went single high or cover-0, Allen went immediately over the top for a knockout blow. To paraphrase, "Allen's eyes are always downfield, always." Touchdowns first. Then come down to the gimme slants and outs where the ball is there before anyone can do anything about it. You could see this developing the back half of last season. The Rams game was nothing but short rhythm passing the entire first half. It was the Brady formula, death by 1,000 cuts, until you couldn't take it anymore. And then, boom. If Allen can execute that, with the recognition that any deviation from shell, he goes straight to big-play mode... what do you do to stop it? You hope a slot guy lets the ball get to his chest and the ball pops up for a pick? This was a tantalizing prospect even back to Allen's rookie season: if the kid ever learns to execute an NFL offense, he might be as unstoppable as any player has been. That potential is close to realized. It's something to see, it doesn't come often.

Come on thread, don't get stuck at 299 now.

There is precedent for the backups doing a good job.

Blah, I missed it.

They already scheme it that way. Tua seems to deliver to the first read a high preponderance of the time, and will throw into tighter windows and doesn't have juice to drive the ball past defenders. You can be a one-read guy with a live arm or a "precision" passer making good decisions, but one-read guys without that fastball, defenses love love love to see it. If McD/Frazier can find a key on where the ball is going based on alignment/personnel, those become turnover opportunities.

Is this one a Dolphins scout? I sure hope so.

Yeah, I ran across Tombstone flipping channels last night too. Haha.

Another day, another piece of bad news. What the hell is going on between games this year.

Allen has proven over the years to be capable of overthrowing receivers. It's strategic.

The reminded me of how even coaches get screwed up if they mess up their routine.

Bill Clinton plays a lot of golf. As the story goes, one of his catchphrases occurs when he absolutely duffs one, then drops a ball for a mulligan and hits a great shot. He'll say "same guy... same guy," i.e. the same guy who made that miserable swing, also hit one right on the screws. What's the point? Consistency. If golfers are consistently good, they're just good. If they're occasionally great, they're still just good, they ain't going to Q school. There's no narrative to saying Tua's had one great quarter of football out of eight so far, it is what it is. I don't see where 1/8th top-level play is MVP caliber. He'll need more than that game-to-game going forward.