Coach Tuesday

Again: a QB’s development - like most things in life - is rarely linear. That’s just not how it works. His line is not in game shape and you can tell it’s affecting his eyes, specially they’re dropping to the rush instead of the routes. He’s still working out chemistry with a new WR. Davis wasn’t able to play effectively today. And maybe he’s pressing a bit too. Wayyyy too early to worry about QB1.

Milano, Poyer

The most concerning thing besides his lack of durability is the poor pre-snap awareness. The Bills must’ve realized this week that Tua wouldn’t pay any attention to corners and safeties creeping in to blitz, they just kept dialing those up. Tua seemed utterly lost before his injury.

Coach gave Edmunds a game ball??

Thought the officials did a good job today overall.

Not looking like Tua has “it.”

What happened to Edmunds?

QB development, like most things in life, is not linear.

Ugh.

They literally proved the opposite by beating two good defenses in the playoffs last year. I just don’t understand what point you’re trying to make. They need better blocking and more speed on offense and maybe a real tight end. But last year’s offensive performance was elite; it broke multiple franchise records and got them their best W/L record decades. They were one game from the Super Bowl and as you rightly point out, that wasn’t because of their defense. What are you talking about? Your football takes are usually pretty solid but this one… take a knee.

But you’re just cherry-picking stats. How many field goals? First downs? What was their YPP? How did their performance compare to league average against those same defenses in those same situations (which is what DVOA measures)? I mean no question they have room for improvement but it’s simply not accurate to say that last year’s offense wasn’t top-notch.

I just don’t think it’s accurate. You’re completely dismissing advanced stats. Football Outsiders charted the Bills’ offense as 5th overall in DVOA, which is designed to take into account strength of opposition. If you’re going to throw out a theory like “the Bills offense didn’t perform well against good defenses,” at least throw out some evidence to support it.

I know this is a weird thing to say but I can kind of picture what your garage looks like.

Keep these coming.

Completely agree - he seems to have a Mike Martz side to his personality where he cannot separate the tactics from the strategy - I'd bet serious money against him succeeding as a head coach.

And I made a different point.

You mean please provide support for a point someone else was making?

The most important thing is that we lost a national treasure today.

Yup. Sucks. His "Germany vs. the World" bit is one of the all-time greats, followed closely by his Crocodile Hunter bit. Both on YouTube and worth a watch if you're up for some levity.

RIP Norm MacDonald by the way. The magnitude of his loss is something we can all agree on.

Looks like the Steelers just made a better and cheaper ST investment. Miles Killibrew is also 28; he's on a one year, $1,127,500 contract. He completely embarrassed Matakevich, who makes a lot more.

Relatedly - Ingram was a late free agent pickup for the Steelers. You telling me we couldn't have gotten that guy and saved our second round pick for something more useful in 2021, like a guard? Beane throws away his 2nd rounders like candy.

I will add (and haven't seen it mentioned) that White's technique on the Claypool sideline catch was basically perfect, especially against a bigger WR. He stayed at Claypool's hip and timed his jump right, and tried to swim his arm through to punch the ball out - Claypool is just stronger. The only knock on the play was that Tre maybe should've tried to steer him wider off the release - there was too much space between the receiver and the sideline. But you can't blame Tre for that play it was just incredible.

The Steelers saw what was happening and trusted their young receivers to make contested catches which they did (unlike the Bills’ well-paid veteran receivers). They also likely knew that the Bills’ corners are lax in their trailing technique and don’t get their heads around, leading to DPI calls. It worked. Not saying zone would’ve done better but the Bills just got outplayed and out-coached.

Agree with all of this and WRT defense the coaches agree with you so not sure why folks here are disagreeing - both McD and Frazier praised the defensive effort but said they need takeaways to get to the next level. And agree with you about the offense, if you watched McD’s postgame presser it was clear from his body language that he was about to go put a foot up Dabs’ a$$. Just hope he doesn’t overcorrect - McD goes full turtle with the slightest excuse.