dave mcbride

His career was shortened because of hits he took in the pocket, specifically to his shoulder. He lost his ability to throw. He went from having a very strong arm to one of the weakest in the league after his rotator cuff injury.

Agree on KC. The only team that I think will give them trouble is the Raiders, a divisional opponent that has talent and the ability to score a lot of points. I don't see them losing to Cincy, and the rest of their schedule is an absolute cakewalk (Denver twice, Houston, Seattle at home). I have them as the AFC SB representative facing off against SF. A bye and home field is just too much of an advantage. In the NFC, I think Dallas and SF are the two best teams and basically equal overall, but I'm going with the superior coach (Shanahan over McCarthy). Barring catastrophic injuries, a KC-SF SB seems like the most likely scenario to me.

Mods, merge if you see fit:

Well, the Bills throw a lot and he is really hard to sack. And a lot of the near sacks result in 15 yard runs and 25-yard scramble throws. It seems to me that teams probably do more leaps to block passes against the Bills than against other teams. It stands to reason, and also the number of passes that are actually tipped is very, very low. With someone like Goff or Mac Jones or Stafford or Burrow or Garappolo or Cousins, it’s probably wiser to just tee off and go for the sack.

?? — the throw started out perfectly and was on a rope. If that isn’t tipped, it’s a TD. Tips happen and they are essentially random. I will grant that the d-line did seem to know what was coming, but that’s on the play caller, not the player. I don’t really fault Allen for that pick. There is randomness in the sport and that’s a classic example. Again, it was a bullet that was going to be a TD.

I had the same thought!

Taron Johnson hasn’t missed a start. He’s a starter.

For an in-game throw with pads on, bodies swirling around you, and a hurt elbow to boot, 59 mph is utterly blazing. Especially after you’ve already thrown it 41 times already and otherwise taken a physical beating. Mahomes really ain’t that close although to be sure he has a GREAT arm and can make all of the throws. He is great. No on in league history was able to match Allen in velocity until Malik Willis came along. Allen shattered the Senior bowl record for velocity with 66.1 mph and has been measured at 74 mph in a different setting also. Malik Willis truly has a cannon, though: https://theathletic.com/3116058/2022/02/08/high-upside-traits-is-atlanta-native-malik-willis-the-perfect-pick-for-the-falcons-or-too-risky/

Definitely a pitch count: https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/he-lifts-everybody-else-up-tredavious-white-returns-to-bills-lineup-in-limited-fashion/article_5429d08e-6c5e-11ed-ba92-3fa5124dcd3d.html

https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/he-lifts-everybody-else-up-tredavious-white-returns-to-bills-lineup-in-limited-fashion/article_5429d08e-6c5e-11ed-ba92-3fa5124dcd3d.html

He is just too small. He loses all the physical contests,

And Jim McMahon. He was 67-30 as a starter and above league average in qb rating in 7 out of the 10 seasons he had enough passes to register. And in one of those seasons, his rating-plus was 99 (100 is league average). https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/M/McMaJi00.htm He had a pretty good career, all things considered. Lasted 15 seasons. He actually has 2 rings too — he was Favre’s backup in 1996 and handled end-of-game kneel down duties vs the Pats in the SB.

I honestly think the coaching staff deliberately ramped him down so he could ramp back up again the right way -- that is, not to the point of playing like a reckless one-man band. I see last game as a reset. He's not gonna change from being Josh Allen.

Agree with all of this. But still, know what the rules are about hands! Christ. Regarding the Hamlin call, I said this elsewhere, but man, he didn't need to do that. So why did he do it? I chalk it up to fear. He doesn't know at first if that ball is going over his head or not, and he's thinking that if I don't grab him and it gets over my head, that's a touchdown. Hence he grabs around the waist and the ref makes the fairly easy call. It only looks like a bad call because he did everything else right and the throw was short enough for him to make the play on the ball. Fear got him in the end. Overall, I completely agree about the reffing. There was a blatant push off by Amari Cooper on his last TD that was certainly equal to Diggs' push-off, but he got away with it. The Bills definitely got screwed on calls overall. Regarding the non-calls on holds against Oliver, they may well have been called if the blocker took him down with his arm around him. Those refs have a lot to watch and I think they miss a ton mid-play in the scrum due to information overload. But they DO see linemen fall to the ground, and if an arm's around the defender when he goes down, they're going to call it even if the material effect on the play is negligible. I chalk this up to a mix of coaching and players deciding not to learn. Apropos of nothing, my favorite comment from an announcer in a LONG time came from Lofton. They were talking near the end of the first half about calling two plays in the huddle to preserve a few seconds between plays, and Lofton asked an excellent question: do you have players you can trust to remember two plays in a row? Because if you don't, you really can't do it. For a lot of guys, I have to think the answer is "no." I had never thought about that!

I honestly thought that was a blatant hold because while he started off well, he did what Dawkins did: got his arm around the defender's waist while taking him down. Easy call. Stupid on his part because he didn't need to. Same with Dawkins vs the Jets. Keep your damn hands in when you know you're taking a guy down! It's not that hard if you know the rules. And it's the sort of thing that's SO clearly visible to refs.

My assumption is that these injuries last a long time. We don't know what the injury actually was. Remember when Robert Woods played over half of a season with a torn groin, when Hogan played with a torn ligament in his wrist (his last season in Buffalo), and when Jerry Hughes played with torn ligament in his own wrist? All had surgery after the season but were OK enough to play in pain throughout it. We didn't know about the severity of the injuries until after the season That's basically what you're seeing here. He's definitely been limping at times.

The defense has been playing a LOT better since they fired the coordinator.

And Elam too for all of his flaws. He brings length and athleticism, and if can merely stay with guys like Jackson and Benford can, he WILL make plays that they can't. He's just a bigger, faster, and better athlete. He has certainly had his struggles, however. And he's still hurt.

Gotta admit, McD's comments from the last few days makes it sound like we're now in this territory: https://www.amazon.com/Fear-Strikes-Out-Piersall-Story/dp/0803287615.

I thought it was PI. Soft PI, but PI. The thing is he didn't need to get his around Peoples-Jones's waist AT ALL, but he did it anyway. That's kinda playing in fear, as in, if the balls goes farther than I think and I don't hold him, he's likely to score. He made it an easy call for the ref despite being in position and doing everything else right. But the fear implicit in the waist grab did him in.

Starting to be very frustrated with the Bills not going after a better skill player before the deadline. Watching SF last night, it occurred to me that they have 4 elite skill players: McCaffrey, Kittle, Samuel, and arguably Aiyuk, who I am liking more and more. Jeff Wilson and Elijah Mitchell are performing at elite levels too, and Trent Williams is a pleasure to watch given how damn good he is. McCaffrey is really freaking good. He might not have been right for this offense, but he is perfect for them. My just-past-midseason SB picks right now are KC vs. SF. Hopefully KC stumbles, but since their division is terrible, I doubt it. Quietly, SF now has arguably the best D in the league (1st in yards, 4th in points).

He caught a long TD pass against Minkah Fitzpatrick that was heavily contested, and the very nice TD he caught vs. MN was a contested catch as well. I don't think losing contested catches is his biggest issue at all. It's regularly dropping balls that aren't really contested, like on Sunday or on that sliding drop vs. the Jets that had huge ramifications. Plus he dropped the ball vs MN on their final regulation drive and it wasn't contested (he got lucky there). As for the Sauce Gardner play, that was a very tough one because he was interfered with. That said, Goerge Pickens catches that 7-8 times out of 10. Alvin Harper is a good comp.

Against some teams. But not the Jets. The Jets were fated to lose in the most Jets-y way possible. 14 straight now.

Who? Regardless, they have been great in tandem, but the issue has been that one or the other has been out or gone out early on in most games recently. It’s no coincidence that the Bills’ D collapsed vs MN when Edmunds went down. When they’re both healthy and on, the Bills D is far more formidable.

This is correct. The IR rules have completely changed, but I don’t think a lot of fans are aware of it.