dave mcbride

I think Beasley right now is playing with broken ribs. He is clearly avoiding contact -- even going down before the first down marker a couple of times untouched -- when he can to protect himself. Hopefully, they're nearly healed up. When he's healthy, he has wiggle. He's extremely quick.

He played in two games in 2020, including against the Bills. IN that game he played 8 ST snaps and none from the LOS: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/202012070sfo.htm. He played one game this season for Cleveland (vs Pitt) - 2 defensive snaps and 11 ST snaps.

I think teams are pretty beat up at this point in the season. Another day of rest and recuperation may be more beneficial than practice.

As a UCLA alum, I'm not happy! But I do think Kelly is actually building a pretty good program. The Bruins aren't dominant, but they really improved. They had a good year and are well coached. I assume the recruiting will follow, and Chip has a record of getting his guys.

I don't get Texas. I mean historically, they are as storied a program as Alabama and USC, but they have flat-out struggled over the last decade. They were pretty dominant in the Mac Brown era too (7 top ten finishes in 9 seasons between 2001 and 2009), and have 26 top ten finishes since they started ranking teams in 1940 (82 years; or basically one out of every three seasons). SC has 31 and Bama had 31 before the Saban era. It's also a great school in one of the best cities in the country, and the program has massive support behind it (donors, the state, an enormous fan base, etc.). I get that there is a lot of competition in Texas, but there's a lot of competition in California (I include the states of Oregon and Arizona here; the schools there all draw from CA) and Florida too. I expect they'll rebound, but I can't understand why they've been in a funk for nearly a decade. I have to think it's bad coaching hires. Maybe Sarkisian is a genius, but he took over a team with four straight winning seasons and got them to 5-7 in a not-great conference. They also lost 6 in a row before finally squeaking by Kansas State in the finale. I can't imagine he's long for that program. Note the UB reference here! https://hookemheadlines.com/2021/11/15/texas-football-the-fire-steve-sarkisian-talk-needs-to-stop/. No team should ever lose 57-56 to the Kansas Jayhawks--a historical doormat if there ever was one--unless it's a college basketball game.

You gotta factor in postseason. He had 64 carries for 300 yards over four postseason games last season (4.7 ypc) along with 18 catches for 182 yards (8.2 yards per reception). He also had four TDs over four games. Those are good numbers against top competition, and the sample size isn't small. He's basically picked up where he left off from last postseason. His regular season stats were bad though. He had 12 carries for 103 yards in the second game vs. Carolina, but the rest of the way did basically nothing.

I think KC will absolutely destroy Denver in KC.

The stadium in Orchard Park is the windiest in the league, and by a fair bit. THAT is the reason why it is the worst weather stadium. https://247sports.com/nfl/cincinnati-bengals/Article/Kickers-Nightmare-The-Windiest-NFL-Stadiums-105213973/ and https://weather.com/news/news/2019-09-12-nfl-worst-weather-cities The Patriots don’t play in Boston, and the Bills don’t play in Buffalo. Foxborough is much further inland than Boston and not as windy; OP is a southern suburb and windier than the city and the northern suburbs.

Jackson got beat badly on a double move vs Jax that should have ended the game, but Lawrence overthrew the wide open receiver who had a clear path to the end zone. It would have made it 16-6 with two minutes left.

Close! Also close! Awesome!

And that was a really good throw to Diggs too. It was just well defended.

That first one was bad, but here is how I view turnovers. While you never want them, the stat that matters most is points off of turnovers or points subtracted due to turnovers. That is, if the defense scores off a turnover, that’s obviously points off turnovers. However, if you’re in FG range and turn it over, that’s -3 points (you can never assume a TD). If you turn it over between the 45 yard lines, you’re not in scoring position and not really putting the other team in scoring position (although it’s good field position). If they don’t score, it’s basically a wash and has no impact on the game. That is exactly what happened last night. The Saints couldn’t get a first and turned it over on downs. The Bills ended up with it right where they left off. Anyway, those mid-field turnovers—assuming there’s no big return—are the least damaging from a points perspective. Also of note, Diggs made a really good tackle there. That’s one of those little things that doesn’t get mentioned enough.

No, it should be one yard and is for a reason—it doesn’t penalize you for destroying the defender in front of you and moving him back on a good block.

Just sayin’. This is a matchup league and the matchups favored the Bills overwhelmingly. I saw that you also chastised @Success for predicting a blowout of the Jets. I can’t speak for him, but I assume it his prediction was based on matchups. Fwiw, I thought the Bills would lose to the Colts because … matchups.

We can agree to disagree on this one.

Happy, I just disagree with you here. The safety on that side was playing tighter than the other one all the way through that play and was just waiting to jump on it. It was not a good decision in my book. The outlet receiver at the top of the screen (on AllenLs left) had a pretty easy 7 yard pick up there.

Thought you might be interested in this bit from Mark Gaughan’s piece in the BN today: ”When is a drop not a drop? Sports Info Solutions credited the Bills with seven drops vs. the Colts. Pro Football Focus had six. The Buffalo News had four. Every ball a receiver gets his fingers on is not a drop. The pass late in the second quarter for Zack Moss was too short. The slant for Cole Beasley on a slant early in the third quarter was too high. Nevertheless, the Bills had only 10 drops the previous nine games combined.”

Did you actually watch it? Palmer makes some good points, particularly about his short-range throws with super-high velocity. We’re seeing drops because the ball is simply coming in too fast at times; it’s not the fault of the receiver always. Palmer also states emphatically that he loves Allen. That is not what he said. At all. There were shorter options on that play that would have gotten them into FG range. He didn’t take them and threw it into the teeth of a two-deep zone with a lurking safety. And yes, a punt that nailed them deep would have been better than the INT.

The Saints aren't going to approach 30 points unless the Bills turn it over a lot. Trevor Siemien is not good, and they have a ton of injuries.

Who is going to run the ball for them and who will replace their starting OT and TE?

This sounds very accurate to me. Can't wait to see him break it down in more detail. He's terrific.

I hear ya, but I just have a feeling about this one. I think the coaches mailed it in regarding schemes vs. Jax because they didn't want to reveal much in what they expected would be a blowout (note that they stayed with the same pass-happy spread approach all game in a low-scoring dog fight), but it blew up in their faces. I think they're smart enough now to treat every week as a do-or-die situation. They are just a better team than NO and have their backs against the wall. Plus they're pretty healthy and NO definitely isn't.

I'd like to see more Breida, honestly - more like 50/50. If you look at their career production through their first three seasons, it's pretty similar. Singletary in 38 games has 1877 yards at 4.8 ypc and 92 receptions for 577 yards (6.3 yards per reception). In his three seasons with the 49ers (42 games), Breida had 1902 yards at 5.0 ypc and 64 receptions for 561 yards (8.4 yards per reception). Point is, he has carried a similar load in the very recent past, and whereas Singletary fumbled it 10 times in that period, Breida fumbled 4 times. And there's of course that speed - 4.38 - which can't be coached.

I'm thinking more of Breida vs. Moss, but point taken. The Bills really have no excuses for not winning by at least two scores. This is a total mismatch on paper.

I hate to say this, but ... Williams (age 29) just got paid, and it's going to probably be his last big contract (3 years/$24 million with $13.75 million in guarantees). Football is a rough, rough sport, especially in the trenches, and he wouldn't be the first player to lose a little motivation once he got his last big contract. I'm not saying that's what happened, but I have no other explanation. He's been bad this season on the edge.