dave mcbride

??? - the Bills have to play them twice and pretty soon. And they are in our division. The team needs to focus on the Jets now, but last I checked neither you nor I is in on the team. Why?

From Peter King’s column this morning: ‘One coach told me over the weekend he thinks the Patriots are better than the Bills. “Excellent, deep defense,” he said, “and Mac Jones is every bit as good as Joe Burrow.” Interesting. The Pats are a half-game behind Buffalo, but there’s one important standings factor to remember: Buffalo hasn’t played the Jets yet, and New England has finished with the Jets. Jones has been terrific, quickly. Bills-Pats, twice in 21 days in December, should be fun.’ I have a very bad feeling about this Pats team, which like the Bills has an elite defense. But they have an offense is far more effectively multiple than the Bills. And Mac Jones is for real. The evidence is in: he is already a pretty good QB and arguably even a good one (with no qualifications). Also, to counter King, the Bills are finished with Miami, who are just as bad as the Jets (who have least beat a couple of winning teams). I know Miami beat them in week one, but NE was the better team in that game and should have won except for an inexplicable fumble (they could have kneeled at that point).

Totally.

Those were refs recently hired from the college ranks, where the reffing is even worse. But it was pretty even in its badness overall. Allen obviously fumbled on the second-last play (I don’t want to hear about forward progress/in the grasp, so don’t even start), and there was a play where Isiah McKenzie was *clearly* going forward before the snap in the fourth quarter after coming out of motion. Wasn’t called.

That run and fumble is all on Allen. It’s an option play and he always takes the ball instead of handing it off. It’s extremely predictable at this point. Allen was absolutely terrible yesterday. That second down play on their final possession was indicative — he tries for the crazy throw after he starts running when he probably would have gotten the first on a run. The hero-ball throw to Diggs on the final play was inexplicable given that Sanders was open and at the first down marker. Agreed, but as I said above, Allen deserves a lot of the blame. He made so many bad decisions yesterday. He wa of course not helped by his terrible line.

Defensive holding calls on run plays are a real thing. The interior d-lineman will hold a guard or center trying to shift across in order to let the LB get through to the RB cleanly. I have seen it called plenty of times over the years. I didn’t see it on the play because it wan’t replayed and i was in a setting where i couldn’t rewind it, but I am assuming it was legit.

The only thing i can think of is that they don’t think they have answers now on offense and need halftime to figure it out.

Teams let other teams dink and dunk because a breakdown happens at some usually and kills a drive.

Seriously, how could bates be worse? Ford is a friggin’ matador out there.

Give us 8 yard dumpoffs and wait for cody ford to destroy the drive with his incompetence.

The one thing that makes me think he is vaccinated is his unmasked attendance at an NBA finals game where masks for unvaxxed people were required. It was a policy that couldn't be enforced, but Allen has never struck me as the irresponsible scofflaw type.

Trubisky can definitely get you to 2-2 in a four week injury window. Fromm gets you to potentially 0-4. He can't throw. There's a reason why teams prioritize credible backup qbs. Also, there is no one left to sign.

I think that might land you a third rounder. He could well get paid this offseason given the weak draft.

... but we then won't have a credible back up. Fromm and Webb can't play.

2 pt conversions succeed at over a 50 percent rate. If you try it twice, odds are you'll make one. If you make it the first time, you can end the game with an XP and avoid OT, which is a 50/50 proposition.

He seems to drop every other pass thrown his way when I watch him.

If the Bills trade Beasley (which won't happen), the Bills will need slot help.

Why would the Bills dowgrade the one elite offensive group on the entire team (outside of qb, of course), especially when the team is built almost entirely around passing the ball? Beasley is a really good player.

Beasley is literally leading the team in receptions. He is not getting traded.

The other thing I’ll say about the Bills D at least up to this point is that they are HEALTHY. That alone makes them better. I think Milaon is the only starter who has had any down time, and he wasn’t out for long. Who knows if they’ll be able to maintain that.

Disagree. If they play the Rams, they are playing a postseason road game. That's the opposite of an ideal setting, and the Rams are extremely talented.

The thing is, we notice all of the problems, but we don't place them in context. At the end of the day the Bills offense is first in the league in points per game, 6th in yards, and 2nd in fewest turnovers given up (and 1st in yardage, points, and turnovers forced on defense). The team is playing extremely well overall.

Exactly.

My one beef about the game is that the Bills should have held the Dolphins touchdown-less. That fourth down completion to Giesecki only happened because Giesecki committed blatant OPI to get Hyde off of him. That's gotta be called. It was really obvious.

Another way to look at it is that they prefer to spend their highest draft picks on proven NFL players rather than prospects. It seems to be a strategy that works for them. It can't be argued that Ramsey and Stafford weren't good trades.