dave mcbride

I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall. The Bills D made zero plays in crunch time -- i.e., the fourth quarter. All they did was allow the Jets to first move the ball for a TD and second chew up valuable clock at the end. I never said that they're a bad defense for four quarters of games.

I'd add that the Jets had basically two possessions in the 4th quarter: an eight-play TD drive and an 8 play FG drive from the Bills 27 in which they converted a 4th and 1 that forced the Bills to burn timeouts. When the Bills got it back, they moved the ball fairly easily but ran out of time and had to settle for a long FG to tie it. Make that stop on 4th, and the game may turn out very differently. But as with so many 4th quarter performances this season, the D could not make a stop in crunch time. And against Zach Wilson.

The run game wasn't great, but at the same time you should play it safe and accept punts and a field position game vs an absolutely terrible offense that you're leading by two scores.

I'll say this about him - I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone improve year-to-year like him, and this goes back to college. I remember him getting benched for Tua vs Georgia, and I thought, put him out of his misery -- the man can't throw and also has an incredibly slow release. No chance at the next level. Props to him for always improving year to year. I think he's plateaued, but that plateau is pretty elevated.

I think this is what you'd see - the 2021 version of him, when he only had a rookie Smith: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/phi/2021.htm. His numbers were pretty Tyrod like, which doesn't mean bad (Tyrod was a decent player for the Bills).

I will agree that Dorsey called a horrible game vs the Jets in the opener. You don't keep throwing when you're up 10 points vs a Zach Wilson-led offense. You just can't. That said, the D gave up a big TD drive to the Jets in the 4th that allowed them to tie the game - and they were playing Zach Wilson. And then the horrible low punt and TD return. Christ. What a ridiculous loss.

This team has long-term Sammy Watkins syndrome, I suspect, but the Julio Jones trade certainly worked out for Atlanta.

I specified that I was basically talking about the 4th quarter for both offense and defense, and lord knows the offense shares some blame. But it can’t be argued that the defense chokes all of the time late. The stats back it up - they are great in DVOA in the first parts of games and a disaster at the end. I think they’re last if memory serves. The offense has largely done ok in the fourth quarter. There are a lot of close games in the NFL, as you know, and winning the 4th quarter is often determinative. This is a team with an expected W-L record of 8.5-3.5 and a huge dollar investment in defense. It’s very frustrating.

Wow. How about watching the whole game vs NE, which has the worst offense in the NFL??

Oh man. The Bills have a top ten defense in every category overall but when they get to the final 10 minutes of games, they hover between 30th and 32nd (this is documented). That is all coaching. Stop drinking the kool-aid. Kind of?? That was blatant PI. It was a freaking joke that it wasn’t called. We can complain about Hochuli, and we should, but the NFL gifted us a game vs the Giants.

He is the worst starting qb in the league and he put up all-pro numbers in that game.

Um ... Mac Jones prefers to throw very short passes behind the LOS because his arm sucks and NE is good at running screens. That's literally all they are good at. Expect those plays and scheme against them.

They literally did it against Detroit last season. The got the ball at their own 25 yard line with 23 seconds and Bass kicked the game winner with 7 seconds left. And the Bills had been shredding the Eagles all night. Plus Allen is quite literally the least sacked QB in the league this season (tied for first with Mahomes with a 3.3 percent sack rate). So it's unlikely he's going to get sacked. Last night, the Bears got the ball with 10 seconds and completed a pass to the Vikes 34, where the WR fumbled because he couldn't get out of bounds. But they didn't have any TOs, and the Bills did.

I can't believe I'm writing this, but if an athletic, game-changing safety is there, it's something I'd consider. They are really hurting at that position, and the best safeties these days can make a big difference. Ideally, though, I'd prefer to get a safety in round 2 or 3 as long as the player projects to being good.

If the one loss is to the Cowboys, they'll be 8-5 in the conference and 4-2 in the division (not that the division record matters for the WC). The Bills would have 2 non-conference losses. The Colts and Houston both have two non-conference losses already. Denver has only one. For tiebreaker situations, it's better to have more non-conference losses than the team you're matched up against in a tiebreaker. Pittsburgh has one but has a very easy schedule the rest of the way. Unless they fall apart (and they aren't that good), I see them getting to 11-6 despite being a fraud. That's one probable playoff team. Cleveland has one non-conference loss and I see them losing 3 more games because they have no QB. The Bengals are technically in the running too, but they don't have a QB. So if the Bills make it to 10-7, I don't see the situation as insurmountable. And they all play each other: Houston faces, Denver, Indy, and the Browns going forward. Having said all of this, I'm getting serious Rex Ryan-era-in-November vibes just from typing this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xta-iJliupo

You don't have to look that far! Scroll down and note the final possession: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/202211240det.htm

Love the Francis Bacon avatar!

Don't look now, but the Rams are 1 game out of a playoff spot and, given their schedule (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/ram/2023.htm), look to go 4-2 the rest of the way. The way the NFC is shaking out, a 9-8 team (and maybe two) will probably make it. Plus they've beaten Seattle twice.

Granted, the offense has had issues over the course of the season, but it mostly shows up in the fourth quarter, generally speaking. As for the defense in such situations, they have by my count folded 8 times in late-game situations: Pats game Denver game Philly game Giants game (saved by a ridiculous non-call on the last play - that was blatant DPI) Cincy -- couldn't get a stop on Cincy’s final possession late to give Allen one more chance Jax: with the score 11-7 at the beginning of the fourth quarter, they give up 2 long td drives to Jax, with one drive starting at the Jax 7 yard line. Yes, there were injuries, but the D was still steamrolled late in the game — which has been par for the course. To be sure, the offense should have done more early on, but they woke up in the latter part of the game. TB - the Bills had a dominating two-TD lead and almost blew it by surrendering a penalty-riddled late TD drive and 2-point conversion followed by a near miss of a hail mary after giving up 3 completions to a team with zero timeouts, which allowed TB to get in position to make the throw. First Jets game (with special teams collapsing in OT too) - they had a 13-6 lead in the 4th and gave up a 60-yard TD drive to a horrible QB, allowing the Jets to tie it. Of course, Allen was awful in that game too, but the Bills D didn’t create any plays late either.

There’s a word for this: nepotism.

Pretty small-minded, IMHO.

Philly is actually a pretty great city. Have you ever been there? As for the fans, they are passionate and they care. Spend some time in LA (where I lived for a while) and you come to appreciate these things.

Why??? For the record, I think this game is a terrible matchup for the Bills and I expect them to get destroyed. Hope I’m wrong.

Rooting for injuries is bad karma. Just sayin’.