dave mcbride

This may be worst football game of any importance that I have ever watched. Obviously it’s the injuries, but seriously, the Niners should have offered a lot of money to Ryan Fitzpatrick when Purdy became the starter. How Josh Johnson remained in the NFL for so long is mind boggling.

I had heard of him! He has been around forever, and he has sucked forever.

Huntley isn’t good, but he is a LOT better than Johnson. Johnson spent 2019 and 2020 in the arena league and xfl. He is awful.

Fascinating fact about Josh Johnson, who is really terrible: his college coach was Jim Harbaugh and he was the starting qb for a team that won a D3 championship in 2006.

The numbers say that Hockenson is pretty darn good (60 catches in 10 games for MN; 86 overall). And he produced pretty well in prior seasons. I actually bet DT is sorry they traded him given how good they turned out to be in the end.

A wiser HC and DC would have rushed 3 and ordered the Bills DBs to play press and immediately grab and hold onto every eligible KC receiver for dear life for two plays, forcing a hail mary from the chiefs’ own 35 with 4-5 seconds left. Maybe even do it a third time to ensure that the clock gets down to under 4 seconds , ensuring one play only. It would have worked. Instead, they played off. Mind boggling given the amount of time left, kc’s 3 TOs, the quality of the KC qb and receivers, and the distance they had to go.

Dane Jackson actually had a pretty good game.

Totally. And fully agree about Daboll, who comes out of the Belichick/McDaniels style where the approach can change from week to week depending on the opponent. In their heyday with Brady, they’d pass it 45 times one week (mostly short passes too) and run it 40 times the next week.

I hear you about their running game, but as it happens every time I watch them I am generally impressed by Mixon and think he’s a tackle-breaking stud. Maybe I’m watching the wrong games??? Admittedly, I don’t see that many. I guess one way to look at it is that his talent demands that you have to account for him, so maybe it opens things up. YPC isn’t necessarily indicative of how good a RB is either; we all remember future HOFer Marshawn Lynch’s sub-4 ypc in his final Bills years but as it happens he also led all backs in the rate of getting hit behind the line of scrimmage while here. Anyway, I generally think you’re right, but I also believe that DCs worry more about Mixon than Singletary despite the numbers.

Pretty grim stat cited by Riddick: in the remaining games after Miller went down, not one Bill defensive lineman finished in the top 40 among DL in pass rush win rates.

Awesome stuff, @MAJBobby! The minor correction I’d recommend is that in your Knox writeup where you flag his decline in numbers from this season to last, you don’t account for the fact that the Bills played one less game. Given that the Bills were going to be throwing it a lot that game, he may have ended up getting decent numbers.

I don’t you’re factoring in how big of a loss Von Miller was — maybe because it’s been so long since the Bills had an elite pass rusher. Bill Walsh always talked about 4th quarter pressure and how it decided tons of games. Miller is still that guy, and he was doing it this year. He pressured Mahomes into throwing that pick, and vs Cleveland he pressured Jacoby Brissett on virtually every play in the fourth quarter. He is also a guy who almost literally won Denver an AFC championship game in 2015 by himself by relentlessly getting after Brady, sacking him, and picking him off for a td. As I said, Miller is that guy who can win his matchups late in games. He is not nearly as gifted as Elam, and Dane Jackson was one of the lone bright spots vs Cincy. They don’t have a strong safety - a required position - and he has experience at it. 4.55 for a CB is too slow but it’s ok for a safety.

DEs have historically produced far deeper into their careers - into their mid 30s - than players at other positions outside of QBs and some o-line positions. Bruce Smith’s best years were 1995-1998, and he had knee injuries too. Moreover, it sounds from what I’ve read that this was a pretty clean acl tear with little surrounding damage. I actually expect him to be 100 percent by October at the latest.

Let's not forget this playoff game either: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/202101090buf.htm. 472 yards given up, no turnovers, no sacks (against a statue), 27 first downs surrendered, and 6.2 yards per play. No team in NFL history with at least 450 yards and 0 turnovers had lost a playoff game before: https://coltswire.usatoday.com/2021/01/10/indianapolis-colts-buffalo-bills-history-made-wild-card-playoffs/. It is retrospectively shocking that the Bills won that game. It was all Josh Allen plus Reich going for it at least once when he should have kicked a FG.

Good point; I meant among people who were available. I will say that for me, Williams vs Burns represents a toss-up. Burns is REALLY good; it's just that he's on a subpar team that is also very boring. Who watches Carolina games beyond their fans? But yeah, Williams is excellent.

Even bigger whiff: not grabbing Brian Burns. He's the best d-lineman out of that draft.

Frazier's scheme has eyes always looking back at the QB and hence the Bills D tends to do REALLY well versus running QBs (e.g., Justin Fields). Plus they have fast LBs who can run and chase down QBs well. The other thing about the Raves game is that it was a high-wind game (lots of missed field goals) that totally undercut the passing games for both teams.

Yeah, and I think SF is probably the best team in the NFL right now. I don't know what to make of the Eagles, but we'll find out on Sunday.

The Bengals could have scored 41 in that game if they needed to.

His pectoral injury really affected late in the season. He was not healthy. I hear you about the numbers, but then I read @GunnerBill arguing that Oliver was hands down the Bills' best d-lineman in 2021 and really good in the first three quarters of this season. I just think that he has talent and will be playing for his fortune next season. I think he'll give us more than any fourth rounder we get. Next year is still a SB window for the Bills, after all. No one is going to give up a third rounder for him. Also, it seems to me that the crazy trades seem to happen in-season, when borderline teams with high expectations become a little desperate. I know that wasn't the Bears, but I also felt like they believed they needed to show their fanbase that their highly drafted QB could look like an NFL qb once he had a cast of real receivers.

This whole thing got me thinking. With regard to 13 seconds, there was a very simple solution that I'm pretty sure would have worked, and the Bills did the opposite of it. Rush 3, match up 4 DBs at the line vs. the KC receivers in press, have 4 behind them to clean up if anyone breaks through, and HOLD, HOLD, HOLD in the most obvious ways against every receiver for 2 plays. That eats up 10 seconds and forces a hail mary from their own 35. Given that I'm thinking of this makes me really wonder about the Bills' coaching in situations like that.

Trading him for a fourth just isn't worth it - he's at least as good as a late second/early 3rd round vet DT who met draft expectations. He is a disappointment, but he will at least give at least 3-4 high impact games a year when healthy. The Tim Settles of the world aren't going to give you that. Plus he does have the ability to beat his man in mano y mano situations given his quicks. They made their bed and need to lie in it, hoping he plays for that big contract that secures his retirement years next season.

It is worth looking at the numbers. CBs don't do so well with regard to returning from ACL injuries. You have to go to the chart at the bottom because the top-line numbers conflate all DBs (CBs and safeties). 2 years after an acl tear, 29 percent are still in the league, and 3 years it's 28 percent. Not saying he can't come back to full strength, but the numbers are the numbers: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23259671221079637 Here is a screen shot of the chart.

Mostly agree, but Devonta Smith is fricking good. And he only ran a 4.48. Agreed. At 27, you're not going to get a fully clean player, so I'd bet on a guy with the highest upside.

Unrelated point, but I noticed that the Cincy corners were pounding Bills receivers at the line and in a way that could have been called a penalty (hands to face, etc.). KC did it to the Bills in 2020, and then TB did it KC in the SB. The holds and PIs get called in the playoffs, albeit at a lower rate, but the stuff that happens at the line seems to never get called once the playoffs roll around. Playing zone off coverage like the Bills always do -- giving free releases to the likes of Tyreek Hill, Waddle (who if he had a better QB and better hands should have had over 150 yards receiving), and Chase -- seems to me a bad strategy for the postseason. Either that or they have no faith that their CBs can keep up. Point is, their scheme is dubious in the postseason vs. good QBs. It works against running qbs in wind games (Lamar Jackson), but that's never going to be the norm. I mean, Philip Rivers, who couldn't throw the ball 40 yards in the air by that point, absolutely carved them up in the postseason. And the Pats simply had terrible receivers last year with a weak-armed QB. Versus Burrow and Mahomes, forget about it. I think they'd also struggle in the postseason vs. Herbert and Lawrence if they insist on predominantly playing off.