colin

mcd's d is about the front. he can slap in a blah lb and not drop off too too badly from milano (yes, it's a drop off, but im impressed w how it's not fatal w dodson), and he's had more undrafted and late round dbs than i can think of. his prize possession on D is the fleet of wreckers up front. he's finally got that, i think he moves a guy only if we get some top flight corner or mayhaps an ultra talented WR out of it. otherwise, he wants his bread and butter to be stacked high.

i totally didnt' see it that way until i watched some replays and the all 22. he had like 2 key not great throws, plenty of great ones, and if he did anything wrong it was not audible out of runs vs a human wall of defenders. if cook and or knox have avg games we win that.

so are injuries. i read something -- a lack of sleep is like a 200+% increase factor for injuries.

we lost 3 total games in the regs in 2022 by a total of 8 points. in 2021 we lost to the jags when the stank and at one point were 7-6 in 2022 we went into the playoffs with no confidence and kinda stole games late vs new england and hosting miami w a guy from the stands at qb. in 2021 we were only consecutive disastrous blunders from beating kc in kc and hosting an afc chip game with insane momentum. i feel pretty bad about this season right now, but there is a whole lot of football to be played. one thing, we can block and when we do it right, we can run. that's all new.

This is a reasonable point, but where our o really failed was on first down, and up the gut runs out of shotgun. We just don't out pressure on the opponents d when we don't move the ball on first down. On our two late scoring drives, you could tell out the gate they were good because we hit plays right away, and fairly quickly. On the rest save one it was just slow and meandering or we got blown up fast. The shotgun hand offs for losses or maybe a short gain gave to go. They serve no purpose, they make the d account for nothing. No one has ever bought our play action out of shotgun, rpos and under center play action kills guys, but that one play just has to go. I think the two are related. Good ds just know a few of our tendencies and attack because that's they only way to stop us. Mcd needs to scout our own o like he did Miami and show Dorsey what has to get cut out.

So, we really do suck hard in close games. We need to get a big lead, and we usually do. At that point it's a question if so we hold on, or do we let it slip away (jets game this year, minni prior year, etc). Not worried about our loss as much as the injuries. Just way too many top guys out, and potentially for the season. Josh Allen was not sharp, if he were we'd have had one or two more tds a d win the game. Allen has not showed the ability to be consistent. Our whole team is that way. We are total can crushers. We're not an easy out, but we save our best football for when the outcome of the game is not in the balance. It's getting very uninspiring and I hate to be that guy, but you look at the head coach when that happens

gillis is a fan of/buddies with spencer brown too. he's also had some terrifying/hilarious run ins w richie incognito

i suspect tre is done as a bill, and possibly done w football all together. given his cap, how he is not who he was a few years ago, and two massive season ending injuries and a lot of time missed, i think you walk away

our coaching now is better than it was when we lost the 21 second game. offense and defense, and i think HC too as mcD seems to have learned some lessons. with floyd, von, and even tiny bernard (i can't believe im saying that) we also have playmakers on D we didn't have back then. on O, the biggest issue w our team after the 2020 and 2021 season was 1) blocking, and 2) we just could not get production from the TE and RB positions. we've made huge strides there, altho we don't have the TE production i kinda expected, if fools are gonna let diggs get open, that doesn't really matter so much.

it's pretty clearly red zone offense IMO, out of the list. no rushing josh on 4th and 1 is a bit of a sin IMO, he's too good at it to stop without getting stopped. also, if i was adding an item to the list, it would be 1st down offense. we are awful on 1st this season. i've gotta think a small change in that gives us big returns.

off my face don't where i am, because im in Ibiza with GunnerBills man. off my face don't where i am, because im in Ibiza with GunnerBills man. off my face don't where i am, because im in Ibiza with GunnerBills man.

the new mcd D is head and shoulders better than the old frazier d through the first 3 games, but clearly these are not great teams we are playing and it's just not enough of them, miami will give us a lot of data. The d is more aggressive in that players are reacting and making decisions more quickly than they did under frasier. even if the scheme and most of the play calls are similar to what frazier did, mcd is a superior coach because he has his guys better prepared, more confident, and they don't tend to spiral after bad beats (long run vs jets, the miracle td pass to wilson vs jets, the clock work drive vs raiders, etc) but under frazier they turned into a pumpkin in phases and for entire games at times. now, miami might be more than they can handle, but i have a feeling the d will make plays to win the game. one thing we can say for certain, our d looked like it had a high priced DL and zero pass rush most of the time before, now the mcd coaching it directly, and still no von von, we are seeing maniac and screaming barbarians just pillaging all day.

i haven't seen season stats comparing different teams, but we must be just the worst team on 1st down. sacks, no yard plays, and only a couple of big ones seem to happen for us on 1st down. im thinking like that one dude said, every single 1st down should be an under center snap, lets us run and run play action out of it.

he and milano aren't fast nfl LBs. they aren't slow, they are better than average, but they aren't either as fast as edmunds. what they have, is a really green light and a hair trigger with no safety. they see what they want and they go full speed. they are also agile and don't get their body twisted up so they have to waste steps and motion, which is worth more than like 1.5 tenths on a 40 at that position. they are both pretty strong (milano more so) for being short and not that long armed of lbs. and perhaps most of all, they are both smart and instinctive football players. edmunds getting played like a fiddle vs kc yesterday reminded me of a scout breaking down his first game as a bill (unmitigated disaster). the qb just attacked him over and over again, he bit on everything, and made every mistake. edmunds improved on that, but never got rid of it. TB and MM have very little of that in them, and they just ball so hard in our D.

they have. if we look at the line now, new contract dawkins (since mcbean took over), FA signing Mcgovern, FA signing Morse, Pick O'hamstrings, pick brown. im still shell shocked from brown's glass back year last season, but what we are seeing out there right now is mcbean getting the horses and spending the resources perhaps later than i'd like, but still spending them.

i think we are figuring some things out. all plays to harty have been trash, screen game is so bad. gadget stuff (seems to have a high overlap w harty) is cheeks. the penalties have frustrated me. some playcalls have been head scratchers, and our red zone O is just not there (the failure to get it on 4th and short w josh allen as qb is nuts. how is he not under center for a play like that? even if we don't sneak it, the D gets frozen) beyond that, the O is the best it has been. more deeper passing and a higher td% would be better, but they will get there. all those chip new england teams thugged up on the oline and ran we power and speed down people's throats.

if we keep doing what we are doing on O, controlling the line of scrimmage and running a strong balanced offense, then miami will be forced to go for bigger plays. if we disguise coverage and absolutely body tua, he will make mistakes. milano and the new force on our D TITAN TERREL BERNARD just need to get some free hits on tua and he will crumble. one thing that really sucked vs dc was the penalties. we killed at lest 2 drives where i thought we'd get a TD, and we extended drives for them too with really badly timed penalties. a slight improvement there and we woulda had a 50 burger.

i made excuses for him because i saw him with big potential and making plays here and there. the issue is he never made BERNARD level plays, and he also sucks enough of the time vs good teams to be a liability. he can be tricked and good qbs do that and target him. that happened to him in his first few games as a bill, he was the biggest hole on the pitch. he cleaned it up, but reverts to just no knowing how to play way too often.

i think dorsey has been good this season. obv a couple bad ones, but overall called plays that had our team on cruise control to win both games. i really like how the d looks w what mcd is doing. and i like how mcd was aggressive in a fairly smart way. i get he maybe shoulda gone for it on the first scoring drive vs the jets, but w rogers out against that d, i see why you take the points where they are.

it was 100% right to let him walk, bernard looks like a good pick so far this season (so far, i am not sold he's our long term answer), but he was far from a bad or wasted pick. 5 years starting at MLB on a top D is way over expectation for even a 1st round pick. he's just simply not as good of a football player as he is of an athlete.

I gotta say, this board goes banana sandwich during bills games where the bills don't dominate (i do the same, i am the board) but the pithy comments and sarcasm when it's two teams we don't particularly care about make otherwise not so interesting games fun! I dislike the browns, kinda hate the steelers, but the qb is from down the street from me, so i am generally curious about how he does. he played vs us in buffalo last year, i think his first start, and had like 300 yards but in a game where he'd have lost if he had 500.

i think it's because the biggest win of shotgun, bigger passing plays, have gotten harder as the entire nfl has shifted to disguised coverage, nickle base, and a lot of shells and mixed coverages, as well as generally less blitzing of decent qbs. if the upside is less, or even gone, in shotgun, then you are better off under center. this is why the prototype tall strong arm decisive qb was made, because he does best under center to make quick reads. then, defenses adapted to that, and the more seat of pants dynamic qb type came and did well, but now defenses are adapting to that, so under center might be en vouge again. the nfl goes through these trends all the time, o gets ahead, d catches up, d gets ahead, etc etc. i think allen can be both the run and gun shotty type, as well as the under center "prototype"

these daboll genius narratives aren't supported by the data, simple as that. Josh is erratic, he's got to get better at that right now, it's just that simple.

where's sherlock when you need hiim?

sad to say it, but he's not wrong. the kubiak breakdown was great -- bottom line is 38% of the bills chance to score got shut down by allen's decisions, not to mention the better field position, momentum for the jets and the fatigue and demotivation for the bills d