Low Positive

Someone saying something positive about the Bills is like the bat signal to some guys around here.

He needs to hit the buffet and get fat. Or he needs to take up smoking to get a horse voice. Or, he needs to hit the gym and buy a case of hair gel. Or he needs to stop wearing capri pants and start wearing cargo shorts and talking about Jesus. I say this because Reid, Shannahan, McVey, and Zac Taylor are also offensive genius/play-design nerds, but they have affectations that hide that a bit.

Your first point requires a coach having enough job security to be confident that losing for a year won't cost him his highly-paid job.

Billie Jean King said "Pressure is a privilege. It only comes to those who earn it." Josh gets that, and lives for those moments. So does Mahomes and Brady. It's the thing that you can't measure at the combine or see in stats that separates the greats from the very good.

It's also a tough ask in week one from a defensive standpoint. The Bills have a lot of new guys on the DL, a safety who hardly played last year and a rookie playing corner. They spent training camp working on their base nickel defense, which will work against most teams. Then, you play the most dangerous running QB in NFL history and a literal freight train at RB in week one. The Bills had to make schematic adjustments, which is something that teams are loath to do this early in the season. Williams played 33% of defensive snaps as a 3rd LB and Taron Johnson only played 67% at nickel CB, for example. That's not what we do. Couple that with the fact that the Ravens came in with a playoff-like intensity, and the Bills got punched in the mouth. If they look this bad on defense next Sunday, I'll hit the panic button. I hope they don't.

All that is true, but you gotta give Cook credit for getting two dudes to wiff making that a much bigger play than it would have been.

The problem is that for so many of those organizations, the problem stems from one thing that can't be changed; involved, bad ownership. That's true of the Bears, Browns, Jags, Panthers, Jets, Titans, and Dolphins. It was true of the Redskins/Commanders, and towards the end Irsay got very involved in personnel decisions in Indy. We should know, as this was our problem for the better part of two decades. And it still could be if Beane and McDermott didn't have big enough personalities to get Terry to butt out of football decisions in Buffalo.

Him, Eli Apple, and Jalen Ramsay just don't know when to shut their mouths.

Palmer also put a move on Alexander. Almost made him fall down. That makes me really happy because what we lost with Diggs is that elite route runner who can create separation with skill.

Because most of the time the top prospects get picked by the dumpster fire organizations that get the top picks year after year.

Thanks for that. I saw it yesterday when you posted it but I forgot it and tried to break it all down myself. I just noticed that Josh went directly at Jaire Alexander twice. I think it's personal between those two since that Monday night game against the Packers in Buffalo three years ago.

I just watched it a few more times, staring at Palmer instead of Josh. Palmer faked inside, and Alexander completely bit. It was like a crossover dribble in basketball, where Palmer got Jaire running in the wrong direction.

Burrow and Mahomes? I think Justin Herbert has the arm to get it there, but not the savvy to pump fake to get Alexander to look back and turn his hips.

Cooper did play from the start, but he didn't get a lot of targets because he wasn't getting open. Hines was a gadget player that Dorsey didn't know what to do with. I think people just remember how excited they were to sign Playoff Lenny and then have him sit on the practice squad for a month.

The first five times I didn't notice the pump fake. That got Alexander to look back at Josh and get all twisted.

Rasul Dougless played in the first game after we acquired him.

Everyone keeps watching Henry runs to see what went wrong, but I would like to take a look at a positive. I know a lot less than a lot of posters here about the x's and o's of football, but I invested in NFL+ Premium to watch all-22 film to see if I can learn a bit more. I just keep watching the pass to Palmer that put the Bills into FG range from both angles to see what I can get out of it. At the time, the Ravens were playing prevent with 4 CBs and 2 Safeties. The Bills put a lot of mess in the middle of the field to draw the LBs, two of the CBs, and Starks the FS away from the action part of the play. Knox has gone in motion so he was on the same side of the field as Palmer. What happened after the snap is that Knox and Palmer ran what I think is called a high-low concept where they were stacked about 5 yards away from each other (with Knox short). What Josh did was to pump fake to Knox, drawing CB Awuzie up and getting Jaire Alexander to turn his hips. Then Palmer went deeper and got in between the off-balance Alexander and Hamilton who was playing deep and had 5 yards of open field between them. That pump fake really made the play work. Palmer also ran one heck of a route. Tell me if I'm completely wrong on all of this.

Flowers playing really changes things. If you sell out to stop the run, Lamar throws it over the top. If you try to defend everything, you get a steady diet of Derrick Henry. They present problems. It might have felt like a playoff game to us and the Ravens might have treated it like it was a playoff game, but to the Bills it was week one. Teams tend to increase the complexity of both their defenses and offenses as the season goes on. If we see them again, I expect a much more targeted gameplan.

The Vikings board is dark purple text on a black background by default. It's unreadable.

Nix was horrible at the start of the year. He didn’t come on until week 4 or 5 (can’t remember).

Why couldn't we have the Vikings second this year? The difference in the level of football tonight and last night is striking.

I'm not making any judgments in game one, but McCarthy doesn't look the part. I'm not sure what he does well.

Just checked in on Purple Pain. Vikings fans are not taking this game well: https://purplepainforums.com/thread/8650/week-vikes-bears-support-group?page=42

Big comebacks are always a combination of both. But full credit to the Bills for keeping themselves mentally in the game and putting pressure on the Ravens.

Imagine if they had called RtP on that play.