Rubes

Look, I get it, but we're not just talking about 3 people down. These are the top player at each level of the defense: the best interior DL, the best LB, and the best CB, each of whom is Pro Bowl/All-Pro level. These weren't your average 3 guys out of 11. Most of us are willing to cut the defense a little bit of slack when you lose those three players. It's still a huge problem when you let Mac Jones score the winning TD at the end of the game and can't protect the lead, but the reality is, as others have pointed out: this should never have come down to the final drive. The offense, at basically full strength, crapped the bed most of the game against a defense that was missing their own multiple key starters. It shouldn't have been close. The offense deserves far more criticism for that than the defense.

If he fumbles this week you’re officially banned for a month.

I was ecstatic after the Dolphins game. The last two games this team seriously underperformed, and that's cause for concern going forward. But we'll see. On the other hand, I'm also ecstatic that it's almost Halloween and we're not out of the playoff race already.

I've felt like this is the reason we occasionally see receivers near each other, perhaps because they're not quite making the right decisions based on the coverage, and they just need more reps before getting it down 100%. Do you think that's accurate?

I'm not into the hard core details of offensive passing game strategy, but I know WRs have to make decisions on the fly as to the route they run based on the coverage that they are seeing...or that they think they see. So yeah, maybe there are times when defenses do a great job at disguising coverages or otherwise doing things that mess with WR decision-making. We have no idea, really, what exactly is happening out there or who is messing up, but I could certainly see Dorsey reviewing tape with those guys and pointing out that one of them reacted the wrong way to what was being shown by the defense.

I wasn't watching very closely at the time, but after the fracas with multiple personal fouls I noticed Brown came out of the game. Was that due to injury? Was he benched? Did he come back in the game later?

I'd have to disagree, then. I think we've seen generally good play design by Dorsey. I think the offense is pretty complex and some guys may just not be picking up the nuances well.

Seems to me that this is more likely to be a problem with guys not knowing their assignments as opposed to poor play design by Dorsey.

I can't say for sure, but my recollection is that our breakdowns are isolated. That is, one guy blows his assignment and everything gets thrown off. A good example was the play where Cook completely whiffed on his guy, which forced Allen to scramble and improvise. The other linemen were doing their jobs, just takes one guy messing up to screw up the play. I think that probably was happening several times.

Ah, I gotcha. I thought the other years were his totals over the entire season, not just to the same point in the season.

22 rushes already this year, after 6 games? Is that right? At this rate he's on pace for over 60 rushes this year.

I didn't focus much on Williams during the game, but my sense is that he did reasonably well against one of the worst offenses in the league. I'll wait and see how he performs against a real offense before feeling really good about him.

I do think we'll learn something about our defensive backups, particularly people like Elam, Ford, and Williams. And I think we'll also learn how good McD's scheme is at maintaining defensive performance despite missing key pieces.

I recall reading somewhere online that he would come with a $4 million price tag for this year.

If we're looking for silver linings, all I can say is that for both Milano and Jones, it's very likely that their injuries will not affect their performance over the long term. For both tibial plateau and pectoral tear injuries, there doesn't appear to be any long-term impact on performance and both should be able to return to their pre-injury form. That is something that I really worried about. In case you haven't seen the excellent articles by Banged Up Bills that cover both injuries, here they are: Examining Buffalo Bills Matt Milano’s Right Knee Injury Analyzing Buffalo Bills DaQuan Jones’s Pectoral Injury

Okay, I'll bite: who's #2, and when should we expect to see them go down in a pile with a ruptured spleen?

I get the sense that it's the latter. I do believe (perhaps moreso than others) that Dorsey knows what he's doing with play design. The execution is what seems to be getting in the way. Perhaps that's a reflection of how complicated the offensive design is, I don't know. But there are times when some of the newer guys don't seem to know where they're supposed to be. It may also be a reflection of why it took Harty so long to get on the field as anything other than a gadget player.

We did, it was just unfortunately Milano's leg. 🥵

Sure, but that's his choice.

This seems suspiciously like a Maddy Glab TBD burner account…

Always. What a lot of people don’t remember is that, in the AFCC game right before the Super Bowl (the 51-3 game), Norwood actually tried and missed a 47-yard FG…wide right. EDIT: Correction, it was a 45-yard FG, but it was almost exactly the same amount wide right as the infamous kick.

Maybe, but Aaron Roger’s doesn’t have to run like a track star to keep up with the fastest men in the NFL.

I don't know, but the higher number on the Y-axis (target %) is at the bottom, which would suggest the lower on that axis you are, the more you're targeted. So JC Jackson is targeted a lot and allows more separation...?

Anyone catch that the Flutie TD happened with 0:13 seconds left? Kickoff down to the 5, stopped at the 30, 6 seconds left, game over. 🥵