Rubes

He won’t be officially ruled out until after the MRI for certain, but even if the MRI isn’t as bad as expected he'll still likely miss at least a couple of weeks.

No idea what you’re talking about…

Well, he had a short week of preparation just like everybody else...

No kidding. At the time I was SUUUUUUUPER pissed. I mean, the kind of pissed that probably made some people in my family a little uncomfortable.

Hear me out...😁! If Bass makes the XP, we go up by 4. Detroit now has to score a TD rather than a FG, so they're likely much more aggressive on their last drive. Do they score? Not sure, but the way the D was playing at that point, it sure seemed like it was coming. If Detroit scores the TD—if there is any time left at that point—then the Bills need a FG just to tie, and then it goes into OT to who knows what... By missing the XP, Detroit plays it a little more safe and (for some reason) is satisfied with playing for the FG and OT, leaving us with juuuuuust enough time to break the tie. Not saying Bass did that on purpose, of course, but the end result...? 😜

I thought I remember seeing 15 snaps somewhere.

We don't have 10 days. We play again next Thursday, so we have a usual week. We do have 10 days after that, though, to get ready for...the Jets. No way Hyde returns anytime before the playoffs, and I doubt he does at all. But man, hasn't this season really made you appreciate what we had back there with Hyde, Poyer, and White all playing at the same time?

Afraid we’re going to look back at that Jets loss like we looked back at that Jags loss last year.

Didn't Poyer do that a couple years ago against Miami for a TD?

I can't understand how people can think Murph is even mediocre. It's hard to diss a guy who's devoted his career to the Bills, but he is an absolutely abysmal play-by-play guy. How someone can take every drop of emotion out of an exciting football game is beyond me. Some of his calls of big plays are just absolutely baffling in their lack of emotion or awareness. Someone needs to replace this guy, pronto.

My nickname ever since I was a kid.

I was totally thinking that looks like Orton.

Yep. That sucker is going right on my shoulder if they win it all.

Should be a good test for our offensive line...

I said it in a thread earlier this year, but my guess is the Bills are probably trying to go for the biggest contrast with the other team's jerseys. Not sure why, maybe so that Josh can more easily see our guys contrasted against the defense. So any team that wears a light jersey with light pants (eg, Pittsburgh, Green Bay), we'll go with the all-blues. If a team wears dark jersey/light pants we might go with the white-on-blues, or the opposite at home. I'm guessing the Jets are going with all-whites on Sunday.

Yeah, I'm saying the last time I saw the play as described was last year in New England, worked perfectly. Then I didn't see it again until this past Sunday. The play is so well designed that it's nearly impossible to defend. So why break it out once in a blue moon?

Did you read the entire post? I’ve seen plenty of times when Josh runs a bootleg and the goal is to have him run for the first down with no receivers as an outlet. I mean, perhaps the TV angle makes it so you can’t see a receiving option in view, but I am pretty confident that I’ve seen plays where there was a bootleg without a specific receiver in the field. As I mentioned in the original post.

I suppose, though it doesn’t seem like the overriding strategy is to “not risk Josh” in other situations.

Not always, no.

My sense is that there is a difference between a regular naked bootleg and one where it’s down at the goal line with a design to get Josh into a situation where defenders have to choose. I don’t recall seeing that specific type of play this season. Josh may have tried a bootleg, but I don’t recall seeing that kind of option play.

I mean, I guess? I get the idea of surprising a team in the playoffs when needed, but they didn’t pull it out last year in the playoffs. And it’s such a hard play to defend, why not dare teams to prepare for it and keep trying it until someone figures it out? Then they can look at what that team did and see what kind of weakness it introduces to the defense.

Been wondering for a while about the Bills offensive strategy when they’re down inside the other team’s 5-yard line or so. Seems like they’ve had some troubles down there this season, and it puzzles me. One of the best designed plays I’ve seen from this offense came last year during the away game at the Pats***. The Bills were inside the Pats*** 5-yard line, and the Bills ran two receivers to the left, one of whom was Dawson Knox. Allen ran a play-action bootleg to the left, and since he can outrun any LBs to that side, he created basically a 3-on-2 situation with the defense. All he had to do was read the two coverage defenders: if they stuck to the receivers, he just runs it in, and if one or both leaves the receiver to stop him, he just easily flips the ball to the open receiver for the TD. In this case, the defender on Knox came after Allen, and he sidearmed it to a wide open Knox. It’s a brilliant design, mostly because Allen is so big, fast, and strong that he creates an almost indefensible play. All it takes is a decent play fake to freeze the LB on that side, and there’s almost nothing they can do to stop the TD. So what the heck happened to this play? It could be me, but I don’t recall seeing it again after that. Until Sunday night. And it worked, just as well as it did before. Get Josh out of the pocket to a situation with a numbers advantage, and force the defense to choose their demise. Now, I’m not advocating that we try this play every time we’re down inside the 5-yard line, but this play is so damn hard for defenses to cover I just can’t image that we don’t see them try this at least once every game or two. Even if it gets defenses to key on it, at least you’re potentially opening things up for a regular run between the tackles. I’m sure the answer is that defenses are already keying on that play and are doing something to negate it, but not sure what that would be. I’m obviously no offensive coordinator.

I love it when Gilliam comes into the game. That guy gives the offense a lot of options, and he’s an excellent run blocker. Not as exciting as when Allen is chucking cannon balls at Diggs or Davis, but it’s fun to watch when Gilliam is in. For me, at least.

And yet we still won by double digits, and Allen didn’t have that level of play against Kansas City.

Jesus, if the offense scores a TD there with first and goal instead of Allen throwing a bone-headed INT, this would be a completely different conversation.