Cash

We ran it once in the Ravens game, I think. I seem to remember calling it when I saw their formation, but that whole game is a blur at this point. There was one play last night where I thought they were going to run it again - I think it was either the 4th down flip pass or maybe a goal line possession? I just remember that 1) I was wrong, and 2) the play they actually ran failed.

Money. My assumption is that they’d need to offload Samuel’s contract in order to take back either contract. Moore is a lot cheaper and has no money committed beyond this year. Meanwhile, the Bills are cap-strapped now and will be next year as well. I may be way off base, but I think Olave would be my goal if I was GM. Start going Rams “F them pics” style, at least a little bit. Would another Groot/Kincaid/Coleman/Hairston type move the needle next year? Probably not, and the odds of getting an instant stud at those spots is probably like… 5 percent? I think it’s worth it to instead spend it on a guy like Olave (or maybe someone without a massively concerning concussion history, but not sure how many might be available). Especially since you also get that guy for the rest of this year.

Really? They showed one on the broadcast. If the unofficial TV line was accurate, he was clearly offside. I stopped being mad at the refs the second I saw it. (Don’t worry, I got mad at them again later.)

I think in that scenario, you’d be looking at something like Samuel + a pick for Shaheed or Samuel + picks for Olave. And Samuel presumably has negative value, so the picks would have to be fairly substantial. Both guys are young enough to still be relevant after a rebuild, and both are popular enough to help keep fans coming to the games, and that’s something their ownership cares a ton about. We'd have to make them a serious offer. I really don’t know if NOLA’s cap situation would permit either trade, but if it did, it’s a fairly plausible trade partner. I mean, he is kinda built like a tweezer. On Hard Knocks, he looked pretty light for a safety, much less a linebacker.

LOL. Yeah, suuuuuuper comparable here. That’s like on Seinfeld when George Costanza was trying to get Ted Danson money for writing Jerry’s pilot. Callahan is the Costanza of this analogy. So that I’m contributing to the discussion: I’m not interested in this poll right now, but I’ll be lining up to respond to the same poll after the season ends. This feels like the first year where I might get on board the Fire McDermott train. Obviously that depends on how the year goes. At a minimum, we need to see real improvement - across the board - for me to stay on board with keeping McD on board. Right now, none of offense/defense/special teams is playing at a contender level, and the penalties are out of hand. There’s still time to right the ship, but we have to be honest that the ship is capsized.

In week 6??? No. But check back after the season.

You are right. This was a subject/verb error by Joe B. Since the subject (2 players) was plural, the verb should’ve also been plural. This is a WILD take. Intentionally tanking with the reigning MVP after a 4-0 start? Bravo!

Deion Branch???? C’mon, man.

Seriously. I can’t remember seeing so many injuries show up mid-week on the practice report. It’s weird! And it seems to be 1-3 new guys every week.

Thanks @Nihilarian for the link. I find PFR to be very reliable, so I'm going to go with their numbers. And per their numbers, 6 of the 11 passes defensed are from D-linemen. I think it's fair to discount those for the purposes of this discussion, because D-linemen swatting balls at the LOS is great, but has nothing to do with your back 7's coverage abilities. So that gets us to 5 "pass breakups" for the year. Better than 2, but still really light. I didn't scoff at the "2" in the OP, because honestly? It felt true to what I've been watching all year. I was thinking about this recently, too. During the Frazier years - when our D was up at the top of the league - we would see a LOT of plays where our DB came in to make a play on the ball. Sometimes it was caught anyway, occasionally it was PI, but most of the time it was a succesfull pass breakup. I think we had one (1) of those in a recent game, and when it happened, it just occurred to me how rare that's been this year and last year, compared to how frequent it seemed to be around 2017-2021 or so. So I figured I'd take 10 minutes and look at the numbers from those years. Source = PFR. Methodology: I sorted by Passes Defensed, and only counted ones from back 7 players. The one challenge was Lorax (Lorenzo Alexander if you're nasty), who played a hybrid role under McDermott. I'm sure some of his PDs came by swatting passes at the line, but all of them? I doubt it. He did drop into coverage as a conventional LB a lot in those years, just not all the time. And in 2 of the years, he had a ton of PDs - enough to move the needle on the team total. So ultimately I decided to just put those separate, so folks can count or discount them as they please. 2017: 72 + 1 from Lorax 2018: 51 + 9 from Lorax 2019: 60 + 9 from Lorax 2020: 63 2021: 68 2022: 69 2023: 58 2024: 48 2025: 5 so far, on pace for 17(!) My conclusions: The stats back up the eye test. We appear to be in Year 3 of a downtrend, and we're currently on pace for this year to be a cliff's edge dropoff. And based on the eye test, I don't think it's luck or happenstance. It's not like guys are flying in to make plays on the ball and just missing, or getting burned by an incredible throw that simply can't be touched. Our DBs are rarely in a position to attempt a play on the ball in the first place. Whether the problem is due to personnel, scheme, or coordination (or other), it's a problem. When the QB is able to throw to his first read on schedule, AND that guy is open enough that it's not a contested catch, your defense, generally speaking, is boned. We're basically conceding that the other offense is going to get its skill position players the ball in space and let them go to work forcing missed tackles. I still have hope for defensive improvement this year, but it needs to come from within. Babich can be better by the end of Year 2 than he is right now. The rookies and new guys can be better by year end than they are now. The defense could get healthier... but counting on that is a fool's errand. McDermott could maybe get more hands-on with the defense in a positive way. I don't know. But I do know that the defense has largely been bad this year, and it's fair to call them out on that.

This is the hard part. Hawkeye-style tech should be able to tells us exactly where the ball is at any given point. But I don’t think we’re at a point (yet) where it can tell you when the player is down - particularly since “down” can also include having forward progress stopped, as well as starting the process of a slide. That’s not to say that we couldn’t have a significant improvement with better tech, though. Maybe just for reviews of really close calls or something. Maybe the reviewer identifies a given timestamp as “down” and the system spits out the exact position of the ball at that time.

Barring injury, I’ll be surprised if Ciarlo plays any defensive snaps tonight.

I remember from Hard Knocks that he played NCB in one of the preseason games.

So wait, after forcing a turnover, the defense stays on the field? How does that work???

Sorry to nitpick, but the bolded is wrong. I think you’re trying to say that they were worst in third down defense. (From memory I think they were 31st? Close enough to last in any case.) But there are other ways to get off the field, most notably turnovers. The Bills D was great at getting off the field via TO last year, and simultaneously awful at getting off the field via third down stops. I won’t belabor the point, because from reading the thread I don’t disagree with you very much. (I’m somewhere between you and @Beck Water, probably a little closer to BW.) Our D was overall not good enough last year for championship aspirations. So far this year, it has looked similar. Traditionally, forcing TOs is very hard to carry over year-to-year, so that’s additional cause for concern. But there’s also some reason for hope/optimism. Babich should hopefully be getting better every game at this point. Likewise with our rookies who are playing. The one who isn’t - Hairston - might be ready to contribute by the playoffs. And we’ve been without two of our best defenders since Week 1, plus we might get something out of the PEDuo in a couple weeks. Will any of that add up to tangible improvement on defense this year? I don’t know. I hope so obviously, but I’m not counting on it. I tend to think that if we don’t see improvement by year end, the Bills should seriously look at what experienced DC options would be available this offseason.

This was by far the warmest game I’ve ever attended in Orchard Park. It was a great time overall. One thought to add to the discourse: I keyed in on Coleman on 2 plays where the CB was playing up on the line, and on both, he absolutely dusted the CB at the snap. The first play was Josh’s pick. Allen was way late in seeing Coleman (or at least way late in making the throw) and by the time the ball arrived, so did the safety. The other play was a nice underneath completion to I think Kincaid (maybe Shakir?). Presumably that was Allen’s first read on the play. No complaints there, but it was kind of a bummer not to see either one result in a big gain to Coleman.

Reminds me of Peyton Manning vs Ryan Leaf.

Very cool - I've never heard of Keyes before. What position did he play on defense?

That seems about right. Barring a QB injury, it’s hard for me to imagine the Chiefs missing the playoffs. But damn near impossible to imagine the Ravens missing the playoffs.

Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of people (both here and on national forums) act like that roughing the kicker call was a 14 point swing. I missed the game live and reading those comments, I initially assumed the Dolphins had gotten a huge return or something. Then I watched the play and say that it was an amazing punt with perfect coverage. Obviously getting the first down is better than pinning your opponent at the 2, but it’s not like Miami would’ve been set up for success without the penalty.

A holdout one year into a new deal is pretty unlikely - even with the biggest divas in the league, it’s simply not done. But if Cook puts up two straight 20+ TD seasons, or leads the league in rushing or scrimmage yards, it wouldn’t be crazy for him to ask the Bills for a new deal after the 2026 season.

Feels like tonight we find out how Miami’s players feel about their coach. Either they come out incredibly flat or incredibly fired up. Most people are predicting the former, but I’m ready for either. Either way, Bills should win. If Miami comes out hot, I think they’ll still fold if/when the Bills go up two scores. Especially if the Dolphins get away from the run game again.

I get your point, but aren’t you ultimately saying that with equivalent blocking, Cook’s 44-yard TD would be Ray Davis’ 4 yard gain? I think the point is that Cook brings a lot of value to the offense, above and beyond the scheme or the play of the line. And I agree with that point.

Season 1 of both The Office and Parks & Rec were both well below the overall show quality - both took huge leaps in season 2. So there’s a precedent here for a show like this needing a longer runway. The downside? I don’t think The Paper has Mike Schur working on it, just Greg Daniels. I don’t know how good The Office would’ve been without Schur, but I suspect not nearly as good. I haven’t attempted to watch yet, but I’d rather it turn out to be good than bad.

1. Yeah, he probably should have - at least for the last TO. Just to take the Bills out of their rhythm if nothing else. 2. It’s hard to make that call in the heat of the moment. It’s a rare enough scenario that Harbaugh may have never seen it before. 3. If Harbaugh took the first 2 right away then waited on the 3rd, the Bills probably would’ve had Allen take a shotgun snap, roll right, and huck the ball into the 200 level. That would both stop the clock and run off more time. Best case for the Ravens is 1 play from scrimmage. 4. If Harbaugh waited on the first or second TO, the Bills would’ve still had extra downs to play with. They could’ve run the play from #3 or spikes to stop the clock at a time of their choosing.