Cash

Yes, and I’d add his playoff experience as another factor.

I largely agree with this, but would add that this could be the week for a deep shot to connect.

I agree with this. The "any given Sunday" part is very real, as said adamantly by a couple posters upthread. NFL teams are all super good, and even a bad team (on their best day) is good enough to beat just about anyone, unless that someone is a better team also on their best day. And the players, while absolutely the best of the best of the best, are still human beings and fundamentally imperfect. Is it possible for some (probably not all) players to be less than their best on a given week, because they're either overconfident after a big win, or because they're mentally unfocused due to already starting to think about the following week's matchup? Yeah, that's possible. I would imagine it happens some of the time, to some of the players. (Not necessarily the same guys every time.) Is that enough to produce a quantifiable statistical effect for either "trap games" or "letdown games"? Clearly not, because we can't find either! But there's a lot of noise in there - these guys are professionals, most are capable of fully focusing on the upcoming opponent with no letdown or distractions, AND crappy teams don't always play well enough to take advantage of a mental lapse by a favorite.

Great post! RE: Samuel - I think some of it is gameplan specific, but I also think they’re trying to limit his snaps to give his turf toe the best chance to heal fully.

Agreed. It looked to me like QB/WR not being on the same page, rather than a missed throw. Without knowing how they're being coached, there's no way for us to know if it was someone making the wrong read or just two equally valid but different reads. A missed opportunity to be sure, but not shocking considering the lack of preseason time and MVS being new to the team.

The speed rush that got him the sack looked great. And the spin move the replayed, though it didn't quite get home, was an absolute thing of beauty and forced a rushed throw.

I'd give one to Baylon Spector. Came in unexpectedly due to injury, played almost the whole game as QB of the defense, and did a very respectable job. Big reason we won is that our defense got better throughout the game.

Exactly! I was saying this during the game. The guy next to me at the bar was moaning about we "could've had Worthy", and fine, whatever. But he did concede that we've seen guys make those contested catches against us a million times, but we haven't had one of those made for us in pretty much Allen's whole career. It's nice to have a guy who can win even when the corner has good coverage. I was also pleasantly surprised by his snap count - leading all Bills WRs. I think the coaching staff has a lot of trust in him already, which bodes well. He's a good blocker, a potential deep threat (as we saw on his big catch), and can chip in some RAC as well. Agreed. So far, Worthy seems like mostly a gadget guy, and a really good one. Andy Reid will make great use of him, I'm sure. Having that speed to keep the safeties deep wouldn't be bad, but I think the Bills had an even greater need for a guy like Coleman.

In the whole league!

They wear cool robes (red & blue, of course), talk about the direction of the team... and of course they perform the Initiation Ceremony whenever a guy is signed or called up from the practice squad.

Jimmy Spags! Great to see you're still on top of your game. Go get it, buddy!

I mean, it was cool and all, but it took one heck of a contested catch on the jump ball to work. I'm not sure it's "brilliant" so much as, "our high school has a tall dude who can jump high... let's run a fake punt with an underhand throw so that he can outjump everyone for the catch."

Well, I was right that we'd have fewer captains this year, but I didn't see it going to this extreme. I wonder if we'll get to know who's on the "leadership council"?

I've been seeing a bunch of other teams releasing their announcements of team captains, and I'm jealous now. What's taking the Bills so long? Need a couple recounts on the votes? My guesses are below. Of note, McDermott went with 6 team captains from 2017-2019, then 7 in 2020, 8 in 2021, 9 in 2022, and back to 8 last year. I feel like we might be back to a lower number this year with all the incumbent captains departing? Offense -Allen and Dawkins are locks IMO, although Dawkins hasn't been a captain since 2020 I think he's such a veteran leader he's gotta be one this year. -Mack Hollins. Everyone on the Bills appears to be obsessed with this guy. He might also count as a special teams captain. -Dalton Kincaid? Defense -Bernard. He's the QB of the defense. Edmunds was a team captain basically every year till he left. Now that Bernard is the established starter, he'll get the C. -Von Miller has been a captain each of the last 2 years. Hard for me to think they take it away this year. -Benford? Special Teams -Mack Hollins? (see above) -Casey Toohill?

Terrible analogy. This is a leader asking for input from his front-line people, and doing it in a way that makes honest feedback more likely. I've seen plenty of leaders who have no clue how things are on the front lines of whatever they're leading, and it's not a good look. Granted, some of them are able to offset that weakness with strengths in other areas, but the best leaders have those other strengths AND encourage feedback from their front-line people.

Agreed on Johnathan. Seems like a calculated move, combined with putting Clayton on non-return IR.

This is pretty much the ideal model for where McD should be on gamedays, IMO. Not directly calling the plays, but working with Babich and jumping in as needed.

I watched a couple episodes of Hard Knocks last year (guess which ones, haha) and I came away pretty unimpressed with McDaniel's leadership. That's not to say that those 2 weeks are reflective of everything, and also not to say that he can't get better at leadership. But based on what I've seen so far, I don't fear him staying in the division. Having said that, they could do a lot worse. McDaniel's offensive schemes are legit. Yeah, our issue is the playoffs has mostly been everyone but Josh Allen taking turns choking - including the whole defense as a collective. That and some bad injury luck. We've been INCREDIBLE down the stretch of regular seasons under McDermott. Usually paired with a good start, and a serious lull sometime in October or early November.

This one's worth a read. Magary has lost a lot on his fastball, and I'm not wild about his breaking stuff, but he only wrote about half of them this year. (Good for him bringing in help instead of mailing it in.) The author of this one, Victoria Zeller, is from Buffalo and a Bills fan, and did a great job IMO.

Hyde: Very promising DB in GB, but didn't have a true position. Played some outside CB, some nickel, some safety. Signed for 5 years/$30 million - decent money but probably about average or a little lower for safeties at the time. Made the jump to Pro Bowler and All-Pro with us. Poyer: Less known than Hyde when we signed him. Like Hyde, was drafted as a CB initially. Signed for 4 years/$13 million - that's extremely low-end money for a starting safety at the time. Made a huge leap with us, also to Pro Bowl and All-Pro. Tre White: Highly regarded college CB, 1st round pick. Serious pedigree but CBs picked at #27 overall aren't expected to make All-Pro, and White did twice. Maybe this was more about talent scouting than development, but IMO it's probably a mix of both. Taron Johnson: 4th round pick. Has been a plus starter at nickel since his rookie year. Second team All-Pro last year. Levi Wallace: UDFA. Moved into the starting lineup as a rookie, gave us 3.5 years as a solid starter. Dane Jackson: 7th round pick. Started 28 games in 4 years and was a solid backup in the rest of the games. Christian Benford: 6th round pick. "God send find." Maybe. Or maybe there's a trend here? I say there's a trend. Anyway, started 5 games as a rookie and won the full-time starting job in year 2. Expected to have another great year as a full-time starter this year. You are correct that there are some misses as well - Elam certainly counts even if he goes on to have a good career (which I personally think he will). Drafting a CB in the first round, you'd hope to have gotten more out of him entering year 3 than we've actually gotten. But even so: Hamlin and Cam Lewis are fine depth players, which I think is still a plus when you consider they were a 6th round pick and a UDFA. Ja'Marcus Ingram looks like at least another fine depth player, and that's a win for a UDFA. Siran Neal wasn't great, but the few times he had to play due to injury, he didn't get us killed, and that's at least par for a 5th-round pick. I don't know other team's rosters the way I know the Bills' roster, but I'm confident that the above is one of the better NFL resumes in terms of finding and developing young talent in the secondary. They don't need to be 100% hits to still be the best in the league, and I think McD and staff are either the best or right up there with a few select others. I'm hoping that keeps up this year as well, because on paper our safeties look pretty rough. I would argue that to date, McD's 2 biggest successes are Hyde and Poyer. But there haven't been other big hits at safety yet. I imagine part of the reason is that Hyde and Poyer almost never came off the field, so the in-game developmental opportunities weren't there (except for 2022, when Hyde got hurt and Hamlin was an okay starter until he died). Rapp is old enough that it's hard for me to think he'll make a jump at this point in his career, but stranger things have happened. Mike Edwards is a year removed from where Hyde & Poyer were when they signed with us - maybe there's a chance he makes a jump? Rapp [EDIT: I meant Cole Bishop] has high draft pedigree, and I'm expecting him to be a solid starter for multiple years, but given his injury, this may not be one of those years. It's also not too late for Hamlin to make a jump to plus starter or better, although I'm just happy he's still around at this point. And then of course, there's Cine. I'm certainly not counting on getting anything out of him, but I'm confident that our coaching staff has about the best chance of any in the league.

That’s also my favorite NFL quote of all time. Do you happen to remember where you heard/read it? I think I first heard of it on the old KSK blog, but I’m not sure.

Now that we know the initial 53-man roster, and the practice squad is set (possibly pending Jalen Virgil), it's prediction time. This is the time every year that I make my one (1) prediction for the Bills regular season. My track record is pretty good - I'm generally +/- 1 win from the Bills' actual total. I don't go game-by-game; instead I try to look holistically at the Bills as a team for the full season. I do take overall strength of schedule into account, but upsets happen both ways, so I think it's futile to predict the results of each week well in advance. Likewise, injuries happen, guys have big games here and there, etc. There's some averaging out, but overall a really good team tends to win more than a fairly good team, which tends to win more than a mediocre team, and so on. So with that preamble aside, I'll go on record: I'm predicting 11 wins from the Bills this year. I also think that takes the AFC East and gives us a puncher's chance in the playoffs.

I'm glad to see this. Andy Reid can manage to call plays in-game without hurting his game management, but 1.) that wasn't true in his Philly days, and 2.) I don't think McDermott's on Reid's level right now. I'm glad both that McD will have less on his plate in-game, and that we have a new voice/perspective calling the plays. Plus, it gives us the option of having McDermott jump in to assist, in a way that we don't get if McD is already calling every play.

Yeah, the pandemic-era changes to the practice squad have been universally positive, IMO. Having 16 spots with 6(?) allowed veterans means there's room for all of these: -Guys who aren't ready to play now, but might be with a year or two of practice and development, which was always the intent of the PS. -Young guys who just barely didn't make the team, but are probably just about equally as good as the last few guys on your roster, and still have room for growth. -Replacement-level veterans who aren't quite good enough to make the 53, but who used to be immediate phone calls when someone got hurt. This is a win-win, because the team doesn't have to wait for the veteran to learn or re-learn the playcalls on the fly, and the veteran gets paid something while waiting for the call-up. Plus, I suspect the veteran is more likely to be in game shape at the time of the call-up if he's been practicing with the team the whole time. Allowing the in-season call-ups is also a win-win. The player getting called up both gets an actual game paycheck (pretty big jump over the PS check), and gets featured in a real game - big opportunity to showcase himself. The team gets massive help weathering short-term injuries without having to put guys on IR, and there's less pressure for guys to play hurt. This is massive when it comes to player safety, longevity, etc.

Same! As others on this thread have pointed out, McD and staff have an excellent track record of coaching up DBs. It wouldn't be crazy if a high pick flamed out somewhere else and had a renaissance with us. If the athletic profile is still there, Cine could potentially work out in a big way. But I say IF the athletic profile is still there, because frankly a broken leg is a big deal, especially since it was a compound fracture. Not everyone recovers and keeps the same speed, burst, ability to change direction, etc. Cine looked pretty spry in that preseason highlight posted upthread, so that's a good sign, but I'm certainly not counting this as a hatched chicken.