MDH

I watched the Chargers/Hawks game today and some things I noticed: -The Chargers OL allowed consistent pressure from the Hawks who mostly rushed 4 (with the occasional blitz.) Despite the pressure Rivers was fantastic at reading the pressure and getting rid of the ball to hot read or running with the ball. It was impressive how he didn't force anything and thereby avoided the big mistake. For the Bills to be successful they're going to have to bring guys up and cover the short stuff because Rivers will hit it all day long. -Gates is a monster. Rivers will literally just throw the ball up and hope Gates comes down with it and he usually did. The Hawks had Chancellor on him quite a bit and he couldn't stop him and at other times they'd get caught with an LB on him (with Chancellor getting over too late a few times, most noticeably on one of the TD passes.) I'm not sure the Bills have anybody who can match up with him. -The Chargers were pretty resilient. On two different occasions inside the red zone penalties killed them. Once a TD was taken off the board and another a 1st and Goal at the 5 ended up being a 1st and goal at the 22. Both times they ended up with a TD anyway. This is a team that gets 7, not 3. It's not going to be good enough putting up a bunch of FGs on offense this week. -For some, inexplicable, reason the Hawks decided not to run the ball. They put the ball in Wilson's hands and while his numbers looked decent he wasn't effective at moving the team consistently and he was under pressure quite a bit. The few times they did run the ball they were successful. The Bills best chance offensively lies in their normal game plan. Run it and run it some more and let EJ hit a handful of big gainers here and there to get the chunk yardage. - The Chargers didn't try to run the ball much even before Mathews got hurt. Most of their carries were towards the end of the game when they were running the clock. They had 3 WRs on the field most of the time. That along with Gates means I don't think Spikes gets on the field much again this game. I wouldn't be surprised if the Bills employed 3 safeties for a good portion of the game in an attempt to negate Gates while still having some semblance of a run D. A stud TE is a nightmare match up for any D. This is a tricky matchup. I actually like the way the Bills O matchups up against the Chargers D more than our D matches up with their O. I think it's going to take a minimum of 24 points to get it done, hopefully the O is up to the task or the Chargers make some mistakes and turn the ball over.

Yeah, but unless someone is going to go and do the same "garbage time stat" work for every game that's ever been played (or at least a few seasons worth) then it's really not even possible to know if the "non-garbage time stats" that the Bills allowed is really that impressive because there are no numbers to compare it to. How can a number all by itself be impressive? It can only be impressive in relation to what other teams have done in the recent past. Yeah, but some of those red zone appearances came in garbage time when the Bills were happy to run it into the LoS and kick a FG (perhaps the Colts should have done the same thing...)

This was a nicely ran route if you watch the replay. He bursts up the field right at the DB and the moment the DB finally turns his hips in anticipation of keeping up with the go route Sammy breaks in on the post. Those backers have to get deeper in their drops too, the made the throw much easier than it should have been.

Call me a pessimist but I'm not looking down the schedule that far to determine if a game is easier than I expect. Too much can happen by then. But looking at the next few games it appears that Houston game is much more difficult than previously thought.

Garbage indeed. He wasn't even in the white.

That was God knocking the ball out of his hands if I recall correctly.

By what means will you determine his ranking? Your own opinion or is there some quantifiable means? QBR? After you've determined the method what will you do if he's the 11th or 12 ranked QB? Will that be considered a failure? Just curious. You keep preaching this line so I'm assuming you've put a lot of thought into the entire process by which you'll do this.

Hey pot, meet kettle.

You're probably right but it shouldn't be an issue. Starters play on special teams all around the league. Check out the Seahawks.

Nope.

Yeah, I guess you're right I don't know what...wait a sec, I've just been informed that one of my slaves hasn't gone and dumped the barrels of toxic waste into the river like I told him a million times. I've got to go give him 50 lashes. I'll brb. Okay, back now. It's funny, on my way back to my computer I passed my daughter who was crying about being forced to marry somebody she didn't love in order to strengthen our family. She said she'd rather go to college. Can you imagine that, a woman in college?! Hah. Start giving in to them and next thing you know they'll want to vote! I hope her future husband has a firmer hand with her than me, I tend to be too nice when it comes to her. Anyway, as I was saying, you are most definitely correct, we haven't wizened up, I don't know what I was thinking.

Yeah, I love the, "but that's the way it's always been done" argument. Imagine the abominable things we'd still be doing if people didn't wise up at some point.

Yeah, I'm fairly certain of this as well. HoF level QBs miss throws every single week. Every...single...week. What sets them apart from everybody else is they are extremely consistent with good throws. It doesn't mean they don't make bad ones. Of course, to get to that level of consistency it takes time. Nobody comes into the league looking like that right off the bat unless their name is Marino.

I'm not ready to anoint him just yet but damn if the results are really good after 2 weeks. Then again, his talent was never the issue. Let's hope he keeps to the straight and narrow off the field and continues to work hard on it.

I have no clue what people are complaining about. This is a generalization but there are pretty much two ways to get a QB NFL ready: 1) Let him go out there and wing it, make lots of mistakes, but also make lots of plays. It's trial by fire. This way is almost always accompanied by losing because those mistakes kill a team. or 2) Play it safe and ease him into the league. If a team happens to have a good D they can win during this learning process. Otherwise they'll likely lose more than they win. Given the two choices and the fact that the Bills have a good D who actually wants to see choice one? I wonder what the EJ haters think of Russel Wilson. Because he pretty much used this same formula to ease into his role as starting QB. Safe throws, occasionally getting big chunks, solid ST, great D. They didn't win because of his arm but he contributed much to the winning.

No one gave a crap when the Bills were decimated by injuries in years past. Nobody said it made the teams they got beaten by any worse. I don't ever want to see players get injured but I'm not crying in my beer when the Bills catch a break or two either. I don't need to see how good they really are, I want enough wins to get to the playoffs. I'll take them any way the Bills want to deliver them.

What somebody's personal opinion of the matter is ends up being irrelevant. It's a distraction and PR nightmare. There's a reason he wasn't dressed this week and there is talk of trading him. Hint: it's not because of his talent or production.

Who is going to trade anything for a distraction and a PR nightmare? If being a great RB were enough to counter these things they wouldn't consider trading him. Only team I could see him really putting over the top is Indy.

The best part about this play is that it's obvious Hackett is scheming ways to get the ball into Sammy's hands. The fact that Chandler picks the LB and starts blocking him before Sammy gets the ball (a penalty actually) tells us that this play was designed to go to one place - Sammy. Put the ball in your playmakers hands and good things happen.

Charles and Clowney. Not sure how much time Charles will miss at this point. They called it an ankle sprain but he's having an MRI today.

And it doesn't get any easier this week with a team that just beat the Super Bowl champs.

ALONE in 1st place!

F*ck you, I know that trick.

How do you get sacked when you have 20 seconds to get rid of the ball?