Big Turk

No brainer...the offense has sucked badly for the first 5 games, no point in sucking that bad and having your rookie QB on the bench...you can suck that bad with a rookie QB and he can get experience...and who knows, he might actually be able to do better...he can't do much worse. I mean they are 2nd worst in the NFL in points scored per game at 12.4 and they trail only Miami who is at 12.0, but they also just lost that game 15-9 last week against them...might as well call that one Toilet Bowl I...Toilet Bowl II between the 2 teams coming up in a few more weeks 😂

The issue seems to be that scheme can only help so much...at some point the players have to actually win one on one and they aren't doing it enough.

This is not a good sign, IMO... Even in their first 3 games when they were scoring a ton of points the Bills were only converting 33.33% of their 3rd downs. Now after the last two games that has dropped to 32.14% which is ranked 25th in the NFL. Over the past 4 years, the Bills have converted 3rd downs at a historic rate never seen in NFL history at 49.8% over that period of time. That's absurd. No matter what the down and distance, the Bills converted 1 out of every 2 3rd downs. Last year they converted 49.39% of 3rd downs, best in the NFL. It is a very worrying sign that the Bills are not converting well on 3rd downs, even when things were going well on offense. To go from 1st in the NFL over the last 4 years to 25th and having over a 17% decrease in efficiency thru 5 games this year is a stunning dropoff. To put it in perspective, both New England and the Jets have a better 3rd down conversion rate than we do. There is NO WAY that should happen when you have Josh Allen on your team. If they want to fix this offense, they need to fix the 3rd down conversion rate. The offense is not ever getting a chance to get into a flow because they are constantly in start-stop mode on offense. Seems like that is where the lack of a #1 WR option comes into play the most...Allen has nobody he can count on in 3rd down situations...Shakir might become that guy but he isn't yet.

It seemed Houston was clogging up the middle preventing the easier throws and trying to force the Bills to beat them outside with their WRs. However, there were some plays where it appeared checkdowns to the RB were available and weren't taken that could have helped them with down and distance. IMO, it seemed Allen was trying to press too hard on a lot of plays and instead of taking what was available on plays, trying to gain chunks that were much more difficult plays.

It looks like it the last few weeks because he has been under a lot of pressure... The thing I WILL say is that if he starts getting pressured a lot at the start of the game, it seems he expects pressure and will bail early at times or even throw early in expectation of pressure being there even if it isn't.

This may be a little crude, but anyone staying in Tampa should take a permanent marker and write their next of kin and their phone numbers on their forearm so they can let them know to come identify the body. The mayor pretty much said as much. After Helene basically destroyed all the storm surge protections that were in place, Tampa Bay is going to get decimated.

Why not challenge? Because it was obvious the call on the field was correct as much as some want to argue it wasn't. the only chance of an overturn, which likely would have happened if it was ruled a catch and Houston challenged.

No he didn't, it clearly wasn't a catch and no amount of mental gymnastics people want to do would have magically transformed it into one. It was clearly NOT a catch, the ball moved far more than is allowed for it to be considered a catch when falling to the ground out of bounds. There has to be clear evidence to overturn it. If anything, the overturn would have happened if it was ruled a catch and then challenged by Houston. It is not a catch. If he was in bounds then yes. But the rule is NOT the same when he falls to the ground out of bounds. He has to maintain control without it moving significantly...it moved significantly to the point it went between his legs and he pinned it to his legs. Again...that's fine if he was in bounds, but that's not OK when he lands out of bounds.

Always a downside of wasting a challenge because you never know when you might need them. I've seen back to back plays get challenged. You don't challenge plays when they are obviously not going to be overturned. As a fan watching it was obvious both were correct calls. McD has an ex NFL official and long time referree telling him whether to challenge or not. Pretty sure he has a much better handle on this than any posters. Nah. The ball is moving out of bounds. That's not a catch. Have seen this reversed numerous times when ruled a catch on plays where the movement was far less obvious than that. The only way that play would have stood is if he regained control in bounds,got two feet down and then fell to the ground

Only ones open to interpretation maybe. There is no interpretation involved when a player is clearly out of bounds.

C'mon man, this is not Madden. The Kincaid play would have been overturned if it was ruled a catch on the field and Houston challenged. It wasn't "close", the ball was clearly moving as he went out of bounds and that is not going to be ruled as a catch.

You aren't agreeing with McD, you were actually agreeing with John Parry, a long time ex NFL official including 11 years as a ref that included 2 super bowls. He is in charge of telling McD when to challenge and when not to.

On the Cook play? That was so obvious I cannot believe anyone would even bring up that we should have challenged it. Like a 5th grader could have told you he didn't make the catch in bounds.

The odds weren't small, they were zero. In fact, If the officials ruled Kincaid's play a catch and Houston threw a challenge flag, it likely would have gotten overturned in their favor. Obvious the ball moved and there was no way that was going to be called a catch.

His "people" being John Parry, an NFL official for 18 years, including a referee for 11 years. He was the referee in 2 SuperBowls as well. Pretty sure he is far more qualified than anyone on this board as to what should be challenged.

Well he had to be cleared by both an independent neurologist and team doctors and the fact it was done so quickly makes it pretty clear he wants concussed. Didn't seem concussed post game in the interview either.

You realize we employ an ex NFL referee with many years of experience as the person who identifies what and what not to challenge? Pretty sure he has a good grasp on what to challenge and what not to. Both those were obvious "no's" in terms of challenging.

I mean theoretically if you are blitzing aren't you leaving the middle open? From what I have seen they are mostly simulating pressures and dropping people out while overloading one side like the Baltimore game which means you still don't have the right numbers to block them properly or simply winning with 4 and dropping 7 with one player spying Allen. That's how they are taking the middle away mostly and funneling things outside.

I think the goal is to maintain the ability to be competitive all the time but within that you will have pockets of time when you really go for it...this is not one of those years, IMO, and would just set them back for future years when they will have improved chances.

C'mon now...this is recency bias. The man was at a 75% completion percentage and had 9 TDs thru 3 games with 0 INTs and was going ham in both the Arizona and Jacksonville game.

Perhaps they know internally they are far more than 1 WR away from being a SB contender this year? And if that's the case, then I don't really see what the point is of winning the division again and making the playoffs when you know you have no shot...get a higher draft pick and reload with higher end talent.

Typically what we have is an Allen leading us to a late score to take the lead and the D/ST giving it up problem. That's at least 5 of those games.

Got to the point Allen was bailing in anticipation of getting pressure or releasing the ball early even when it didn't materialize. They got to do something to shore that up. No real excuse to be that bad in pass pro, especially since they are normally pretty good.

Allen almost always does too and is let down by his D and special teams. How many times have they lost in instances where we needed a TD late in the 4th quarter to win the game and then the D to shut the door and we get the TD from Allen but then the D not slamming the door? I can think of 5 right off the top of my head at least and I am sure there are more. IMO, Mahomes should be thanking Chris Jones for a lot of those victories.