A Few Thoughts About the Bears Game, in no particular order

[947]

6 hours ago, Virgil said:

10 - Hollister - This is hard for me to say, but I believe Hollister should be given the starting job at TE.  Knox had both a drop and a missed block in his limited action while Hollister continues to be effective blocking, catching, and with surprising speed.  He looks like a receiver in the open field and a match-up nightmare for some linebackers and cornerbacks.  I'm sure Knox will continue to get the start and we haven't see what Josh's rapport is with him (should be strong since they played together before), but I think Knox is on a short leash this year.

What the heck has Knox done to retain the starting spot? Hollister has outplayed him by a lot already & deserves to take over. Knox has had a handful of great plays in 2 years, and 2-3 handfuls of utterly brutal plays, with the rest just "meh". I won't be happy if Knox is getting a majority of snaps.

[billybrew1]

6 hours ago, Don Otreply said:

Iirc, Basham had a sack, a blocked kick, and applied pressure well during the Chicago game, this comes from what I read in threads hear on TSW, so he may not be GR, but he is showing some game, 

 

Go Bills !!!

I also noted Basham get a super fast jump with explosion on the snap on one play....

 

Very impressive game after just watching it....

[BobbyC81]

5 hours ago, jkeerie said:

Maybe I'm thinking of a different KO (there were so many 😁) but I do know Kumerow had a really good hit on a KO.

That dude has become one of my favorite players.  He hauls a$$ running down field on kickoffs.  I was just reading in Bills Digest that he’s a favorite of McDermott.  He said he’s great in the locker room.  Sean noticed a difference when he was out.  I don’t think he’s going anywhere, unless maybe the Packers offer us Aaron Jones or Jaire Alexander.

[billybrew1]

3 hours ago, Cash said:

Great write up as always, Virgil!

 

My meaningless opinions:

 

Announcers: I actually thought they did a great job. Keep in mind, NFL Network only uses the local (home) announcers in the preseason. Despite that, I thought this crew:

1. Sounded professional 

2. Paid attention to the game on the field

3. Gave a very reasonable amount of attention to the “other” team

4. Seemed decently prepped on the roster of the “other” team

 

Contrast all 4 of those with the Lions’ crew last week, and it’s not even close. I’d argue that they’d probably outscore Catalon/Tasker on about 3 of the above 4 as well. 
 

 

Basham: I’m kind of in the middle on this one. I think all these can be true:

1. He’s nowhere close to helping this team in the regular season. I saw the stats, but they were mostly against 3rd stringers. To help us this year, he needs to be able to beat 1st stringers. No one platoons their O-line. 
2. He didn’t have that great of a game. IMO he was responsible for 2 big Fields scrambles on their TO on downs drive. Both times he went inside and lost contain. Technically goes in the books as a pressure, but Fields will run right around Basham for a first every time. Those kinds of plays would kill us against Mahomes or Lamar. 
3. I’m not at all worried about him. I don’t care if he was supposed to be more NFL-ready than Rousseau. It’s hard enough to predict who’ll be good vs bad. It’s basically impossible to consistently predict who’ll be good AND WHEN. There’s no reason he can’t get better over the course of the year, or by next year, or etc. Who knows? Maybe he switches to DT full time next year and winds up being great there? Rookies are not finished products in August of their first preseason. 
4. Even if he winds up a bust, it wasn’t really a bad pick. Okay, obviously it wouldn’t be a GREAT pick either. I just mean him busting doesn’t mean the Bills we’re dumb to draft him. See above re: drafting is hard. So if the Bills realize drafting is hard, they also realize they won’t be right 100% of the time. So with pass rush as a huge need, drafting 2 strong prospects gives us a better chance of landing at least 1 good pass rusher. It’s one of the hardest positions to find, so it’s worth spending the extra resources on. Even though it makes you less likely to be fully optimized, it might very well be worth it. Hard to say for sure. I’ll concede that there’s probably a CB or OG who we could’ve had that would help us more. But the Bills didn’t know how good Rousseau would look when they were drafting in the 2nd round. And they didn’t feel they could take the risk of Rousseau being unable to help this year. 

LOL, It's preseason and Boogie looks fine.....

 

just fine....

 

Go Bills!

[gdabillsfan]

6 hours ago, Cash said:

Great write up as always, Virgil!

 

My meaningless opinions:

 

Announcers: I actually thought they did a great job. Keep in mind, NFL Network only uses the local (home) announcers in the preseason. Despite that, I thought this crew:

1. Sounded professional 

2. Paid attention to the game on the field

3. Gave a very reasonable amount of attention to the “other” team

4. Seemed decently prepped on the roster of the “other” team

 

Contrast all 4 of those with the Lions’ crew last week, and it’s not even close. I’d argue that they’d probably outscore Catalon/Tasker on about 3 of the above 4 as well. 
 

 

Basham: I’m kind of in the middle on this one. I think all these can be true:

1. He’s nowhere close to helping this team in the regular season. I saw the stats, but they were mostly against 3rd stringers. To help us this year, he needs to be able to beat 1st stringers. No one platoons their O-line. 
2. He didn’t have that great of a game. IMO he was responsible for 2 big Fields scrambles on their TO on downs drive. Both times he went inside and lost contain. Technically goes in the books as a pressure, but Fields will run right around Basham for a first every time. Those kinds of plays would kill us against Mahomes or Lamar. 
3. I’m not at all worried about him. I don’t care if he was supposed to be more NFL-ready than Rousseau. It’s hard enough to predict who’ll be good vs bad. It’s basically impossible to consistently predict who’ll be good AND WHEN. There’s no reason he can’t get better over the course of the year, or by next year, or etc. Who knows? Maybe he switches to DT full time next year and winds up being great there? Rookies are not finished products in August of their first preseason. 
4. Even if he winds up a bust, it wasn’t really a bad pick. Okay, obviously it wouldn’t be a GREAT pick either. I just mean him busting doesn’t mean the Bills we’re dumb to draft him. See above re: drafting is hard. So if the Bills realize drafting is hard, they also realize they won’t be right 100% of the time. So with pass rush as a huge need, drafting 2 strong prospects gives us a better chance of landing at least 1 good pass rusher. It’s one of the hardest positions to find, so it’s worth spending the extra resources on. Even though it makes you less likely to be fully optimized, it might very well be worth it. Hard to say for sure. I’ll concede that there’s probably a CB or OG who we could’ve had that would help us more. But the Bills didn’t know how good Rousseau would look when they were drafting in the 2nd round. And they didn’t feel they could take the risk of Rousseau being unable to help this year. 

By all accounts from the out of town folks I spoke with who watched on NFL network, they all said that the Chicago announcers were better than Detroit's the week before, but still were homers.

They spent most of the first quarter making excuses for the Bears poor play. Now, listening to Catalon/tasker, if I were a Bears fan, I would of said the same thing about them.(sometimes I think Tasker gets drunk during the games, a la Dandy Don, turn out the lights ,Meredeth.)

On Basham;

He did play well, although as you said it was against their 2's and 3's. He did make mistakes and, is by far an unfinished product at this point. He would look lost against a good team, however he exudes a ton of potential. I think he will need a year or two to get up to speed and gain experience in the NFL, which is fine considering he was a late round 2 pick.

McD, loves these kind of hybrid players that can play inside or edge, and that's what I think he projects to be.

Rousseau on the other hand looks really good for a rookie, I know it's preseason, and I'm probably exaggerating his abilities (as a good hometown fan would), but I think his potential is off the charts. If he continues to progress I believe he has what it takes to be a star in this league.

Just a quick thought about drafting players;

Beane has done a remarkable job, finding these guys, as we improve as a team, this only gets harder, as The better you are, the later you pick.

[Rochesterfan]

4 hours ago, 947 said:

What the heck has Knox done to retain the starting spot? Hollister has outplayed him by a lot already & deserves to take over. Knox has had a handful of great plays in 2 years, and 2-3 handfuls of utterly brutal plays, with the rest just "meh". I won't be happy if Knox is getting a majority of snaps.

 

Then just prepare to be unhappy because the guys that have been to practice continue to say Knox is the #1 TE and will be getting the majority of snaps.  The injury to Hollister and the fact that Knox outplays him in practice seems to be keeping the TE group in the same order.

 

Hollister deserves more plays based upon what we have seen, but we are only getting a small portion of the plays.

[Rochesterfan]

6 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

I agree with you totally on Epenesa. Not worried about him at all, and it's not reasonable to say he played a lot.

 

Hope you and Sal are right on Basham. He had a few plays I liked but also a bunch where I didn't see much. But yeah, it's really early, particularly on this roster, where we've got a lot of guys ahead of him on the depth chart at this point.

 

I don’t disagree, but he also played more snaps in that game than he will probably see in weeks 1-5 combined.

 

The biggest takeaway is how these guys need to find the right weight to speed ratio.  It took AJ most of the season to find that last year and then the entire offseason to redesign his body to be more explosive.

 

Basham is going through that now - he is not the tall, lean player that Groot and AJ are - he is significantly more mass and muscle and his body right now looks like he has mass, but hasn’t developed the muscles to win consistently yet.

 

He may never amount to anything, but much like AJ last year - people need not to write him off when he is inactive early in the season.  The team will continue to work on him and he is a different build - so they will need to utilize him differently and like Klein last year - that may take some time.  He isn’t big enough or strong enough to hold up inside right now, but for a play or two he showed some ability.

 

He is just such a long way from a finished product.

 

 

[machine gun kelly]

I’ve missed “In no particular order”.  Great to see it bud.

 

Im happy with some improvement in AJ, and GROOT has shown he’s better than I expected, but again it’s preseason.  Basham who I expected to come out strong has been a slight disappointment.  I didn’t expect him to be a starter, but he just looks pedestrian.  I hope I’m wrong.

[gdabillsfan]

15 minutes ago, Rochesterfan said:

 

Then just prepare to be unhappy because the guys that have been to practice continue to say Knox is the #1 TE and will be getting the majority of snaps.  The injury to Hollister and the fact that Knox outplays him in practice seems to be keeping the TE group in the same order.

 

Hollister deserves more plays based upon what we have seen, but we are only getting a small portion of the plays.

Yeah, I think fans are impatient with knox. He's another of those guys that looks great at times, making one hand catches and such,making you think he was a budding star. However, on next play he drops an easy pass that leaves you scratching your head. 

It's hard to evaluate him without seeing him out there with Josh and gauge any improvement. By all accounts he has worked hard on his game during the off season, so I guess we'll see.

Hollister does look good in preseason, hopefully that will transfer over to the regular season also.

[Not at the table Karlos]

5 hours ago, Chandler#81 said:

Then don’t pretend you watched the game. I miss Bill in NYC..😢

This.

I got about halfway through the op and was like I don't think we watched the same game. 

[freddyjj]

6 hours ago, Utah John said:

Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, the dog that didn't bark:

 

Ed Oliver.  Why are we not hearing his name called?  We're talking about other guys making plays, but Oliver again seems invisible.  Is he still stuck playing 1-technique?

He played 6 snaps = Bears first 2 series. One assisted tackle.  

[Don Otreply]

9 hours ago, ganesh said:

It has always been said that Basham will be more game ready than Rosseau but will have a limited high ceiling.   He is proving it in the Preseason.

Could be the case, a bit early yet to know his ceiling,

[Thurman#1]

3 hours ago, Rochesterfan said:

 

I don’t disagree, but he also played more snaps in that game than he will probably see in weeks 1-5 combined.

 

The biggest takeaway is how these guys need to find the right weight to speed ratio.  It took AJ most of the season to find that last year and then the entire offseason to redesign his body to be more explosive.

 

Basham is going through that now - he is not the tall, lean player that Groot and AJ are - he is significantly more mass and muscle and his body right now looks like he has mass, but hasn’t developed the muscles to win consistently yet.

 

He may never amount to anything, but much like AJ last year - people need not to write him off when he is inactive early in the season.  The team will continue to work on him and he is a different build - so they will need to utilize him differently and like Klein last year - that may take some time.  He isn’t big enough or strong enough to hold up inside right now, but for a play or two he showed some ability.

 

He is just such a long way from a finished product.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, it's a mistake to judge anyone this early. 

 

Equally, though, some struggle to find that right weight to speed ratio, I'd argue most come out in the right neighborhood. Epenesa was certainly an exception to that. But plenty also come out about right in that ratio.¥ Doesn't mean they're finished products, as an NFL weight and nutrition program will nearly always help them, but most guys who aren't at the right ratio won't be able to show what the Bills want to see on the field in college, and thus won't get picked. 

 

Epenesa was a bit of an exception as his Dad is an absolute weight lifting and fitness nut, so Epenesa actually put on too much muscle weight in college. That's not a common problem down there.

 

[Virgil]

8 hours ago, Chandler#81 said:

Then don’t pretend you watched the game. I miss Bill in NYC..😢

This.

I watched the whole thing.  It was difficult at times to keep track of who was on the field with then subbing people in and out so much.  
 

My apologies 

[Thurman#1]

2 hours ago, freddyjj said:

He played 6 snaps = Bears first 2 series. One assisted tackle.  

 

 

Took a quick look at both drives and he did his job each time. He was pushing the pocket on pass plays to prevent Dalton from stepping up, and on run plays he was never pushed back, pushing his guy laterally and ending up right at the point of attack. He did well. 

 

DTs can be doing a great job even when their name isn't called.

[Dr. Who]

NFL Network is replaying the game tonight at 8, btw.

[Punching Bag]

15 hours ago, jeremy2020 said:

Trubisky throwing a deep ball made me realize miss Allen, but he definitely showed he can fill in for a game or two. 

 

Allen threw a lot of deep balls without success when he started and rather than changing game he changed himself so he could be more successful throwing deep balls.  Trubisky should be working on his game this year as well as working as backup.

 

 

21 minutes ago, Dr. Who said:

NFL Network is replaying the game tonight at 8, btw.

 

TY. Work tonight and work has been real slow.  Not one issue last night.

 

Some days I feel like Maytag repairman and I am starting to look like one.

[Malazan]

2 minutes ago, Limeaid said:

 

Allen threw a lot of deep balls without success when he started and rather than changing game he changed himself so he could be more successful throwing deep balls.  Trubisky should be working on his game this year as well as working as backup.

 

Why hasn't he been working on it the previous 4 years? 

[dickleyjones]

1 hour ago, Virgil said:

I watched the whole thing.  It was difficult at times to keep track of who was on the field with then subbing people in and out so much.  
 

My apologies 

wait, you haven't lived up to random poster's expectations? for SHAME

[Punching Bag]

2 minutes ago, jeremy2020 said:

 

Why hasn't he been working on it the previous 4 years? 

 

During season he really does not have time as he does now and the coaching staff for Bears throughout his career was lacking there.  For the last three years coaching staff for Bills has been excellent.