The Bills and Broncos will face off later today and the fine staff at Buffalo Wins have their picks for you. Enjoy the game!
Ricardo (@rcanepac)
Broncos 23-13
While our offense will improve (at least we’ll have a td!), I predict that our defense will not have a game as good as against the Panthers.
I do think that having McDermott and that Cam is still shaky, helped tons in past game. But the familiarity factor will play against us now.
However, Broncos are way too good and they know every trick in Dennison’s offense. He will adjust in comparison to last game but that’s won’t be enough. I predict an early run away from the Broncos and in fourth quarter the offense opening up. I also think that Shady will have a shitty game running but a decent game in the passing game. Not so bold prediction: he’ll have the most receptions and yardage.
Let’s hope I’m wrong!!
Evan (@evancdent) 2-0. Broncos 20 – Bills 6
Listen! Be silent and listen with your ear close to the ground, and you can still hear people re-litigating the missed connection between Tyrod Taylor and Zay Jones. I mean, holy shit, aren’t you people exhausted? Please, I beg of you, move on with your lives! You can watch the Bills and then do something else for the rest of the day (and the week!); you can do literally anything else and be happier! I promise. Serenity Now should be your mindset.
The Bills are going to get annihilated this week. The score will look close for a bit with another valiant effort from the defense, but there’s no way the Bills can move the ball on the Broncos defense. They just held Ezekiel Eliot – behind probably the best offensive line in the league – to 8 yards on 9 carries. That’s even worse than Shady’s day against the Panthers! Without a run game, the Bills offense sputters, and the defense won’t be able to shutout what’s looked like a pretty solid Broncos offensive attack. The Bills will fall to 1-2, and the calls to put in Peterman will get much, much louder.
Chris O (@2itb_buffalo) (1-1)
It seems like we saw something far closer to what the Bills really are last week as opposed to the opener against the Jets. Carolina’s defense snuffed out any semblance of an attack from Buffalo and made Rick Dennison’s crew look foolish for nearly the full 60 minutes. Considering Denver’s defense is considered to be stronger than Carolina’s and the Broncos just whooped Dallas in week two, if Denver could dictate terms against an offensive line like Dallas’, I can only imagine how they might feast on Buffalo’s unit.
The Bills defense has been a bright spot early in the year and that group gives the Bills a serious look at turning an upset in a lot of these games which would otherwise be lopsided. So while the strength of these two teams ought to result in a low scoring affair, I’m honestly not convinced that the Bills will manage to put any points on the board this week.
Broncos: 20-6
Mike McKenzie (@mack10zie) 2-0
When the best thing you can say about a game is “Hopefully it’s a let down week for Denver after beating Dallas”, you know it could be a long week. Denver is Carolina but with a better offense at the moment. Remember, Buffalo scored 3 against Carolina. Trevor Siemian is playing well, and Mike McCoy seems to be major upgrade at OC (sorry Bills fans). At least the Bills are at home…. Denver 27 Buffalo 10
Michael N (@manecci)
Broncos 17 Bills 9 – We saw exactly what happens to the Bills when LeSean McCoy is taken out of a the Bills game plan by a good defense. The #1 problem for the Bills on offense is that they have zero counter punch. Tyrod Taylor is an average to below average QB in this league. He just isn’t good nor good enough to win games for this team, I know what a good QB looks like, and he just isn’t it. Is he better than what they have? Yes. If I’m the Broncos, I’m stacking 8 guys in the box, man to man with Harris and Talib on the outside, and a single high safety and daring the Bills to beat me by passing, and they won’t be able to do it. The Bills defense will keep this close at home, but Denver’s QB and offense will do enough to win.
Mike Migliore (@mmigliore) 2-0
The talk all week in Buffalo after the Bills’ ugly 9-3 loss to the Panthers was about Tyrod Taylor and the quality of the team’s offense. This talking point has been beaten to death all week, so I want to shift and talk about what was more concerning to me in the grand scheme of things – Sean McDermott’s butchering of game management.
We have listened nonstop to Coach Troops speak in platitudes about accountability, reliability, leadership, and trusting the process. McDermott and Brandon Beane seem to want to build a team centered around these intangible characteristics. It’s clear that the two believe these are areas the roster is still lacking and will be looking to add to. My question about this is, does McDermott hold himself to the same standards? After all, he’s going to be around running things for the long haul.
When the team needed to rely on McDermott to lead by handling his timeouts and the clock properly on Sunday, he failed. Whatever process he followed for timeout management should be trashed.
The Bills had all three timeouts left to use as the first half was winding down and the Panthers were trying to start a drive around midfield. On 2nd and 10 from the Carolina 48 with 1:10 left to go in the half, Lorenzo Alexander sacked Cam Newton for a 5-yard loss. McDermott should have used his first timeout here with Carolina now facing a third and long situation and the Bills likely to get the ball back. Troops did not. Carolina snapped the ball at 31 seconds and ran a play that was called back by holding.
The Bills could have declined the penalty and stopped the clock to have Carolina punt the ball back to them here, but no. Troops called his first timeout with 19 seconds left to gather his defense before the 3rd and 25 play. After a Jonathan Stewart run, Troops called his second timeout with 13 seconds left. Too little, too late. Carolina punted and the Bills ran a draw with six seconds left to end the half. If the Bills had called their timeouts sooner, they may have gotten the ball back with about 45 seconds to go and a chance at driving for a field goal before halftime. Points were at a premium in a game that was 6-0 at that point, but McDermott felt no reason to try for points in this situation.
In the fourth quarter, Carolina was knocking on the doorstep of a touchdown to put the game away, leading 6-3 with just under four minutes to play and facing a second and goal from the Bills 3. Jonathan Stewart ran into the line for one yard with 3:22 to go. McDermott, with three timeouts in his pocket, had a couple of options here. He could have stopped the clock here immediately to preserve time with his team needing to score a touchdown on its next possession to have a chance to win the game. His other option would be to save the timeout and just let Carolina run their third-down play with about 2:40 to go. Ideally, you get a stop and still have three timeouts and the two-minute warning to use. Troops let the clock run to 2:43 – then called a timeout. Wha? This wasted 30 seconds and a timeout the Bills desperately needed for their final drive.
McDermott’s biggest mistake came on the Bills’ final drive. With 53 seconds left to go, the Bills had a first down completion to Andre Holmes called back by a dubious offensive pass interference penalty. The Bills were pushed back to a 1st and 20 situation from the Carolina 42. Taylor couldn’t find anyone open and had to scramble for four yards, unable to make it to the sideline to stop the clock. With the clock running and the Bills still holding two timeouts, this was an obvious timeout situation. Obvious to everyone except McDermott, apparently. He did not use a timeout and let the clock run as his offense scrambled to line up again. The Bills snapped the ball again at 30 seconds, wasting nearly 20 seconds they didn’t have to waste.
We don’t know if the extra time and extra snaps would have led to a Bills’ victory, but we do know that McDermott made it more difficult for his team to win the game by wasting precious time. Troops can use all the platitudes he wants to describe what he believes is essential to a winning football team, but he has to know that proper clock management and game strategy will ultimately make more of a difference on Sundays. Watching him fumble around with the clock on Sunday gave me little hope that this is a guy who can out-scheme and out-strategize his opponent on game days.
You want to know why the Bills continuously miss the playoffs? They are run by dumb people who hire more dumb people to make dumb decisions. The snowball effect has led us to here, where now we have to pine for a college quarterback to pull us out of the well next season. They better get that pick right, because I have little faith in them figuring out other ways to build a winner.
It’s on McDermott and the offensive coaching staff to figure out a way to get Taylor and the offense going, which is going to be a monumental task against another stout defense on Sunday. They have their talented quarterback in a scheme that doesn’t suit him at all and they don’t have any receivers that can help elevate his play. They also have a coach that can’t manage the game effectively. The talk will continue to be about how bad Taylor is though. Like I said, dumb people making dumb decisions over at One Bills Drive.
Prediction: Broncos 17, Bills 12
Husaria (@Husaria)
Sorry that I didn’t write last week. I was configuring my Pi so I could get screenshots and Vi sucks ass. Anyways, so I predict the Bills lose, again, 28-7, I was wrong week 1, but holy shit the Jets are bad. They’re so bad in Tecmo Bowl that I beat them 82-21. So I played week 2 and 3, and these were the results
Then I played Denver, which I dont have the final stat screenshots, however, Denver had 300 yards passing, but I had over 200 yards rushing, have to work on that passing D.
So the Bills are 3-0 and top of the AFC East,
Also Dareus is leading in sacks in the fantasy tecmo world
Also, apparently some people are working on a updated NHL 95 ROM with rosters, so if that’s done in time for the season, I’ll be playing that and providing updates.
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