http://gty.im/491323864
As the afternoon rolled to a close and the Bills officially lost to the Giants, 24-10 I had a lot of thoughts. I know most of you did as well, because my feed was full of them. I’m going to try and “write it out” instead of tweeting it out as well as pop in ye olde tweetbag to see if others are in the same boat even now. Let’s boogie.
- I can live with Tyrod as the guy – Four games in, there’s a lot to like about Tyrod. In particular, in both losses he has been able to ‘get it’ and fight his way back into the game. In comparison to some of the other QBs that have graced the roster lo these many years, that alone is enough for me to not even think of saying “same old Bills” – but I’m not He Who Shall Not Be Named. Heck, looking at the way Tyrod found Clay on several deep middle crossers gave me hope because he learned from Miami to this game what he needed to do to get the ball to him without it bouncing off his hands, just out of reach.
- Home games may require Xanax for the team (and sometimes the fans) – As much as fans and media are making of Rex getting his players geeked out at home (myself included) something has to be said for fandom as well. For overall sanity, you cannot look at every game as THE referendum on the Bills’ existence, your fandom of said existence, the fact that the Bills will shirk the coil of 15 years without a playoff spot, or their impending rise to being powerhouses of the NFL. You’ll drive yourself nuts. And a lot of what I saw today was that via twitter. The Bills winning doesn’t remove Super Bowl 25, just as much as their losing didn’t make that game count double. They lost to a 2-time champ who got the ball out at times under 2 seconds. That’s all. Tranquillo my friends. Tranquillo.
- Discipline of Eli allowed the game to become…difficult – When Ben McAdoo was announced as the OC for the Giants last year, one of the first things I thought about the situation was that it was going to be diametric opposition of QB and coach; Eli, ever ready to sling it come what may compared to the more structured style of a west-coast offense McAdoo brings. Well, color me surprised because Eli has taken to the offense quite well. Even the pick that Gilmore got would be more a function of the playcalling being a bit over aggressive and not a true “Eli face” screw up. When you’re playing a top notch QB like that you won’t get many chances to get him to screw up. The Bills had one and they took advantage, and that’s all I can ask. In terms of the future, Brady and *shudder* Dalton are the only two left that can pull that off as well as Brady has and Manning did. Again, Tranquillo (relax if you want me to speak “American”)
- The penalties – I don’t think on the whole I can lose it about the penalties. However, I do think that the Bills need to be more mature when there is a call going against them while they’re losing. It’s the Madden ragequit effect – you come off as immature and as Coughlin told his team, the Bills would beat themselves with penalties. That cannot happen. Also, as a side-note to this, it’s amazing that stories like that can come out after the fact and folks can dance with them media wise, but if Rex has the intestinal fortitude to make it plain prior he’s a bad sport. Ah well, bygones. Also, if the refs are going to call open season on quarterbacks faking handoffs, I better see Drew Brees get plastered on orbit motion like Tyrod did and no flag gets thrown. Finally, the Bills have a reputation now – they fly off the handle and two rookie ref crews (in both losses) have now shown them to be loose cannons – and not in the fun loving buddy cop way. This is Tin Cup level meltdowns and they have to keep their cool or they’ll lose games. As my head coach always says, talk with your pads between the whistles and your point will get made.
- I’m channeling my inner Lou Brown – For those of you that don’t know the awesome manager from Major League, this line described me leading into the Giants game:
After the game, I truly knew how Lou felt. If you haven’t seen Major League I or II, please, please do yourself a favor and watch them. You’ll get a lot of stress out by laughing.
But enough of me going over my issues, let’s get some #content from the tweetbag:
@RDotDeuce were you surprised that the game ended without a run-in from Kane?
— Luke Wachob (@LukeWachob) October 4, 2015
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Luke! In the quiet place I went to after I realized the Bills truly were going to lose the game, this tweet was quite perfect. Like “Love Actually To me you are perfect” perfect. Imagining Eli throwing out Eli Face as Kane walked to the 50 yard line and dragged him under the turf would have been a sight to see. Or at least have him team up with Mario and start choke slamming fools left and right. Anything would have been more palatable than the myriad penalties and the ‘almost’ TDs towards the end.
@RQUINN619 @RDotDeuce ej was a rook, playing behind a much worse o line. Are we giving Taylor too much credit?
— Khaliyl (@FrankieKarin) October 5, 2015
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Going back to what I was saying in my points section, I think that Taylor is playing behind about the same line that EJ had been. Particularly because of the injuries to the line. As much as I love EJ and want him to develop, there were few games so far in his career that he started in the tank and brought his game back like Tyrod has in the 2 losses. And, to me, Tyrod because of the four years on the bench has a professional mindset to mistakes – learns and moves on. A lot of times EJ would go into the tank. I was here in Pittsburgh for the game vs the Steelers his rookie year, where he sat off by himself after every bad drive. You cannot have that out of your QB. I think EJ has learned, but Tyrod is already there. Now we have 12 games, so because of your great question I’m going to check back in, in depth on Tyrod at week 15 to see how his 14 games stack up with EJ. Fair?
Up next for the Bills this next quarter are Mariota, Dalton, Bortles and Tannehill post-bye. Andy Dalton is playing lights out, but those other three are going to have a hard time replicating what those aforementioned Super Bowl champs did in terms of quick game vs the Bills. But if you’re going to go 3/16 on 3rd down and have those back breakers penalty-wise, it’s going to be a bad time. I’m thinking they fix what needs to be fixed.
I’ll be checking in with y’all this week with a quarterly awards and a preview for the Titans game. I’m of a few minds as to the preview style, so please @ me (@RDotDeuce) and give me your thoughts on how we can make game previews POP!*
Tranquillo.
*-Or at least not suck
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
