Category: Bills

Josh Allen is on pace to smash the NFL’s single-game passing yards record

Josh Allen is on pace to absolutely smash the NFL’s single-game record for passing yards.

One of the weirder statistics in pro football is Norm Van Brocklin’s pro football record of 554 passing yards in a single game. Not that it’s odd that Van Brocklin would set the record — the man is a Pro Football Hall-of-Famer, after all. The surprise is, with all the advancements in the passing game, and with all the benefits given to offenses in general with rules in the last few decades, that Van Brocklin accomplished this feat for the Los Angeles Rams against the New York Yanks on September 28, 1951.

At the half of the Buffalo Bills’ game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, Bills quarterback Josh Allen is on pace to not only break, but to smash, Van Brocklin’s record.

In the first half of Buffalo’s romp Steelers, Allen completed 14 of 24 passes for 248 yards, four touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 125.0.

We’ll see how much Allen will play in the second half with the score 31-3 at the half, but given what Allen’s already done to this usually great defense, it’s time to do a bit of record-watching.

Bills WR Gabe Davis further demolishes Steelers with one-handed TD catch

Buffalo Bills receiver Gabe Davis is having a DAY against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The version of Buffalo Bills receiver Gabe Davis who caught four touchdown passes in Buffalo’s divisional-round loss to the Kansas City Chiefs last season? That might be the version of the Gabe Davis the Pittsburgh Steelers will see in their collective nightmares after their game on Sunday.

Davis had already beaten Pittsburgh’s attempted bracket coverage for a 98-yard touchdown early in the first quarter, and then, with 9:29 left in the first half, Josh Allen heaved one up to Davis, who made this amazing one-handed catch for a 62-yard touchdown.

This wasn’t some league-average defender Davis beat on this play — it was safety Minkah Fitzpatrick, on a very short list of the NFL’s best coverage safeties.

This amazing touchdown put the Bills up 17-3; Allen hit Stefon Diggs for a touchdown on the Bills’ next drive, and the Bills are running away with this one.

Bills shock Steelers with 98-yard TD pass from Josh Allen to Gabe Davis

Josh Allen and Gabe Davis connected for a 98-yard touchdown for the Buffalo Bills against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

We all know that the Buffalo Bills’ offense can score from anywhere at any time, and that could be true even against the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense on Sunday.

It didn’t take long for Josh Allen and his crew to make that point specific. The Bills started this game on their own two-yard line after Taiwan Jones muffed Chris Boswell’s opening kickoff. There was an incomplete pass to running back Devin Singletary. Then, there was a Singletary run for no yardage

So, on third-and-10 from his own two-yard line, Allen decided to get a bit more expansive. The Steelers tried to bracket receiver Gabe Davis, and Davis just ran right through it.

98 yards later, the Bills were on the board. On the subsequent kickoff, defensive back James Pierre muffed HIS return attempt, and the Bills got the ball back at the Pittsburgh 21-yard line. That drive ended with a blocked field goal, so it has not been a special day for special teams so far.

Davis wasn’t done; in the second quarter, he housed safety Minkah Fitzpatrick on this amazing one-handed catch.

Why the NFL/NFLPA’s concussion protocol modifications won’t work on the field

The NFL and NFLPA have released the findings of their Tua Tagovailoa investigation, with protocol modifications that won’t work. Here’s why.

On Saturday, the NFL and NFLPA released a joint statement following an investigation into the protocol followed in the matter of Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa following his injury in Week 3 against the Buffalo Bills.

“The NFL-NFLPA Concussion Evaluation and Management Protocol was formalized and adopted in 2013,” the two parties said in a statement. “Since that time, the parties’ medical experts have recommended and the parties have agreed to numerous modifications of the protocols to improve the health and safety of players (e.g., the creation of the ATC spotter program, Booth UNCs, Emergency Action Plans, mandatory post-game reports, and improved video surveillance). Rather than being simply a “check the box” process, the Protocol was designed to ensure that highly credentialed and experienced physicians – approved and paid for by the NFL and NFLPA – are available on game day and to create a standardized approach to concussion evaluation where competitive decisions never usurp quality care.

“If a concern arises over compliance with the Protocol, either the NFLPA or the NFL can request an investigation into the actions of the medical staff which will be conducted jointly. The NFL-NFLPA CBA limits the scope of the parties’ review to an objective assessment of whether each step required by the protocol was undertaken when a potential head injury is identified.”

Here’s what they were investigating.

With 2:28 left in the first half of that game, Tagovailoa was hit hard by Buffalo linebacker Matt Milano, and his head hit the turn equally hard. Tagovailoa was wobbly and shaking his head as he got up, and this looked for all the world to be a prototypical concussion.

Tagovailoa was taken into the NFL’s concussion protocol, and came out to play for the entire second half. As the game progressed, news leaked regarding the supposed source of Tagovailoa’s malady.

Given the NFL’s highly specious history regarding head trauma, this was met with massive suspicion, and rightly so. After the game, Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel echoed this diagnosis.

“That was live-speed action,” McDaniel said. “Now, Tua, he went out with a lower back, and I hadn’t had that rep with him yet. He kind of got bent back pretty significantly on a quarterback sneak earlier. I was kind of with everyone else. When he hit his head on the ground, I assumed it was a head injury, but his legs got wobbly because his lower back was completely loose and as he described it, he said his lower back was like Gumby or something. That is a challenge.

“That happens all the time in NFL games. It was kind of fast and furious. We had some skill position players get dinged. We had some linemen fight through it, but those are things that you just have to be able to adjust on the fly. Your whole staff better be in concert. You better have contingencies, and you better know some plays you want to go to if things happen. We were able to do the best we could, but it was a lot better when we had everyone back. That’s for sure.”

Tagovailoa really wanted everybody to know that he’s good.

“On the quarterback sneak [the play before], I kind of got my legs caught under someone, and then they were trying to push back and then kind of felt like I hyper-extended my back or something. Then on the next play I kind of hit my back and kind of hurt. Then I got up and then that’s kind of why I stumbled – my back kind of locked up on me. For the most part, I’m good. I passed whatever concussion protocol they had, so I’m good.”

Tagovailoa was not good, as it turned out, and we’ll get into that in a minute. But here’s what the NFL and the NFLPA found in their internal investigation, which is the first problem right off the bat.

Secret Superstars for Week 4 of the 2022 NFL season

From Geno Smith to Jamaree Salyer to Talanoa Hufanga, here are the Secret Superstars for Week 4 of the 2022 NFL season.

There are all kinds of reasons that NFL players are underrated and unsung.

Perhaps they’re in systems that don’t best show their skills. Maybe they’re buried on a depth chart. Or, they’re in somebody’s doghouse, and their coaches can’t see their potential. Or, their efforts are relatively unnoticed among their more celebrated teammates. Sometimes, young players haven’t quite put it all together, but there are enough flashes to make you sit up and take notice, and when it does work, it’s all good.

Week 4 of the 2022 regular season featured players at just about every position who showed up and showed out despite their underrated statuses, and here at Touchdown Wire, it’s our job to point them out.

Here are the Secret Superstars for Week 4 of the 2022 NFL season.

Inside the Ravens’ fourth-down decision everybody hated

Lamar Jackson’s fourth-down red zone interception cost the Ravens their game against the Bills. But was it the wrong decision?

With 4:15 left in their Sunday game against the Buffalo Bills, the Baltimore Ravens had an important decision to make. They had fourth-and-goal at the Buffalo two-yard line, and head coach John Harbaugh had a three-way go. The Ravens could kick the easy field goal to go up 23-20. They could run the ball and either score a touchdown, or pin the Bills near their own end zone. Or, they could put the ball in Lamar Jackson’s hands, and have Jackson try to throw a touchdown pass.

Harbaugh chose Option 3, and as it turned out, that was the wrong answer. The Ravens started this drive at their own five-yard line with 13:38 left in the game, and just about every play in that marathon drive was Jackson either throwing the ball or running it. Jackson had been playing at an MVP level through the first three weeks of the season, and even though the Bills seemed to have answers for him that other defenses did not, this was a reasonable call to make. Maybe not if your quarterback was Russell Wilson or Kyler Murray, but again, Jackson had earned the benefit of the doubt based on what he had done in-season.

If the play had worked in the Ravens’ favor, we’d all be talking about how great Jackson is, and how Harbaugh was once again ahead of the analytical curve.

That was not what happened. Out of 12 personnel, Jackson dropped back and threw an interception to safety Jordan Poyer — the second pass Poyer had picked off in the game.

Jerome Boger’s ridiculous roughing the passer call cost Ravens dearly in loss to Bills

Jerome Boger’s horrid roughing the passer penalty was among the things that allowed the Bills to beat the Ravens.

If there’s one thing we know about roughing the passer penalties, it’s that the NFL would prefer that they be called, whether there’s reason to call them or not. In the NFL rulebook, officials are told to skew to the presence of the penalty on a no-matter-what basis.

When in doubt about a roughness call or potentially dangerous tactic against the passer, the Referee should always call roughing the passer.

This particular phenomenon bit the Baltimore Ravens right in the collective posterior late in their 23-20 loss to the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. The Bills took the ball at their own 20-yard line with 4:09 left in the game, and the score tied 20-20, after Lamar Jackson threw an interception to Buffalo safety Jordan Poyer on a controversial go-fot-it call on fourth-and-goal from the Buffalo two-yard line.

After the game, Ravens head coach John Harbaugh said that he wouldn’t have done anything differently, and he wasn’t necessarily wrong.

One reason things didn’t work out for the Ravens on that 12-play, 77-yard drive the Bills executed to win the game with a Tyler Bass field goal with time off the clock was a roughing the passer penalty called on Baltimore cornerback Brandon Stephens with 2:06 left in the game. The Bills had first-and-15 on the Baltimore 41-yard line after a false start call on tackle Dion Dawkins, and Josh Allen threw an incomplete pass with Stephens bearing down on him from a free blitz.

Here’s how the play looked, and what referee Jerome Boger said after the game.

Well, that’s a tough one. There isn’t any head or neck contact, forcible or otherwise. Boger has a bit of a history regarding consistency of calls in his career, but when you are an official are told by the league to call roughing the passer if there’s even the appearance of it, and you then multiply that variance by Boger’s variance… well, weird things are going to happen.

With that penalty, the Bills went from second-and-15 at the Baltimore 41-yard line to first-and-10 at the Baltimore 26-yard line. That put the ball in Bass’ range, and after a couple of short plays and Allen kneeldowns, Bass made it ballgame.

Did the Ravens deserve to lose this game? Well, they were up 17-3, and for the second time this season, they lost a game in which they had a lead of at least 17 points — they blew a 35-14 lead to the Dolphins in Week 2 to lose 42-38.

But in close games, teams don’t need to be waylaid by bad officiating on top of their own issues. And in this case, Boger and his crew absolutely got the call wrong. The replay shows no contact to Allen’s head or neck, forcible or otherwise.

Marcus Peters melts down on sideline after Ravens’ defense melts down on the field

Ravens cornerback Marcus Peters melted down at head coach John Harbaugh as time ran out for Baltimore in a crushing loss to the Bills.

The Baltimore Ravens have now lost five straight home games, which is a franchise record. They have also lost two games this season in which they had a lead of at least 17 points. There was Baltimore’s Week 2 loss to the Miami Dolphins, in which the defense busted coverages all over the place and were unable to maintain a 35-14 lead late in the third quarter, and lost, 42-38. And then on Sunday, Baltimore lost 23-20 to the Buffalo Bills, despite a 20-3 second-quarter lead.

In both instances, Baltimore’s defense was unable to keep a lead. It wasn’t pretty in the Bills’ case, but Josh Allen came out of the tunnel in the second half looking enough like the Josh Allen we’re used to, to make the difference in the game. Allen threw a four-yard touchdown pass to receiver Isaiah McKenzie, ran for an 11-yard touchdown, and set things up for two Tyler Bass field goals, including the game-winner from 21 yards out as time expired.

Ravens cornerback Marcus Peters was Not At All Happy about his team’s meltdown on the field, so he decided to get all volcanic on the sideline.

It’s possible that Peters was upset about the decision by Harbaugh to go for it on fourth-and-goal from the Buffalo two-yard line with 4:15 left in the game. Lamar Jackson thought he had receiver Devin Duvernay open in the right corner of the end zone on a scramble drill; Jackson didn’t see safety Jordan Poyer scream over from the middle of the field to come up with the interception.

The answer is zero. There are no safeties better than Jordan Poyer.

The Bills took the ball at their own 20-yard line and ground down the clock, the Ravens never got the ball back, and Peters was not having any of it. Not a great day for Baltimore’s NFL team.

Josh Allen scores on run as Bills rally to tie Ravens

Josh Allen and the Bills are charging back against the Ravens

The Buffalo Bills were down 17 points in the first half Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens.

Josh Allen & Co. woke up and scored 17 points in a row to tie the game at 20.

The game-tying touchdown came in the third quarter when Allen bulled his way into the end zone from 11 yards.

The Ravens seem to have trouble keeping double-digit leads against AFC East teams.

Remember, they led the Miami Dolphins 35-14 in the fourth quarter of Week 2 but saw Tua Tagovaila & Co. score 28 points to earn a 42-38 victory.

Doctor who evaluated Tua Tagovailoa fired by NFLPA following ‘several mistakes’

The neurotrauma consultant charged with clearing Tua Tagovailoa for play has been fired by the NFLPA regarding ‘several mistakes,’ per multiple reports.

Per multiple reports, the neurotrauma consultant who approved Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa going back into Miami’s game last Sunday against the Buffalo Bills has been fired by the NFLPA after it was discovered that the doctor has made ‘several mistakes’ in his evaluation.

Under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, the NFLPA can terminate the employment of any neurotrauma consultant without agreement from the NFL.

Tagovailoa was allowed to come back into the Bills game after this hit from linebacker Matt Milano.

The NFLPA started its investigation after that game.

NFLPA wants to review how Dolphins handled Tua Tagovailoa’s injury

Tagovailoa certainly looked wobbly when he got up from the turf, but he was cleared to play. He was also cleared to play before the Dolphins’ Thursday night game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Tagovailoa suffered a similar hit against the Bengals, and this time, the symptoms of head trauma were too obvious for even the league to ignore.

What is a ‘fencing response position’ following head trauma?

On Friday, Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel said that he was entire comfortable with his team’s processes regarding Tagovailoa’s health and clearance to return to play.

What I was kind of referring to in terms of not changing anything that I’d do was because the whole process for what happened on the Bills game was he was evaluated for a head injury immediately,” McDaniel said. “That’s what we brought him into the tent for or brought him inside for. He was evaluated and then cleared by several layers of medical professionals, who – I don’t pretend to be one – but those people, the collection of them, cleared him of any head injury whatsoever. He had a back and ankle issue. So in terms of deciding whether or not to play a guy on a Thursday night game,

“I have 100 percent conviction in our process regarding our players. This is a player-friendly organization that I make it very clear from the onset that my job as a coach is here for the players. I take that very serious and no one else in the building strays from that. So when I am talking about deciding whether or not to play, the only thing that would keep me from playing him would be something going against medical advice that would be just completely abstract on top of all that. I had no worries whatsoever. I’m in steady communication with this guy day-in and day-out.

“There was no medical indication, from all resources, that there was anything regarding the head. If there would have been, of course. If there would have been anything lingering with his head, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I prematurely put someone out there and put them in harm’s way. This is a relationship that I have with this human being. I take that serious. I wouldn’t have put him out there if there was any inclination given to me whatsoever that he was endangering himself from that previous game.”

Allen Sills, the NFL’s Chief Medical Officer, has said this week that Tagovailoa had been evaluated for concussion symptoms every day between Sunday and Thursday. The NFL’s concussion protocol states that the same neurotrauma consultant who performs the initial test should perform the subsequent evaluations, but that a member of the team’s medical staff can do so instead.

“We’ll have all of those interviews,” Sills told the NFL Network. “We’ll review all of the video, we’ll review all of the data. And the purpose of that review is to make sure that the concussion protocol was followed.”

All McDaniel can do is to go on the information he’s given, which makes sub-par evaluations so dangerous.

“Beyond an eyeball test, which I know for a fact you guys would not be very comfortable if I was just relying on that — I mean, it’s the reason why we have tests,” McDaniel concluded on Friday. “He did not have a head injury. So guys hit their heads all the time, and that’s why I was adamant [that] he was evaluated for having a head injury and he did not have one. And when I tell you he was in complete mental concert, talking to us through it, and then he played the whole game and then he did a press conference and then he did media all week.”

Also on Friday, Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh expressed extreme concern about the Dolphins’ concussion protocol through the week.

“I couldn’t believe what I saw,” Harbaugh said about Thursday night. “I couldn’t believe what I saw last Sunday. It was astonishing to see. I’ve been coaching for 40 years — college and the NFL — and I’ve never seen anything like it before. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I really appreciate our doctors, and I appreciate our owner.”

The extent to which that initial evaluation, and the subsequent evaluations, was made in Tagovailoa’s best interests is now extremely and obviously in doubt. One also wonders how this doctor was allowed to make multiple mistakes unchecked, and how many other neurotrauma consultants have done the same — also unchecked.