Dive into the pulse of Bill's football with Turf to Tape, where veterans, sideline reporters Sal Capaccio, and film room guru Eric Turner deliver a one of a kind podcast experience, combining sounds, unparalleled access to players and coaches with Eric's razor sharp film breakdowns.

The show bridges the gap between casual fans and hardcore enthusiasts.

This is Turf to Tape.

This is Turf to Take, presented by thin Man Brolli.

I'm your host, Eric Turner, as always, joined by my man sal Capata from w grsel how you doing, Buddy?

Doing pretty good.

I'm trying to deal with the Patriots fans of my mentions and going viral in Boston today and w EEI because they got a clip of me on WGR calling Mike Rabel a baby for how we handle.

I've seen you had your hands full and yeah, so normally you kind of avoid it, but at the time of year where you know, it's uh, the back and forth of Patriots fans and media has been.

It's been.

It's been fun to watch, but of course, you know it's a divisional, divisional rival.

We expect these sort of things, right.

Yeah.

I like Mike Vrabel, I really do.

I do.

I have a lot of respect for him, but man, I just think he missed the mark.

You can't go on local radio the next day and say, oh, they normally have you know, two holding calls a game, but only they didn't get any against us, which he was wrong.

They had holding the gated it.

But so I go on WGR I knew my extra point show.

We play the clip and you know radio's entertainment, right, radio is entertains.

Yeah, we do.

So we play the clip and we come back and I go, man, what a baby like you just lost by twenty one points.

So they play that clip on w ee I.

This morning in Boston and everybody coming after me it was and they're going after McDermott because of it.

And they said.

McDermott blame the officiating for the AFC Championship loss.

I'm like, I don't think that happened.

But here's the thing, Eric, I don't have the.

Energy to get to cure it up.

I'm like, whatever, dude, I I mean, I just think that you can't go on local radio the day after your team loses by blows a twenty one point lead and say, I can't believe there weren't more holding calls than the other team.

It's not like like, hey, we disagreed with this call or that call.

It's like where are the holding calls?

Yeah, And especially for Vrabel, he's not he doesn't usually come across that way.

He's usually that strong minded coach and really just kind of, you know, brushes it off, Hey, the other team played better.

He's been primarily that kind of coach.

But for him to say that and to be completely wrong, let's be honest here, because like you said, the Bills did have a touchdown callback because of it and in a you know, critical moment.

But it was a little strange to hear him talk about it that way instead of just hey, tip of the cap to the Bills, because the Bills, they they came back and it was a fun game, a thirty five to thirty one win against the Patriots.

From the top down, zooming out what stands out the most about how the Bills handled that adversity in that comeback something we've seen several times this year.

I'm going to go back to something I said after they did the same thing against the Steelers because this has been kind of a theme the last few weeks.

Steelers, you know, they were down one score, they get the touchdown, but I think they just they understood that they just needed to calm down a little bit.

And I think in that game, not so much the Bengals game.

The Bengals game was a few things were going wrong, they had to make adjustments, that's true.

But Steelers game in this game were very similar to me because you're on the road, and I actually think the Bills kind of played a little tight, meaning don't if we don't make mistakes, we'll be fine.

But when you play thinking don't make mistakes.

What do you do?

Sometimes you make mistakes.

And I think things started snowballing against them, and I think they just realized Eric, Okay, like as long as we just kind of play football, and you know you need in a situation like that, you need a play or two to get you there.

You know what happened.

It was the kickoff.

It was the kickoff return.

The kickoff return happens from Ray Davis.

Now a little bit towards the end of the second half, they get the touchdown that help end of the first half.

I mean they get the touchdown that help.

Ray Davis has the opening kickoff, they get into New England territory, and I think really from that moment, and Joshing alluded to how much that help, it was like, all right, we get forty five yards here, We're just a ten point game.

What are we doing right, Let's go And I think from there, you know that happened.

And then on defense, great adjustments and the Bills are forced to make adjustments because they're playing underhand and I think personnel wise in the defense.

So other teams kind of come into a game and know that they can take advantage of some of the things the Bills are deficient in, and then it's up to the Bills and figure out how to combat that.

I give Sean McDermot, Bobby Babage, the defensive coaching staff a lot of credit for making those adjustments.

I mean, Josh McDaniels had no answers for those adjustments.

I love that you mentioned special teams.

Let's kick off the show with that.

Let's go with the special teams.

You had a great tweet about, you know, obviously Ray Davis and how he's really sees that opportunity as a kick returner, but also the punting unit and how good they were as far as field position goes.

But talk about the special teams, Talk about Tabor that the special teams coach and the job that he's done, because it's made such a difference this year when we're talking Ray Davis on return and how they're doing some things in that regard, and it's just really jump started the offense in many ways, like you just said, and especially in this game against the Patriots.

Yeah, I think the special teams aspect of this game was not talked about enough because of what happened on offense and defense, but it really played a large role in the bills comeback, in the Bill's ability to kind of get some things moving.

And what I mean by that is a couple of different things.

So Chris Taber comes out initially with this new you know, kickoff return formation that includes Reggie Gilliam as a lead blocker as a normal fullback.

I asked Reggie about it after the game in the locker room.

I said, what was that like?

And He's like, well, it's just like basically an old kick return.

There's no wedge, but you're the wedge guy and you have to go and be the lead blocker.

I thought that was brilliant.

It was really cool, cool he saw a new wrinkle like that.

You know, we're what fifteen weeks in and teams are still kind of tinkering with the kickoff stuff that we've seen now for a couple of years, and especially now with the new the thirty five yard line and what you want to do.

So I really like that.

And then they put Alec Anderson back there, which was ya they did.

So Alec Anderson becomes a lead blocker, and you're allowed to kick returners, and almost every team puts two kick returners.

The Bills put one.

They put one and that was Ray Davis, and Ray Davis was special.

So you go with the wrinkle.

That's number one.

And then Ray Davis gets the ball in his hands and he averages forty one yards of kick return, which was monstrous in this game.

He is now leading the NFL with thirty two plus yard average kick returns, and that is by a wide margin.

Nobody else in the league.

He then has more than thirty yards of return.

He's at thirty two right now, so obviously he played a really big factor in that.

And then on top of that, I mean, the Patriots have arguably, I would say maybe the best return man punt return man in the game, and Marcus Jones dangerous.

They did a great job to corral him, keep it away from him.

He had two total returns for five yards.

One he actually muffed on the line drive and I'll think it was a great, great.

Punt that started them at the fifty.

But otherwise the punts by Wishnowski, the Patriots started at their own seventeen, their own twelve, in their own six.

I mean, the Bills just totally won the field position battle in this game, totally opposite the last game, by the way, where I've the Patriots won the special teams the field position battle in large part because of having really buttoned up special teams.

And then you had Matt Prater, who unfortunately is injured now.

But you know, he goes five for five all extra points.

But those are important, and it's especially important to make your extra points when you're a game where the Patriots couldn't get a field goal at the end, they had to get a touchdown, right, so they have to start pressing because you're making your extra points.

He goes five for five so I think all that rolled up.

You're talking about a really highly regarded special teams unit for the Patriots, and I thought the Bills just dominated them in that unit.

The kick returns have been so much fun to watch.

I don't typically watch special teams film, but I've been watching so much more this year because of these returns and how they're setting up so different.

Like for many many years, kick returns are like you said, middle return, right return, left return, there was not too much creativity and thinking outside of the box.

Each week, Tabes is doing something different on these kick returns, like you said, this time it was a single returner deep a couple of the returns, it was Gilliam as the up man.

The last return that really jump started that, you know, the second half there for the Bills was with Alec Anderson and I mean Ray Davis.

In this game, four kick returns one hundred and sixty four yards returns.

That's forty one yard average.

The three kick returns of thirty five plus yards, tying the franchise this single game record since ninety one.

His kick return average at thirty two point four currently leads the NFL and is a single highest season average in team history, Ray Davis, he's done a great job here.

Again, he's losing some of those touches behind Cook as running back two, but he's really seized his opportunity to hear as a returner.

His timing on these on these returns as you're seeing, and how you hit the crease at full speed but also break those arm tackles and maintain that contact balance.

He's a tough tackle on these returns, and it's really showed out, you know, throughout the year that he's been making these returns.

It's been fun to watch again from a scheme standpoint, but also seeing a guy like that flourish in a role that we didn't quite expect.

That's right, And I think that that point is really big, which is he hasn't had the same season as last year, and partly because James Cook is rolling so well, you're not even putting on the field as much.

Right.

Credit to this coaching staff for saying we got this guy in the roster, we think he has a skill set, and they found a role where he can really maximize his skill set.

And I think the coaching staff deserves a lot of credit for that.

I think, you know, Ray Davis deserves a lot of credit for accepting that role and being hey, I'm going to be less of a number two running back, but I can really impact the game in a different kind of way, and he's really helping his team.

I've had the question this week, we'll be so good at it, why doesn't he return punts?

And the reason is, Folks, it's just a different skill set totally.

As someone who did return kicks and punts, I think you might have too, Eric, it is a totally different skill set, right, I mean, the ball has a different trajectory, angle, spin, everything that's happening.

You have one guy coming at you right barreling down in you versus maybe everybody in front of you with lanes.

There's all different kinds of things and nuances that go into it.

But he's the other He's never returned upunt.

He's never returned a punt in college or the NFL.

So it's just not something that, at least now, I don't think the Bills would ever think about doing.

Ron has a great question to kind of wrap up the special team segment, Stelle, have you heard anything about any kickers that have been brought in to replace Prader?

With that injury that popped up this week.

Have not heard anything yet, but I would tell you as we are on maybe just maybe as we're on today, it's gonna be a little bit later than that, probably though a little bit later today, we'll have the transaction report from the transaction wire from in the NFL, and they generally have guys who came into for workouts.

Yeah, so if there is something to that, you know, we'll let everybody know.

Yeah, great point.

It's usually the workouts usually happen either Monday or Tuesday mornings typically, right, and that's why you see them on that transaction report as well.

And Sean McDermott said he didn't find out until yesterday about Matt Prater's injury, So I would think that if that's the case, you're probably not even really bringing anybody in.

Until today, right, all right, So let's get into the defensive side of the ball.

Let's get into some of the major talking points from this game.

Again, a big win against the Patriots, and the first to second half sale obviously were completely different.

In the first half, the Patriots ran thirty three plays on offense, They were four for five on third down, They had sixteen first downs two hundred and eighty five total yards.

But when you go to the second half, as has been the case, especially in these games, where the Bills get down a few possessions, the Bills made some coaching adjustments, some adjustments on defense, and in that second half, the Patriots only ran eighteen plays, they were one for five on third down, only garnered three first downs in one hundred total yards.

So let me ask you, amazing, what did you see?

What did you sense from the Patriots, from the Bills, from the stadium, Like, what was it like when this turnaround started happening, especially if for talking the Patriots offense that was rolling early from the first half to the second half.

Yeah, so I think, you know, just you know it's right, and you have this feeling, you have this confidence, and then when things aren't going your way, you feel like everything's kind of coming in at you.

I'd said the Bills started this game tight.

I think the Patriots got a little tight after that.

Patriots were rolling.

It's really funny, true story.

Like we're in the side of the stadium.

You might have seen this.

There was a point it was twenty one nothing on the big board they show Travis Scott with Robert Kraft in his box, and they're just hooping it up, almost like it's the end of a game and it's like there's four minutes left and they got it well in hand.

Like everybody's just super loosey goosey.

Oh my god, this is great.

They show step On Diggs on the sideline and sure, I mean he's hyped up, and that's fine.

We know Stephan has this big personality and he can get really intense like that.

In that moment, I'm not kidding you.

In that moment, I said to myself, boy, they're acting like this game's over, like there's a lot of time left.

You can't do that.

And let's you remember, Patriots are a young team.

They haven't been in this situation yet.

Yeah, and I don't I just don't think they handled it that well, to be quite honest with you.

Agreed, and the Bills did put themselves way farther behind than you ever want to.

Obviously, the Bills have been in the situation before.

Heck, they've been in it the last two weeks.

In this situation where.

They understood that hey, okay, like there's a lot of football left, we just make to have to make a play or two, and then suddenly on the field, I guess it would be inside zone.

You could tell me more than anything.

That started working and just they started running.

It started hitting some holes and the Bills felt, you know what, we can run against this team.

I felt the Bills should have could have leaned on the run game in this game.

But when you open up the game with that long pass, it doesn't get brought in.

That's when it goes against you.

Now you're second and ten and you're just playing a little bit from behind.

You can't really do that.

Once you get to midfield, over midfield and that second half to start it and you can start running the ball.

Now you can get back to a balanced attack.

And then once you score it's a ten point game.

Now you can open up the playbook back to what you want.

I thought defensively, the Bills did a good job of We've talked about this too, on both sides of the ball.

It's not that they start off vanilla.

They just they kind of run their system.

They run their structure offense and defense, they run their plays, they run their calls.

You know, there's not super in depth game planning.

I don't want to take away from them, but there's not a lot of game planning going on.

You know, they run their offense, they run their defense.

That's kind of how they came out.

And I agree with you what you said at the top of that.

The Bills kind of came out a little flat.

But I thought defensively what they did, and some of this is the score and the Bills' mentality changes from more of the conservative type side to the aggressive side, and the Bills just got a lot more aggressive.

They start running a lot of their blitzes to stop the run, to get the you know, second and fifteen, the second and fourteen situations, those habit plays to get the offense behind the six.

You saw that going in in this game.

And in many ways, when you're talking complimentary football, Josh Allen puts that cape on, he gets that offense going, and that in many ways, when they start scoring and you know, five drives and touchdowns on five drives, that pressure is felt by the opposing offense, by the opposing quarterback as well.

And I thought May was rattled a little bit in that regard, but I think overall it was the aggressiveness that we see in these games when they get behind.

And it's something you asked Trey White about after the game, and I wanted to play it because he, you know, he had some really good insight about you know, those changes from the first to second half.

So listening and.

Then it seemed like guys really smaller than the second half.

They didn't really have drinking them anywhere to throw to.

Was there any adjustment in the back end.

No, it wasn't.

We were just able to get up and you know, get aggressive and get our minds on them, play aggressive, you know aggressive.

Line.

They did a great job off the spot.

So anytime you had those two Russian.

And then it seemed like, I love what he talks about Russian coverage.

Obviously working together, being married together.

They did a better job in the second half.

But in a lot of this game in the second half, specifically, you saw those corners get their hands on those wide receivers and get aggressive with them.

There's more press if you look at the numbers, there was more press by the Bills in that second half.

And combine that with aggressive early down run stops and getting them behind the chains.

It put them into third and lungs a lot more and it allowed them to speed up the processing and May but make those windows a lot tighter for May.

And when you added that pressure of Josh Allen scoring, scoring and scoring with that offense, that those throws weren't as accurate as they were in the first half.

Yeah, the other thing they did was they took they took away his escape lanes, and I think that I don't know if they employed a spy more often, but it seemed like he just was less willing to run in those situations.

And he did a nice job of running early in the game.

One time he got out of who was it ogin joby maybe you had him, you know, felt like he should get him down, and he gets out of it, and you know, he of course ran for a couple of touchdowns.

One was on his design run.

One was just like the.

Partying of the Sea, and he just ran up the middle.

But he didn't run much in the second half.

And I think the Bills did a good job to disguise their coverages.

Heck, in the last play of the game, you had Joey Bosa, last player their offense.

You had Joey Bosa dropping into coverage.

The Bills just kind of just did a lot of different things to kind of confuse him, and I don't think he trusted what he was seeing, and then he couldn't run like he normally would earlier in the game.

So again, great job by the Bills to kind of figure that out.

Now, one thing that keeps happening is and brought up why are the Bills starting so slow on defense?

Though?

Right?

Why are they having these issues?

And again I'm gonna go back to I think what's happening is to me, the Bills know they don't have teams go into a game with a really good trade.

White and that in that same interview said he gave credit to the Patriots having a really good.

First fifteen script.

Yes, And what that means is, folks, that they are scripting out their first fifteen plays because of what the Bills do, what they can do, and they're gonna this is gonna work, and this is gonna work, and they're gonna go and they can stay on schedule.

And you saw that with some trick plays, right, it's a little chickanery that they did and throwing a back like they emptied out the kitchen sink, and they had a really good plan and when you have two weeks to prepare, you can have a really good plan.

And the Bills are a little underhanded on defense.

They're not the same defense at personnel.

They're trying to mix and match, and I think what's happening is teams are saying, Okay, we can pick on this, we can pick on that, let's go do that to start the game.

So once the Bills see that's all right, well, we can't live like that all game, so what are we gonna do to adjust?

And then the Bills start using all the resources they have at their disposal to say, how can we kind of mitigate what's happening to us now to be more even footing.

And I think that's what you've seen the last two weeks.

Yeah, the bye week obviously played a factor in this game.

And like you said, the first fifteen plays, there was a little bit of everything.

There was some really good balance, some trick plays, some plays that they've never really run that you've seen other teams run against the Bills and have success.

And I thought what you said about how they showed different looks to Drake May, I thought they treated Drake May like an MVP worthy candidate.

Rightfully, so I think they treated him that way.

They threw an array of coverages at May, and a lot of those in the first half were single high coverages.

Second half they kind of switched to more of two high coverages and running a lot of Cover six, which Cover six is more of like a split field cover.

So half the defense is playing cover four quarter quarter half the other half is playing more of a cover two look.

But there are variations and and you know, different ways to run those calls under those in those buckets, and the bill showed every single one of them, and it really slowed down the processing of May when it came to trusting what his eyes were seeing, and he really started questioning himself and where he wasn't pulling the trigger in rhythm like he should be.

And and I think that when he's looking to one side for his first couple reads, he's like, Okay, this is that coverage.

It's it's it's taken away, right, Those first two riads are takeaway.

Let me go to the other side.

Hold on, why is it man coverage over here?

At zone over The split field coverages threw him off, and again it made him a lot more disjointed and those windows were tighter because everyone is late in the play, whether it's man or zone.

And I thought they did a great job of just throwing, like you said, the kitchen sink on the defensive side of the ball for the Bills and emptying those clips against May as far as coverages go, because there wasn't much pressure on Drake May.

No, there was pressure with a coverage.

Yeah, and you just showed a couple of clips theret if you like, show in freeze right at the snap of the ball.

Look how tight the Bills are, right, They're not playing these They're not what was the common.

Refrain over the last several years soft zone?

Soft zone?

I mean, look at look at where they are on the line of scrimmage on these guys, right.

I thought the Bills have gotten more aggressive lately.

I think the Bills have done a better job.

You know, Max Harrison can play like that, he can play man, he can play zone.

I mean, you have a good young corner here, I think in Max Harriston, who's really helped this team.

And without Christian Benford, you know they were up against it a little bit, but they've trusted Tredevius White.

I think Traevius White has really played good football, especially since the buy.

They're trusting him right now.

He's in good spots, he's in good coverage.

I mean, yet he got beat up mccollins over the middle, great catch by mac collins.

You know, you're not always going to be always a super tightest, but even in that particular play, he was pretty close.

And then later on had a really great coverage on Hollins and down.

The field he had the interception.

Obviously, I think he's playing well.

But I think the general overall point is you see how they're playing a little tighter.

That's also aggressiveness.

People associate aggressiveness with blitzing all the time.

That doesn't have to be aggressive.

Aggressive can be a little tighter coverage forcing the issue a little bit earlier.

No doubt about it.

And that's what I meant, you know, earlier about how they were getting their hands on these guys, and usually early and was taken.

They were taking away some of those quick game elements that you know the Bills gave up to, say like a Stefan Diggs in that first matchup.

And speaking of the Bills, I thought did a pretty good job.

When we're talking game plan against Diggs in the first half, they pretty much took him out of the game by showing, especially in those high leverage third down situations where they had in out leverage on him, they you know, if he goes inside, there's a defender to take away that.

If he breaks out, we have a guy trapping and a boundary corner trapping.

I thought they did a great job of eliminating him early and saying, you know what, we're not gonna let you get going.

We're gonna make Dre Drake may look other places, and as the game went on, he almost just forgot about having Stephan Diggs in, you know, in his lineup.

Yeah, I mean you go back, remember ten for one against the Bills.

The week before that, he went for over one hundred.

Since that game, he's been pretty pedestrian.

Actually, I mean he had he had a seven catch, six to nine yard performance against Tennessee, but really the last three weeks against the Bills three for twenty six, the Giants three for twenty six, Cincinnti Bengals two for twenty.

He's an older player, he's coming off that acl he's a he's an elite player.

There's no doubt about it.

I do think though that as you saw kind of towards the end of the Bills season when they the final season was in Buffaloes was twenty twenty three, it just feels like he's not quite the same player he was as freshe ats he was early in the season, and that's hurting the Patriots offense a little bit.

Now, he got away from Taron Johnson on a nice route over the middle on a third down, and he can still be really good like that.

But I do think it's something that the Patriots have to start thinking about with Stepan Diggs going forward this year, which is he's not quite the same explosive fresh player they had earlier in the season, and they don't have the most world beating wide receivers.

They're good, they can make they catch everything right, they have really good hands they catch, but that's something I think that hurt them in this game, not having the same step on digs that had in Week five.

Right, And that's part of the reason why the Bills could just man up at times, whether it's man on one side zone on the other, but they could man up with some of the Patriots receivers and tight ends because they could match up, you know, pretty well.

But speaking of a guy that just lit it up and he is our tapped in player of the Game presented by Thin man Bury.

Matt Milano ten total tackles, two sacks, a force fumble, six defensive stops.

Give us your thoughts on Milano.

He's been trending in the right direction when he's been on the field.

This was a game that really showed how important he can be for this run for talking about from here on out into the playoffs.

His play, his athleticism, those flashes are what the Bills need on that side of the ball going forward.

Matt Milano is one of the most high It was one of the higher IQ linebackers that you will find in the NFL, and certainly that is you know, played in Buffalo, and it's just he's super smart.

He understands angles, he understands he diagnoses.

You did such a great breakdown last year on him versus Dorian Williams, where like Dorian is an athlete and he gets there fast and he brings the heat right, but Matt processes so quickly he understands everything he's seeing.

Such a high level processor studier all of that, and that's not shot on Dorrian Williams.

MAT's just better than pretty much anybody at that right He like most guys in the league at his position, he's so good at it.

And the Bills really kind of used him in a role in this game.

They don't use him in a lot, but he's good at which is blitzing and understanding angles.

Take a look at when he took Drake May down by one arm and the one blitz he fought, I mean Ramandre Stevens.

I think it was Stevenson.

I think might have been Henderson.

I mean he he did a good job of finding him.

Matt Mlono Milano just completely buried him by getting his shoulder up to a certain spot where he's like, I got this angle on him, and I'm gonna be able to get around him.

Like Matt understood the leverage, understood the angle.

He's a good blitzer.

The Bills don't love to use him like that because he's a sideline to sideline guy and you want to be able to use him like that.

But I thought the Bills did a great job of mixing him up into a spot where they don't normally use him.

But he's good and he's effective at it.

And Sean mcgrutt made a really interesting comment after the game about him about how Matt's worked his tail off to get kind of back and you know healthy, and yeah, not that he hasn't been healthy, but I think Matt is as fresh as he's been right now.

I love that he's available, obviously, that is the first thing, like you said, if he's available, he helps this defense.

He opens up the playbook.

I talked about the cover six looks.

What the Bills do a lot of these times on the cover two side is again they mix in zone and man.

Sometimes on the backside, it's a corner, a boundary corner, and Matt Mulano in man coverage versus a tight end and a running back, you know, and that opens up what they can do because you can now take away two of those receivers and now you can play zone and match coverage with guys that you don't want to see in man coverage week in and week out, play in and play out, and so that opens up the defense.

I thought him and Shaq came down and squeezed the running backs and tight ends in man coverage a bunch to take away those underneath checkdowns to May from May and just his play over the top of runs when they're going sideline.

The sideline, he is so good at avoiding these blocks, getting under the blocks, shaving angles to go make the tackle on the running backs.

I thought it showed up in this game.

And like you said, something that he's always been good at is rushing the passer.

And so you know, instead of letting the running back just flare out if you put him up near line of scrimmage like you saw him in this game, that running back all of a sudden has to stay in and you now have a matchup a Milano versus a running back, and a Milano can attack whether it's physically or athletically.

And you saw how much it showed out in this game.

It made such a difference in those high leverage situations.

Yeah, no doubt about it.

I want I'm curious to see, like what they do this week against a young quarterback and shoulder Sanders, how they mix things up and you know, kind of going forward playing with some of that, because once you get to the playoffs and you're you know, it's not like you have Mahomes and Lamar, but these are good quarterbacks, and they don't get there for you know, no reason.

And I think the Bills.

Are kind of playing around a little bit and not saying just like for no reason, but they're they're mixing up a lot of different things that maybe they can kind of start to dip into and use at their disposal.

The other thing is doing Eric is you know, if you're let's say Denver and bo Nicks, if you're Jacksonville and Trevor Lawrence and Liam Cohen and Sean Payton, now you see these things they're doing, and you're gonna have to start preparing for.

All of this stuff the Bills can do.

Yeah, And it's something again that you know, now that Milano is healthy.

You know, he hasn't played a ton of snaps this year, but now he's healthy, these are newer things on film to your point that the opposing coordinators have to worry about.

But as we said, Matt Milano great game opens up the defense for the Bills.

He was our tapped in Player of the Game.

Courtesy of finn Man Brewery.

And if you haven't heard, Mafia Lighte is now in stores.

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We appreciate them joining us this year for this segment, and we appreciate Matt Molonald film.

I love Linebacker film.

That's probably my favorite film the studies, So anytime I could talk about linebackers, usually those segments run a little long, but we're gonna move forward with this segment.

As far as the defensive side of the ball, anyone else that you want to highlight, as far as arrows up in this game against the Patriots.

Defensive side of the ball, I thought it wasn't a eye popping game for Shaq Thompson, but not that he did anything wrong.

I'm bringing up because you did this without again to Rol Bernard and Christian Benford, and then when you get to ro Bernard back, I'm wondering what they kind of want to do with that right and they how they want to play that.

But that being said, the Bills.

Played quite a bit of bass actually during Williams was out there, joy and recent even played a play by the way for Shack Toomas did for sure came off the field right.

It was kind of kind of interesting.

I don't know if Shack had something wrong with his home or not, but it just goes to show you I think the Bills.

Speaking of linebackers, the Bills have some linebackers that they're very comfortable with turning to and they were able to in this game.

And of course Joey Bosa just do a nice did a nice job and to kind of like show up at the end when they needed him to make a play.

That was a really nice athletic play to drop into coverage and then obviously to get his hands up knock it down.

So that was a nice play and nice sprinkle by the Bills as well.

Yeah, that was fun, and he gave credit to Ryan Nielson, I believe, for running that drill consistently with them at batting passes down, getting your hands up and batting passes down, something the Bills have always been really good at, honestly.

But yeah, no, I would agree with those players.

I thought over all, the defense man they were clicking.

They were clicking in that second half.

And yes, like we're seeing a lot of these comments, say, hey started earlier.

Those adjustments do tend to start in the second quarter, not just in a third quarter, but the second quarter.

You start to see some of those adjustments, and you started to see, you know, some of you know, getting Drake may kind of slowing down when we're talking about the passing game.

So let's go to the other side of the ball offense.

First half, we kind of alluded to it early.

They were just not in rhythm.

Obviously they didn't run a ton of plays, but the plays that they did run, you know, you saw Brandon Cook's double catch and eventually get pushed out of balance on that big tone setting type play again, re action down the field, trying to get that guy going open up.

The passing game loosen up.

The coverage was against Christian Gonzales, you know that doesn't that goes incomplete.

And then you saw Josh step up in the pocket later in that drive and try to hit Kinkaid who's wide open, and he misses him.

Even Palmer was opening across the middle too, so they were just out of sync a little bit.

And of course now you're getting bombarded by the Patriots offense and points are getting put up they just couldn't get in rhythm early.

Yeah, you're right about that.

In that play, I mean the play the Patriots made that should have been challenged by Sean McDermott.

It wasn't.

It was you know, we didn't even we did not.

Get a replay.

I mean, I was there on the radio broadcast fore thing.

We're looking for a replay.

We couldn't get a replay.

So I understand, like he didn't have a replay and you could do a leap of faith there.

I get it, and maybe he should have.

I'm not necessarily excusing it.

I'm telling you why he didn't do it.

But that play was huge.

And then you come right back with a play the other way that doesn't go your way because Brandon Cooks can't get his feet down or and can't corral the ball before he gets his feet houch and say.

And what a big swing.

Those who plays were so now everything kind of snowballing against you.

You're kind of fighting through it, and I think that's when you start pressing a little bit.

But here comes all reliable Dawson Knox No, I mean Dawson nos.

Congratulations him and his wife Alex.

They have their daughter, Noah Elizabeth Knox, they welcome her into the world, and then he goes off and has a big game with two touchdowns.

Old reliable.

Like I said, he was on the field more than any tight end.

I do think they're managing I think Dalton can kate as much as they can right now with the need to make sure that he's not in a situation where he's not going to be available later because he's having me to do too much of the work.

But when you have Dawson Knox playing the way he is and you have Jackson Hawks who can contribute to well, those two guys actually led one and two and tight end snaps and then you know Dalton Kincaid was third.

You know, it really helps the team.

And Dawson Knox was really good in this game because he is a guy that even though he's not elite as a pass catcher or route runner, he's not elite as a blocker.

He's just very good at everything.

So when he's on the field, you know, you have to understand that and know that he puts you in a bind a little.

Bit, no doubt.

And the Bills were in twelve personnel, so one running back, two tight ends twenty eight point four percent of the time and against the Patriots, Dawson Knox great, you know, role player, but stepped up in some big moments in this game three exceptions, thirty seven yards, two touchdowns.

Colin Ritchie, our producer, pulled the great great little footnote here.

Knox now has the most receiving touchdowns by a tight end in franchise history, surpassing Pete Metzlars, which I know a lot of Bill's fans know that name, and you know the reverence that he brings for the tight end position of the Bills.

I thought Knox was good in the run game as a blocker.

He was very reliable.

The throw that Josh hit him on when they're in empty all verticals, you saw Josh roll out of the pocket, come downhill and throw that missile.

I'm honestly, if I tried catching that, I have a bruise on my on my chest.

But like Dawston, Knox reeled that in and it was one of those plays that it was like, Okay, Josh, go and make a play.

It's all verticals, everyone just going down the field after the you know the penalty there, and Knox brought in he had some really high leverage plays in this game.

And they've they've relied on these tight ends.

We talked about it.

Yeah, they've relied on these tight ends the last few weeks.

Yeah, for sure.

And they have to because they don't have as much on the outside.

We know that, right they're not.

They're not separators and winners on the outside as much as everybody would like and totally understand that.

So you have to use what's at your disposal.

The running backs have been more involved in the passing game, which is great.

The tight ends have been more involved in the passing game.

You'd love to get more out of your wide receivers and hopefully that does come.

You know, Kaloshakir had a nice game, but outside of him, he had one catch for sixteen yards from a wide receiver that was Joshua Palmer.

So the tight ends have to step up so on that touchdown.

It's interesting is when the when the Bills were their opponent are in the red zone, especially down near the goal line, I always go right to the goal line.

I stand there so I can see what's happening.

On that particular drive, I actually went into the end zone and I knelt down with the play was coming at me.

I wanted to see the play unfold in front of me as if I was a safety.

That's dangerous, Yeah, it is, right, it is.

So if you go watch the back angle of that, you see me kneeling in the end zone right where Dawson Knox catches it.

Basically, so Josh throws the ball and I'm like, oh, like, it's just to the right of me.

It's coming at me though, And when he throws the ball, I did not see Dawson Knox and out of nowhere there's Dawson.

And I'm telling you, from my angle, it was even more impressive than what it looked like on TV.

I just couldn't believe it.

And in the locker room after the game, Dawson said, well, Josh threw a bullet, put it on my chest and I better hold onto it in that instance, right, And he did, and that was impressed.

What an impressive throw.

And that came after Josh had run for the touchdown.

I got called back on the hold, Mike Rabel, if you're taking notes, It got called back in a hold by Osiris Torrance.

I really thought the Bills were just gonna settle for a field goal there eric there were down three, Okay, there would have been nothing wrong with saying let's just get a few yards, we'll settle for a field goal, don't take anything to chance.

We got down here.

That wasn't the mentality.

The mentality was we can score, and they did.

And you know, I watched some press conference stuff from the Patriots, and on that play that touchdown to Dawson Knox, they admitted that there was some like some kind of twist that was supposed to happen.

So you see that edge player kind of dart or spike inside the dtackle was supposed to loop over the top to become the new contained player.

That guy didn't.

Christian Barmore didn't, and that allowed Josh get outside the pocket to hit knocks for that touchdown.

But you talk about red zone, Bills were five for six in the red zone against the Patriots.

That was a weakness of the Patriots coming in.

Not many teams got down there.

They'd mentioned in the broadcast a bunch of times not many teams would get into the red zone, but when they did, they would score.

And the Bills took advantage of that in the run and pass game.

Speaking of Josh Allen nineteen to twenty eight, one hundred ninety three passing yards, three touchdowns, eleven rushes, forty eight rushing yards.

I found it quite amazing after going back and watching this film based on how everything unfolded with the score and how behind they got, how actually composed Josh Allen was.

He didn't activate hero ball.

He really Frevan said, he took what came to him.

He was efficient, and then you know those few times in the game he did bust out the cape and make those plays.

But overall, I was pretty shocked to see that Alan really just kind of played within the scheme within himself and then made the plays that were typically used to seeing in those clutch moments.

I'm glad you brought that up.

The touchdown drive I'm trying to remember had to be the third quarter, so I guess it would have been the one that made it fourteen.

Maybe it was twenty one, though, the one that made it twenty one.

He threw two balls away that he made decisions to say, I'm throwing these balls away.

One was remember he was running to the sidelines gonna be sacked, and he just kind of shuffled past it.

Yeah yeah, And there was another one later where he just kind of threw it out of bounds.

Like those are exactly the kind of plays you're talking about.

He lived to fight another day.

He didn't try to.

Play hero ball in those situations.

And I agree with you, Eric.

I think that that was a big component of the comeback, which was we don't have to get it all in one play, live to fight another day.

Let's just keep playing the way we are and we can stay on schedule here, and those plays matter by Josh making those decisions.

His decision making was the superman part of his play in this game.

It was so much fun to watch now.

It was more of like, okay, matriculation, and let's be honest here.

For all this talk about Josh having no one and no weapons, I think it's overstated at this point.

It's gone a little too far.

Let's give some props to James Cook and the Bills offensive line because it was the balance that they needed to keep these drives going and to sometimes pick up some chunk yards.

James Cook finished with one hundred and seven yards on twenty two carries, a couple touchdowns on the ground along of twelve obviously had a receiving touchdown as well.

He's been great for the Bills offense at keeping them on schedule but also getting those explosive plays, adding that explosive element to the Bills offense that they need at times when they kind of go stale offensively.

So talk about James Cook and the Bills run game, which includes Josh Allen in this one, as I talked about.

Yeah, and I think the stats speak for themselves.

I put it out today.

I don't know if people realize James Cook right now is second in the NFL in total rushing yards and he's only twenty eight yards behind Jonathan.

Taylor with one less carry.

By the way, they both have Jonathan Taylor two hundred and seventy two carries, James Cook two undred seventy one.

Taylor has fourteen hundred and forty three yards.

Cook fourteen hundred and fifteen and there by, far and away the next closest person doesn't even have twelve hundred.

That's Devon h Chan by the way.

Shout out to Von h Chan is five point eight yards a carry, which leads a league, which is really good.

But I just think it shows how great.

He's been all year and he's carrying the workload and a lot of us didn't think he could.

I mean, the guy is two hundred pounds essentially, and yet he just he takes He takes so much of like everything off himself by taking shots.

By the way he runs, the way he kind of goes down to the ground, his vision allows him to.

He took a couple of big shots in this game, but he generally doesn't take those, and I know there's some concern about is it too much of a workload load.

He's not the biggest guy, But I think James has kind of proven that, like the way he runs, the way he plays, that they're just going to keep playing it that way with him.

And sure, if you get into a situation maybe in Cleveland, you hope like you're playing a team that's not that good and maybe the Bills can jump out to a lead you could take a little bit often that would be great, man, You'd love to be able to do that, right But I think right now the Bills are comfortable with allowing him to be because they have done it all year.

I think schematically, in this game, the Bills offense, their staff stayed ahead of the Patriots.

When it came to the run game, they attacked up the middle, and you know, the Patriots, one of their better defenders splaying the linebacker, was out this game, and the Bills went right up the middle.

On a lot of their plays.

They ran their hits, they ran their duo, they ran their mid zone.

But I thought there were some other variations to those favorite plays.

They not only ran it out from under center, but they also ran duo from shotgun.

They ran duo in like three or four different ways, which we hadn't seen that type of variety when we're talking the looks right, because a lot of times you see the formation, you see Shavers come in or Shakira come in.

You're like, here comes duo.

Well, the Bills ran it from different formations.

Like I said, shotgun under center different, you know, tight ends over there instead of just a wide receiver.

And I thought that really disguised what they were going to run and really kind of caught the Patriots off guard so much so that the Patriots started overloading, thinking duo's come in.

And then all of a sudden, with the Bills in shotgun, they were running inside zone, which they haven't run a bunch of from shotgun.

So I thought these staff did a great job game plan wise, but also keeping the defense off balance because they also ran a lot of play action and a lot of those play actions looked exactly exactly like the runs that they were having success with.

Yeah, for sure, And you know, Josh Allen, they've done a better job as of late of kind of keeping them more clean, you know, you know since that Texans game when you know Sean Mantrump was pretty upset about that.

You know, he's still he's going down a couple of times.

But they've done a much better job.

This wasn't the most prolific pass rushing group the Patriots have.

And you mentioned Spillane.

I mean, Milton Williams is such a good, good defender, and.

He has been out.

You know, they play the Ravens Sunday night, and he's going to be out for that game because he can't come back from my Ari yet.

So I'm interested to see the Ravens are gonna really kind of pound it at them as well.

He'll be a difference though in the playoffs for them.

When they get Milton Williams back, it'll be a different team to say, you know, like the Bills when they played them in Week five, just so sure how much you know, teams change and that's what you do, though, you have to take advantage of when teams are you know, with players matter.

Players matter, and if you have a guy that's not as good playing a certain spot, then you know, you have to take advantage of that.

And I thought the tackles for the Bills played really well in this game.

You know, Spencer Brown coming back, getting him back after two weeks not playing, and then Dion Dawkins and we all saw the Dean Dawkins clip of him, you know, riding like he was surfing, basically Superman.

Awesome stuff.

Yeah, the offensive line, they're they're coming along.

And I thought, you know, I love talking offensive line, especially guys like David Edwards.

You can't give this guy enough credit.

He is gonna be a free agent.

But on every single play go back and watch a game, on every single pass that the Bills ran, David Edwards is helping not only can MC govern, but he's letting Josh no, no, trust me, they're coming from this.

I like he was emphatic in this game.

And really, Josh listened to him.

There were times this year we've talked about it where there are some miscommunications as far as where they want to set the protections because Josh wants to keep this guy hot.

There's been issues when it comes to that communication and Josh trusting the offensive line.

He trusted David Edwards in this game, and again, I think it's a huge stepping stone when we're talking the long run and getting that the protections right, because there have been issues at times, but I think they're starting to stabilize, and I think that's because Josh is trusting not just his offensive line, but the guard David Edwards.

It's so funny you say that.

Yeah, if you watch you can watch the TV broadcast.

You see David it's going crazy point.

It's really funny.

And what did Dion Dalkins say last week after the Bengals game.

David Edwards is the best communicator.

He's an elite communicator, best communicating left guard that he's played with.

And I think it shows when you.

See how demonstrative he is out there communicating when he needs to communicates.

He has so much fun to watch.

I always say he's the most technically sound, but He's also one of the heatiest players.

From the players I talked to, they always mention him when it comes to knowing the game, the techniques, you know side of things, and he's a guy side.

He's a guy.

I want to get into the film room as soon as possible because you can learn so much from him as an analyst, but also as the average fan, which is something we love to do here at Cover one.

So on the offensive side of the ball, anyone else that you want to highlight for arrow up in this game or arrow down?

We're talking the offense.

Well, listen, I said earlier, I think that you know, Keon Coleman has to step up as far as production wise wide receiver.

We talked about the wide receivers and he's won.

I will say, though, I think he did a nice job blocking, And I know that's not why you have him.

I get it.

Like, believe me, folks, I understand that, Like that's not his role.

You want him to catch passes.

But if you can get key On Coleman engaged in a different wave he's not being productive, that's gonna help your offense.

There was a really nice block he had downfield.

I want a Josh Allen's run, So I think that deserves to be mentioned.

I think Ty Johnson was an underrated player in this game.

Ty Johnson had a couple of real nice plays in this game to kind of get the Bills out of a couple of situations.

One on a screen, breaks an arm tackle, He's able to get the first down that was really important for them.

And Ty just does a lot of little things right for this offense.

Great point about Coleman.

I mean, if you want to get out of the doghouse, you do all the little things.

That's why I do all the little things.

And he's earning that trust back, he's earning that privilege back, and that's why he was on the field a lot right Well, his.

Second houst snaps behind the English.

That's there you go.

And so that is him working back in the good graces of this staff.

And that and that play you talked about that blocking down the field, he pancaked that defender and right along the side lie there.

So great points when we're talking the wide receiver Kean Coleman.

But the rest of the week, what do we have going on this week?

Bills are playing the Browns.

What's the schedule look like, what content's coming out?

What you got going on?

Okay, so Bill's Brown's this week?

Remember last week what I told you folks, Every Wednesday should be pretty much a walk through day now from here on out, They're gonna do walk throughs on Wednesday.

So we're not gonna get a full injury report.

We'll get an estimated estimated injury report.

We are monitoring Christian Benford big time this week, obviously coming off the injury, missing last game to Robernard Still, Sean mc tummy said they are both improving.

The big news coming out of Sean mcdermy suay was Matt Prater being injured.

So we'll find out and see.

In fact, let me just see I don't think.

Let me just real quick as we are live here, is there a transactions report out?

There is not yet, So I don't know if there's the wire is not out yet and if the bills brought anybody in.

That being said, I have a special show coming up this Thursday night.

I want to invite everybody to listen up, folks.

All right, I'm gonna be at Sports City Pizza Pub on Niagara Street on Thursday night.

I'm gonna be doing my own sALS house, Santa Sal's House watch party, and I'm gonna be doing a Christmas party as a thank you to everybody.

How about this Eric, thanks to TSC Buffalo signed jerseys, signed mini helmets, signed photos, everybody gets raffle tickets, and every fifteen minutes ten minutes, I'm gonna be giving stuff away starting at six thirty.

Then we're gonna watch Flyers and Sabers.

We're gonna watch Thursday night football between the Rams and the Seahawks.

Gonna be awesome.

Come to Sports City, pizza pub, wings, pizza, drinks, everything Santa Sal is gonna be given away stuff thanks to these That's right.

That is Thursday night, fourteen oh seven, Niagara Street.

That sounds like so much fun.

I wish I could make it.

It's a TSC is.

They're a great, great company.

They take care of the fans, they take care of everyone that they partner with.

They're a great company.

That's gonna be an awesome event.

You guys, make sure to get out there and support Sal and TSSE.

We appreciate everyone joining us live here on YouTube.

Leave us a comment, smash that like button.

Also, we're obviously in audio podcast form as well, and make sure to listen to us on your way to work, on your way home from work, wherever you listen to your podcasts, and again, you know the holidays are coming.

We appreciate all the support from you guys.

We couldn't do this without any of you week in and week out.

And you know, we're just talking football here.

We love talking football, we like teaching football.

That's a reason why Zale and I really wanted to do this show, the kind of slow the game down for the average fans.

So we hope that we're doing that for you week in and week out, and we hope that you enjoyed this recap of the Bills Patriots game.

A big comeback win for the pay for the Bills against the Patriots, but on behalf of turf to tape Anthon Manbury, I'm your host, Eric Turner.

That's all Capaco.

We'll see you next week.