I hate to piggyback on a legend’s take, but we need to talk about the finger-pointing, name-calling, tar, feathers, and pitchforks that emerged after Sunday’s win. I won’t sugar-coat the “Great Escape” at home, against the literal backwashed toilet-water of the NFL: The New Jersey Giants (a.k.a. Buffalo South); however, play-calls and the execution of said play calls are entirely different things.
Joe Marino, in his 10/17/23 Locked on Bills podcast, walked the Bills Mafia through the first three quarters of forgettable football. While it read like a litany of execution errors, the media narrative we all were blasted with was skin-deep. Had I bothered to focus hard to tally the number of “Let’s can Dorsey” callers Schopp & The Bulldog tangoed with on the post-Buffalo-South Victory Monday, I would have caused a 20-car-pile-up… Or seven…
I wonder, sometimes, whether people were just finger-pointing, or if we have embedded Pats fans trying desperately to bring down the Bills.
Let’s keep it short and sweet; here’s what actually happened:
1st drive:
-2nd Down: Diggs does his best Gabe “Alligator-Arms” Davis on 2nd down (which would have at LEAST been a 1st down).
-3rd Down: Davis–wide open and gunning for the end zone–starts to look like he’s running in over-cooked spaghetti. It looks like he is seriously under the assumption that his feet are at the ends of his elbows… He trips himself, and Sam Martin is woken from his slumber on the pine, long before his alarm was set.
-Punt.
2nd Drive:
-Davis decides to hold the ball in his left arm, while the sideline is to his right. Fumble.
-G-Men pick up the ball. No points for the Bills.
3rd Drive:
-We get to the G-Men’s 37, and Shakir is wide open (thanks to Dorsey’s scheme), but Allen never looks to him, and instead tosses to Diggs’ feet.
-Short pass to Diggs for nada turf.
-Miss to Knox.
4th Drive:
-Incomplete city, due to G-Men pressures.
-Diggs hears the dinner bell before the ball is snapped, killing the drive.
5th Drive:
-Okereke with a solid PD.
-Tyler Bass does his best whiff job of the FG attempt.
6th Drive:
-Hold.
-False start.
-Redemption.
-Okereke with a tip-INT (Good on him; that was an excellent play).
Okay, armchair GM’s with your pitchforks, tar, and feathers; let’s break this all down, and see if you can tell me precisely where Dorsey called devastatingly bad plays. According you all of your blind rage against Dorsey, you–seemingly–believe that he called the following:
1st Drive:
-Dorsey told Diggs that alligator arms are better than stickum-fingers…
-Dorsey whispered in Davis’ ear to use the patented, secret weapon: “Slick Shoes”, on himself…
2nd Drive:
-Dorsey had the brilliant idea to go against all conventional wisdom, and signaled to Gabe Davis to hold the ball in the wrong hand, hoping it might confuse the Giants’ defenders…
3rd Drive:
-Dorsey, in his most horrific call yet, circumvented the headset cutoff rules, built his own HAM radio from a kit he purchased off Amazon, and wired into Josh to ignore a wide-open Kalil Shakir.
-Dorsey then tells Allen (again, over his newfangled HAM radio kit) to intentionally miss Diggs and Knox, in succession.
4th Drive:
-Dorsey tells Stef Diggs that the best way to confuse the defensive backs is to start running upfield, prior to the snap. He swears they’ll never know what hit them…
5th Drive:
-Dorsey decides it’s a good time to lace Bass’ cleats backwards, because he thinks the team isn’t having a jolly-good time, and they need some pranks to lift their spirits…
6th Drive:
-Dorsey–knowing the G-Men are inferior–calls multiple penalty-worthy plays, and then tips off Okereke to the location of a Josh Allen fastball…
Are we done, yet? Can we please put down the pitchforks? How many Ken Dorsey's are playing on the field? How many? According to the media trash, Dorsey was not only play-caller, he was in Gabe Davis’ gloves, he was burrowing like a gopher in the turf to trip up our own players, and he was leading the most convoluted misdirection pogrom in history. I’ve heard of the 12th man… I’ve been the 12th man. I was the 12th man on a Peterman-led debacle against the Chicago Bears. Yeah… I paid $40 bucks to watch that Bills team barf all over itself… I have PAID to see our team play bad football.
But, while what we saw this past Sunday was definitively not great football, it was also definitively NOT--dear armchair GM's--caused mostly by bogus play-calling.
But let’s get something straight: While I’m not saying Dorsey is perfect, I have to agree with Joe Marino that what the media narrative is telling you is a cold pile of clean-picked chicken wing bones, after a Bills victory. It’s not worth your time. Can we do better? You better believe it! Is Dorsey completely to blame? If you can honestly stand behind that second list of ridiculous takes, then please: Go be a Pats fan. You are delusional.
Go Bills!
–Tim Avery - 10/21/2023
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