Alphadawg7

I have been saying this all offseason. The vast majority of SB winners didn't have that elite WR1 everyone swears we need. Some did sure...just like some won on defense and a run game because there is more than one way to win a SB. But most SB winners don't have that elite WR1 and it's in no way a prerequisite to win a SB like some seem to think around here.

Definitely wise to diversify your portfolio, so things like an Index Fund are never a bad idea...however, over long term, an index fund should honestly never outperform real estate unless you buy really bad real estate. And while putting money into a fund is obviously easier, real estate really isn't hard to manage as you can just hire a property management company to handle it. Avg home value in the US is 242% higher today than 20 years ago. You buy an investment property 20 years ago for $330,000 it would be worth $800,000 today based on the national average. And lets say you carried a $300,000 mortgage at 6%, the balance today would be $157,000 giving you another $143,000 in equitable gains from someone else paying your mortgage. And that is all before you factor any earnings from the rents. Rental prices have also gone way up over 20 years, but if you keep it modest and say over 20 years your avg net monthly gain (Rent - Mtg, Tax, Ins, Repairs, Vacancies, etc) was just $200 a month (and over 20 years it would very likely be much higher than that) that would be another $48,000. Their original $30k investment would be worth $661,000 in 20 years...or basically equivalent of getting a 17.5% annual rate of return. Now compare that to a fund...if that fund averaged an 8% return it would be worth about $140,000 in 20 years. Thats $521,000 less in gains over that time. And as you can see the gap is so wide that you don't even have to have the real estate equal the national averages for it to greatly out perform a fund, and if you buy in an area that outperforms the national average the returns would be even greater. And keep in mind these are athletes we are talking about, so affordability isn't a question and they could buy 10 or 20 of these houses to start. And as they make more money along the way, keep adding more properties to their portfolio as they made more money if the chose. If I was advising these athletes, I would highly encourage them to rent and get their money diversified into both long term real estate holdings and long term securities. They did that, they would still have plenty of money for their lives now and would be building wealth and income for retirement. Once those properties are paid off, the rents are mostly profit, and with the kind of holdings they can have by then they would be looking at tens of thousand, to even well into 6 figures in MONTHLY income for the rest of their lives. But...then there are idiots like Worthy.

I do agree in years past, but last year when we were 3rd in sacks, entering the playoffs we were without Milano and Bernard plus other injuries in our secondary and Jones just coming back from a long injury layoff. Furthermore Von was a ghost of himself. So, I think last year had to do more with injuries than personnel.

People forget...Bills were 3rd in sacks in the entire NFL last year, only 3 behind the top team too. And that is with Tre, Milano, and Jones all out for most the season and Bernard missing the end of the season. Our pass rush isn't as dire as many fear IMHO.

Is it though? If they are willing to send him home now, he wasn't making the roster anyway. At least now, he has a shot (whoever gets released) to try and latch on to a different roster, maybe one easier to make than a perennial SB contender too.

Lawrence just isn't as good as what people thought he would be. He was the most hyped prospect since Luck (also overrated but at least played some seasons at a high level). Trevor is a mediocre starting QB at this stage whose best season is on par with Derek Carr's meh season for the Saints last year. Heck he hasn't even proved he can be as good as Carr was during Carr's better seasons. But you know his agents are going to try and leverage as much of the "potential" hype from his draft to still pursue top end money. Now, this is his 4th season, he still has a chance to put it all together and finally breakout to closer to what was expected of him coming out of college. But, if it is more of the same, then I think Jags would be foolish to pay him a big deal and should instead look to trade him to a QB desperate team that thinks they can get more out of him (like maybe the Jets who I could see being dumb enough to do so given Rodgers is likely gone after this season). He's not even a Derek Carr yet let alone one of those two much better QB's.

Lol, I haven't changed anything. And again, you are just making more things up. Show me one time I said things will go swimmingly. I have spoken on LAST year. You can't seem to understand LAST year vs future performance. I mean I literally said nobody knows what this offense will or wont be this year because last year it was Brady coaching out of Dorsey's offense, not his own. This offseason Brady is installing is both his OWN offense and doing so with a lot of turnover on the starting offense. So Brady still has to prove he is THE guy moving forward. But...last year, he was by far the better OC for us over Dorsey. If you can't see the difference then it makes me question if you even watch the games or even understand what you are watching. The object of the game is to WIN football games, not compile stats. And Brady put the offense in position to win more than it lost to the tune of 6-1 for a team with the exact same roster that started 5-5 (and should have been 3-7) and lost to bad teams. And did it with the pressure of every game essentially being a playoff game for the Bills as losing anymore than 1 guranteed no playoffs and did it against the hardest stretch of our schedule. There is no universe where Dorsey was a better OC for the Bills than Brady was last year. There just isn't. Now...does that automatically mean Brady is the long term answer? Not at all...Brady still has to show he is up for the task long term.

Well, thats not the entire story. Lesnar was in the combine that year and had a great showing and a lot of teams were interested in him. The buzz was real at that point. However, he got into a motorcycle accident when a van hit him a couple months later and that messed him up. He ended up with several injuries, and that had most teams out on Lesnar at that point until the Vikings decided to still bring him in even though he wasn't fully recovered from the injuries yet. Because his groin was not yet healed, he didn't officially sign with the Vikings until late in the offseason at the end of July. So he was way behind, especially having not played football since high school. Vikings had no choice but to cut him a month later when finalizing the roster. Brock didn't try football again after that, he had already turned his sights on MMA and started training for that where he went on to be champion. So we will never know what could have been for Brock in the NFL, the accident wasn't even his fault. It was an unfortunate development, but he wowed at the combine and flashed signs for the Vikings. But he was just too far behind to make the roster and he also had equal desire to try himself in MMA which is where he went instead to great success.

6-1. 4 Playoff Teams defeated. 5 of those 7 games against top 10 defenses in yards allowed. Bad weather. Coaching from someone else's playbook. Playoff pressure every game as we were in can't lose another game mode. But hey...you go right ahead and be mad about that...I choose to appreciate what was accomplished and appreciate that he came in and we found ways to win games. There is no world where 5-5 is better than 6-1 except apparently yours...good luck with that.

Real reason was my dad was a die hard Niners fan and we always had a fun rivalry and competitive nature, so I was always a fan to teams that were a rival like Rams for example. And back then Chris Berman picked Niners vs Buffalo for 20 straight years to be in the Super Bowl, and as a kid Chris Berman was NFL football. So I always thought there was like this Niners connection. Then, when I was a kid, my grandfather for the heck of it bought a Buffalo and put it in the corral with our cattle and thought that was the coolest thing I had ever seen. And this happened at a time when I was just starting to get old enough to understand football more and it’s when the Bills got Kelly, Bruce, etc. Became an instant fan and soon after the Bills became the most exciting offense I had ever seen and was a die hard fan ever since. Shortly after they would make their SB runs and even with all that heartbreak it just never left me, was a die hard fan for life.

Pulling chicks.

So what you are saying is that Brady did a much better coaching job…therefore the offense responded better…and we won more games. Seems that’s just further making my point that Brady and the offense were better during our hardest stretch of the season.

I literally said Chargers NOT one of the top 5 defenses in those 7 games. So what are you even talking about here. Literally none of these opinions above have anything to do with the facts I provided nor refute them. How about this. Why don’t you go take out all your he easiest games and only count them he tougher sections of every WBs schedule and see if there numbers go up or down hen facing harder competition vs the easy competition . I mean Tua put up 70 on the Broncos who we lost to and we managed to only score 22 against the same team a few weeks later. You are comically delusional if you believe think we were a better offense under Dorsey than Brady. Again, I’ll stick to the facts…feel free to just rant all you want outside those facts, to each their own. And for the record, neither or, or really anyone has said Brady has proved anything other than being the correct decision last year. We don’t even know what his offense will be as last year you do realize he coached Dorsey’s offense. You can’t install a new offense midseason. But to pretend Brady was bad compared to Dorsey last season is utterly ridiculous unless you prefer losing over winning.

No disrespect at all bud…but…Hard disagree on this. We are not talking about 11 players deep on the bench, we are talking about 11 starting players. You can't say that the best player is magnitudes more important than the worst player, that makes no sense. For example, if the best player is the Center and the worst player is the QB, that Center is not magnitudes more important than the fact the QB isn't good, it will make almost no difference. And in 2020...and 2023...the number 1 player on the offense was the same. Josh Allen. When your number 1 player on the team is the QB, it makes everyone else better. And while 2020 Josh was seen as a better version than 2023 Josh (mainly over the turnovers) its not like Josh was a disaster last year, he was still the only person not named Lamar to get an MVP vote. Once again...1 individual person (in this case 2020 Diggs) does not equal a whole offense either. How many times did Calvin Johnson sit home and watch the playoffs from his couch? Almost every year of his career despite having a top 10 QB. How many SB rings does Megatron, Moss, Julio, Fitzgerals, and Hopkins have combined? Zero...despite being the best player on their teams most of their careers. This notion that one offense is better because it had the alleged "best single player" on it does not at all equate to best overall roster. And as far as last year goes...it was still Diggs as the best player not named Allen…just because his usage changed does not mean his skills went away. Under Dorsey Diggs was on pace for 1,475 yards and 12 TDS which would have been his 2nd highest career total in yards and career best in TD's. Brady completely changed the philosophy of the offense and Diggs usage changed with it. So this idea that Diggs was some shell of himself like people like to say is just not accurate and Diggs was still the best player not named Allen on the offense. Ive already shown this to be false. The top end talent of 2020 wasn't even much different. Allen was still an MVP finalist, Diggs was still on pace in his feed him the ball role under Dorsey. Then you have better and more efficient targets for Allen in Kincaid and Shakir, you have the best RB of Allens career behind the best OL of his career to go along with the best TE group of his career. I will take the 2023 roster over the 2020 roster personally, and its an easy choice for me. That roster got wasted by Dorsey to start the season, I thought he had a bad 2022 and hated him coming back but also hoped he would be better...he wasn't. Brady saved the season but was still handcuffed to Dorseys offense and did a stellar job despite that. I can only wonder what could have been last year had Dorsey been fired after 2022 and Brady installed in the offseason.

Wrong...the discussion was about the reduction in yards for Allen under Brady. FACT: 5 of the 7 teams the Bills faced were top 10 defenses on yards allowed per game. FACT: 4 of the 7 teams were playoffs teams. FACT: The SOS under Brady was significantly harder in the 7 games and they collectively had a winning record of 61-58 for a .512%. Under Dorsey, the collective record was a losing record of 75-95 for a .441%. FACT: Weather was worse in outdoor games during the back end of the season compared to the front end of the season. FACT: Brady had to take over during the season and modify and adjust the offense within the confines of someone else's playbook and did not have the luxury of using an entire offseason to put his stamp on the offense. FACT: Brady won more games in less games going 6-1 against stiffer competition while Dorsey led teams lost to Jets, Broncos, Patriots, Burrow-less Bengals, and over rated Jags. And should have lost to lowly Giants and Bucs on both final plays of those games. Meanwhile, Brady only loss was against the playoff bound Eagles who had just played in the SB the year before and it was a narrow loss with a good offensive showing. It is absolutely undeniable that Brady faced a harder stretch of games and conditions than Dorsey and the team grossly performed better and responded better to the direction of Brady over the offense. Also all wrong. See above.

Burst…Hard for a bubble to bust if it never existed. They have beaten a team with a .500 record or better twice in 2 years and have no playoff wins. They are going to miss the playoffs this year.

Late...but worth it This was an excellent response and honestly mostly how I feel about him too with an even higher level of detail, so really enjoyed this. I love the Ward comparison too, who was one of my all time favorite non-Bills WR's. I loved how Hines played the game and his character was impeccable, so maybe thats why I am so high on Shakir.

I get that, but I have a lot more confidence in Josh Allen and our coaching staff on both sides of the ball than I do about Tua and the Miami staff. And it wasn't a "miracle"...Dolphins have won only 2 games in 2 years vs .500 or better teams, it's who they are. They beat Dallas, another pretender annually, and they beat us in the heat stroke bowl the year before where we Tommy Doyle had to play the last 4 snaps of the game on a torn ACL because we had no more OL left and its why we didn't have enough time to get the ball spiked to win the game...so that game was more a miracle win for them that took absolute extreme conditions for them to only win on a technicality of 1 second not being left on the clock. Miami also lost 5 straight with Tua in 2022 to end the season with Tua getting hurt to miss the final game of the season in which they won with a 3rd string QB or they would have missed the playoffs in 2022 too thanks to another Miami collapse with a healthy Tua. So...yeah, not a miracle, thats a repeated pattern for 2 consecutive years by Miami. And its not that we as Buffalo needed a miracle, we need an OC change which when we did led to the Bills going 6-1 were 5 of the teams had top 10 defenses and 4 of them were playoff teams. Thats a good team winning games thanks to a coaching change fixing what wasn't working. I even started a thread that said I expect us to not only win out, but reach the AFCCG with 5 weeks left to go and still 3 games out of the playoffs. It was what I expected to happen after we got rid of the problem (Dorsey). And we came a stepped on foot away from doing it too...although we did win out like I said we would.

I revised that since I wrote because the "by far" was more referencing your original comment of "since 2021" and I was comparing against 2021. You then changed your tune when you realized you couldn't really make a case for 2021 and grabbed onto my "since being a Bill" comment to pivot to 2020…which was fair given I stared since being a Bill. And since 2020 was now more prevalent and when looking at it specifically, I edited the original comment to remove the "by far" as that was too strong of a phrase, and even told you when I said we should agree to disagree that it was not even probably that significant of a difference of comparing the roster of 2020 and 2023. But...you have been cherry picking stats and ignoring context in this comparison as well as things you said about things like Brady last year in other posts. The fact remains...the biggest difference was the STYLE of offense under Daboll vs the combo of Dorsey/Brady last year. Player for player, I would say the 11 guys on the field in 2023 are a better group than the 2020 unit. I have already broken it down for you many times, so not gonna waste more time doing it yet again and just revert back to the agree to disagree stance, because again, we aren't probably talking about a massive difference one way or the other. And for the record...the 2020 team was the lone team that absolutely looked like it did not belong in the playoffs against KC. For an offense that was allegedly sooooo talented...they absolutely sucked against KC and their mediocre defense where the Bills offense was totally outclassed all over the field. The 2023 team beat the best defense KC has had in Mahomes career (one of the best in the league) and then lost by 3 in the playoffs to it as well. So again...agree to disagree bud

You want a class on how not to build a winner...see Miami. Top 5 money to TWO WR's now and likely top money to a QB who can't get past his early reads or beat .500 or better teams is hilarious. First off, Waddle is no where near a top 5 WR...they should have traded him or let him playout his deal and walk. He isn't worth anything close to this money...and to pay him that on top of Hills deal? LOL. They suck in the trenches on both sides of the ball right now...their front 7 is one of the worst in the AFC on defense, and their best OL can't stay on the field and probably retires soon. Calling it now: If Rodgers stays healthy, Miami will not make the playoffs. You already have: KC, Buf, Balt, Cin, and Hou that should all be playoff teams and likely see the division winners come from that group. Then you still have Pitt, Cle, Jets, Jags, Colts, LAC, and Mia as teams that might or should compete for a playoff spot. Miami barely made the playoffs last year after blowing a 4 game lead in our division the back half of the season with a better defense than they will have this year (they finished 10th last year). Now, they have even more competition in the AFC and its own division with the return of QB's like Burrow, Rodgers, Watson, Richardson...not to mention teams like Steelers getting an upgrade at QB on a playoff caliber roster. So just can't see how Miami is not a worse team this year compared to last year in a tougher AFC overall and tougher division with Rodgers seemingly back for Jets. And even one game worse likely puts them out of the playoffs.

It was...but I think that had a lot to do with instability and struggles at OC. Even when Brady took over, he still had to work out of Dorseys offense, which is why I think he leaned so much on the run game as well, to try and just stabilize things given he couldn't make sweeping changes midseason.

You think the level of competition may have had something to do with that given Brady took over during the toughest part of our schedule? The lack of context people consider when they make these statements about the numbers under Brady just surprises me. I mean the eyeball test alone could see the offense was better by a long shot over this stretch of games compared to the first 10 weeks. But "numbers" are also impacted by the fact we played the following under Brady's 7 regular season games: In 7 games Bills Played: Five out of the 7 games were against top 10 defenses (including 3 in the top 5) and 4 of the 7 games were against playoff teams. The only teams not in the top 10 in defense ere Eagles (a playoff team and tough opponent) and the Chargers (a team that was fired up being first game with new coach after firing Staley). So...anyone wanting to remove all context and go back and look at the offense or Allens "numbers" only during: 1 - The toughest part of a seasons schedule vs entire previous seasons and 2 - The back end of the season in worse weather than the first 10 games...and then compare those numbers to whole seasons that include the easier batches of games (and easier overall schedules in past seasons) with better weather too is just a poor way to analyze the numbers and delivers inaccurate conclusions about said numbers. To say it was maybe his worst on that small sample size...a sample where we rose from the ashes and won 6 out of 7 of those games with a team that had been losing to teams like Jets, Denver, Pats, Burrow-less Bengals, and a not very good Jags team (with should be losses to Giants and Bucs too)...is just looking at it completely wrong IMHO. And further context: Not only was it the hardest portion of our schedule and during the part of the year with worse weather conditions...but there is also the fact that Brady was having to coach out of another coordinators playbook and still find ways to adjust it and doing so on the fly given he took over after 10 games to boot. Yet...Brady led offense with Allen went 6-1...Division Champs...#2 seed after this team was being declared dead in week 10 at 5-5 after losing to a bad Broncos team that gave up 70 points in a single game last year.

Don't you dare provide context...theres no room for context when people can just blindly rant or complain and cherry pick stuff to try and prove a false point HA Its a complete joke for anyone to try and act like anything was worse under Brady than Dorsey. Brady was beating playoff teams, including the Super Bowl Champs, while Dorsey was losing to teams like Zach Wilson led Jets and a Broncos team who gave up 70 points in a single game. And quite honestly, Dorsey should have been 3-7 instead of 5-5 but Daboll bailed him out by doing his best Daboll impression to cost the Giants the game on the goalline and then we also lucked out in the Bucs game where we should have lost on the final play too but got lucky. Dorsey had the softest and easiest part of our schedule just to have us well out of the playoffs and sitting at 5-5 with only really 3 good games out of 10. Brady came in made an immediate impact, so much so, it had Allen screaming "I'm Back!" on the sideline that first game. Brady in 7 games (which we went 6-1) faced FIVE top 10 defenses and 4 playoff teams. Dorsey lost to a bunch of bad teams and nearly lost to Giants and Bucs too to be lucky to have a 5-5 record instead of a 3-7 record.

I think as a whole, it was his best group 11 vs 11 comparison he has had in his career. The biggest issue was the OC...going from one who had no idea how to use his personnel, use movement, break from script, adjust, be less predictable, or run the ball...to a guy better in all those areas but taking over 10 games in and having to do so with the predecessors offense in a can't lose any more games position.

Again, I said the offense as a whole...its funny to me how hard you are trying to steer away from that. But, if I get time, maybe I will start that thread.