Thurman#1

Yup, remember those days very well, and thought it was a smart rule change.

I took a look and nobody seems to have mentioned this. Including the game announcers. On Tampa's second attempt at a 2 point conversion, Sterling Shepard made the catch but out of bounds. But he would've been inbounds except for the beautiful play by Bishop. Shepard went up two or three yards from the boundary and was going to come down in bounds but Bishop was right behind him and he just carried him right out of bounds so he couldn't get even one foot in. Happened at 13:35 in the fourth quarter, and held the Tampa Bay lead to one point instead of three. It was a really nice play. Didn't turn out to be important. But it could have. Beautiful play with good awareness, body control, speed and strength.

It's pretty rare to be really bad at defensive total run yards, because if your defense isn't great, your offense must be very good if you're winning a Super Bowl. And if you're ahead, opponents will tend to pass more to catch up, leaving low total rush yards as a result. Having said that, the 2019 Chiefs won the Super Bowl while allowing 2051 rush yards (7th worst) and - a better indicator of how good your run defense actually is - allowed 4.9 YPC, 4th worst in the league. The 2018 Pats lofted the Lombardi while allowing 1803 yards (11th worst), but again, people were trying catch up and they faced few run attempts. But in terms of YPC, they allowed 4.9 YPC, fourth worst in the league. Didn't bother going further back than that. You can absolutely win a Super Bowl while having a bad rush defense. It's not ideal, clearly. But doable.

Yes, you're correct, you can indeed win without a good defense. How did it work out for the Bills? Not as well as it worked out for the Chiefs a couple of years and the, Rams etc. The fact that it worked out for some teams but not for the Bills -- well, it only proves that it didn't work out for the Bills. And the Bills had really good defenses several of those years, actually. Some of those years they had serious waves of injuries around the playoffs, and other times they were good but not good enough to stop the Chiefs in the playoffs with Mahomes playing at absolutely historic levels. You can argue this D is the worst. But they're getting better, particularly at passing defense. When Bosa gets the cast off, when and if Oliver comes back and when Dorian gets better at the role he's already playing pretty well this past week at pass rush schemes, we could easily get a lot better. When TJ and DaQuan get not just able to play but back at previous levels. It's a shame Hoecht is out, it really is. But there's every chance we'll be a lot better. We were awful against Miami. But not so awful against Tampa and pretty dang solid against KC. They absolutely have a shot. That simply isn't a question. Again, Vegas has them as the third most likely winner. That's likely a bit optimistic. But not much. They're 7-3, and beating the good teams.

Yup, And no other teams with great QBs are like that ... except all of them. When the great QB has a bad game, yeah, the team's not real likely to win. That's kinda the NFL. I mean, you're right, that's how we look. But I mean, when Mahomes had a bad game, the Eagles win the Super Bowl last year and the AFC championship against the Bengals about three years ago. Yeah, fair enough, big ask. But it could happen, Ed playing near how he did before. Or not. And no, Shaq was playing significantly better than average, he was playing well.

Punters are players. Possible that's inconvenient for your argument, but it has the advantage that it's true. And guys who are on different teams ... are on teams because they're better than the millions who would like to be on teams but aren't good enough. Plenty of guys leave one team for another for many different reasons that don't necessarily include quality. Look at Gabe Davis. He got a contract we didn't want to match but he's still plenty good enough to be in the league. You're talking about a 5th and two 6ths. Them being still in the league 6 or 7 years down the road absolutely does show something, it's not even a question. I get it. When you want to throw guys out who don't fit your opinion, if you're the type that does that, any reason will do. It's something to say. Doesn't make it a good argument, but it's at least something to throw against the wall and see if it sticks.

Yeah, um, no. No, it wouldn't. His answer works perfectly fine, and to assume it shows an issue says more about you and your feelings on this than it does about McDermott. Where does it say, "every," you ask? It says, "like any player." That's where "every" comes from though he used a synonym. "He has times, just like any player." Clearly he's having problems making it to meetings. Which is unbelievable immaturity. I'm a lot less likely to support Keon now, but what McDermott said simply did not imply that he had bigger problems on the field than most.

Passer rating is not dependent on quality. I have gotten quite a bit more confident in the pass defense over the past month or so.

Glad someone said this about Poyer. He's not as fast as he used to be, but he's looking pretty solid and his understanding get him started a step early. Don't expect him here next year unless it's as a coach or a de facto coach on the practice squad. Hancock is sure athletic enough. Will he get it? I hope so. I like this safety group. A lot more than I did a month ago.

You can't. Overall he does pretty well there, and much better in the draft overall, which is how this should be looked at. Certainly two major failures in Cody Ford and Basham. But if you're looking at all early draft picks over 7 or 8 years, you'll find pretty much every team has several poor picks. It's how things go. Look at the Chiefs, who in the top two rounds over the last seven years have picked Felix Audike-Uzomah, Skyy Moore, Willie Gay Jr., Mecole Hardman and Juan Thornhill, all in the 2nd round, and you can throw in Edwards-Helaire in the 1st. Even in the first round, success rates run at around 50%, and it's lower later in the draft where we generally end up. Wanna look at how a GM does in the draft? Simple, look at how he does in the draft. Not some part of the draft that can be separated to further some narrative or other. The draft. That's what you look at if you want to find out how someone drafts.

Yup, the Bills are ranked #3 in Vegas in terms of odds of winning the SB right now. IMO that's a bit high with how they've played recently, but it's arguable and in fact reasonable.

Yeah, we absolutely are. More, it's hard to know whether that defense will be the one we go into the playoffs with. If Ed Oliver gets back and Shaq Thompson, and our younger guys continue developing, we could easily be a lot better. And having a really good defense is a huge factor. But let's not pretend you can't win without one. KC in 2022 were the 16th ranked defense, and got a Lombardi. The Rams were 17th in 2021. It happens. We came about 6 inches away from the Super Bowl last year, with a defense that was probably not as good.

Defense too.

No, no Rutgers does not, not even slightly close. Bills should be ranked 6 - 8 right now, probably. Some weeks they look awful, some very good. But they have a history of cutting down the variability later in the season.

Nah, we deserved that game.