Hapless Bills Fan

Since this thread seems to have some legs....This. Mahomes was drafted into a team that was already good enough to have 4 winning seasons, 3 playoff appearances, before he walked in the door. With the emergence of Hill in his 2nd season and Kelce added to Kareem Hunt's legs, the KC offense took a big step in 2017 with Mahomes watching on the bench. (Smith is a competitive guy and having his replacement watching probably turned him up a notch). This isn't intended to diminish Mahomes at all. The KC offense took a huge step with him in 2018 and, dare we say it, perhaps Bienemy might be an upgrade on Nagy as OC? Mahomes >> Smith, no question. But Mahomes was handed the keys to a top-10 offense (#6 on PF #7 on yards in 2017) with a balanced attack, top-10 in both rushing yards AND passing yards, with a top deep threat WR, TE, and RB, on an established, winning franchise with an established, winning HC. Allen was handed a trowel and a stack of bricks and told "help us build something"

I hope so, because it would hopefully mean Allen is in the building and "in the conversation" for top gun, playing well I love me some Josh Allen, but he had a great year last year. He really needs to stack a few great years together to be called a "great QB" IMHO.

I'm no route running expert. But to my eye, Knox doesn't run very good routes. Cover1 commented in one film breakdown (praising a good, physical route where he used a hard arm-over to gain separation) that Knox "isn't very physical" in terms of how he gets off the line and gets separation. My sense is that the nuances of route running have been beyond him - that he doesn't have the right timing, or run just the right path. I look at him sometimes and I'm like OK, Josh doesn't have a clear lane to him but if he were a yard deeper and a yard to the left, he would. I do wonder if having Lee Smith as the vet in the TE room was - I wouldn't say counterproductive, but he wasn't going to be the veteran leader showing the young guys the nuances of how run routes, not Lee "I Don't Cut" Smith. For Knox to be more effective, I think it starts with the fundamentals of learning how to run better routes and gain separation.

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/sports/football/nfl/bills/2021/06/10/buffalo-bills-dawson-knox-believes-can-be-playmaking-tight-end/7618090002/ We can just hope hard work pays off for Hard Knox.

They're great, but I need more videos of Josh and Britt's new puppy.

Poor analogy. Trubisky QB'd the Bears to a 12-4 record in 2018 and the NFC North division championship in 2018. They had a top-10 offense on points that year. Trubisky didn't look like Pat Mahomes, but he also looked reasonable - like a QB a team with a strong defense could win with. I didn't see enough of the Bears to know for sure, but my impression is that Nagy's offense got "solved" somewhat (like McVay in Cali) and Everyone but Nagy became the scapegoat - Helfrich, the Rams OC, got kicked to the curb for Bill Lazor. Trubisky, the hoped-for Franchise Man, got kicked to the curb for Foles (who had already washed out as the starter with 4 different teams - talk about doing the same thing and expecting a different result). Frankly, Trubisky has not been that bad of a QB. He doesn't turn the ball over too much to win, he completes enough passes. If he was checking down too much in 2019, it begs the question why and what changed elsewhere on the team that had him doing that, because he did better the year before. Peterdude, on the other hand, has set records for poor or incompetent QB play whenever he's seen the field. This reporter's screed says more about him and about the Bears than it does about Mitch.

Of course! And when presented as "honest criticism", IMHO it's always appropriate to "call the shot" with 'em. This site runs on discussion, and when it's just an opinion (either way) with nothing to back it up, there's not much substrate to discuss. I thought big 'n fat was a desireable trait in a DT?

OK, now we know the real reason to keep camp at OBD: Josh has a new girl, and they can't be parted. Just look at this face, who would want to leave this to sleep in a dorm?

95 days until the regular season. Just shoot me now.

I'd like your response, but "tears" would be more appropriate 😥😬 So basically your evidence of Ertz bad attitude is that you thought he showed a lack of effort and had a pouty face (witnessed at a distance through his helmet and face mask, one assumes)? Or that he was injured? Being injured is a bad attitude? I'm not on the Woot! Woot! Ertz! bandwagon because I'm concerned about injury history and possibly declining skills, but that seems a bit scant evidence of a "bad attitude". If the Bills trade for him, I'll assume they did their due diligence on the injury and skills.

The problem I have is when “just a guy” and “replacement level player” is taken on face value as “honest criticism”. If there’s more depth to it than that, bring out the depth. If there isn’t more depth to it, IMHO it’s just taking a dump on a guy. We’ve seen plenty of similar “dumps” by folks who have some cred with some people, like PFF talking about Josh. In 2019, they said he was “below replacement level” etc etc etc. As it happens, they were wrong, but at least in their case they backed it up with their funky stats. C’mon Man, be better. There’s a lot of space between a 10,000 word thesis and a 6 word dump. One could, IDK, give 3-6 sentences? There was a lot of noise in the media last season about Phillips being a healthy scratch meaning the Bills were ready to move on, he was gonna be traded etc - and yet he’s still here. From what McDermott and Beane have said after the season, and what happened to Phillips playing time, it now appears that he was benched because he really wasn’t healed enough from his injury and was struggling. He worked his way back into more playing time as the season progressed. I saw some pretty strong play out of Phillips at the end of last season. And we do know that the 1T job in McD’s system is not necessarily productive of stats, yes? Ie, the guy who is doing his job may be fairly “invisible” But at least you’re providing some information about what your opinion is based on, but a bit more than “benched because still injured and needed more time” would be more persuasive.

I was wondering how Webb managed to make it such a close race. Also very strategic in starting to run where Allen’s direct path was blocked by a couple of coaches.

I think the big difference with last year is the optimal choice of how to invest the time - we still had training camp albeit shortened, and players still got together and trained - is that a lot of gyms and training places were closed. So Knox could catch balls from a Juggs machine in his parents backyard and work out at a friend’s gym or his old HS, but he couldn’t go work with the “Eye training” guy in Cali. He could join the other WR for a few days in Fl, but he couldn’t go work with Josh at a local football field for weeks, they were all closed. On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re a Frog. Nobody knows if you’re “croaking” or “joking”, either (well sometimes we do, but it’s tough, and tends to start fights). Haha the ways of the Word Filter are beyond mortal knowing. Seriously, I don’t think anyone knows how that thing works, not even Scott or Nervous Guy.

$10M signing, $10M roster bonus the following year, total $24.5M guaranteed.  Only $5M cap hit the first year, but $13.5M the second year.$38M overall So I guess it depends upon how you look at the question “most the Bills have ever paid for a TE”

What did the Bills pay for Clay?

@Mike in Horseheads

Does not follow. McD loves him his DL rotation.

I actually think Russ Brandon was at the center of it and life got better when Brandon got gone

From this, wondering where was Mitch (Trubisky)? Also is anyone else becoming concerned about Beasley?

https://www.audacy.com/wgr550/sports/bills/mitch-morse-daryl-williams-at-bills-ota?utm_campaign=sharebutton&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_term=WGRAM