billsfan89

What a game, Bills got punched in the mouth again but came back and got a two possession lead before Baltimore took the game and made it tight. Not gonna lie the Ravens defensive adjustments made the Bills offense a lot less effective in the second half. The Bills only scored 6 points in the second half clearly the Ravens had something on the offense. But the offense was also able to scratch out some yards and first downs when needed. The Ravens choked a bit with the drops and turnovers but the Bills also just made plays too. Great game all around what a way to end the divisional round.

If you are 50/50 and you gotta win like that 3 times in a row that's not good.

I think Von's gonna have a big splash play, I also think Groot's gonna have a big game too. I am hoping the DT group really shows up like they did against the Lions who are a top O-line in the league.

Lions hanging tough after getting punched in the mouth. But the Lions issue was that their defense still isn't great so they are going to be consistently in shootouts and shootouts are 50/50 propositions.

This is gonna be a 45-42 type game. Awesome.

I was shocked KC got run on so much. KC's defense doesn't usually get run on like that.

Lions behind two scores, crazy.

Honestly at this stage of the week, all the game plans are set the offensive plays are scripted for the first quarter plus. Josh knows what they are going to try to do and the pivots they will consider depending on the flow of the game. All McD needs to let Josh know is that he's gonna have to execute just like everyone else. That's what it is going to come down to.

This game is so much more fun than the last one.

Stroud is only in year two going into year three, I think the jury is still out on him if he can compete with the "Big 4" AFC QB's. He's not there yet but I want to see him behind a better offensive line, with more starts under his belt, and his WR core healthy (while replacing Diggs). Texans got a soft division and 2 years plus the 5th year option left on Stroud's deal so they have the tools they need to get some more pieces.

They have to make personal fouls reviewable, you can't have a large chunk of the customers of the league thinking the league is rigged in favor of one team. KC likely was going to win this game, but if you get 2-3 bad calls tossed your way each game that's going to make it dam near impossible for a team to beat you unless they have some sort of monster at QB. The Pats had this issue with Brady who seemingly always got a big call or two each game. But I never felt like Brady was overtly flopping or pulling up while going out of bounds to get calls. Mahomes is actively working the fact that the referees protect him into giving him a bunch of calls. Making personal foul calls reviewable would go a long way to taking away the blatantly bad calls and it would also make Mahomes and other QB's think twice about risking a hit by pulling up or sliding late.

Von's sack total is made more impressive not only by the fact that he had a 4 game suspension but also by the fact that early on in the season he wasn't getting a ton of snaps. He only ended up playing 30% of the teams defensive snaps this season. But what could be a massive difference is that he seems to be peaking at the right time with a strong game against Denver and leading the NFL in pressures since week 13.

I would love to see a "signature" defensive gameplan for McDermott. McD in the divisional round has only had one great defensive game and that was the 2020 divisional round and that was a very windy day that also had Lamar get hurt half way through the game (I think, I know he got hurt during that game). I would love to see McD come up with something that throws the Ravens off offensively.

As others have stated a big time DT is probably a more pressing need than DE. Ed is a very good player but he’s not consistently great. Carter is a decent rotational piece with potential. But after that it’s Daquon who might be washed and is old and Austin Johnson an older role player. DE for 2025 is pretty solid in my opinion even if you might want a little more juice there. Groot is a top 10ish player at the position, AJE is a starting caliber DE or a very high end rotation player, Von showed he’s got gas in the tank and can still be a quality rotation player, and Solomon flashed potential and is a decent depth/development piece. I think there’s a need to add a piece at DE but I think that can be filled via a vet to add some punch there. I think there’s a lot of fairly affordable veterans who can be rented for a season like Chase Young or Mack both players who can punch up the edge rush for a season.

It’s crazy how concerts in the early days of the modern music industry (1950’s and early 1960’s) used to be money loss promotional events. People were seeing Elvis for the inflation adjusted equivalent of 30-45 dollars in small venues of 1000-2500 people. They just did the shows so people would buy the albums and tell their friends to buy the albums. It took the Beatles doing arena/baseball/football venues making millions on high volume shows to change the industry. But before TicketMaster became the price gouger it is and digital markets made scalping and setting markets higher much easier there were at least relatively affordable tickets for big arena shows for the most part esp if you were willing to wait a few hours in line.

I think people forgot just how much the 2022 season was the “season from hell” in many ways for the Bills. The offseason contained the Topps shooting which rocked the community. During Training camp Dawson Knox’s younger brother passes away tragically. In season Buffalo had a tragic snow storm that (I believe) was the deadliest or among the deadliest in the cities history that impacted the team as well. There was a game relocated due to the storm while the team had a flu/Covid outbreak. Then there was the storm in and around Christmas which caused the team to reroute travel plans. That all happened before the team had to deal with the DeMar Hamlin situation which was very traumatic for the team. That’s in addition to a worse than average injuries situation. The Bills just were insanely overmatched in that playoffs. This years team is just not comparable to 2022 on and off the field

Not much of a sports better there was one time that I bet against the Bills and that was last year in the Jaguars game. I thought the Jags staying in London the previous week was a completely unfair advantage for the Jags and I knew the Bills were running into a bad situation. I took the money line, I made about 70 bucks on it. Can't think of any other time.

To be the man you gotta beat the man. Winning a Super Bowl is not easy and you are going to have to win some difficult games against great teams. The Bills have Josh Allen and they have the homefield for this game, they got a beastly offensive line and a lot going for them. Bring on all challengers, no easy outs.

That hit looked brutal, I would be shocked if he plays this week, if/when the Bills advance I think he would have a shot of playing in the AFCCG.

The key to slowing him down is hitting him at, near, or behind the line of scrimmage. He's a powerful dude but he's that much more powerful with a head of steam behind him. If the Bills defense can get first contact early then they can contain him. But if the front 7 can't hit Henry early and often that's gonna hurt.

I don't think there's much the Bills can do with Brady other than hope he sticks around for at least one more season. The current NFL HC openings aren't all that appealing and I think Ben Johnson and some of the veteran coaches have the inside track on the better openings. Just to take a look at the openings. Jacksonville - Kahn's semi-instance on keeping the GM reeks of a bad organization. Not sure if Joe Brady of 1.5 years with Josh Allen is going to command Kahn to fire the GM and put in his own guy. I think Ben Johnson may have an inside track to getting his GM in there. Jets- A dumpster fire due to Woody Johnson a coach with options is going to want to stay away from them. Dallas- Jerry Jones is a meddling owner and he's likely looking for a bigger splash name, I don't see either side liking that fit. Chicago- Interesting team here but kind of a messy organization situation too. Lots of cooks in the kitchen there also a very tough division and if you don't like Caleb Williams well too bad he's their guy. NOLA- That team is in cap hell gonna need 2 years to dig out of that fully with no QB, once again a coach with options would stay away. Raiders- Interesting team but no QB and an insanely tough division and a cap situation that may take a year to dig out of. Tom Brady would have to do a great sell job on that one. Supposedly Jacksonville, NOLA, Chicago and the Jets have interviewed Brady although it seems like those teams are casting a wide net on interviews. I think Brady is best off siting out a year and building his knowledge with Josh for one more season. Next year some more appealing jobs could be had like The Giants or Falcons. I get that there's only 32 NFL HC jobs but Brady's got a very good gig to fall back on.

My worry with this game is that it becomes a shootout and shootouts are 50/50 propositions. In order to control this game it is going to in my opinion come down to the defensive line. The Ravens in week 4 completely out muscled the Bills on both sides of the ball. I think that's not likely to happen on the offensive line. The O-line is top notch and I don't think they are going to be overwhelmed like they were in week 4. I think the Bills will be able to put up points. However, I do have my concerns about if the Bills defensively can make the stops needed to not have this be a game where the team that has the ball last wins which is a 50/50 type deal. The Bills defensive line is going to have to dominate the game and while the D-line has done it from time to time even against better units like Detroit who couldn't run the ball and gave up pressure at times the D-line has also come up flat in some games. Very excited for this game, to be the man you gotta beat the man and winning a Super Bowl is not easy. Bills by a billion.

The offensive line was dam good last year and despite losing Mitch Morse the long time starter at center the unit has not just picked up where it left off but improved somehow. I would say that the Bills offensive line in 2023 was firmly a top 5-7 unit last year. This year I would say they are a top 3 unit (only possibly/arguably behind Detroit and Philly). It went from a very good unit last year to an elite one this season. They plugged McGovern into Morse's spot while Edwards filled in for McGovern and Anderson took over the jumbo duties from Edwards. They protect Josh amazingly and they plow over teams in the ground game. Also the development of the unit under Kromer has been great. After a rocky return season in 2022 Kromer has been masterful at building up the offensive line. They signed McGovern to a mid-level free agent contract and he's been a plug and play starter for day one. They drafted Torrence late in round two and he's help solidify the interior of the offensive line. They also signed Edwards as veteran depth and a jumbo package player in 2023 and wisely brought him back for 2024 as a starter on a two year deal. They made some great bench acquisitions in Van Denmark and Anderson who have solidified the depth of the team while selling off Bates for a decent return. Anderson has provided the team with an elite role player as the 6th offensive linemen while also adding IOL depth. Van Denmark has developed into a quality swing tackle as well a great depth piece. The team also appears to have found some promising rookies in SVPG a steal in the 5th round and Grable and possible late round find. I love seeing the entire turnaround of the offensive line program and doing so with not too many huge resources put into it. The biggest additions since 2023 resource wise have been a late 2nd round pick and a slightly above mid-level free agency add in McGovern. Edwards was a lower end free agent and Anderson and Van Denmark were undrafted free agents. SVPG and Grable were 5th and 6th round picks respectively. They also wisely extended Brown before he got out of their price range and all 5 starters are locked in for 2025 with Edwards wisely brought back on a two year deal in the 2024 off-season. Sustainable success and quality development.

Gonna be a close game, Ravens are a very good team. But the Bills are home and have Josh Allen so there's a big advantage.

Bills took care of business against a good but far from elite Denver team. I was nervous about the matchup but despite the Bills spotting the Broncos 7 points they took back control of the game and eventually made it a blowout. Not much to complain about. Against the Ravens at home the Bills gotta come out with a win.