BADOLBILZ

Will Beane try it again with Khalil Mack in free agency this offseason? It's going to be a storyline here on TSW.

Well Cooper missed the Colts game and they only scored 23 points on offense. That definitely lines up. Were there other contributing factors to the offense being truly atrocious in Baltimore and Houston? Sure. But what we are seeing now wasn't happening without the trade for WR1. People are just questioning it because some weeks they aren't throwing the ball at Cooper. And just in the context of this thread title, now 14 games into this season the WR corps as a whole hasn't matched last year's per game production despite the uptick since Cooper arrived. It's a non-argument, IMO......... but I am glad I can say that because it means what they have NOW is working.

Did you just downplay the Houston game as Allen's "worst game in awhile". He was the first NFL QB to throw 30 passes in a game and complete 30% or less since 1992! (Stan Gelbaugh) It was a historically atrocious passing performance for the Bills. The blueprint was laid out for the entire league to see. Challenge the Bills to throw deep and take away the middle of the field. We knew this at the time of the Cooper trade. Even the "everybody eats" crowd had to admit it. But now they are trying to reverse engineer the solution. The threat of RB's getting open deep isn't keeping defense's honest, dude.😂

Just to clarify that you aren't just arguing for the sake of not admitting you were wrong from the outset: What you are saying is that this WR corps would have been better than last year's without the Cooper trade but that the Cooper trade has denied you a truth? Even though they've been greatly improved by Cooper's presence for 2 months and still aren't as statistically productive of a unit as last year? There just isn't a lot of support for the contention that it was going to work before Beane went and made it better. Refresher:

Solomon has been uselesss against the run. Miller has actually been pretty good against the run. That is why. But hopefully Solomon is improving and it would be great if he can make an impact down the stretch or in the playoffs. He brings a speed element they do not have.

This one. The Death Star set was another great one from that late 70's era but I chose this Sears exclusive because it was all about the great Cantina figures you couldn't get in stores and the Cantina scenes were probably the coolest part of the movie to us as kids.

The WR's and TE's they took into the season have performed about as could reasonably be expected. But Hollins modest 295 yards have been more than offset by the flops of Samuel and MVS. Subsequently passing yardage is down by about 10 yards per game and passing to WR/TE is actually down closer to 20 ypg over last season. That's significant and a lot of that poorer production preceded the acquisition of Cooper. We will call that the "nobody eats" period. Things are trending upward though since said acquisition. It was a CERTAINTY that Beane would be desperately in search of a WR1 in October. I promised you all that IN THIS THREAD. And it happened just as I said. Coleman broke out simultaneously.......and that combination spread out opposing defense's and created better matchups simultaneously. And that's where we are. Everybody eats as long as the WR1 is out there and if both he and Coleman are available even Ty Johnson can have a 100 yard receiving game. Everybody eats doesn't work when everybody is no more than a WR2/3/4. You were dead wrong thinking it would. Speaking of which, the unit that has benefitted the most are the RB's in the passing game. Rushing-wise they are about the same as 2023 but they are already at last year's receiving yardage total with 3 games left. * Also, I never saw it said anywhere that this was the worst WR corps the Bills had in 40 years. I referenced 40 years but don't intentionally conflate two points. What I said was that they had nobody in their WR corps who had even put up 900 yards in an NFL season for the first time since the mid-80's. Meaning nobody who defense's had to account for individually. As Cooper has proven..........that is imperative to have.

That may be his preference but there will probably be other playoff teams that have a shot before Baltimore. Just about everybody could use him. I remember when Terrell Suggs got himself released in December 2019 hoping to end back up with the #1 seed Ravens..........but the Chiefs had priority and claimed him instead. Initially he wasn't happy. The Chiefs basically just claimed him to block him from the Ravens. But he ended up on that first Mahomes SB team. I can't imagine he'd make it thru waivers to the Bills but I'd love to get Campbell next season. Always wanted him to be a Bill. Heard some suggest he didn't ever want to come to Buffalo but nothing substantive. Good article about it in The Athletic last week. Says he feels great and just might keep playing "until the wheels fall off".

@chongli is wearing a cup!

The more interesting question to me is what QB's from Kelly's era would have been great today. There were so many glass-Joe Burrow types back in the 80's and 90's that are totally forgotten. Guys like Chris Miller or Chris Chandler. I mean, Justin Herbert IS Rob Johnson. When Goodell changed the rules in 2010 to protect concussion prone young QB's Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger it changed the type of QB that is able to succeed.

So he's tracking toward like 30 grabs and *maybe* 400 yards. He's going to be 32 next season. How much do you think that pays? Age and modest production aside......the saying in pro sports is that the more things you do........the less you get paid. I could see him back for a very similar contract. No more than 1 or 2 years. He may be more valued by certain coaches but their GM isn't going to pay him good money to block, play ST's and be good at scramble drill offense for a type of QB they don't even have. And again, not at that age.

We thought it would decrease the quality of play. I've been pleasantly surprised that, in general, that has not been the case. It probably is for the elite programs like Georgia and Alabama because their monopoly on talent has been compromised a bit. But better distributed talent is making the quality of play appear better beyond that. When a team is just a position or 2 away from being really good.......they can shop for them in the portal and plug them right in. That's a good thing. I think that a lot of players basically becoming professional at the HS level is leading to more mature players entering college. Look at Williams for Alabama. 17 year old superstar. At the pro level we have seen more young players hit the ground running than we did a generation ago. They play football year round growing up and seem more ready for big stages early. When they were just broke kids getting exploited I think the maturation and discipline were things that were more on the coach to achieve. Transfers used to be a sign that a player didn't like or respect the coach. Now it's about $ and opportunity. Players deserve that. And I don't really think kid's being uncoachable or undisciplined are why Saban quit. IMO he just knew the days of being able to monopolize talent were over and he didn't want to experience occasional seasons like Alabama did this year. I think that if he had stayed in the NFL and had a HoF coaching career there he might do what Belichick did and gladly go back to college and try to build something. But going from winning championships every year or 2 to being just another really good team was a backslide for him. He set the bar too high. I don't blame him. He already owns the records. It's all relative and less success in the future if he stayed in CFB was basically a given.

Happy trails to the wolf in sheep clothing. I will always have nightmares about being caught dead wearing that sweater.

But it's likely that nothing important will come of it. Some shlub interim HC isn't going to be a substantive change. Trading B talent for C talent for the sake of shaking up the roster won't do that either, IMO. It's not a typical NHL franchise that's easy to re-direct. Terry has really outdone himself with this iteration of the rebuild.

I will say this about Groot.......if the question is who has been the best Bills player the last 2 years who is not Josh Allen, the answer is Groot. He's really, really good. The standard for a DE for the franchise with the NFL's all-time sack leader is pretty high though.

Probably not, IMO. Because there is at least still a statistically legitimate argument to be made that they are too young to be "expected" to be a playoff team. By stacking young players instead of building a team properly they've created an abundance of young, dumb players and they seem to be at a point where they don't know what it takes and don't yet care enough about their legacies/careers to work hard enough to overcome their lack of know how. To me the most memorable aspect of the Bills "drought" was watching one GM after the next drafting another 20 year old underclassmen onto their rudderless ship and wondering why nothing ever changed despite some of those guys being great talents. When they finally made the playoffs it was with one of the oldest teams in the league. At some point you probably need a bunch of very good veteran leaders if you are going to break a losing culture.

I chose Benford. Rousseau next. Premium positions and both rank in the top 15. Spencer Brown is having a good year but is underrated because analytics don't take into account what having a bully like that does to help an offense. He could be a surprise All Pro. Brown is more likely than Rousseau or Benford where there are more generally accepted statistical measures. Dawkins would be next, IMO. Aside from Allen, Shakir has been their best offensive skill player, IMO. He's been as expected, IMO. There isn't a complete surprise breakout star like Bernard was last year when he had a splash play season for the ages.

I think it's pretty clear that the players don't have much(if any) respect for Terry Pegula. The fact that he thought a speech from HIM about anything would make a positive difference underscores how clueless he is about how they perceive him and his stewardship. He's literally the one constant in the 14 years of failure. These are young men. By nature they are just as prone to buying completely into narratives to explain their roles in failure as they are to being coaxed into playing better by charismatic leadership. Terry Pegula is the losingest owner in the history of the NHL. At a point it no longer matters if you are well intentioned or if the players think you are a pleasant old fart. No respect, no buy-in.

Oklahoma State hasn't had a team capable of winning a national championship since the 1940's when they beat that powerhouse St Mary and were retroactively awarded a title 70 years later.😂 The team you are talking about didn't beat a team that finished anywhere near the playoff field in the rankings. And they lost to Iowa State and Baylor in the same season! OK State and the teams that beat them were not programs that could realistically be expected to beat an SEC team in a playoff format. The fact that you are in denial about it underscores my point. That was a season where Georgia and Alabama totally embarrassed their opponents in the playoff. Which is kinda' how the 4 team playoff usually went pre-NIL. This is among the reasons why NIL and the transfer portal are good things. The elite programs are still very good but the talent has become better distributed. There are more teams with a chance now.........which makes a 12 team playoff possible. And the fact that the non-playoff teams have a little recruiting edge in the portal is what a pro league would call a "competitive balance" measure. The way it was before may have been easier for a billionaire funded Oklahoma State to finish with a top 10 ranking.........but it was irrelevant because they had no actual chance to win a national championship tournament. Alabama's 3rd string had far more NFL talent than OK State's starting 22. That was how college football actually was. As bad as Michigan got whooped that season you could double that for that OK State. You wouldn't be wishing for it back if you got to that playoff. You were saved a reality check, obviously.

Yeah who can forget that 2021 Oklahoma State defense. Sure the Cowboys lost almost half of their games..........and got beaten by a .500 Wisconsin team in their bowl game........but in your mind.......if only they'd have gotten to play Alabama and Georgia in the playoffs. You are clownishly delusional about the quality of your team's program, dude. 😂

I agree that putting Josh Allen in the Patriot system really helped evolve his game. I wanted him to be in more of a traditional under center system with true play action to allow him to stretch the field. Nowadays, that's a Shanahan tree thing. I think Allen would have made it in a Shanahan system too but what's been PROVEN is that the EP got him to where he is. But I don't give Daboll as much credit for that. That's the system he knows. I think he's proven at his other OC/HC jobs that he's not all that exceptional at what he does. McBeane probably deserve more of the credit for putting him in an EP system.

Hey, I'm not promising Brady is going to be a good HC. But he's likely to be one next season. If a team was really doing a DEEP dive into Brady........they'd be wise to look into his history in perceived McDermott mistakes at the end of big games. Brady's second and 9 call after the 2 minute warning of the divisional loss to the Chiefs last year was one of the most inexplicably stupid calls in a big moment that I've seen. And his decision to try to tush push with 1 minute left against the Rams last week was flat out stupid. And conversely, his decision to NOT tush push from the 1 on 3rd down before the half yesterday cost the team 7 points and kept Detroit in it. I think the first and third instances were both examples of an ambitious young HC trying to put a big play on his audition tape when it was NOT in the best interest of the team to do so. But regardless of why, all 3 were very bad decisions in key moments of big games. But the reality is that teams don't tend to dig that deep. Just watch the Giants offseason "Hard Knocks". They were literally looking up stats on pro-football reference to decide on free agents. We think teams do a lot more in-depth work than they usually do. It will be a surprise to them when he does something inexplicable in these situations the first time as a HC.

You still beating your wife? Or were you joking about that?

Brady has been an OC for about 40 games now, not 23. I'm guessing you thought he was only in Carolina for part of 1 season instead of a season and half. That's not an inconsequential amount of games as an NFL OC for a 35 year old HC candidate. Brady may well have his choice of multiple HC vacancies. I think it was pretty obvious that he had that Lions game circled all season as his own personal matchup against everyone's #1 HC candidate Ben Johnson. He proved he wasn't outclassed as a play caller, at least. Yesterday was a negative turn of events for New Orleans or anyone else who was looking at Brady but doesn't have a franchise QB or one of the top 2 picks in this draft.

Not sure? How about when you are whining about not having a competitive NIL budget.😂 So NOW you want to level the economic playing field? Wasn't bothering you when T.Boone was giving you out-sized facilities(among other things) to compete with the best programs. The on-field product in college football has never been more competitive. There are actually more than 1-2 teams that can win a national championship.......for the first time in forever. But your takeaway is that it's unfair to your fringe top 30 program because NIL isn't a strength.......at the moment. I'm sorry if it's temporarily gotten a little harder for your program to get into the top 10 more frequently. But the reality is that in those seasons when paper tiger OK State teams were highly ranked they would have been beaten down by a 50 point margin by the eventual champion. They were never as close as the ranking indicated because there was such a larger gap between the best and the rest. NIL and the portal are helping to close that gap and distribute talent better. You just need your 'boys to get on the NIL train.