hondo in seattle

Onto either Iga Swiatek or Liudmila Samsonova next. Either the #1 in the world or the #13. But she's beaten both before.

Weirdly, we've won every game I've ever attended though I've only seen 4 or 5 Bills games in person including the Miami playoff game in the 1990s and the regular season thrashing of the Chiefs a couple of year ago. I can be bought, too, btw. Given my streak, I think you guys should pay my way to the Super Bowl when we go. Btw, this thread makes me feel like a lousy fan. The only game I've ever rewatched was The Comeback which I used to own on DVD. I've never even seen the first SB. I was in Desert Storm at the time, far away from any TV, and was never inclined to watch a painful replay.

FWIW... Based on a single simulation, ESPN projected a 7-win season for the Bills. "It turned out the Buffalo Bills needed a No. 1 receiver after all. Under offensive coordinator Joe Brady, Buffalo took a more run-heavy approach in this season simulation, but it resulted in the offense taking a step back and quarterback Josh Allen having his worst statistical season since the early parts of his career. The defense couldn't make up the gap, either, resulting in a disastrous 7-10 playoff-less season for a team that was considered a Super Bowl contender entering the season." But their Football Power Index, based on 20,000 simulations, has the Bills as the fifth best team in the NFL behind the 49ers, Chiefs, Ravens, and Lions. www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/41034817/simulating-2024-nfl-season-predictions-playoffs-super-bowl-champion

@Don Otreply, this is a cogent response and I'm not trying to be argumentative. But let me ask... What changes in scheme do you think McD needs to make? What effective concepts are other teams making use of that McD isn't? You make a good point about the benefits of hiring from the outside. The benefit to internal promotes is that you know them, can guess their likelihood of success, know if they're good culture fits, know their work habits and interpersonal skills, etc. The advantage of external hires is, as you say, they sometimes bring in fresh ideas. I think perhaps the best course is to mix up it up: use both internal promotes and external hires. Though if I had to pick one, I'd pick internal promotes because in my experience, the success rate is higher. But because they don't necessarily bring in fresh ideas as you say, I always encourage internal promotes to be curious, explore, talk to peers outside of the organization, and otherwise find ways to learn & develop new ideas. I don't know how insular the Bills coaching staff is but I suspect they study other teams in detail and there aren't a lot of innnovative concepts in the NFL that they're not aware of and understand. But I may be wrong.

As someone who's traveled in something like 46 states and 25 countries, if I won a billion dollars in the lottery, I'd buy four homes. One each in Buffalo, Seattle, and the Philippines because my wife and I have family and friends in all those places. And, of course, I'd want a place to stay while attending Bills home games. The fourth house would be in San Francisco.

As someone who visits San Francisco often, I don't see the ruination that's often talked about in politically biased media. It's true that SF has a homeless problem. And, yes, downtown hasn't entirely recovered from Covid. Occupancy rates are still lower than pre-Covid and downtown retail & restaurant businesses suffer as a result. Nonetheless, San Francisco thrives economically. San Francisco is the heart of the Bay Area with a GDP of $729 billion, about 10x more than metro Buffalo and more than many countries. The only metro areas in the world with larger GDPs are NY, Tokyo, and LA. The average household income in San Francisco is about $119,000, one of the highest among the world's major cities. And San Francisco is safer than Buffalo. San Francisco has 696 violent crimes per 100,000 versus 736 in Buffalo. Buffalo had 14.1 homicides per 100,000 last year. San Francisco had 6.2. Then there's the diverse music scene, world class museums, tremendous parks, Michelin starred restaurants (as well as an amazing assortment of ethnic eateries), countless tourist attractions, and so on. Last weekend I took the Husky for a 14 mile jog starting in Golden Gate Park, one of America's premier urban parks, to Ocean Beach where we passed people surfing, to Land's End - a trail along rocky cliffs with amazing veiws of the Bay, through the pretty Sea Cliff neighborhood where Robin Williams use to live, to the Presidio where hundreds of people were strolling along the Promenade, enjoying the view of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge, and back to GG Park. I saw thousand of happy people and not a single homeless person or drug transaction. The city has its problems but it's hardly the post-apocolyptic smoking ruin some make it out to be.

I wish Kurt would do film work with Josh during the offseason.

Maybe... But Martin had the 28th best average in the NFL last season (26th Net). He had only one good year in his career - back in 2016. After 11 years in the league, he's probably not going to get any better than he was last season. And he wasn't good last season. Araiza is just beginning his NFL career. His trajectory probably points in a better direction.

9 spots higher than Martin?

Should have never released Punt God.

Makes it to the round of 16. Maybe this is Jess's year!

Ken's a very knowledgeable guy. If I was anywhere near Buffalo, I'd pay to hear him talk.

Agree. Like the guy a little more now after that clip.

I think you're confusing him with his dad. Bobby Babich has never been a DC before, let alone a HC. Though I forget how old he is. Bobby Junior looks like a college kid but is 41 and has been in coaching for 18 years now.

Sadly, this is exactly true. Woman's tennis doesn't have just one 'Super Bowl' each year, they have four: the US, French, and Australian Opens - and Wimbledon. Jess has won lesser events but, despite her talent, zero Super Bowl type competitions. Just like the Bills. And the Sabres. But another Pegula owned team, the Buffalo Bandits, has won six championships. So we do have that.

As a former army officer, I was trusted to call "plays" during game time because I was thoroughly trained to do so. This makes me wonder what kind of training Babich received from McD on play-calling. Did they watch film together with McD drilling him, "Okay, what are you expecting from their offense here? So what do you call? Why?" Did they do anything else?

For those who don't follow Jessica, she had injuries at the beginning of the year but has come on strong since. She won the Berlin Ladies Open as well as the Canadian Open (for the second consecutive year) and made it to the finals of the Cincinatti Open. Currently ranked #6 (off a peak of #3), she's won something like 8 of her last 9 matches against top ten opponents but has yet to win a Grand Slam and, at the age of 30, her window may be closing.

Yep. Warner wasn't even deemed good enough to be on a practice squad. He was only good enough to stock the shelves where the practice squad players bought their groceries. It's an amazing story. Sometimes scouts and coaches get things wrong, though it remains true that the vast majority of p-squad players don't become impact players.

True. But Allen's critics have noticed other stats. For example, Josh was second in INTs last season. The season before, he led the league in fumbles. As Bills fans, we also know that Allen doesn't throw a lot of picks in the playoffs. Or late in the game. Or that he's often carrying the team on his back desperately trying to make plays when either his receivers aren't getting open or his OL isn't protecting him. We know the bigger picture, not all NFL fans do, nor all the AP media guys who vote on the MVP. Still, ball security hasn't been one of his strengths.

You might be right. If we had a HOF RB in the backfield - imagine someone like Jim Brown - I'd run the ball at lot if I was the coach/coordinator. But we don't. We have a HOF QB. I expect us to throw a bunch. Though maybe slightly less than last year. And maybe with an lower average depth of target. Joe Brady has some West Coast blood in him and the West Coast prioritizes higher percentage throws. As an ex-soldier, I think about it like this. We're going to war. We have a bunch of mediocre weapons but one really good one. We need to fire the good one a lot.

Do you want a HC who doesn't fire people who underperform? It's his job to build a coaching staff that gets the players to perform their very best. He's made some mistakes there, no doubt. Availability is part of the problems too. When Rick Dennison was hired as OC, I didn't think for a second that this was the guy McD really wanted. I figured this was the guy McD could get because most of the talented coordinator candidates were happily under contract somewhere else. Head Coaches usually take a few years to get the coaching staff they want. And even then, they'll lose guys (like Daboll) who find bigger opportunities elsewhere. McD has NOT been good with the OC position. So far, only 1 of the 4 has been good though I still have hope for Brady. But I want a HC who's unafraid of firing coordinators who don't excel at their jobs.

I think this is weird. I also think it's weird that we're a passing team but only carrying 5 wideouts on the 53.

Already having McD as our defensive guru and Josh as our QB puts us in playoff contention. Needless to say, however, we have talent issues at certain position groups. But I think/hope/pray we don't lose as many key players to injuries this season as last. I think having Babich as DC, instead of McD wearing both the HC and DC hats, will prove to be an advantage. I think, with a whole offseason to reset the offense, we'll discover Joe Brady is a better OC than Dorsey. Yikes, that's a lot of thinking. Good things don't usually happen when I think too much. Still I'm going with... 11-6

Seems to have the physical tools. 4.40. 9.85 RAS score.

Chris Brown goes off over Hardy's release. Tasker calls MVS a "nonentity."