mjt328

It takes a very bold team to make major changes after a 13-3 season, and third straight division title. Unfortunately, I don't think the Bills are that bold. We probably have to wait another year. My guess is they will spend the next 2-3 months convincing themselves (and much of the fanbase) that we just faced too much adversity over the course of the season (injuries, weather, Damar Hamlin), and they still have enough talent to compete for a title. We will re-sign Tremaine Edmunds to a massive contract. Beane will finally toss a draft pick at the O-Line. There will be some optimism again. The real question is whether the team totally implodes next season and completely misses the playoffs (Dolphins and Jets are both coming fast), or if we are destined for another quick playoff exit.

The problem isn't Sean McDermott/Leslie Frazier's defensive scheme. The problem is their unwillingness (or possibly their inability) to make major changes when facing elite Quarterbacks and Offensive Coordinators. There are two basic ways to win in the NFL: 1. Outplay your opponent 2. Outsmart your opponent This coaching staff relies 100% on the first method. To them it's always about execution, and playing better than the opponent on gameday. Which is great when you can stay mostly healthy, and are significantly more talented than the opposition. Or when you are only playing 2-3 truly elite quarterbacks during the course of a 17 week season. But the postseason is different. It's NOT JUST ABOUT consistent execution. Once you hit the divisional round, the talent levels between teams are way too similar. The quality of coaching is way higher. They quality of quarterback play is way higher. You can't just go out, and hope YOUR BEST is better than THEIR BEST. You have to relentlessly study film and find weak points to exploit. You have to strategically develop creative game plans and wrinkles (especially on defense) that give you an advantage. So many "good" coaches in the NFL have never figured this out. It's why they win lots of games in the regular season, and then fall apart when the playoffs hit. Unfortunately, I think our staff is among that group.

I'm torn. Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott should be commended for lifting this franchise out of the gutter, and making it relevant for the first time in almost 20 years. But it was VERY clear yesterday. What they constructed is good enough to make the playoffs. It's not good enough to win a Super Bowl. And everyone involved plays a major role in that truth. Beane spent THREE YEARS of major draft resources on the D-Line. What we witnessed yesterday was absolutely unacceptable failure. With their starting O-Line in shambles, the Bengals completely rolled us in the trenches. Not a single one of Beane's high picks made a single play all day. Ed Oliver. AJ Epenesa. Greg Rousseau. Boogie Basham. Our great hope is a 34-year-old Von Miller coming back from his second ACL tear in December next year. McDermott seems to have built a close locker room, and players seem to respect him. But the guy and his staff NEVER bring it when it comes to original/creative gameplans. He always relying on the players to execute the standard playbook, which is JUST NOT ENOUGH when you are facing elite Quarterbacks in the postseason. You have to throw in wrinkles and surprises, and he just never does it. His defense has collapsed in the playoffs four years in a row.

As a front office and coaching staff, the Bills need to be painfully honest with themselves. It may not be time for a complete rebuild. But it's definitely time to rethink how this franchise was constructed and make some major changes. Unfortunately, the Super Bowl window has closed on this group of players. Free agency is probably going to take away Jordan Poyer. Possibly Tremaine Edmunds. We may never see Tre White regain his Pro Bowl form. Due to age and coming back from major injuries, we really can't count on Von Miller or Micah Hyde returning to form. The top draft selections we've made over the last 3-4 years have failed to develop into anything more than low-end starters and backups... Ed Oliver, AJ Epenesa, Greg Rousseau, Boogie Basham. The defense needs a complete overhaul. On offense, we are pretty much Josh Allen, a close-to-30 Stefon Diggs and a bunch of guys who are replaceable. Worse yet, our offensive scheme is not built for bad weather, despite playing in a city that has 4-5 awful wind/snow games every single season. The more we pile on Allen's plate and force him to carry this team alone, the bigger risk we take that he will get injured or mentally drained. The number-one priority in the offseason needs to be re-allocating our draft/cap resources into the O-Line. Build a team that can protect the QB and open holes for the RB. Second priority should be adding reliable weapons who can get open and move the chains.

The signs of this loss coming were apparent way back in October. But anyone in Bills Mafia who suggested this team wasn't Super Bowl caliber was told they were being too critical. Regardless of W-L record or what DVOA says, I've been holding this team to a "Super Bowl or bust" standard since Week 1. Time and time again, they failed the eye test. With each passing week, it became painfully clear this team wasn't as good as their record. I'm upset, but not surprised. I haven't really enjoyed this season since Minnesota in Week 10, because that was the moment in my heart that I realized it wasn't happening this season. Every week I hoped they would prove me wrong. Instead, they just confirmed we were in for a disappointing finish.

The Bills have not played their best football over the last few months (despite our 8 game win streak). It was very disappointing how close the Miami game was, due how many mistakes we made in the 2nd and early 3rd quarters. It seems like the entire sports world is VERY eager to point that out. With that said, it's remarkable how everyone is ignoring how the Bengals needed a miracle fumble return last week, in order to beat the Ravens (with a backup QB as well). They also very easily should have lost to the Patriots a few weeks back. And they haven't exactly been beating the pants off their opponents during their own win streak. Meanwhile, the "powerhouse" Chiefs had two barely wins over the 5-12 Broncos in the final month of the season. They also needed overtime to beat the 3-13-1 Texans and the Malik Willis-led Titans. Lots of close wins for them against inferior competition as well, despite a great W-L record. Bottom line. The AFC is up for grabs.

Agree with this. BUT... I'll admit the sports media is also grating my nerves this week. It's almost like being a parent or a husband. I'll have moments I get upset with my kids and wife, and express my frustrations about them. But if someone else starts ripping on my family, my protective instincts kick in I'll quickly rush to their defense. That's just not OK. So yeah, I'm not exactly happy about Josh Allen's turnovers or with how close the Bills keep making these games. And I've said so many times on this board. But when you've got these fools on ESPN saying our guys aren't even in the same class as Joe Burrow and the Bengals...

Crazy. Everyone keeps saying the Bills won't run the ball, and can't run the ball. These stats don't even count Josh Allen.

Week 2 was probably the last time we saw the Bills play at their peak, and it was amazing. That team would have smashed the Bengals. But I'm not sure we can get back to that level without Micah Hyde and Von Miller both playing. The team we've seen since the bye has been very inconsistent. - The offense either slumps for 2-3 quarters, or it puts up lots of yards/points and turns the ball over. - The defense seems to hold strong until they have a chance to put the game away, and then they let up big plays. - Even our special teams seems to be having costly mistakes at the wrong times. Can the Bills finally cutback on the mistakes? Turnovers. Easy drops. Mental errors. Can our defensive backs make some big plays, and keep this from becoming a total shoot-out? The Bills are the better team when they play clean. It's just hard to picture them putting it all together, when we haven't really seen it happen since halftime of the Packers game.

The Cover 1 guys (who I love by the way) did a full-breakdown of Josh Allen's aggressive nature, and how the Bills gameplan was to attack downfield against the Dolphins. They felt all the criticism of Allen was overblown, because if he was taking all the check-downs, then we also miss out on the numerous big throws he nailed throughout the game. Although I agree with them to an extent... I really think some people are missing the point. Nobody is asking Allen to stop being aggressive and become a check-down machine. They are not asking for Ken Dorsey to become a conservative offensive coordinator. They are only asking for a little bit more balance, and be willing to take safer throws when the risk outweighs the reward. Sometimes the gameplan needs to be altered depending on the score and clock. It's called situational football. Personally, I was great with Allen attacking downfield for almost the entire game. The only time I got frustrated was with 10-11 minutes left in the 4th Quarter. The defense (which had held strong the rest of the game), had just let up their first long TD drive. The Dolphins had just narrowed the score to only 3 points. This was a moment that I felt called for a long/sustained drive, which could give our defense a moment to rest and bleed the clock. Instead, we got two deep shots to Gabe Davis and a sack. Less than a minute off the clock and minus 3 yards.

The Bills defense usually plays very vanilla zone defense for the first 1-2 drives. Once they get a feel for how the other team is attacking, they start adjusting slightly and finding ways to disguise their coverage/rush schemes. That's when they start putting the clamps on. I saw a stat that Buffalo is 22nd in points allowed in the 1st Quarter. They are then ranked 5th in the 2nd Quarter, 3rd in the 3rd Quarter, 6th in the 4th Quarter... and 2nd overall in the NFL.

Exactly. Turnovers are important, because most of them result in either a lost score (3 or 7 points) or an easier score for the other team (3 or 7 points). Bills turnovers on Saturday led to a Field Goal (only needed 18 yards), a Touchdown (only needed 18 yards) and a Defensive Touchdown. A total of 17 points. We got lucky, because the Dolphins also had two turnovers which lead to touchdowns for us. Teams like Buffalo and Kansas City are generally good enough to overcome those point swings, because they are usually 10-14 points better than the opposing team. That is not the case when they play each other.

The 49ers seem like the hottest team in the NFL. But it's really hard for me to trust a rookie QB (especially a 7th rounder) to roll through the playoffs and win a Super Bowl. At some point, one of these defensive coordinators is going to spot his flaws on film and hit him with something unexpected. Right? I just feel like Brock Purdy is going to suddenly lay an egg and kill their season. It very well could be this week.

This exactly. Tom Brady has somehow managed to dodge Father Time for so long, many people are starting to believe he's NEVER going to hit the age wall. Which of course is an illogical assumption to make. He cannot play forever. The media wants to blame it all on his supporting cast, like he was surrounded by the Houston Texans or Chicago Bears. Lots of quarterbacks would love to have the combination of Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. More than likely, the biggest problem for the Bucs is their QB taking a significant step backwards in his skill level.

This has been a very strange year for the Bills. Statistically, they are elite in almost every category. Both offense and defense. Both passing and rushing. They are scoring around 30 points per game, and allowing less than 18. And counting the playoffs, their record is 14-3. But to the eye, this team is frustratingly inconsistent and doesn't seem to be playing anywhere close to its potential. For almost the entire season, they have struggled to put teams away. Regardless of who they are playing. Virtually every week, they barely walk away with a win against an inferior opponent. Scrape out a win in the 4th quarter. Then we look at the stat sheet after the final whistle blows, and find out that everybody played great. It honestly makes zero sense. Sunday was a perfect representation of the Bills season. We sweated out a 34-31 victory against a third-string quarterback and backup O-Line. Anyone who was watching can tell we really didn't play well. But according to the box score, the Bills offense put up 400+ yards and 34 points. Their QB had 350 yards and 3 touchdowns. And the defense actually did a great job shutting them down on the other side.

Talked to a Bengals fan today at the gym. He is deathly afraid of the Bills, and worried his team is going to lose the upcoming game. I told him that I am deathly afraid of the Bengals, and worried we are going to lose the upcoming game. So there you go.

It's clear that Isaiah Hodgins can be an effective WR in the NFL when the ball is thrown his way. The real question is whether he was going to be a difference-maker on THIS roster. Was HE the guy that was going to put this offense over the top? I'm just not seeing it. As a big outside receiver, is he better than Gabe Davis? I don't see any evidence of that. In practice, Hodgins was never able to surpass Jake Kumerow on the depth chart. Seeing how Kumerow has also proven himself as a capable depth receiver AND solid special-teams contributor, that really isn't surprising. So in terms of the actual position he plays, Hodgins was our #4 outside receiver behind Stefon Diggs, Davis and Hodgins. When you factor in the slot guys (Isaiah McKenzie, Jamison Crowder and Khalil Shakir), he was probably the #7 guy most of the season. Now that we've added John Brown as a speed threat and Cole Beasley, you are probably talking about him being the #8-9 guy. I know people want to call this a miss by Brandon Beane, but I'm just not seeing how Hodgins ever gets playing time in this offense. EDIT: I will add that Hodgins was purged from our roster during the time we were dealing with crazy injuries everywhere. So not only was he losing the numbers game in the WR rotation, the Bills were also forced to stash extra corners, safeties and linemen to navigate through it all. It was pretty hard to justify protecting him with an active roster spot, when we were down to our third string defensive backs and needed to bring in Xavier Rhodes/Dean Marlowe.

Many fans have been waiting decades upon decades for the Buffalo Bills to bring home a Super Bowl trophy. They aren't upset because the team lacks "style points." They are upset, because all objective signs point towards this team falling short of that goal...again...after a season where expectations were higher than possibly any point in the history of the franchise. At 43 years old, I'm getting tired of watching other teams hoist the Lombardi and saying maybe next year. And there are tons of fans who have been doing this way longer than me. Since Week 3, we've all been saying "the Bills would be great, if they could just cleanup the dumb mistakes." Well, we have now had two games of mostly consistent/strong play (Weeks 1-2). And the 12 weeks since that point have been filled with the team CONSTANTLY shooting itself in the foot and making stupid errors to keep inferior teams in games we should have won by 20 points. The Bills were supposed to get right after the bye. Then they were supposed to get right once they were healthy. Then they were supposed to get right when the weather/snow situation was resolved and practices got back to normal. Then they were supposed to get right with the emotion surrounding Damar Hamlin. Then they were supposed to get right for the playoffs. Guess what? We got lucky our Wild Card opponent was missing it's starting quarterback. The inferior teams are now gone. Unless there is a drastic upset or injury to major player, the Bills road now goes through the Bengals, Chiefs and then Eagles/49ers. All teams that are equal or slightly better than us. We have no more room for error. I would like to be optimistic, but I've seen no evidence for 3 months that Buffalo can cleanup the mental mistakes to run through that gauntlet.

Some of the greatest and most winning quarterbacks in the history of the NFL... Tom Brady, Joe Montana... relied mostly on short stuff, and not relentlessly attacking downfield. Even guys like Peyton Manning and Drew Brees seemed to have a balance between short, intermediate and deep. You can't always look at the check-down as a give-up play. Sometimes the game situation calls for smarter and safer plays, controlling the clock and gradually moving down the field. The funny thing is... Dorsey/Allen seem to understand this in certain situations. Give them the ball with 3 minutes left in the half, they will call a nice balance of runs/passes. Chewing up clock and taking the short stuff, so they can get the last score and don't leave time on the clock. If they could take that kind of mentality and use it on maybe 2-3 additional drives per game (while staying really aggressive on the others), I think everything would run way smoother.

We got a brief glimpse of what this team is capable of when focused and fully healthy (during Weeks 1 and 2). THAT team was easily the best in the NFL, and fully capable of rolling through the postseason and winning the Super Bowl. Since that point, we've seen this team knocked down a notch by injuries. At times the sheer number of players hurt was absolutely overwhelming. Right now the team is mostly healthy, and we are starting to see Tre White getting back to normal. But being without two All-Pro talents in Micah Hyde and Von Miller still takes us down a peg from where we started. No matter how good our depth is, losing that kind of talent does absolutely hurt. I'm also starting to wonder if this team is mentally/emotionally drained from all of the drama surrounding this season. I know that I'm already worn-out, and I'm just a fan watching from my living room couch. Nobody came into the league with higher expectations, which is a level of pressure I'm not sure they were prepared for. Almost every starter on this roster has missed time with some level of injury, and been forced to battle through. Then you have the constant battles off-field with weather, costing them valuable practice and preparation time. I don't even know how you can describe the Damar Hamlin situation, and how it must affect the players on this roster. What I see now, is a team that HAD the best roster in the NFL... but is now somewhere amongst the Top 5. What I see now, is a team that shows occasional flashes of greatness... but constantly hurts itself with the same stupid mistakes and mental errors every single week. Turnovers. Drops. Missed tackles. Yes. It was enough to get us to 13-3 on the regular season, along with a slim victory in the Wild Card round. It was enough to make us great on paper statistically. The problem is that (due to the injuries), we no longer have a significant talent edge over teams like the Bengals, Chiefs, Eagles and 49ers. And when teams are evenly matched, it's going to come down to whoever can limit the mistakes. That's where the mental aspect comes in. And I've seen no evidence in the last 3-4 months that Buffalo is mentally focused enough to roll through those teams.

The interception off Cole Beasley's hands was definitely not Josh's fault. The fumble recovery/touchdown absolutely was his fault. The deep shot interception to John Brown is iffy. Unclear if it was a bad throw, or receiver breaking off the route. The sack/fumble (we thankfully recovered) was not his fault either, being a blindside hit to his arm. My frustration with yesterday's game was more than just the turnovers. It was the brazen attitude that if the Dolphins brought a blitz, we were going to throw it down the field and make them pay NO MATTER WHAT. There was a sequence after the Dolphins made it a 3 point game in the 4th quarter. This was the time for a slow/methodical touchdown drive, not a kill-shot. Instead we took two deep shots down the sideline to Gabe Davis, and then got sacked. Total wasted drive that immediately put our defense back on the field. We barely escaped yesterday. We have barely escaped games for most of the last 2-3 months. That type of play isn't going to cut it anymore. Our next three games (assuming we go that far), will likely be against the Top 3-5 teams in the entire NFL. You are right. Beat the Patriots. Lost to the Broncos.

There needs to be balance to Josh Allen's play. It's possible for him to be extremely aggressive attacking downfield... but also have an element of patience and willingness to take some of the underneath stuff when it's left open. It's possible for him to move around and escape defenders in the pocket... but also know when it's time to accept the play is dead, protect the ball and take the sack. It doesn't necessarily have to be an "either/or" situation. Right now, Allen's career trajectory is moving very similar to Brett Favre. Favre had a big arm, with a gunslinger mentality. Every Packer game was filled with highlights of incredible throws and jaw-dropping plays. He was easily a Top 3 quarterback in the NFL for the majority of his career, and one of the game's premier faces. The media adored him, and opponents feared him. By his retirement, he had loaded up the stat books as the all-time touchdown leader. First ballot Hall of Famer all the way. But from a TEAM perspective, the Packers were huge underachievers during Favre's career. Over his 16 seasons in Green Bay, they won the division 7 times and made the playoffs 11 times. Despite constantly being favorites to win the Lombardi, the team always seemed to get stuck in the playoffs... mostly because of Favre's erratic decision making and turnovers. He particularly had trouble getting past the Dallas Cowboys (like us and the Chiefs). Nobody can question Favre's toughness or greatness. But the fact his team only made it to one Super Bowl (barely winning it), is definitely a huge disappointment.

Brady has played 23 years in the NFL, and never had a top QB in the same division. During the 20 years he played for New England, all three of the AFC East teams were without a franchise quarterback. Probably the only division in the NFL with a stretch that long ever. The same year Josh Allen broke out and became Top 5, Brady left and signed with Tampa Bay. Then in Brady's first year with the Bucs, we saw a significant decline in the skills of both Drew Brees and Matt Ryan. Of course, Brees retired just a year later. Ryan got traded to Indy this past season, leaving the NFC South as the worst division in all of football.

That is conventional wisdom. Run the ball. Control the clock. Keep Josh Allen off the field. Hope your defense creates turnovers and limits points. I'm going the complete opposite direction. The Bills have only had two games under 20 points this season (17 and 19 points). That is the absolute floor for this offense. So even if their defense plays lights out, I'm not sure a Skyler Thompson-led team can put together enough long methodical drives to put up 20 points. My gameplan would be tons of trick plays, and taking at least one deep shot every drive. With Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, you might get lucky and get a couple big plays. I'm taking the chance they can get 2-3 bombs for touchdowns, over the same number of 8-9 play drives.

I was hoping Lamar Jackson would play, but it's not looking promising. The situation in that game will be similar to ours against Miami. The Wild Card team would have a good chance with their starting QB, but will probably get clobbered without him. I think it's more possible Los Angeles knocks off Jacksonville, and then gives Kansas City a run for their money. Odds are very strong that our road to the Super Bowl goes through the Bengals/Chiefs though.