mjt328

I don't understand why people keep pointing to Tua's stats. The Dolphins destroyed a legitimate playoff team (the Rams) on Sunday, using the same formula that we used last season. And if not for resting our starters in Week 17, we most likely would have won 11 games using that formula. As I pointed out in another thread, the Dolphins next five games are against the Cardinals, Chargers, Broncos, Jets and Bengals. They could easily cruise through that stretch with a 3-2 record, putting them at 7-5 going into the final quarter of the season. The way they are playing right now, it wouldn't be a far stretch for them to be 8-4 at that point. During that same stretch, the Bills get the Seahawks, Cardinals, a bye, the Chargers and 49ers. The way this team has been playing over the last month, I would be shocked if we are better than 2-2 over this next set of games. I don't think the Bills can outscore the Seahawks and the 49ers are an absolutely terrible matchup for our defense. We should beat the Chargers. The Cardinals are a toss-up. My guess is that we are sitting at 8-4 or 7-5, which is exactly where I anticipate the Dolphins being. Every week, I become more skeptical that McDermott/Frazier can get this defense on track. At this point, we can no longer look at the 2019 defense and say the 2020 version is just having a bad stretch. For whatever reason, this year's unit is just plain bad. I would venture to say the 2020 Bills defense is among the worst in the NFL. At the same time, the offense has clearly come back to Earth. They aren't a unit capable of regularly scoring 30+ points. Put those things together, and I think we are looking at a pretty rough second-half of the season. I still think we can scrape together 9-10 wins. But don't be surprised if the Dolphins are right there too.

Many of them have also been HUGE plays. - Andre Roberts tipping the ball in the air, and starting the blowout against the Titans - John Brown dropping a key first down against the Chiefs - Gabriel Davis dropping the touchdown pass Sunday Just another part of this team underperforming horribly.

The Bills haven't beaten a QB of Russell Wilson's caliber since Sean McDermott became our coach. This once proud defense has become totally gutless. My guess is they will try to repeat the Kansas City strategy, rather than play confident and aggressive. They will guard against the big plays and deep throws, but fail to challenge the underneath passing game. And then get gashed in the running game as usual. Instead of dictating the game, McDermott/Frazier will cross their fingers and hope Seattle either gets impatient or turns the ball over. I would feel more confident in this game, if our offense had actually showed some life over the last 4 weeks. This clearly isn't a team that can regularly score 30+ points and win in shootouts.

The main thing a GM should be judged on is how he drafts. I'm a believer that it takes about 3 years to properly judge a pick, and we should get at least 3 starting quality players in a normal draft class. That number would need to be higher in a year with extra Day 1-2 picks. It's hard for many Bills fans to criticize Brandon Beane, because he's the man behind our most successful run in over 20 years. But with the moment of truth coming for the 2018 class, the results are sadly starting to look less than thrilling. Yes, we were able to land a franchise QB in Josh Allen thanks to an extra pick from the previous year's draft, and trading away players like Cordy Glenn and Tyrod Taylor. But our other prize pick from that class, Tremaine Edmunds, is quickly becoming a massive liability. You can always recognize a failed pick when they don't get the 5th Year Option, and at this point I would be shocked if we activate his. Harrison Phillips looked promising as a rookie, but hasn't contributed anything positive this year. Taron Johnson and Levi Wallace have been awful this year. Nobody else has even cracked the starting lineup. Beane gets one more offseason before he will be forced to give Josh Allen $30 million+ per year (this year he only counts $5.8 million towards the cap for comparison). Once that happens, our ability to re-sign talent and address holes in Free Agency will be significantly decreased. The only way the Bills keep winning is by getting significant contributions from guys on rookie contracts. There will be a time when we can't just trade/sign someone like Darryl Williams to start when a high pick like Cody Ford busts. You actually have to get production out of Ford.

We played the same kind of football last year, and (in my opinion) looked much less impressive doing it. Looking at their schedule, I can easily see them finishing with 10+ wins by season's end. The Bills are obviously in the driver's seat right now, seeing as how they sit 2.5 games up at this point. But things can change fast. We have the tougher schedule going forward, and I think the Dolphins ultimately look like a better team. The Bills play the Seahawks and Cardinals next. The way we've played lately, I can't see us winning either. Very possible we go into the bye at 6-4. The Dolphins play the Cardinals, Chargers and Broncos next. If they can go 2-1 over that stretch, they are sitting at.... 6-4. Don't discount them.

Maybe the problem is... the Bills NEVER play a beautiful game. Win or lose. Either the Bills play a pathetic team that we should beat by double-digits (Jets, Pats), and somehow turn it into a 4th quarter, edge of your seat, last-second pulled out of our backsides victory... OR we get our teeth smashed-in by one of the legitimate Super Bowl contenders (Titans, Chiefs). Can you name even one game in the past 3 years, where the Bills have been impressive across the board? Every game we look absolutely terrible in some area. I've been on the same side of the argument as you, saying "a win is a win" and fans shouldn't be complaining. But the bar has been raised on my expectations. I'm not going to just be happy with wins against bad teams. I said before the season, the Bills absolutely MUST win a playoff game this year, or this season will ultimately be a failure in my eyes. And right now, I would consider our chances 50-50 against even the lowest Wild Card contenders in the AFC like the Browns, Colts or Raiders.

Yet they don't make adjustments in the areas that are not working. Teams are killing us with the quick underneath passes. Every. Single. Week. Yet we continue to play WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY off the ball. The top receiver for our opponent was Jakobi Meyers. But our corners were regularly playing 8-10 yards off the receivers, and then started backtracking farther before the snap. Just because our scheme is zone, doesn't mean you just let the WRs catch everything without contest. I've been harping on many of the reasons our defense is struggling. The injuries. The lack of a true 1-Tech DT. But I'm also starting to realize the book is totally out on our secondary. We have one good CB, and the other guys just CANNOT cover. In fact, they don't even try. Whether it's Levi Wallace, Taron Johnson, Josh Norman, etc., their plan seems to be... let up a 7 yard pass, then hope I can tackle him before the marker. If the only way our Defense can make a stop is when the other team makes a mistake (penalty, sack, turnover), then SOMETHING needs to change.

As I stated in a post earlier this week, the Buffalo Bills are incapable of putting together 4 quarters of good football. That's one of the main reasons every matchup against the league's bottom-feeders is a nail biter, and we get our face kicked in against the league's better teams. This defense was getting dominated by the Patriots backups, and got fortunate Cam Newton was sloppy holding the ball.

That was the most embarrassing "win" that I've ever witnessed from this team. I'm not pleased at all. Between the multiple key penalties that wiped out big gains by the Patriots offense, the arrogant decision by Bill Belichick to do an onside kick, and ridiculously fortunate fumble recovery in the final seconds... we needed every LUCKY bounce of the football to squeak out a win against a bunch of practice squad-caliber players. At this point, I'm already looking towards next year. The offense is our only hope to carry this team, and it's been mediocre for the last month. This defense is hot trash. And this coaching staff clearly has zero answers for fixing it. Our D-Line gets blown backwards on virtually every play, while our linebackers don't understand basic tackling fundamentals and our secondary plays 18 yards off the receivers. It was interesting to see how much our cornerbacks respect the skills of Jakobi Meyers and Damiere Byrd, that we gave them huge cushions all game. I'm starting to believe the hype that Miami can mount a comeback and take the AFC East. And even if we still manage to win the division, this overrated squad is going to get knocked out in the first round.

Cam Newton for fumbling. What a pathetic performance by our defense.

The NFL only added one additional team. There will be 7 playoff spots this year (three Wild Cards), rather than the usual 6. You can pretty much assume that one WC spot will go to either the Steelers or Ravens, since only one can win the AFC North. The Browns are already 5-2 and have a cakewalk schedule against the NFC East. Hard to see them missing the playoffs this year. That leaves one more WC spot. And unfortunately, the AFC East is matched up against the best division in football (NFC West). All four teams have significantly harder matchups than teams like the Colts or Raiders. It would be pretty surprising if a WC team emerges from the AFC East this year. It's likely either win the division or bust. Tua is a rookie, less than 12 months from a devastating injury that could have cost his career. I wouldn't expect much from him this season.

This game is absolutely monumental. We haven't won the AFC East in 20 years. Our current regime is 0-6 against the Patriots. This is a team that dominated us for two decades. Winning this game would rip the monkey off our backs, make us 6-2 at the halfway point, and put the Bills totally in the driver's seat for taking the division. It would also give the Pats to a 2-5 record and drop them four games behind. They immediately become a longshot for the playoffs. And the once-mighty Patriots organization is forced to start planning for next year. On the flipside, losing Sunday would put the AFC East back in play. It would not only give the Patriots life and hope for winning the division, but it would be a confidence destroyer for the Bills organization. Previous Patriots teams were possibly vulnerable to an upset. This Patriots team is inferior and has a bunch of players hurt. If we can't pull it off this Sunday, the mental aspect is going to kick-in and this team is going to stop believing they CAN beat New England. Not to mention, our upcoming schedule is brutal, and the chances of landing a Wild Card with less than 10 wins is not great. Bottom Line.... This Sunday has the potential to spark the turning point for both organizations. WE ABSOLUTELY MUST WIN.

Maybe his fear isn't Mike Glennon. Maybe his fear is that Jacksonville ends up with the #1 pick and gets Trevor Lawrence. At the very least, the Jaguars will probably be in talks for one of the other top guys like Justin Fields, Trey Lance or Kyle Trask. The upcoming QB class is supposed to be very good, and this may be Minshew's best shot at keeping the starting job.

This is an excellent point. The Bills have been able to stop the run when the gameplan is dedicated to doing so. They did a pretty good job of shutting down Le'Veon Bell, Josh Jacobs and Derrick Henry. When they have focused primarily on stopping the pass (Rams, Chiefs), is when they have gotten totally gashed on the ground. So the real question... If the Bills load the box and stuff the run, can the Patriots offense take advantage of us in the passing game? Consider that New England is going to be without Julian Edelman (knee surgery) and very likely will be without N'Keal Harry (concussion). That is the top two receiving weapons on a team that already has none. Cam Newton will have literally nothing to work with, in a game where wind is also expected to be 25-50 mph. On the other side, Bill Belichick always focuses on taking away the other team's top weapons. My guess is that he will dictate a heavy amount of coverage on Stephon Diggs, and then do his best to confuse Josh Allen by changing his pre-snap looks. This is where Allen's development since last season, and our abundance of weapons comes into play. We will probably be forced into sticking heavy with the run. But when we throw, it will be extremely important for Allen to stay poised, spread the ball around, and not force the ball into coverage. I agree the Bills have struggled to get their running backs going. But we get back Jon Feliciano, which I think will be a boost to the blocking. And we did start to show some life last week with the return of Zack Moss. We far outweigh the Patriots in talent, and I don't see any reason we don't walk away from this with a win.

This is why it's always important to look at the contract details before judging a contract. On the surface, some fans like criticizing Brandon Beane on overpaying for players. But at the end of the day, many of them are only 1-2 year rentals. Beane seems to be taking a similar approach with the D-Line as he did last year with the O-Line. Sign a bunch of veterans to short-term deals. Then see which one are a good fit and which ones are not. Move on from the rest.

The rise of the New England Patriots dynasty around 20-25 years ago, coincided very much with the demise of the 90's era Buffalo Bills. They never took the AFC East when we were at our peak, loaded with Hall of Famers and in the midst of our Super Bowl run. During those years, the Patriots were a total joke and not even worth mentioning on our schedule. It wasn't until our key players started getting near retirement, free agency started depleting our roster and they happened to add Bill Parcells/Drew Bledsoe that the Patriots were even a threat to beat us on Sundays. Even then, their dominance in the division didn't start until Jim Kelly was long retired and we were busy having QB controversies between Doug Flutie and Rob Johnson. While hoisting the Lombardi Trophy, I highly doubt any of their fans were thinking... "This would be so much more satisfying if we had done it against Jim Kelly, Bruce Smith and Thurman Thomas." They didn't care. Just like we didn't care during the 1990s that our dominance over the AFC East wasn't happening over Bob Griese and Larry Csonka. And we shouldn't really care now about Tom Brady.

Unless we are trying to make a move for another position, in which case trading Murphy could: a) Clear cap space b) Open a roster spot Otherwise I agree. Trading him for a late round pick has very little value right now.

I don't notice the refs unless they are clearly making BAD calls.

It comes down to a lot more than just size. Just because a guy weights a lot, doesn't mean he has the strength or playing leverage to manage double-teams. Generally speaking, the larger DTs are more successful at the 1-Tech spots, because it's a lot harder to move a 350+ pound Nose Tackle than someone "undersized" like the 287 pound Ed Oliver. Most of the big guys also lack the burst off the snap to get into the backfield, making them less than ideal at the 3-Tech. But that's not always the case. Aaron Donald is around the same size as Oliver, but regularly destroys double-teams. With that said, I don't generally trust analytic "rankings" of the 1-Tech position. If a guy's job is to occupy blockers, and graders only award points for getting penetration into the backfield, that guy will probably get a bad grade for just doing his job (see Star Lotulelei). I don't know if Dontari Poe would be a good signing at this point or not.

The Bills have been gradually improving since the time Sean McDemott got here. A "signature win" would be representative of how good the team is at the time. We were a borderline Wild Card team in 2017, in the middle of a rebuild with a rookie QB in 2018, and then back to being a solid Wild Card team in 2019. It's hard to notch a signature win against a Super Bowl contender when you simply aren't that good yet. - I would consider our road wins against the Falcons and Chiefs (both 10-6) to be signature wins in 2017, and really set the tone for this team breaking the playoff drought. - I would consider our wins against the Titans, Cowboys and Steelers to be signature wins in 2019, with us beating other Wild Card-level teams. The bar has clearly been raised this season, and nobody is going to be impressed with us beating teams like the Raiders (or even the Patriots) anymore. The games against the Titans and Chiefs were opportunities to make our mark. And we failed badly at both. That doesn't mean we can't turn things up in the second half of the season, and notch one of these kinds of victories. If we can walk away with a victory against the Seahawks, 49ers or Steelers... that would definitely be the signature win that fans are looking for.

Is it possible that our Defense could "course correct" and improve in this area over the second half of the season? Especially if we start getting our key pieces healthy? I agree that we probably can't continue winning the majority of our games if the defense continues to struggle at this pace. But it's also hard for me to believe a defense that was Top 5 for the last two years (and was fantastic at getting stops on 3rd Down), could suddenly drop off a cliff and instantly become one of the NFL's historically bad defenses in that same area.

If you have been following the NFL that long, you know that things change. The Pats don't have our number. They have clearly had our number for the last 20 years. But we dominated them the decade prior. Buffalo has also won the last few meetings against the Patriots when they have been without Tom Brady. I understand the respect people have for Bill Belichick. But his coaching clearly isn't overcoming the roster problems so far this year. Early in the season, opponents weren't expecting the drastic change in offensive style and were caught off guard by Cam Newton's running ability. Defenses have adjusted and now their lack of offensive weapons is killing them.

Yes, but I think you are missing the overall point. The Rams game further amplifies my point about inconsistency. The Bills played fantastic at the start of that game. Then totally fell apart in the second half. And then needed to comeback and win the game. Why can't this team ever play good on offense AND defense? Why can't they play good for 4 full quarters?

Coming up on the midpoint of the season, the Bills will either be sitting at 6-2 or 5-3, and will be in the driver's seat for winning the AFC East. Yet it's not a stretch to say most fans are disappointed in the team's overall performance. I believe the biggest problem is a lack of consistency. During the Brandon Beane/Sean McDermott era, this team seems totally incapable of putting together a FULL four-quarter performance on both sides of the ball. When the Offense plays good, the Defense struggles to stop anyone. When the Defense shuts opponents down, the Offense can't score. When the team gets a big lead, they inevitably fall apart in the second half. When the team starts flat, they often come back in the 4th Quarter. For weeks they are unstoppable in the Red Zone. Then suddenly, they go 0-9 in a single game on scoring a touchdown. At the end of the day, the Bills do usually seem to emerge with a victory. But games we should be winning in blow-outs, always end up becoming nail-biters. And of course, we can't seem to get over the hump against the best teams in the league. It's easy to spot the places where the Bills have been underperforming over the last several games. But the lack of consistency is still a disturbing trend overall, and something I can't quite put my finger on. Is it a problem with coaching and scheming opponents? Do our players have trouble staying focused? Thoughts?

Eh. I'm enjoying the Patriots demise. The only thing missing is that Tom Brady isn't involved. But they DON'T have competent QB play. How many teams could make the claim... "We would have done fine, if only our QB didn't suck."