TheBrownBear

I don't know so much about this take. KC came out fired up and ready to play. They were an absolute machine until the end of half gaffe by Mahomes/Reid. I think that sort of took the sails out of their wind. In the second half they looked almost disinterested or like a team who thought they could turn it on when they needed to at the end. Goes to show you how quickly a game can change and that once you lose momentum it's hard to lock in and wrestle it back - even for the best of teams. That's why I've always believed that you should put the pedal to the medal the entire game the way we did against the Pats. You take a breather and you're inviting in what you saw yesterday from the Chiefs.

Our defense had to have been the most overrated unit in the entire NFL this year. They were great when a team was one dimensional (or made so by a quick start from our offense), but it didn't come close to holding up against better offenses and it seems utterly incapable of getting a big stop at critical moments of a game. In fact, the only time I can remember our defense making a truly big play in the second half of a contested game was Rousseau's pick of Mahomes at the 10 yard line in the regular season Chiefs game. Other than that, it seems teams were able to get whatever they wanted down the stretch against us in a close game (which is why we went 0fer in 1 score games this year). Addressing these defensive failures is my number 1 priority in the offseason if I'm Beane and I'd start with a long hard look at Leslie Frazier. Just curious - for those who have followed Frazier's career, is this kind of his MO? Beat up on weaklings only to become a bottom-5 defense against diversified offenses? And I get that "good offenses" are tough for anyone to stop. But we seemingly can't even slow these guys down for the most part.

Mahomes was putrid in the 2nd half. He looked like a rookie. It was shocking honestly.

Sorry for your loss. Your Dad sounds like a great guy.

He'll get over it. He's playing Pebble Beach this week.

I like Knox. I think he'll make another leap next year and be a solid top-5 to top-10 TE. I like Sweeney too as a second TE. I think we are set at the position.

Honestly, just goes to show there's no such thing as a perfect path or a single year window or whatever. Nothing is a given. It's the playoffs, every game is a new and different opportunity, and anything can (and seemingly will) happen. I believe we will continue to make the playoffs year in, year out with Josh, and we will eventually break through. This year was our first as the "hunted", taking everyone's best punch. Based on how we played down the stretch, I think we'll be better prepared to handle it next season.

BRB, gonna go troll Nick Wright for a quick minute

Nice to see Mahomes with the epic choke job

And this is why I HATE the Chiefs. Also, why is it that some millionaire football players would rather live life as a gangsta than just enjoy the fruits of their labor on the gridiron? It's bizarre.

Gotta tip my hat to the dude. GOAT in my book. Enjoy retirement, Tom.

Oh yes, those poor "objective" fans are just the victims of the majority of the rest of us fans who are Kool-Aid drinkers. How is this for objectivity? - 2 straight division crowns - 3 epic beatdowns in last 4 games against the GOAT NFL coach - 25 year old QB who is emerging as a top-5 player in the entire league - Coach/GM combo who is 4/5 in making the playoffs after 17 years of hopeless futility - Season ending road playoff losses to probably the best team in at least the past decade, with a HOF coach, otherworldly skill players (Kelce/Hill), and maybe the future GOAT at QB. And we were 13 seconds or a 50/50 coin flip away from taking them down this time. - About to build a stadium that will guarantee the Bills stay in town for at least the next 20 years, when only 8-9 years ago we seemed almost certain to lose them to Toronto. Yes - The loss was horribly painful. Yes - Mistakes were made in the final sequences that cost us a win and a SB opportunity. Yes - we need to get better in certain positions and yes the coaching staff needs to reflect and learn from this to avoid similar mistakes in the future. But we've all vented and commiserated over it for 6 days now. I'm personally tiring of the handwringing at this point, and I think a lot of the "Kool-Aid Drinkers" are probably feeling the same, which is why you're starting to see the blowback against these despondency threads. But, at the same time, this board exists for all Bills fans. We are all wired differently. And for some, they aren't ready to disconnect from the pain of last weekend and accept the objective reality that we have a very successful foundation in place at QB, GM and coach. I get it. I'm tiring of it, but I get it. And who am I (or any other Kool-Aid drinker) to tell other fans how to think, feel or grieve this loss.

Yeah, let's trade Josh. Free up space for some good linebackers and a great running back and we can go 7-9 for 17 years. JK. People like to point to Russell Wilson's struggles over the last 1.5 seasons or whatever, but the truth is a truly elite HOF QB gives you the best chance of making the playoffs and winning SBs, year over year. The really great ones (Brady, Rodgers, Manning, etc.) are in the picture pretty much every year, regardless of who they had around them. The elite QB contract makes it tougher to build a dominant team from top to bottom, but at least you've already got the most important piece in place. Then whatever resources you have left should be devoted to your defense and protecting your prized asset. You're essentially paying your stud QB to elevate the average (or rookie contract) skill position players around him (See Dawson Knox and Gabe Davis).

Why the hate for Shurmur? He's a bad HC, but he's been a good OC outside of his little stint in Denver where they didn't have a decent QB.

His last three NFL OC gigs were honestly fairly putrid situations. He's done an amazing job with Josh and this offense. But I agree that the QB basically makes or breaks you as an OC. I think Jones is good enough to make it work assuming he's paired with a competent coaching staff, which he didn't have under Joe Judge. We will see, I guess.

I heard we'll also be signing Shaq Lawson. Jones will turn out better than Hurts or Heineke if Daboll goes there. He's got all the tools, but he was handcuffed by his coaching staff and skill position players who could never stay healthy.

Nothing is a given. Those 13 seconds should have taught us that, if nothing else. Time to turn the page, retool and look forward to next year.

Speaking of receivers I covet, how the hell did A.J. Brown slide to the bottom of the 2nd round? I'd give anything for that guy to be a Bill.

Does this really require another separate thread? Yes, we are all still really disappointed.

They all look amazing! They all appear to have +++ intangibles. They will all be top-3 to top-8 QBs for the next 10 years (barring injury). And you can clearly win at the highest level with any of the three. I think who you choose really comes down to what type of "style" you prioritize. Josh gets knocked because the one trait that currently elevates him over Burrow and Herbert, his punishing running ability, is the trait most likely to decline with age and wear and tear, so I get why some prefer the other two guys. Josh has grown into an elite passer, but he's still probably just the thinnest hair behind the other two as a passer (accuracy and touch).

As asinine as these analysts seem from our perspective, as fans who have gotten to watch Josh's growth week in and week out over four seasons, I can still sort of understand why it's so hard for some of them to accept that Josh actually is the stud that they witnessed the past two weeks. These days most great young quarterbacks come in as highly polished prospects who are essentially "plug and play" from day one. Think about all of the guys who just hit the ground running over the past decade (Luck, Newton, Mahomes, Herbert, Burrow, Dak, Murray, Goff and rookie Lamar to a lesser extent) and were either great from the get go or at least top-10 types by their second season. The highly touted that didn't "wow" by the end of their second season were quickly relegated to the trash heap of history (Mitch, Drew Lock, Paxton Lynch, EJ Manuel, Manziel, Gabbert, Ponder, Locker, etc.). Josh came in with a ton of doubters and then proceeded to have a statistically terrible rookie season in 2018. These analysts might have seen a couple of his splash plays in highlights (Barr leap, Foster bomb), but they'd refer to the box scores and if they happened to tune in to one of his games against New England or whomever, they'd see him throwing scattershot and it would reinforce their opinions that he didn't have what it took to succeed. Second year his completion % numbers creep up a bit, INTs go down, does enough to get team to playoffs, but his numbers still place him in the bottom 5 of the league and if you tuned into the Texans game you'd think "Christ, this guy is tough, athletic, fun to watch, but his football IQ is dumb as a rock and he's still inaccurate as heck". Going into year 3, a majority of the NFL media and probably most of the evaluator/scout/GM types had completely written Josh off as a "bust." So, heading into September 2020, you have a guy who most people think is essentially the second coming of Jake Locker or maybe a Trubisky type. Good enough to ride a great defense to the playoffs, but a guy who will probably be out of the league within 5-6 years. Then last season kicks off and he seemingly transforms overnight into a mix of Patrick Mahomes and MVP-level Cam Newton. That just isn't supposed to happen. It's like if EJ Manuel had morphed into a superstar overnight in his third year. You'd think - "Wow. This dude is playing out of his mind, but he will come back down to Earth soon. He's EJ Manuel after all." But he continued to stack one great game after another and by the end of the season, he'd probably won over about half of his doubters. 2021 and especially the past two games probably flipped about 90% of his remaining haters (I see you Nick Wright and PFF). As of today, there's probably only a handful of doubters left out there - jealous fans (or coaches) or analytics based evaluators that can't accept that Josh broke their "system". I believe all of these types of articles will make their way to Josh and he will come back even more motivated and completely torch the NFL next year. Then any doubter that remains will appear like a blind raving lunatic in some post-apocalyptic story.

LOL. Who in their right mind would hire a 62 year old, failed head coach retread like Frazier, especially after what we witnessed on Sunday? It ain't happening. Would be a worse hire than Jauron was for the Bills. This is David Culley territory.

The best thing is that we don't have one of these studs in our division. Maybe Wilson turns into one, but the longer that Tua and Mac Jones remain starters, the better that is for the Bills. We are basically guaranteed 4-to-6 wins (probably more like 5/6 wins) every single season for the foreseeable future.

Yeah, I guess he could have said "booboos hurt", but he sounds more polished this way.

Like Tua, Mac Jones and Matt Ryan?