BarleyNY

While I wholeheartedly agree we should move on from Miller (cut with a post 6/1 designation), I am bracing myself for the Bills to work out a deal to keep him. That’s why I’m hedging. I can see McDermott wanting him on the team. I don’t think it happens, but I don’t think the odds are 0. It may depend on how much Miller wants to keep playing in general and in Buffalo specifically.

He's not going to take vet min plus incentives. I hope we wouldn’t offer more than that.

Maybe KC can add Max Crosby or Myles Garrett too. That’ll make it even sweeter!

I’d be delighted with this scenario.

Almost certainly a designated post 6/1 cut. Unless he wants to take a significant pay cut and remain here as a situational pass rusher. Those are the options.

There’s nothing more intriguing than a person or team almost getting over the top. There’s a finality to it when they do and the enthusiasm naturally wears off the moment after they reach the pinnacle. The NFL doesn’t care if the Bills win one or not, they just want us in the mix every season while Josh is here. If we get one, then when we meet KC in the playoffs the narrative will be “Two AFC titians battling it out to see who makes it to this SB!”. Good, but not the great intrigue of “Will this be Buffalo’s year?” A lot more sympathy and emotion for the casual football fan in that second one.

Remember that people all want to watch the team they love, but only two of those fanbases get to see their team in the SB. The next most effective thing that gets people watching is hating a team. 30 fanbases can hate watch the Brady-Belichick Patriots or Mahomes-Reid Chiefs. I think the NFL would’ve been happy with the Bills being in the SB too though. There would have been a lot of people tuning in to root for us too. Also it’s the SB. That all holds true for playoff games much more than the SB. People make that an event regardless of which teams make it.

https://sports.yahoo.com/doc-michigan-fighting-allegations-made-by-ncaa-in-connor-stalions-sign-stealing-saga-220011347.html 11 allegations, including six Level 1 violations will be considered. “The case is now bound for a hearing before the Division I Committee on Infractions, an independent administrative body charged with deciding infractions cases. The committee has authority to set and conduct hearings as well as prescribe penalties”

Funny thing about this is that the Chiefs are all on the correct side of the LOS, they just aren’t on the correct side of the nose of the ball. That is because our center moved the ball up. I’m not sure if that happened before or after the DL was set. You can see that the entire ball is over the blue line. That is a “snap infraction” which is a 5 yard penalty. Moving the ball up is common for centers to do and it very rarely gets called. I’ve seen refs warn centers about doing it too. The rule only ever seems to be enforced on short yardage plays like this. It would have been the correct call on this play if a call HAD to be made. No one wants to see that in any game - especially a high leverage play in a conference championship game. The refs did the right thing by not calling anything on the play.

What? You’re not enjoying watching this coaching staff light another year of Josh Allen’s career on fire every postseason?

I’m 99.9% sure Von is gone. Hamlin is a FA. If he’s back I think it’s on the cheap. After his biceps injury I thought Milano was done, but he came back and got to playing pretty well. I can see him here one more season. I would not be shocked it the Bills moved on, but next offseason is my bet.

We’ve now touched on the four times I was most angry with the Bills during the draft. Thanks for rounding that out.

Here goes. I do not see a viable rush DE, X WR or CB2 on this team. (I also think we need better CB depth - especially with Benford’s two concussions.) Those are my top 3. Safety need depends on Bishop. DT has Oliver and Jones as starters, but at least needs depth. Obviously you grab a 1 tech that can get to the QB if you have the chance. They are rare and there is almost no circumstance that you don’t grab such a player if you can. Hopefully Carter can at least be a back up who can spell Oliver and/or line up with him on obvious passing downs. I’m not enthusiastic about him though. Decent DT depth is not difficult to find though.

Not that KC would not have had wrinkles worked out for us, but one week less for them and one more for us would’ve been helpful. In addition to the extra rest KC got - week 18, bye and one more day after the divisional round - the second seed had a more physical matchup against Baltimore. Not that Houston doesn’t have terrors at DE, but overall they are not nearly as physical as Baltimore. And they didn’t go down to the wire in their game. None of that is an excuse for not throwing in our own wrinkles (tush push), but it was just a much easier road for the 1 seed. That all said, go get that advantage. It’s huge. We could have, we just fell short.

at least they didn’t trade WITH us on that one.

Can you imagine playing in a consolation game and having your QB (or other elite, highly paid player) blow out their knee and be ruined for the following season? F that. A consolation game would just be a further penalty and pain for the losers of the conference championship games. I would have zero interest in watching it whether or not the Bills were in it.

- I am disgusted that we did not run a change up on our tush push play. KC had how to stop it - at least some of the time - figured out and we were too scared to run a change up. I can’t believe that we don’t have a change up so I don’t think it was that. But if we didn’t even have one in the bag, then that’s a fireable offense for Brady. - The blitz on our last offensive play is one of the change ups that KC hits us with every playoff game. As high a leverage play as you will ever have and we had no idea that they might have something different ready for us. We even had to two minute warning to talk that all over. Every playoff game. It’s gotten well beyond old. - The problem with Cook is that he is still poor in pass pro and not a great receiver, so I understand why they’d pull him. But I agree that we could have at least started the drive with him and some runs. 3 1/2 minutes +2 timeouts is enough time for that. - I saw Coleman lined up by himself on the right on that third and goal and my immediate thought was “please don’t throw him a jump ball here”. SMH - Dabs had the brass to take chances, let Josh cook and do things McDermott won’t allow. McD is just too conservative. That’s great if the Ravens give you 3 turnovers and drop some passes so you can squeak out a close win, but you won’t beat KC without taking some play calling risks. At least McD has dramatically improved his aggression on 4th downs. That’s a positive. But it needs to extend to play design and calls in games like that one.

- Agreed. Inexcusable for this to happen once, much less twice. - I didn’t care for the Benford blame. I hope this was very bad luck, but the situation looks and smells even worse with those comments. - Agreed. The lack of any awareness that Reid and his staff will have change ups ready for us in the playoffs is inexcusable. They do things like the 4th down blitz and defense against our tush push every playoff game. We didn’t have a change up to our tush push? Or were the coaches too afraid to try something like that? - Yep. Beane’s weighted batting average in the draft is looking worse and worse as time goes on. Every GM misses on high picks, but it can’t be the norm - and some of his have not even looked good when they were made. I truly believe that if the Browns or Jets had taken Allen in the draft then McD and Beane would have had only limited success - and would have been fired years ago.

Correct. The team physician first clears the player for full participation in practice, then the independent neurological consultant must clear the player to return to play in games.

For the life of me I don’t understand the Bills thinking on this. The vast majority of GMs and draft analysts had Coleman as a Big Slot WR. The team certainly needed (needs) speed on the outside. Maybe they didn’t like Worthy because of his slight frame - and that is defensible- but I do not see what Coleman really brings to this WR corps, except some size and decent ability after the catch. He’s not fast or agile so he can’t separate at all. And he is not even particularly good at contested catches. I still don’t get it.

I literally thought this was going to be a thread about the chokehold a Chief had on Allen on one of the sneaks.

That is odd. I wonder if he was driven to KC on his personal day.

Optimally, yes. But those players are very difficult to find. Oliver had his best run with pre-injury Von Miller next to him. That’s how you make it work with him.

Yes, if Rousseau agrees to it. That would kick some of his 2025 cap hit to 2026. The Browns added 4 void years to Jedrick Wills contract to do that this season. The only real difference to the player is that any games they are suspended will have less salary attached to them, which is obviously a good thing. The only negative is that giving their team cap relief hurts their negotiating position for an extension. There is usually no impact on when players get paid since teams usually structure the payments exactly the same as the salary would have been paid out. That’s negotiable, obviously.