BarleyNY

I said nothing of the sort. Nor am I particularly optimistic with McDermott at the helm. As evidenced by your last few responses, you seem to be having a very tough time with reading comprehension so I’ll leave you to your loser mentality and bow out.

Nope. That’s not what I think. I think the Bills could be coached better and be a team on par with KC. I want them to be better and know that they can. And it ticks me off to see them founder unnecessarily. But, hey, enjoy your loser mentality of “we’re pretty good and maybe we’ll get lucky”.

Eli and the Giants were up to the task twice. They didn’t lay down. But what about KC and the Bills though? You don’t think that Allen is right there with Mahomes? I sure do.

Not denying anything. You typed a lot of words, but failed to refute one single point I made. You just returned to advocating for your loser mentality and why you think it’s okay for the Bills to be an also-ran team. I certainly hope that the Bills’ players and staff don’t share that mentality. KC has a phenomenal QB and a fantastic HC. And the Bills have a phenomenal QB as well. But that is where that comparison ends. A better HC would put the Bills on par with KC. Who knows? Maybe we could even surpass them. McDermott is a good HC who did a good job bringing the Bills up from a below average team to an above average one. But more of the credit for that should go to Allen. There are countless coaches that could get one playoff win against an also-ran team with Allen at QB every season. He has accomplished as little as any decent coach could with a QB as talented as Allen. Nothing is going to happen now, but I’d love to see the Bills improve and not waste Allen’s career. You’re welcome to pretend that there’s nothing the Bills can do about KC because they’re so good or to get better themselves, but none of that is true.

Except that it’s not accurate either. You are pretending that we live in a world where the Bills would be winning SB after SB if not for those darn Chiefs beating us every year en route to another championship. But that has only happened once - this past season. McDermott’s Bills teams are 5-6 in the playoffs. 5-0 against 5-7 seeds and 0-6 against 1-4 seeds. The team that beat the Bills lost their very next game 5 of 6 times. So only once under McDermott have the Bills lost in the playoffs to the best team that season.

This attitude is disgraceful. Playing for second place is a loser’s mentality - even if you tack on the hope of getting lucky once in a while. Eli Manning and the Giants didn’t accept that Brady and the Patriots were the best QB and team in the NFL and relegate themselves to being happy to just make the SB. Twice in the SB they played arguably the greatest QB-HC duo in the midst of their dynasty and beat them twice. That’s what can happen with a winner’s mentality.

But most of the “core” of the team is still here. The Bills only parted ways with the older, more expensive, injured and/or disgruntled players. The starting offense is the same except for two WRs and Morse. The defense is only flipping the safeties and a CB who has been injured. You put forth a narrative that may be appealing, but it is not at all accurate. As for the Pegulas appetite for spending as the team moves forward, I hope it is big. But it’s TBD.

Reid with the likes of Alex Smith and Chase Daniel at QB had the same level of success as McDermott has had with Josh Allen. If you can’t see how that’s different then I don’t know what to tell you.

Not unfounded though. The reduction in the team’s cash spend this season didn’t have to be this severe. The Bills still could have structured many of the contracts more aggressively and made more room than they did. Had they done more of that then I wouldn’t be worried.

Agreed. Plus they got their chunk of public funding for the new stadium. The recent spending and team success was certainly used to help the Pegulas that massive asset. None of that means that the Pegulas don’t care about winning a SB or that they won’t spend big on doing so. I’ll just be nervous until I see it happen.

FWIW I think the Bills had to pull back on spending this season and take some cap pain. The injuries to Von Millet and Tre White were brutal to this team. They were a big part of the issues with Diggs and led to the Bills trading him. That’s a really bad place to be for a team. So much cap space taken up by players who are no longer here or not performing close to their pay. Beane is navigating it as well as can be expected. I’ll be nervous until I see the team spend again though.

There are always choices to be made, but the playing field is not level either. The teams willing to spend more do have a big advantage over those that don’t. The Eagles have been at or near the top in cash spending for several seasons. They lead the way this season, spending $345.5M. The Bills had been spending at a high rate the last couple seasons, but pulled back in a major way this year. They sit at 25th with a cash spend of only $248.4M. The advantage to teams like the Eagles should be obvious. I expect the Bills to ramp their spending back up in the next couple seasons, but it bears watching to see if/when it happens. Ofc KC has managed to win on a budget so that’s possible too. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cash/_/year/2024/sort/cash_total

This has been disproven. The Eagles are paying a QB and 2 WR top tier contracts. The requirements are that the owner must been willing to outspend most other teams, the FO must be willing to aggressively structure contracts and the FO has to pay the right players. The Eagles aren’t the only team doing this. Also it’s worth noting that this season the Bills are paying a QB and WR (from a cap perspective) even if that WR is off the team. People here seem to think that’ll work.

Thanks. Missed that. It’s really the offseason if they’re doing a top 32 for a position where there’s 64 starters. Still, nice we had one make it. Some teams didn’t get any.

McGovern makes the list but Dawkins doesn’t?

The only supporting results are from two teams which had either Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes at QB. (And not even when Brady was in TB.) Generalizing about what a team needs at WR to be championship caliber from that is just wishful thinking by Bills fans. And that’s only because of where we are at WR. So now winning with a pedestrian WR corps has become a popular narrative among many Bills fans, but I heard exactly none of them saying anything of the sort before things went sour with Diggs. Here’s hoping it works out with an ascension from Kincaid and others, but don’t tell me that the Bills wouldn’t be a better team with an elite WR.

And I’ve never seen an NFL cornerback anywhere near you. Talk about separation.

Every recent SB champion had a stud receiving option. The Patriots and Chiefs both had that at TE though. Heck, Brady had Evans in TB. Maybe that’ll be Kincaid for the Bills, but that’s TBD. The evidence that talent at WR is important in winning games and championships is overwhelming. Even KC, who just won the SB without a stud WR, revamped their WR corps. In any event, the Bills are going to give it a try this season w/o a #1 WR. Let’s see how that goes.

I never thought that. In fact the 2/$12M we are paying him is a substantial overpay IMO.

Agree that Rousseau is likely to get way overpaid in free agency. Yes, OTC has the Bills $17M over the cap in 2025. They can get healthy in a hurry with a few moves - cutting Von Miller and restructuring Oliver, Dawkins and others. The big question is what they do with Allen’s contract.

I think this was simply people seeing the need for the Bills to acquire an elite #1 WR to fill the void left by the Diggs trade. That’s why we’ve seen so many (mostly) unrealistic trade scenarios put forth. But unfortunately sometimes what you need and what you can pull off do not align. Prior to the draft, my take was that the two best options were to either make a big trade up for one of the top three wide receivers or to trade back from 28 to acquire more draft capital and still draft a similarly rated WR prospect as could have been had at 28. The former wasn’t feasible so Beane did the next best thing. That seemed like solid process to me. The decision to trade with KC (and then Carolina), positioning to select Coleman and the actual choice of Coleman can all be debated. I don’t really want to do that here. But I think the issue most fans had was not so much 40 times as wanting the Bills to acquire a true X WR and the prevailing opinion that Coleman is much better suited to being a Big Slot. So it’s more that some people believe that the bills passed on WR prospects that could have filled that X role for one that might not be well suited to it.

Yup. Here’s hoping that the positive impact of the removal of distraction and problems within the WR corps outweighs the loss of talent. That’s a lot to hope for, but it’s all I got. I believe that the moves made are to build for 2025 when one or two true playmakers can be added. 2024 is isn’t lost, but a lot would have to come together to bring home a championship. It’s the right strategy, but it’s not like Beane can come out and admit it - until next offseason at least.

I have heard others discuss using position players to kick off. It makes a lot of sense. No need to endanger your place kicker if a DB, LB, WR or other position player can reliably kick the ball from the 35 to between the opposite 20 and goal line. Hang time is no longer a factor so that’s a help. It is a good, new avenue for a player to make a living as a special teams player.

Kincaid averaged 4 receptions per game with Brady. Knox was just over 1. So 5 combined catches a game would be 85. 6 would be 102. I think 110+ is possible, but something closer to 100 is more likely. A lot will depend on how the WR corps performs and how often the different personnel packages are used. Obviously those are interrelated.

It’s not like his play is going to fall off in any substantial way this season, unless he were to get injured. And that wouldn’t hurt him on a contract unless it was an injury that impacted his play next season. That’s a risk, but a relatively low percentage one and there’s a lot of money to be made in FA.