GunnerBill

Rich Eisen >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> anything ESPN have.

Ha thankfully in the UK we don't have the issue of battling through the whole list of streaming services and channels that show the games and the draft that you guys have to. Sky Sports shows all the prime time games, one 1pm slot and one 4.25pm slot each Sunday, every playoff game and the draft for us. Then an NFL GamePass (now sadly on DAZN) gets us any other game we want to see. It works the other way around for Premier League Soccer I believe. If you want to watch that in the States you only need 1 or 2 subscriptions. To watch all the games in the UK you need multiple (and even then some are not for broadcast).

I think Mayo could be a talented Head Coach. It isn't like he was someone no-name candidate. He was a finalist for the Eagles job that went to Siriani, he interviewed with a couple of teams last year (definitely Denver and I have a feeling one other) and Carolina had already put in a slip for him this year. But man this is a hell of a situation to be thrown into. And what they do at GM now is going to be fascinating. The question for me is can he be a new start or is he too much continuity candidate in an organisation desperate for a re-set.

Ugh. Does that mean ESPN becomes the only option for Draft coverage?

Definitely a scenario where the draft doesn't fall. I would still have gone up a few extra spots for Addison. But there we are. He was so perfect for this offense.

Fields there intruiges me. I thought they should have drafted him tbh. Not sure he would be a Ben Johnson fit though. I think he needs to play in the kind of scheme they just binned.... There are ways I think ATL is the best job on the market. And other ways I think it is the worst.

The problem with the Atlanta job is how do you get a QB? You are picking 8th. Fair chance three are gone before then. You could swing a big trade up but you might not be the only team in the bidding for that. Or you could go for a vet who might spring free - Kirk Cousins possibly? But then you will both probably not be in contention to win a Superbowl and never be in position to try and draft your guy again. But certainly in Pitts, Bijan and to an extent London (although I am not as high on him as some I think he is kind of a 1B, very high end #2 rather than an out and out #1 receiver) they have some pieces there and a pretty solid oline.

A speedy outside guy with some home run threat would open the underneath stuff up even more for Shakir. If Brandon remembers wide receivers exist before day 3 that is.....

Oh no he didn't annoy me. I just didn't find it funny. Brandt is insufferable. Yea classic British sitcom is one of my specialist subjects. Sadly even we have loat our touch. We have made one genuinely funny sitcom in about 15 years.

Yea. Humour is one thing that just doesn't seem to translate as well. I like some American comedy but a lot of it just isn't funny to me.

Meh. I laughed at "Zach Wilson?" That was it. I thought it was pretty lame.

I don't have any issue with Dak being a 2nd team all pro. He has had a good year. CeeDee Lamb was a slam dunk. The two Smith's on the oline as 2nd teamers hard to argue. I think Zack Martin getting in is fair enough but him getting in as almost unanimous is a bit on reputation. Then hard to argue with the year DaRon Bland has had. I think the final one is the kicker who I don't think had missed a kick until last week!

Milano is a Will. He is also the best paid Will in football. The top five linebacker contracts that set the market all play the Mike. Bernard is a Mike. It is about positional value as much as anything. Those are guys you are asking to call your defense.

They have the last couple of weeks. Before that they were not. As I say... 11 touchbacks in 28 kick offs in that mid period of the season. Completely believable to me that he was struggling with his kicks. As I say I watched him warm up in Tottenham with my own eyes. I think he attempted 5 kicks from beyond 40 and another 4 from beyond 50 and hit on 5/9.

Agree. Right now, Edmunds. If Bernard backs it up then the Bills have a tough choice after next season because he becomes eligible for an extension. If there is a way to extend him where his cap hits don't kick up until 2026 (by which point I suspect Milano who will be turning 32 before the 2026 season might be on the outs) then I can see them taking that option. Otherwise he plays out his final contract year in 2025 and then he will get paid in free agency.

This year he hasn't had a big leg....

The Sunday after the draft. He was little more than a glorified personnel assistant that spring. Yea he has lost only to teams who were better or, at least on a par with the Bills. He hasn't yet lost a playoff game to a team that is clearly less talented. If he starts doing that I think the "failure in the playoffs line" becomes more appropriate and the scrutiny on his job grows. Just hope the weather isn't too much of a leveller this weekend.

Does not apply where a coach has a contractual succession clause.

They didn't.

It is.

It was obviously the plan all along. They wanted to keep Mayo last year when he was getting interview requests so they included this clause in the contract. He is very highly rated as a defensive brain and was an excellent player but I watched Mangini on Cowherd yesterday and he made a very good point. He has only ever played and coached in New England under Bill Belichick. While he is no doubt his own personality and his own man, at the same time you have to question has he seen enough of other approaches to really change the way things run in New England? And what are they doing about GM? They presumably need to hire a General Manager to run personnel for him. The Bills got criticised by some for giving a first time Head Coach in McDermott power over the draft in year 1 and then power to handpick his own GM right after that draft. But McDermott at least had a track record of some success in a coordinator position and had been on the staff of two successful franchises in Philadelphia and Carolina who had made Superbowls so had seen the way good organisations run and operate. While Mayo saw that as a player, he has no track record as a fully blown DC. He wasn't even de-facto DC as he shared that with Belichick's son and he has not been with the Patriots as a coach for any meaningful success. Two one and done playoff runs is all he has seen. Now he gets the HC job by default and presumably a say in who his GM is. It is going to be an internal candidate presumably because he doesn't know anyone external!!

We don't need to get out of nickel personnel. Because taking Johnson off the field for another linebacker (a position at which we are already thin) definitively makes this defense weaker. People talk like Taron struggles against the run. He is one of the best run defenders on the team.

He was. His leg definitely hasn't been right this year though. I watched him in warm ups at Tottenham and he was not much better than 50% from further out than 40. There has definitely been something going on with him physically this year. I can't be convinced otherwise.

I think they have lost confidence in him to an extent and I have long thought that there is a niggling injury. There was a spell in the middle of the year where he could barely get a touchback off a kick off. I know there are times when the Bills kick short intentionally (although they have backed off that this year with half of their elite gunner tandem gone) but there was a spell in the middle of the season where he managed 11 touchbacks in 28 attempts. It has ticked up since then which might suggest he is getting healthier but I'm convinced there has been something going on physically.

Josh Allen is a true difference maker. Ed Oliver has been right on the cusp the last couple of seasons - this year he was a true difference maker. He needs to back that up in 2024 to get that tag applied and prove that 2023 wasn't just a career year. I am very confident he will and I have been stronger than most on Ed who other than his sophomore season where I do think he struggled, he has always been better than the perception because until this year the bare production numbers undervalued his play. Cook, Kincaid and Bernard are all 1st or 2nd year players who have demonstrated they can be good starters this year. That is great and they are picks we can say Beane has definitely hit on. But they all need to take another step to make the true difference maker category. For me it is these: Cook needs to get in the endzone more. He ended up 6th in the league in total scrimmage yards and had 6 touchdowns (4 receiving, 2 rushing) the guys above him had: 21, 14, 13, 9 and then Nacua (who I'd make the same point about in terms of being a true difference maker, not there yet for me) also had 6. Kincaid needs more touchdowns and he needs to get more value for his catches - i.e. he needs to be used more downfield (I think that is coming under Brady. Weeks 17 and 18 were his two highest air yards per reception numbers all season and I would expect that trend to continue in the playoffs and beyond). Bernard I want to see back it up and improve as the signal caller of the defense while not letting that detract from his splash plays. All three of them have had very good years. But at the same time I don't think any are in that true difference maker company yet. But I am optimistic for all their chances. And my worry before this season was as the Dion, Tre, Matt, Stef, Micah and Jordan core ages out around Josh where is the next core of this football team for the second Josh Allen era? I think whatever happens this Sunday and beyond in 2023 we have seen some shoots of that core emerge. And that is very good news.