GunnerBill

Hmmm. Knee. Not great.

No the biggest Keon guy, but I effing love that.

I have never used that terminology for the Ravens or the Cowboys either. I don't really go in for attacking teams that win plenty but can't get over the hump in tournament play. Those teams are normally not far away and it is about finding the small modifications that you can try and use to get you there. Those modifications can be changing the coach or the General Manager. But I am just not persuaded that is the right lever to pull. Maybe I will get there. But I don't see it right now. There are, as I have said multiple times, three scenarios in which I am already clear I would fire McDermott: 1. The Bills missing the playoffs save for in a situation when they lose Josh Allen for a significant stretch. 2. The Bills losing a playoff game to a team they have a clear Quarterback advantage over (not a Mahomes, Burrow, Jackson). 3. Another clearly identifiable coaching blunder akin to 13 seconds. You can have one mulligan. You don't get two. Any of those 3 scenarios would convince me the coaching is the issue. I may get there in other scenarios too. But those are the 3 that are obviously identifiable.

I just think that is how all Bills - Chiefs games are. If we kept them to say 19 in a post season game it would be 21-19 or 19-17 IMO.

No, we wouldn't but on last year's schedule we'd have won 7 or 8 games. That means Josh is worth 5 or 6 wins himself. I think that is at the top end of what difference franchise QBs make on the W-L record above league average replacement. Probably a game or two ahead of Lamar and Mahomes. The only other guy I might have on Josh's level from 2024 is Burrow. They went 9-8 but genuinely are a 3 or 4 win team with a league average replacement because their D last year was genuinely horrific.

Oh no, it is partly coaching. But I don't think it is as big of a coaching disparity that a bit of luck with a bounce or two or an injury here and there or just a few more difference makers couldn't get over. McDermott / Frazier / Babich HAVE outcoached Reid in the regular season. Now maybe Reid intentionally sand bags but I don't really believe that. I just think they haven't found the right gameplans at the right times but that doesn't mean they can't do it.

Because the truth of it is it's never as easy as one thing. Even 13 seconds which was overwhelmingly a coaching fail, in order for it to play out the way it did it still required the UDFA they were starting a corner to misplay his assignment. Football is just too complex to pin point a single point of failure.

Our 2017 roster isn't at our 2025 roster's level though. If you are replacing Josh with a scrub, then yea, they are a 3 or 4 win team. But I don't think that is the right comparison. The right comparison is the Geno Smith type comparison @Kirby Jackson articulated. Sure, they are varying qualities of backup QB in the NFL. But any team required to go to its backup for an entire season is going to e under .500. Had the Eagles started Kenny Pickett for 17 games in 2024 they are a below .500 football team.

Honestly if they are the two options I lean 2-4. I'd pick 1-5 if it were an option but these games are so close year on year (with the exception of the first one) that I find it difficult not to see the Bills getting a break one year.

There's also a difference between saying how many might they win as an abstract concept and looking back at how many they would have won when you have actual games to look back at. The Ravens were 12-5 last year. There is no way they'd have been 10-7 without Lamar. Their defense really struggled the first half of the year and they won some shoot outs - the two Cincy games spring immediately to mind but there were a couple of others too - that they don't win with a Geno Smith. I think Lamar was probably worth at least 4 wins over Geno in 2024. Post-Thanksgiving when the Ravens defense clicked, possibly different story. But that wasn't the truth for a lot of last year.

No. You can make an argument for Fangio. But I'd take McDermott above Anarumo and Bowles. Of course the difference is McDermott has only actually coordinated one defense against KC in the playoffs. And it was in 2023.

1. I count 7 (although I can take an argument on the Colts game) 2. 11 - I don't think they beat Detroit without him or the first New England game. 3. If both missed the whole season? 10 - and if I didn't have confidence in Grable and Van Demark that would be lower. Bad tackle play sinks seasons. We see it around the league. 4. In 2024 - 13 - although I am not sure we beat Baltimore without him in the playoffs. 5. 13.

Yep, he does. I talked about it at length before last year's draft when I was calling him a non-separator and was told ad nauseum I was "just obsessed with 40 times." Even though I'd expressed this view before he even ran at the combine. It's why I like him as a big slot. Because given free releases he seems much more willing to go and dictate the route - almost like it frees him up to focus on getting to his spot. When he is outside with a DB in his face it is as thought they become the focus and he loses any track of where he needs to be.

Yea I don't see any nuance anywhere in his game. It's a bit bull in a china shop. I know you have used the Davante Adams comparison previously. He came out the first year I ever tried evaluating guys and I don't think I even looked at him so I don't know necessarily what I'd have made of him at a similar stage of his career / development. But Adams was second only to Stef Diggs as a route technician in his prime IMO and in a bigger, more powerful body and consequently better at the catch point. I don't know how someone (Coleman) who is so lacking in the basics of route running and spatial awareness goes from there to Davante Adams level good. That feels like a hell of a hill to climb to me and there are a lot of tendencies in his game that he'd have to unlearn pretty quickly.

He played better but his deep ball accuracy was still not there.

I said it the other day I think there is a deal that is doable at camp that gives him some injury guarantees without a long term commitment with a declinable option next year. It would essentially serve the same purpose as a one year bridge to whatever happens in 2026.

First, Cook didn't say he feels "disconnected." That was Schefter's word to try and describe where he thinks the relationship is at. As for moving him for a 5th or 6th during the draft..... do you think that pick is more valuable to the Bills in 2025 than James Cook? I think unlikely. And they will get that value back next year in terms of a comp pick if he walks and depending on what else we do in free agency. And on "he should have asked before the draft" trust me he did. The Bills and Cook had conversations pre-draft and his agent was testing the market. What Cook is doing is he is maximising his leverage while he has it. It's nearly at the end of the road for that leverage and come training camp he will be here in some form. Nothing he has done or is doing deserves the vitriol in your post.

Not even that long anymore. I remember a time when all the spring activity wrapped up in May. Then it went to mini camp being in the first week of June. Now it is second week of June. At which point it is max five weeks to training camp opening. I do think it is a genuine issue when they look at an 18th game, or different rules around coach hiring season.... and multiple other things. They have compressed the calendar so much there really isn't much space left. And I know the individuals involved are well remunerated... but for coaches and administrators it is really their only break of the year. At least players get the time between their season ending and late March when phase 1 activities start.

I think the format this year worked fine. Let's stick with that a bit before we start talking about changes. Was one of the best college football seasons in my memory.

And he will always have that moment. If that play was against the Raiders or the Buccs or the Panthers it probably gets lost in minds. But I think 10, 15 years from now people will still remember that play because it was against the Patriots.

Indeed Bernard was LOSING that camp battle to Dodson. He got hurt, missed the pre-season games in which Dodson struggled and as such they plumped for Bernard almost by default. I don't think it is wise to expect that sort of surprise break out too often, and I'd sure like to hear positive reports on Bishop when the pads come on at camp and when we get to the warm up games, but Bernard is a reminder that sometimes a light can go on very suddenly for a guy.

That isn't what is holding Hendrikson up. The Bengals have cap space - somewhere in the region of $30m of it. The 8th most in the NFL. They have over $60m of cap space next year too.... and sure, it gets a bit trickier next year when they'll be somewhat top heavy, but they already have 53 guys under contract and that much space. The things holding Hendrikson up are 1) the Bengals understandable reluctance to do a long term deal with a guy who turns 31 during 2025 and 2) Mike Brown's reluctance to hand out another big wad of up front cash when he has already given circa $80m to Higgins and Chase this offseason. Their asset allocation isn't the issue. It is, as always with Cincy, CASH not CAP that is the problem.

He used to. Rodgers was abysmal throwing more than 10 air yards last season. His deep ball accuracy has fallen off a cliff. He was still good with the short game so slants are still a weapon but down the field he was about the worst QB in football.

I think the bottom end of your range is more like the ceiling personally. He is a bit boom and bust Keon and I expect that to continue. He will have 2 or 3 big games and then others where he has 1 catch for 19 yards or something. I'd be absolutely fine with a year from Keon that is over 800 yards and 6 or 7 touchdowns. But it wouldn't change the way I feel about the Bills' need for a difference maker on the boundary. To be honest even a 1,000 yard season wouldn't. The same way I always pushed back against the "John Brown had a thousand yard season he is a number 1 receiver" narrative that got some push around here coming out of 2019.

That is a fair point, although Golden was their linebackers coach previously (before a stint at Notre Dame). So you'd think he knows Pratt pretty well. Maybe having been away a couple of years he comes back in and the decline is more noticeable to him and he just says "he's not the same guy he was at his peak".