GunnerBill

Ha. I am not a massive fan of comps. But no I don't think he is a Mike Evans type. The guy he reminds me of more with ball in hand is actually someone like Deebo Samuel. His all round game isn't Deebo, just to be clear. But that toughness to bring down in the open field with the ball in hand he does. There are not a ton of guys he can be comped to.

He was not a great contested catch guy in college. I did try and tell people this. He was okay at it but he was not dominant in contested catch situations. His strength is as a runner after the catch. I know you don't think that to look at him but I watched hours of Keon tape last January and February. He is a big slot, catch and run guy.

Anyone have the numbers on whether it has increased #1 seed participation in the Superbowl? My instinct is it hasn't.... Ravens were the #1 last year; Lions #1 in NFC this year; Titans lost in the divisional as the #1 seed as well I think. They couldn't go to the right on Sunday cos Torrence was being blown up. They showed a few of them during breaks on UK TV and Suh was literally laughing uncontrollably at Torrence trying to hold his ground on those plays. I was for the sneaks until that last one. When they went on the 4th and inches that Josh got by diving over I said in the game thread "they have to go for this one and then they have to put the sneak away" and a few minutes later on 4th and a long 1 they should have done something other than sneak it.

A couple have mentioned that game, so I'll take it. It doesn't stand out in my mind, but the offense is where I was focussed that day.

Better, but not about the defeat. Just because it's day 2 the sick, gutted feeling subsides. I feel like having had the ball at the end and coming up short makes the problem more fixable. If the 2nd half had looked like the first I'd feel worse. What I do feel bad about is the Superbowl. I will watch but ugh.... can't ever remember looking forward to one less. A Chief threepeat or the ***** despisable Eagles. I'll cheer for the refs.

It's a bad call because Coleman is useless at fades because he gives up leverage so easily. But your call sheet shrinks massively when you are down to "only things Keon Coleman can execute" because slants by the goalline are pretty high risk too.

I can get the Bills to $40/45m in space pretty quickly with the only cuts being Daquan Jones and Von Miller. There are a few obvious restructures - the likes of Knox, Milano, Oliver, Samuel and an extension for Rousseau. If you did a Josh Allen extension that is gonna free up more space too - possibly up to $20m worth. That is before Benford, Cook and Bernard potential extension decisions.

No we didn't. There were differences but there was a lot of carry over, especially from what they were doing with Brady in the 2nd half of last season. Shakir's usage was very similar. If you just compare the Brady games 2023 to 2024 the drop off is even more precipitous. He was targeted 3.5 times per game in the Brady portion of 2023 and averaged 15.1 yards per target in the Brady games of 2023. He was targeted 6.25 times per game in 2024 and averaged 8.2 yards per target. Presuming that if you increase targets by a third again would result in a proportionate rise in production is really hard to justify based on those numbers. Now don't get me wrong, increased targets will result in increased numbers, but I don't think there is evidence to support the assumption that it will be proportionate. It was not close to proportionate with the previous doubling of targets.

I don't think any coach in NFL history had this resume and was fired. The only guy (certainly modern era) who I can find who left after two Championship game losses without making a Superbowl with that team and without then suffering losing seasons that precipitated a firing is Schotty in Cleveland - who lost the '86 and '87 AFCCGs to Denver then went out in the wildcard in '88 to Houston and resigned after a disagreement with Art Model about playcalling. It isn't ridiculous. His targets more than doubled from 2023 to 2024 (45 to 100) but his production only went up 34%. Because of the way we use him, the way he has to be used, it is the law of diminishing returns. Giving him another 50 targets wouldn't result in another third of production.

I don't know that.

I think he made a TFL in game down by the goalline. One of those middle run games.... Titans maybe?

Yea I make the same criticism of Joe as I made of Ben Johnson the week before. Cook 13 carries for 85 yards at 6.5 a pop. He didn't get enough carries. The one drive where we really committed to him we went down the field on the Chiefs and they could not stop us. They came out trying to play action early and break tendency by being more pass heavy and the offense never got into a rhythm. It was a mistake. They should have got Cook going much sooner

Did he? Which games?

I don't agree the play was doomed from the start. I do agee that Torrence clearly screwed the pooch whatever the line adjustment was.

Well we don't run the "big nickel" for the most part. We run standard nickel. And the Ravens didn't destroy us with it when they played the Bills starters. They destroyed Nicholas Morrow and Baylon Spector but then I think Southwest Texas State probably would destroy that pair. Which isn't to say we don't need personnel upgrades on D, we do. But the nickel is not the problem.

On Solomon the only two games he got serious play in down the stretch were the Jets where he wasn't great admittedly and the Patriots where he was the best Bill on the field and had seven Quarterback pressures. I still have a lot of hope for him. Carter I don't know. I was never that enamoured with his play early in the year to be honest and the Bills chose to have Phillips and Jefferson up over him later. I didn't love the pick and remain concerned.

They did expect a blitz on the final play, but they misread it at the line and protected from the opposite side to where the blitz came. Joe brady had a play that was designed to attack where they thought the blitz was coming but it came the other way and they ended up in scramble mode.

Yep. It was at the time (and I think still) the worst defense in NFL history. They allowed over 7,000 yards in a 16 game season. To put that in context it was like 200 yards worse than Carolina (the 32nd defense in the NFL this year) gave up in a 17 game season.

The problem in this game was that they didn't run their defensive philosophy / scheme enough. When they got to it the game turned a bit. They spent too long in the first half trying to run a defense they are less suited for and less practiced in. Its been a criticism of mine on the defense all year, they have been trying too hard to do different things rather than focusing on doing what they do well and trying to do it better. I get it, Babich has now doubt heard the noise that Leslie Frazier was too predictable, ran the same stuff too often, didn't have a plan B etc. But the result of trying to be this multiple and run these more unique game to game plans has been worse outcomes on defense. This will not be a popular view on these boards but left to me I'd simplify the defense massively. Get back to what we are good at. Play zone defense, behind primarily a 4 man rush and upgrade at safety. I know that hasn't had playoff success against KC, I accept that. But it did make our D better the rest of the time. We have made it worse in the pursuit of being more multiple and haven't generated a payoff for that in the playoffs.

He isn't a route runner he is a space finder. He never ran routes at Boise and was never coached to run routes in that offense. When he first got here they tried to teach him route running and he just kept running into coverage. They backed off it and the way they use him right now is perfect. It suits his skillset and it suits the team. He isn't diverse enough to say "that's a guy we have to force targets to." I should be clear as well, because not sure I was yesterday, but have been previously like in the thread that predicted him for a thousand yard before the 2024 season - that if Shakir plays 5 or 6 years with Josh Allen I expect he will have a 1,000 yard season somewhere along the line. I just don't think he is a guy you can feature to the extent that he is going to be consistently a 1,000 yard plus guy. He is our most productive an reliable receiver currently, of that there is no doubt, but he should be a complimentary piece. That is the role he fits. The fact fans are talking about him as though he is a feature piece is an indictment of how the rest of the WR room has been built. And that's on Brandon Beane.

Yea they got us on that play. It's Andy Reid he is gonna get everyone on those plays now and again. The Bills original gameplan was poor, their half time adjustments were good. They still had a chance to win the game at the end despite everything and they failed to get it done because their talent failed.

Yea the defense sucked. No argument.

Josh admitted last night he made the wrong protection call. He also got himself out of it if a first round pick could catch.

I mean the D was bad first half last night but they did make a big stop. They held the Chiefs to a FG despite a 15 yard facemask penalty in that drive. They gave Josh Allen and the offense 3 minutes and change all 3 timeouts. Score a touchdown to go to the Superbowl. And they couldn't get it done. For the second time in 2 years they were right there and couldn't make the play on offense. That isn't to defend the defense. In the first half the game plan was wrong and they were manhandled. But if someone offered you Josh Allen has the ball down 3, 3 minutes left all 3 time outs before the game every single fan here would have signed for that.

Allen was not just a slot he was a move reciever played outside and in. My argument on Shakir is two fold - we have seen that as his volume increased his impact reduced. There is obviously a levelling off effect at some point there but no I don't accept you just increase targets and the numbers jump in proportion. The reason for that is the type of targets you can feed him are limited. He is not a great route runner, so you just have to find him spaces - which are ordinarily underneath - and get the ball in his hands. Welker and Edelman were technician route runners. Khalil isn't that. I have said it before the guy he reminds me of is Austin Eckler just playing slot rather than receiving back.