GunnerBill

Bad bet.

No tied necessarily but definitely influenced by the owner. The story on Jones is Mara was VERY committted to him. And even this week Jones went straight to ownership for his release. Father - Son relationship is how I've seen it described. Schoen and Daboll should have been stronger though. There is no question on that.

Or any relocation costs!!

And hopefully he'll have a full offseason where he is healthy. Missing the whole of camp as a rookie DB in this system in particular is tough to overcome.

He could do a lot worse.

From his college film, he is plenty physical enough. We haven't seen that yet when he has been on the field for the Bills but I think that is because of the second issue - his head is spinning and he is out of position and not able to just run and hit as a result. The bigger worry for me is how long the mental adjustment has taken. He missed camp, so I'll give him a bit of a pass, but some players struggle to get it mentally and that is keeping him on the bench more than anything else.

Spielmen was a pretty good GM in Minnesota. It was probably time for a change in the end, he'd been there 10 years, but I think they generally had solid rosters during that period.

To be clear I don't think your way of looking at it is unreasonable. But you stsrted fron a premise that "only Bills fans could look at it different" and it was ridiculous to have a different view. That isn't true. The Bills body of work this decade is extremely impressive. Comfortably the 2nd best team in football over the 4 and a half years. Does that count for more than winning a Superbowl? No. But does it count for more than teams who have the same problem we do - can't get past the Chiefs? I think that bit is debatable.

So I was talking about since 2020 rather than the Josh's entire career. My opinion is the Bills have been the best team not to win a Superbowl in that period.

Yea. That weak conference produced one Superbowl Champion in thr 4 years we are talking about. The other 3 years the Superbowl Champion was the team neither the Bills nor the 9ers can beat in the playoffs. In fact the 9ers can't beat them at all. What is "my thing" is the full body of work. That is what I set out. I don't hide from where they have out perfomed us. But the reality is both teams have the same problem. In crunch time they can't beat the Kansas City Chiefs.

But what would you give up for him?

Arguably. Those Green Bay teams were pretty flawed and the Bills beat them very easily in the regular season so I think it is arguable that only that Lions win last year really was a against a high quality team. Yes, they have two conference championship. Depends how you quantify it. In this decade: Wins: Bills 57 (2nd); 49ers 46 (6th) Points: Bills 2,210 (1st); 49ers 1,994 (7th) Points against: Bills 1,475 (1st); 49ers 1,552 (2nd) Division titles: Bills 4; 49ers 2 Playoff wins: Bills 5; 49ers 6 Conference championships: Bills 0, 49ers 2 Superbowls: Bills 0; 49ers 0 Demonstrably false. Cowboys ranks in that time: Wins: 45 (9th) Points: 2,088 (2nd) Points against: 1,781 (15th) Division titles: 2 Playoff wins: 1 Conference Championships: 0 Superbowls: 0

This is undeniably true IMO. EDIT: worth saying Shanahan's 9ers are 0-5 vs the Chiefs. Regular and post season. McDermott's Bills are 5-4.

All this reminds me is some of you guys are like... really old.

The first half of last season McDermott was not doing either job very well. He seemed to find his stride more second half of the year after the infamous hit piece. I don't know if somehow it refocussed him or something but he defenitely stepped off the stupid blitzing defensively and found a groove with his playcalling. When he fired Dorsey I also thought he should have given up playcalling. He didn't and it came right but I was adament after the season that he couldn't try and do both jobs again. I was pretty optimistic about it going in, but it did not work. I'm much happier with him back 100% in the Head Coach's chair.

Yep. I'm certain about them. https://x.com/fball_insights/status/1859007980752212301?t=qKma9VgzOOt6_h5ardeNVA&s=19 As for Spags, he is excellent. But you have to be excellent to make that kind of D work. There are very few coordinators who can make it work and even then go back to 2021 and he was under pressure for his job. Chiefs fans wanted rid of him, they finished 27th in total defense and it was then that Brett Veach decided he needed to change tact and move resources onto the defensive side. The 2022 draft they spent 2 firsts, a second, a third and a fourth on defense. They are one of the best defenses in the NFL right now, but they should be. When everyone is healthy there are two starters on that D who were drafted after round 3 - Jaylen Watson at corner (6th round) and Drue Tranquill who was a 4th rounder the Chiefs signed as a free agent from the Chargers. But as you say it is stylistic preference. I do not like heavy blitzing defenses. Never have, never will. I am conscious of that bias.

The Bills most played coverage is cover 3 at 28%. They have played cover 2 zone 19% (which is 7th highest in the NFL seeing as you are interested). They have played 16% cover 4 and 14% cover 1 man. They are actually one of the more flexible coverage teams, and that helps their disguise on the back end. They have the 3rd lowest blitz percentage at 18.1% and despite that they are middle of the pack (16th) in percentage of opposing QB drop backs that result in pressure. I'm the opposite to you, I hate heavy blitzing defenses, but I think Babich has done pretty well as a first time coordinator. He hasn't been perfect, he has made some mistakes (going to bigger personnel after the Henry run in Baltimore just to watch them nickel and dime is down the field with Justice Hill for two drives for example) but I think for the most part he has stayed patient, adjusted well and managed to maintain so of the really clever coverage design that has been a staple of McDermott's Bills teams despite a ton of turnover in the secondary.

It would need one of the 8 win Vikings, the 7 win Packers (who would have the h2h) and the 7 win Commanders (cake walk schedule including 2 games v the hapless Cowboys) to collapse down the stretch.

If they lose both games I doubt even winning out does it. Arizona will take the west.

They tried to get something done last spring and I understand they were a distance apart on money which is why they just did a bit of a restructure to free up cap room. Douglas has only had one, moderate, pay day by the standards of an NFL player. He will want to maximise the dollars on this deal

Athletic reporting he will likely be benched or possibly even cut once the playoffs are mathematically out of reach. The Jets will have a different Quarterback by the time they come here at the end of the season. And yet you can make the same argument about the Head Coach and he was fired.

The 9ers line hasn't actually been that great this year.

I think he is one of the best offensive play designers of all time. But he is stubborn as hell and if you don't run it his way he doesn't want you.

I'd take Drake Maye over him already and no way I'm benching Caleb to play Daniel Jones despite some of Caleb's struggles. In Vegas, Tennessee or Carolina sure I'd start him.

Until that top 10 Quarterback deliberately made a play off script at which point Kyle Shanahan would lose his ***** with him make absolutely clear there is only room for one star on that offense and it has to be the playcaller and immediately bench him for whatever Matt Schaub redux happened to be wandering past Levi Stadium at the time. I mean I exaggerate slightly..... but only slightly.