Nihilarian

Does anyone else recall the 2023 season, and at the bye week, the Bills were 6-6, and meanwhile, Miami was 9-3? Talk about a bleak-looking future with Buffalo, THREE games behind at week 13. What does this HC do? He fires his OC and promotes from within. With all the pessimism going on right now, did things look worse back in 2023? That team met the Dolphins in the last regular season game and won the division. A lot of Bills fans dislike McClappy for whatever reason, and they think the Bills should have been in the SB by now...and they would be right except the best team in the NFL with an offensive genius as their HC, a defensive genius as their DC, along with a generational talent at QB. KC has been the best team in the NFL for the last 5 years...the BEST! Up to date, McD saw that the defense needed a boost, so he took over the playcalling for now. And if anyone remembers, he called the defensive plays back in 2023, too. That team was riddled with defensive injuries that season and still finished in the top 5 in points allowed and the top 10 in yards allowed. So this head coach knows what's up with what's going on with his team, and he will take the steps needed going forward. I have faith that he will make whatever changes are needed.

They were 4-3 and now 4-4, and a decent team with a pretty darn good defense against the pass. The Panthers did elect to have the corpse of Andy Dalton as a backup QB, and Buffalo did take advantage of that situation. A real test comes this week against Mahomes, who is surging right now after a few slow games. Still, they are 4-3 with the same record as a bad team, Carolina only with a star at QB. We will see.

I don't agree that this team falls flat in January, with the last two being three-point losses, along with other worldly occurrences as an NFL player having an actual heart attack on the field and almost expiring. To me, it's more of simply the worst streaks of bad luck I think I've seen of any team over the last five seasons, on the defensive side of the ball. Now, this season, we have seen this bad luck with injuries to the defense continue, especially to the secondary and some rookies. In the most recent game, we saw what a near full-strength defense can look like against a team with a winning record. 7 sacks, 244 yards of offense vs 410 yards. I say NEAR full strength because the team was lacking their starting linebackers and some players in the secondary. Then lost their star DT for perhaps the season. I can only hope that the defense isn't FUBAR this season in January...along with the hope that Joe Brady fixes the pass offense.

All I can say is this playbook is the same one that Brian Daboll used and Ken Dorsey used and yet as much as I love the current Buffalo run game... I cannot stop yearning for that Brian Daboll passing offense that took the world by storm in 2020, 2021. That 2021 New England playoff game 47-17 win with Belichick throwing his headset was such I delight i forgave Daboll for ignoring the run game so much. This is also the very same playbook that the New England Patriots used to win all those super bowls. Its just that Tom Brady was just so darn accurate with the ball and would do enough to move the chains to get to the end zone and hit Gronk for a TD...or something to that effect. In any event, I'm really hoping that what we see against the Chiefs is the Josh Allen we all saw in the fourth quarter against the Ravens. For the love of god Joe open up the passing game. Go back and watch film of the schemes that Daboll used to run and if you deduce that the team really does need a #1 WR then talk to Beane asap.

I happen to agree with this. As good as the Buffalo run game looks the pass game looks equally bad. While this season started out looking like a godsend for the Buffalo Bills it is starting to look like they might enter the playoffs as a wildcard with the Patriots taking the division. Did Danial Jones switch brains with Josh Allen? Because Allen has looked like a befuddled normal human "maybe" QB instead of the alien unicorn we have all come to know and love. I suppose this next game will tell us what's really going on with the passing game. Is this to deceive us into thinking that our beloved QB has regressed back to 2019 or is the deception for the Chiefs DC in Spags? We shall see.

Listening to his PC after the game, McD referred to Kromer as the one for "dialing up" those run plays. 2:00 time or perhaps just the blocking schemes?

I don't believe that stating that it's tough to trust him or that he could fall on his face is bad-mouthing him. The guy has a 30-45-1 record, and perhaps like Geno Smith, Sam Darnold, and Baker Mayfield, who also took some years to develop into a good starting QB. We will see.

Doubful in my view as they might be peaking too soon. They play at 4-3 Pittsburgh, 3-4 Atlanta, and at 4-3 Kansas City, 3-4 Houston, at 4-3 Jacksonville, at 5-2 Seattle, and 5-3 San Francisco, Jacksonville, at Houston. Danny Dimes at QB, I suspect he could fall on his face at some point. Tough to trust him.

Those stats were right off the ESPN website https://www.espn.com/nfl/boxscore/_/gameId/401772865

My take is this exactly! If Josh doesn't trust them to catch it...they aren't going to see the ball much. Shakir 7 targets, 6 catches for 88 yards, 1 TD Coleman 4 targets, 3 catches for 30 yards. Kincade 3 targets, 1 catch Knox 1 target, 1 catch Hawes 3 targets, 2 catches Moore 4 targets, 1 catch Davis 1 target, 0 catches

Unless I'm mistaken McD mentioned Aaron Kromer in the run game and thanked him for his contribution. This kind of gave me the impression that the writing for Babich might not be the only name on the wall. The passing offense for Buffalo has looked pathetic in the last few games. Could be that Joe Brady might be feeling the heat soon. Just speculation.

Shame McD can't take over playcalling for Brady...

THIS! This current Buffalo offense has been a run-first offense with Joe Brady calling more run plays than pass plays. Brian Daboll is no longer the OC, and we all saw what Stephon Diggs looked like after Brady took over from Dorsey. I, for one, am not convinced that this Buffalo OC would even make good use of this WR. Clearly, Keon Coleman (35) is Josh Allen's favorite target, and right behind him is Shakir (34), with Kincade in third at 24 targets and Palmer at 20 targets. In Jacksonville, Brian Thomas Jr leads that team in targets with 55, 27 receptions for 365 yards, 1 TD. With a catch percentage of 49.1. In this recent Jags game, BTJ was injured while grabbing his shoulder. Same shoulder he injured in college. Injury or mental case? "Among all players with at least 50 targets this season, Thomas' 41.8 percent success rate and 49.1 percent catch rate are the second-worst marks in the NFL. Jerry Jeudy is the only player behind him at 32.7 percent in success rate and a 42.3 percent catch rate (22 receptions on 52 targets). One of the big problems for Thomas has been catching the ball. He has been credited with an NFL-high nine drops on 55 targets this season." Thomas' struggles are partly on him, as he has struggled to make routine catches. Anyway, the Jags are looking to bolster their secondary as they are #26 in passing attempts, 27th in passing yards, 28th in passing TDs, and were just beaten by the Rams 35-7 with Matt Stafford throwing 5 TDs and the Jags QB Lawrence sacked 7x. Jacksonville is 4-3 at the bye.

The thing about Sammy Watkins is that he made most of his yards in college out of screen plays. Buffalo didn't... I like @Kirby Jacksons idea of a trade with Arizona for Baker and JR

Please don't remind me of the many, many players that the Bills could have drafted instead of that glass decoy. Mike Evans was right there, and after the draft, the team stated that they still needed a big, tall end zone threat.