BillsFanSD

Honestly, I don't think a week goes by when I don't thank the heavens that we drafted Josh Allen. The 2018 QB class turned out to be nowhere near as good as people thought at the time. The Browns wasted the #1 overall pick and got stuck with Watson when they panicked over it and reached. The Jets blew the #3 overall pick. We know how Rosen-to-the-Cardinals turned out, but that wasn't so bad since he flamed out so fast that they were able to move on quickly. Obviously Lamar worked out really well later in the draft for Baltimore, but even then you're dealing with a QB who has some limitations. I'm just happy we got our guy and people aren't talking about Buffalo the way they talk about the Browns.

I honestly think Allen is already a better QB than Kelly ever was. And I loved Kelly and still do. And paradoxically, I don't even think it matters whether we're talking about 1990s era football or today's game. Allen is a better QB in the 2020s NFL than Kelly would have been for sure. But I also think Allen would have been better than Kelly in 1990s too. It's not as if Allen isn't a big guy who can take a hit or two.

Allen tried to do too much during his first couple of seasons, and he had quite a few silly-looking plays as a result. Things like getting flushed out of the pocket and completely turning his back on the defense, refusing the throw the ball away when the play is obviously busted, and so on. It was reasonable for people to worry a little about whether Allen would ever grow out of that. Now it feels like he's evolved in exactly the guy who we've always wanted at QB since the Kelly era. You can absolutely tell in-game that he hates taking check-downs. But the dumb mistakes are more or less gone. He just relentlessly pushes defenses back on their heels. I just love this guy.

Add me to the list of people who aren't at all surprised by this. People who are in a much better position than me to know have been saying for years that there are good reasons why Bienemy hasn't gotten a HC gig, and it's not just because he doesn't call plays or is the "wrong" race. In particular, I don't think it would be wise to make Bienemy the go-to example of "minority coaches not getting a fair shake." That narrative may have some validity for other ACs, but probably not this one.

I still remember where I was when that game was played. I missed it because I was on the road interviewing for my first job at my current employer. I'm still mad about it, and I only know that game from the highlights and subsequent outrage.

Yeah, I'm definitely thinking about how we should move on from the best coach this team has ever had (sorry, Marv) right in the middle of our super bowl window. Great plan.

Elam, and it is not close. (1) We needed a CB badly, (2) CB is literally the only position on the team where a rookie can step right in and start week 1, (3) The Bills apparently saw Elam as significantly better than their other options considering the trade-up. Seems like a perfect selection. Also, this pick allowed the team to do whatever it wanted the rest of the draft. Overall, I thought we had a pretty good draft. I liked most of our picks, and they all made sense. The Elam pick was not only good, but it was also really sort of necessary, so it goes on a higher level for me.

I don't know if the Bills have the best offense in the league, but nobody has an offense that is clearly better than ours.

Not sure why people joke so much about this position. Our punter cost us a game last year (PIT) and tried very hard to cost us a second game. When you're going 7-10, that doesn't really matter much, but championship teams can't afford to piss away games because their punter is incompetent at punting the ball.

Sure. Obviously the first round pick is more important than the fourth round pick. But it would have been nice to have both, and we really should have had both. That's all.

This GM has an excellent track record of drafting high-quality players in or around the 4th round. That pick was a big deal if it meant missing out on the next Taron Johnson.

Love the pick. We needed a corner, and the Bills obviously thought Elam was a legit first-rounder. These guys have a great track record at this position. If this is the guy they wanted, I'm sold. That said, yes I'm irritated that we traded away draft capital for no reason. It's fair to note that Beane also has a track record here too. Not all of those mid-rounders will turn into Milano or Davis, and all of our draft picks aren't going to make our roster anyway. But trading draft capital away pointlessly -- which is what seems to have happened here -- is something that's fair to criticize.

Yep. We had first and goal from like the 8 yard line or something with ~8 minutes remaining, down 4 points. We came away with nothing. That was the ball game, as it turned it out. We had another shot later on, but that was our best chance. More on topic, I live in Vikings country, and I vividly remember Vikings fans telling me what a cancer this guy would turn into. Besides Allen, I don't think there's anybody on this team I like more than Diggs.

We don't need Von Miller to go 14-3 or whatever and win the division. We would do that without him. Miller is here for one reason: a championship. Frankly I feel like the first 17 games should be all about easing him into the defense so he's fresh and ready to go when it matters.

Yeah, but we're probably not going to make re-signing Motor a very high priority after this season. He's fine, but I'd rather just draft a RB occasionally and ride them for a few seasons on their rookie contracts before letting them walk in FA. Rinse and repeat.

This seems like a very team-friendly deal even by the standards of 30 seconds ago. We'll need to see what the cap hits look like over time, but on an annual basis this is going to look like a bargain-bin signing in a couple of seasons.

Yes. Strongly. I'm 49 and I have no particular connection to western NY. My wife and I both grew up in Indiana. I casually liked the Bills in the late 80s because they were an entertaining team with a lot of big personalities. And they were on television in my area quite a bit because they were good and also because they were in the same division as the Colts at the time. After they lost SB 25 the way they did, I got especially invested in the team and went from "casual fan" to "fan" and then to "diehard fan." I mean, now most of the memories I have about the Bills involve watching mostly-meaningless games with my son during the drought years. I am absolutely loving this particular team, in part because they're just an easier group of players to root for than those 1990s teams were. (Let's be honest -- some of those "big personalities" were hard to take at times). But if it weren't for the SB run, I'm not sure I would be quite as fanatical about this franchise.

My son and I used to play "What would people say if Josh Allen had thrown that pass" whenever we were watching non-Bills games. Certain members of the sports media seem to think that Allen is the only guy to ever throw back across his body or try to drill one into double coverage. The game against the Bengals early in year 2 was the game that showed me that Allen is one of those guys who simply refuses to lose games. Now granted, that was not his best game, and they needed a fourth quarter comeback in part because of some of his mistakes. But that last drive was absolutely clutch. It also included Knox trucking those guys.

I was opposed to drafting Ettiene last year, but I've changed my mind on this one for the same reason that Buscaglia cites: This is spot on. The two-high shell gave us and a bunch of similar teams real problems, and those problems mostly went away when we showed the ability to punish that defense by running the football. Now, could we build on that success by strengthening the o-line and teeing up more Singletary? Yeah, probably. But Singletary has a low ceiling and I don't see him in a Bills uniform once he's off his rookie contract. This offense could be flat-out unstoppable with a higher-end RB, especially if he can run routes out of the backfield.

I doubt it. I think we got incredibly lucky that McBeane knocked it out of the park with the Allen selection. We have an elite franchise QB who is going to keep our team in championship contention for the foreseeable future and a culture that attracts high-profile FAs. But if we had taken Darnold (say) and he flamed out here the way he did in New Jersey and Carolina, we'd be right at square one with the same mess of a roster that we lived with through the drought era. I assume we would have blown up our front office and coaching staff back in January, and a bunch of us would be trying to talk ourselves into drafting Malik Willis somebody. This franchise would be in a radically different place today if the Giants and Broncos didn't have their heads up their asses back in 2018. Then again, we got unlucky with Rob Johnson, JP Losman, and EJ Manuel, along with all the other assorted schlubs we put under center. It was just a matter of time until one of those QB selections finally worked out. Glad it was Josh.

Allen's first year was pretty rough, but he showed flashes of legitimate talent throughout the season, starting in Minnesota in week 3. He got markedly better as the season went along. I remember feeling very good about his trajectory at the end of the year even though he was nowhere near a finished product by that point. Allen was legitimately good in year 2. Not great, but solid. They were winning games in his second year because of Allen, not in spite of Allen. He still had too much "hero ball" and "sugar rush Josh" in his game, but he was an above-average QB who led his team to a playoff berth that they earned on their merits as opposed to just lucking their way into it like in 2017. People who say Allen was "bad" in year 2 are just being obtuse IMO. And then of course he's been lights-out the past two seasons. To be frank, Allen has exceeded my expectations, and my expectations were pretty high after his first two years.

This seems like one of those very rare trades that makes both teams worse. KC needed the All-Pro player to get back to the super bowl, and Miami needed the draft picks to find a QB. Weird trade.

The cool thing is that you could make this exact same post on any random day and people would assume that they knew what you were talking about and that you were probably right.

Josh's contract is looking better and better every day.

This is actually a pretty good nominee.