HappyDays

That isn't true. Philly beat Green Bay, LA, and Washington to get to the Super Bowl last year. They didn't have to "beat the best," they just had to win against tier 2 and 3 opponents. Our path by comparison was Denver, Baltimore, KC. Even if you skip the Denver game I'd still take Philly's path last year over ours 100 times out of 100. I don't understand Bills fans that worry about perception or narratives. The only narrative that matters is that we can't win a Super Bowl. Why are we being picky about what it looks like to get there?

We can beat KC on Allen's 2nd Super Bowl run. That run can be all nailbiters. I want the 1st Super Bowl to be as easy as possible. Screw all the narratives. Once we get the pressure off us it will be exponentially easier to win the next one.

Depends on how you assign win probability in those games. My take is Baltimore and KC are both 50/50 games. Let's say scenario B is Steelers, Colts, Broncos in whatever order. I'd say 75%, 60% and 75% win probability in those games respectively even assuming all are on the road. So scenario A is 25%, scenario B is 33.75%. That seems right to me. I'd rather have 3 easier games than 2 harder games.

No brainer, the 5 seed option. Super Bowl path of Jackson -> Mahomes, vs Rodgers -> Jones -> Nix. Not even a contest.

Meh. KC fans couldn't wait to get rid of him. He got 687 yards, then 315 yards, and then he was cut. He's a marginal NFL player that got overpaid based on potential that he never lived up to. Tyquan Thornton had a nice run with KC earlier this year because they had no other targets to get the ball to, and now with their WR room fully healthy he's doing nothing for them. That is basically what happened with MVS during that several game stretch with New Orleans. Not once did I ever regret letting him go or think we had misused him. Remember Isaiah Hodgins? Marginal players can have a few games where they produce above their weight class but in the end the ball doesn't lie.

Sometimes below average pass catchers just have an outlier season, and in MVS's case it wasn't even a full season it was a couple games. Mack Hollins had 690 yards with the Raiders in 2022. Our own Dawson Knox had 587 yards and 9 TDs in 2021. I don't think there's much to wonder about. Below average players always revert to their expected production. That's why MVS is now relegated to practice squads.

That's not true. They were definitely taking a WR that year. They decided to take the sure thing instead of the lottery ticket. Considering how well Diggs paid off I'm not remotely upset at them over it. To me the more depressing "what if" scenario is when we took Cody Ford over AJ Brown, DK Metcalf, and Terry McLaurin. That was Beane's biggest whiff IMO. Epecially since it isn't just hindsight, Brown and Metcalf in particular were seen as great prospects with uncoachable physical traits.

Not that I'm happy to see Benford likely miss this game, but the upside is that we'll probably see Hairston in a full time role. I'm excited to see what that looks like. It's been a while since a Bills rookie has been a legit difference maker. Beane may have found 2-3 from this class.

Bills 31 Dolphins 10 Miami is looking for any reason to mentally check out of this game, and I expect us to give them that reason by halftime. For some reason in recent years we've played them better in Miami than in Buffalo. I'll predict Allen scores all 4 TDs as he looks to build off an MVP performance against KC, especially with the likely return of Palmer and limiting Cook's snaps to recover from his ankle injury.

And honestly I'd like them to triple down. We tried opening up the pass against Atlanta and it went horribly. New England is our only opponent this year that has really managed to shut down our run. Other than that when we commit to Cook being the identity of our offense that is when we look our best. I'm not interested in getting any of these WRs more targets other than maybe Palmer when he's healthy. The offensive gameplan against KC was ideal - feed Cook, funnel the pass game through the TEs, pepper in some PA out of multiple TE sets, spam screens to Shakir and the RBs. If you consistently do all that, then you'll get the occasional downfield pass to a WR like we had to Moore because the defense is over committing elsewhere. I hope Brady keeps leaning into that identity because it's what our personnel is built to do. Forget all of the outside noise about the passing game. Commit to our strengths and live with the result.

Sure get him some targets out of the slot, just understand we're not talking Cole Beasley in his prime here. And that still doesn't solve the overarching problem with this passing offense which is that we have no one who you can plant outside the numbers and expect him to separate consistently. Palmer is ideally a WR3 but he is the best option we have for that role so our only solution is get him healthy and hope that that is enough.

Moore struggles badly with physical coverage. As a result he is not a great first read option because he is often getting chucked out of his route stem. If you can get him a free release yeah he can get open but you also have to be mindful of his small catch radius. He's just generally a low margin for error type of WR which is why two teams in a row have let him walk and he was still available to be signed after the draft. I think his target share right now is exactly where it should be.

Benford is concerning. He was limited with a groin injury yesterday and McDermott hadn't brought him up before practice, so that makes you think he got injured during practice. Now DNP today.

The blockers deserve a shout out too. And I mean all of them. The OL, the TEs, the WRs, Gilliam... It's genuinely impressive how every single player on offense is 100% bought in to that identity. A guy like Shakir could just mail it in but he's bringing it to his CB trying to open up a crease. Guys like Samuel and Moore are running all the way across the field to get in the way of backside pursuers. Hawes has the technique of a 10 year vet. You could go down the whole depth chart and give everybody some kind of kudos. I don't agree with building an offense that is better at running the ball than passing, but I can appreciate that they went all in on making it the identity of the team. Cook's vision and quick feet combined with these blocking schemes is the stuff of nightmares for DCs. Cook's 62.7% rushing success rate is the highest the NFL has seen since 2016 (hilariously it was Mike Gillislee). That doesn't happen with as many attempts as Cook has unless the RB and the blockers both are elite.

Yeah maybe. He wasn't my first choice, or 2nd 3rd 4th or 5th choice for that matter. He did have 1,000 yards in each of the past two seasons and is on pace for about 800 this year in a poor passing offense. Beane wanted to upgrade the X position and Ridley would have done that at least. I'm not broken up about it though. Yeah I'm not sure what the plan would have been for 2026. His dead cap hit if cut as a post-6/1 designation next year is $11M and his normal cap hit is $20.2M which he definitely is not worth at this point. Maybe they would have ripped up his deal and given him a new extension? In any case I know Beane tried.