HappyDays

I won't lie, I was not 100% confident the Bills would end up a top 10 scoring offense. I looked at the Chiefs offense last year, they ranked 8th in YPG, 14th in PPG, and 8th in DVOA (which is my preferred ranking measurement). An offense led by Mahomes and Andy Reid ending up with those metrics because of a depleted receiving corps made me wonder if we would ultimately end up a top 10 offense. As of now I am cautiously optimistic that we will in fact exceed the Chiefs offense from last year, with a big emphasis on cautiously. Through two weeks we rank 2nd in offensive DVOA. The obvious caveat being that it's an incredibly small sample size. Every year under McDermott the whole team has had a midseason slump, can we avoid it for once? I am still worried about the sustainability of an offense that features a bottom quartile outside WR group (which is probably a generous description). Naturally I'm worried that none of the regular season stats will matter at all anyways when we inevitably face the Chiefs in the playoffs. But I'm willing to step back on some of my offseason concerns and say that at the very least I'm more optimistic than I was and I'm interested to see where it goes from here. I really wish we played the Chiefs before the trade deadline. That would be a great barometer of where our offense is at relative to a championship caliber level and might have given Beane the push he needs to make a "cross the finish line" type of move.

His metrics are elite. Basically this chart shows him top 3 in passer rating allowed and top 8 in yards allowed per snap. You can find Sauce Gardner all the way in the bottom left.

I never understand this mindset. I hope they're desperate. It causes teams to press and make mistakes. It's been the Chiefs advantage in recent years - every matchup they enter no matter how big the stakes, all the pressure is on their opponent. When their opponent is pressing they make dumb mistakes like jumping on a WR early on a 4th down pass that probably isn't catchable. So the Chiefs are always playing with house money. If we go into that SNF game 3-0 against an 0-3 Ravens squad we get to be the ones playing with house money. Give me that all day.

Rookie WR separation win rates through two weeks:

I'm not sure the Ravens have a great running offense though. Which is crazy to say with Lamar Jackson at QB. But Derrick Henry is not in his prime anymore and the interior OL kind of sucks. They are for sure a better coached team than the Cowboys. That will have to be enough to make up for a clear talent discrepancy.

I heard a stat yesterday. Over the last five years the Ravens have 10 losses where they held a 7+ point lead in the 4th quarter, the most of any NFL team in that timeframe. Letting a bad Raiders team win in that fashion is just embarrassing honestly.

For me the conversation has actually changed though. A month ago I was worried about us being even a top 10 offense. Now having seen the running game and seen the OL and seen Allen elevate his game even further I think we are one legit outside weapon away from being a top 5 offense. I no longer see this as a throwaway rebuild season. I see it as a legit championship contention year and I'm all in on trying to capitalize on it. That's what the trade deadline is for. Go rescue DeAndre Hopkins from his dead end team, or something like that.

For some reason the Bills passing offense dominates the conversation around here. I can't imagine why.

I don't know, usually I make my points and then others make theirs and I let the conversation end. I only feel the need to respond again when someone says something like I've gone off the deep end.

I'm off the deep end because I think our outside passing game is a weakness? If it helps, the offense as a whole looks better than I thought it would. But by no means do I trust the offense to run through Coleman and Hollins if that becomes the necessary game script, and I worry that at some point we'll need it to.

And that's why the NFL is king

Haha they scored too fast! Whoever went out of bounds on 1st down made a mistake

Wow they should actually be running clock here

If you take a RB in the top 10 in this day and age, 4th and short has to be automatic. What an embarrassing franchise.

Young's problem is he hasn't shown anything on an NFL field. Even Darnold and Mayfield showed some sort of potential early on. This has been more like Josh Rosen where every time he takes the field it looks really bad, and there's nothing even remotely promising to point to. What high end traits are there to develop? He can't read the field, he hasn't been accurate, he gets lost in the pocket, he isn't big or fast or strong. Normally I'm in favor of letting the young QB sink or swim but there's a point where you have to just acknowledge what you're seeing with your own two eyes... My guess is his career will end similarly to Rosen's, get signed to a couple practice squads and then it will be over for good. Brutal league.

Tough call between Burrow and Stroud for me. Burrow's done it longer which certainly counts for something. Whereas Stroud genuinely does look a bit better when I watch him, better throwing on the run and doesn't miss as many passes to my eyes. Since I'm on the fence I default to the player that's been more durable. So it's Stroud for me. Very close though.

If that first play is NFL holding, every OL holds on every play. The league has let minor stuff like that go for years now. The guard let the DT go when he tried to pull away which is all that officials are looking for. The 2nd play, I would bet Hendrickson used a rip move which often leads to a position like that and it is not holding by rule. It becomes holding if the offensive lineman brings the pass rusher to the ground in the process of the hold, or if he holds on too long while the pass rusher has a clear and direct line to the QB. https://www.sbnation.com/23577117/2023-nfl-playoffs-chiefs-bengals 90% of complaints about penalties are people that clearly don't understand the penalty. Roughing the passer is the only penalty that I regularly see called incorrectly, that is the one the NFL still needs to get right. As to the thread subject - others have said it, it comes down to teams getting intimidated in the moment and making brain fart mistakes. I believe I read that the DB who had the game losing penalty on 4th and 16 is a day three rookie. It's a mistake to have that caliber of player in that situation to begin with, and ultimately the moment was too big for him and he flinched. You can't flinch. The Chiefs already established themselves as a dynasty so the pressure is off. Oh and Burrow kind of sucked yesterday. "Burrowhead." Lol. His accuracy was all over the place and he rewarded his defense getting an unreal INT by coughing up the ball and watching the defender run it back for a TD. He didn't meet the moment. He'll always have that one AFCCG when Mahomes randomly threw up all over himself though.

Yes Josh Allen can single handedly wipe out defensive wins on any given play. I'd rather not have to rely on that though. I'd rather have an offense that has no major weaknesses and is a total nightmare to defend, with Allen's unicorn abilities as the cherry on top instead of the engine. Really nothing to complain about the offensive efficiency through two weeks. I'm thinking ahead to January though. I see a major weakness that can be exploited and I don't see any reason why the team shouldn't make a move at the deadline if one is there to be made.

I mean we had 0 catches from our outside WRs against Miami. Only 1 target and it came in garbage time on a broken play that Allen just flung down the field to Coleman. Unless Coleman develops very quickly it's going to be a weakness on the team. The only definite solution is to add someone. Sure there are always ways to hide/overcome weaknesses. That doesn't mean it isn't a weakness. The Chiefs beat the Bengals despite their LT getting his lunch money taken. That doesn't mean LT isn't a weakness for them. I'm more confident than I was before the season that we can have a top 5 offense. I'm not confident at all that we have a high level outside passing attack. My belief is that adding one player to eliminate that weakness could make us arguably the best offense in the league and push us over the hump. I hope we make a move at the trade deadline.

Well we've only played him twice and the first time he led his team to 9 points. Our bigger problem in those two games is that our offense couldn't move the ball consistently. Every time I watch Lawrence play I come away unimpressed, at least relative to his status as a "generational prospect." You can see all the high level technical skills that made him the 1st overall pick. There is just something missing. It's like he's a robot built to play QB with optimal mechanics and technique, but he lacks the natural feel for the game that the elite QBs have. The safety he took against Cleveland is a great example. He kind of drifts into the sack and just lets it happen. I've never seen him take over a game when his team needed him to. He's more of a refined thrower than a true football player IMO.

They would likely do that but liability waivers aren't automatic get out of lawsuit free cards. It's just an extra layer of protection.

More specifically we don't have a go to WR outside the numbers. Shakir has been very effective from the slot. Defenses are going to start clogging the middle and dare our WRs to win on the boundary. That is one addition that I think might be necessary to really compete for a Super Bowl this year.

Yeah you can win a lot of games when your defense and your kicker repeatedly make clutch plays. It's how they won a Super Bowl last year. Burrow unfortunately made too many mistakes of his own so they couldn't capitalize on the Chiefs mistakes. You have to play almost a perfect game against them.

Still very early but I wonder if the Chiefs are regretting not taking a LT with their 1st pick. Worthy is a luxury for them and doesn't look ready to contribute as anything more than a gadget player. Suamataia looks lost out there and was ultimately benched, and his replacement then immediately got a hands to the face penalty that wiped out a 4th down conversion. They made it work last year with bad tackle play but eventually that kind of vulnerability has to catch up to you, right?

Not sure how long this leaves him out, depends on how severe the fracture is. The quick research I've done indicates it can be as low as 6 weeks, but as high as 3-4 months.