HappyDays

No joke, McDermott saying "we'll see" is about as positive a comment as you could get from him regarding Hairston's return. I thought we were at least two weeks away from activating him off IR. We do have two open roster spots right now so maybe...

Meh. I think Bishop has skated by because Rapp has been so horrifically bad it's hard to look elsewhere. But he hasn't been very good this season either. Not a total liability like he was at times in his rookie season but still too many lapses in coverage, too many bad angles, and too many missed tackles. He might have won us the Saints game so I'll give him that.

There was a clip going around from one of the practices this week that appeared to show Jordan Hancock on the field with Cole Bishop and getting 1 on 1 coaching from McDermott after the rep... Probably shouldn't read too much into that but maybe they'll give the rookie a shot. I do expect Poyer to be activated to the roster, we have two open spots right now. No way Poyer can be worse than what Rapp has shown so I can live with it if he ends up starting.

I just thought he had the traits to develop the ability to do those things more consistently. I didn't expect him to be an immediate hit. And to be fair there was brief evidence of that development last year - in the two game stretch of Tennessee to Seattle he showed the run blocking, the fighting through contact, the ability to make difficult catches, the YAC. I was very excited about his development track at that point, but I haven't seen that player show up since then and I'm at a loss as to what happened. I don't think it's lack of effort... I know he has been penalized twice by the team, but I also know through my usual source he really attacked the offseason both before and during camp and the team was very happy with where he was at. Everything is earned under McDermott so it's no coincidence Coleman has led the WR room in snaps since the beginning of the season. That wouldn't have happened if they weren't satisfied with his progress in the offseason. But ever since that injury last year he has looked much softer on the field than I ever would have expected. Oh well. I can forgive Beane for isolated mistakes of player evaluation. What I can't forgive him for is the more fundamental mistake of team building strategy. Skyy Moore is always my go to example because he was an absolute bust, much worse than what even Coleman has been for us. He was KC's Boogie Basham. But because they continually threw resources at the position, they eventually got a big hit with Rashee Rice and all of a sudden their passing offense looks scary again. The isolated mistake of picking Skyy Moore meant nothing in the end. Beane on the other hand put all his eggs in one basket. We entered the season with Coleman as the only possible X on the roster which was a massive mistake that has been compounded by Coleman's lack of development. I know I'm preaching to the choir here but it's just crazy how Beane approaches the WR position compared to every other premium position on the roster. We draft a CB in the 1st round but we also draft a backup option in the 6th round and sign Tre White as a baseline starter. We draft three defensive linemen high but we also sign Bosa, Hoecht, and Ogunjobi to meaningful contracts. At WR we say here you go Keon, the job is yours. No competition, no backup option. Good luck. Why do they continue to leave themselves no margin for error at that one position? I just don't get it.

Hopefully the organization can see that the fanbase has quickly turned from applauding Beane's WGR outburst to openly rooting for us to trade for a WR. Every Bills podcaster, beat reporter, etc. is on the Chris Olave train now. Every Bills account on Twitter is talking about it. That stuff shouldn't matter but it does. If the organization senses that the fans are getting restless, hopefully that makes them feel compelled to make a move. It sucks that we had to watch an obviously doomed to fail strategy play out before getting to this point, but we're here now and I hope Beane can swallow his pride and do the right thing.

McDermott's mistake was after Leslie Frazier left he decided to make an internal hire instead of hiring an experienced defensive mind with a history of success. Frazier couldn't get it done in the playoffs but his defense was great in the regular season at least. Everything is just worse under Babich. It was bad when McDermott was his own DC too. He needed to step outside his comfort zone and bring in a new voice to really shake things up. He didn't and now we're stuck with a flat out bad defense. Every coordinator hire he's made since 2022 has been an internal hire and I think this is a big reason why we haven't gotten over the hump.

I generally agree with your point here, I am usually very patient with letting young players develop. But as someone that really liked Coleman as a prospect I have to be honest about what he's doing on the field. I don't expect young players to be immediate superstars but you want to see some sort of arc of progress from them. Josh Allen is a classic example - he was a better player by the end of his rookie year and continued showing progress in his sophomore season. Coleman on the other hand ended his rookie season worse than it started, and to my eyes he has shown no improvement this year. Lack of separation I get and anticipated, but he's not even doing the things he's supposed to do well - fighting through contact, catching back shoulder throws, etc. He's not a Skyy Moore level bust who doesn't deserve to be on the field but his performance so far caps him as a WR4 type. Not giving up on him yet but we really need to start seeing progress and I'm losing hope that that progress is going to show up out of the blue this year. He reportedly showed a ton of progress in camp but it hasn't translated to real games. Next year is big for him. He could still follow the Davante Adams/Nico Collins track of breaking out in his 3rd season. This year I just don't see it.

Uh, yes. This year the #1 seed was well within reach. Easy schedule, weak conference, Lamar and Burrow both injured, KC starting 2-3. You couldn't possibly draw it up better than that. Even ending up the #2 seed would have been considered a failure given all those advantages. Falling out of the top 4 seeds entirely would have been unthinkable two months ago, even the biggest pessimists on here didn't predict that. It's not about the Patriots improving, which obviously was out of our control. Losing winnable games because of coaching errors and glaring roster deficiencies, that is the unforgivable failure. There's still time to make it happen but the margin for error is already gone.

Bills 27 Panthers 21 I won't lie I have gone back and forth on this game. There is something that feels different, in a bad way, about this year's annual slump. I worry there is a real possibility the wheels are about to fall off. But ultimately I am placing my faith in this team's ability to bounce back from a rough patch because they've done it every year. I'm still predicting over 20 points for Carolina because we are spotting that amount to any offense that isn't the Jets, and Carolina's run game doesn't give me confidence that this is the week we break that trend. However I expect some simple changes that will help - taking Rapp out of the linep, and more man coverage so our back 7 doesn't have to think as much. On offense I am expecting this week we get back to basics. Brady has his flaws but he isn't stupid and the problems from the last two weeks are plain to see. I predict we'll get back to a run heavy offense, a lot more 12 and 13 personnel, and feed targets to Kincaid assuming he is back and healthy. I think they have seen enough from Coleman and will stop forcing him 1v1 opportunities. I'm hoping we see an intent to pass the ball to Cook but I'll need to see it before I predict it. There are no magical solutions to this team's problems walking through the door this week. Focusing on fundamentals and getting back to basics on both sides of the ball is our best path right now. Not expecting a pretty win but get to 5-2 and then hopefully make a trade before the KC game.

After watching our CBs this year, watching this video is like a caveman seeing fire for the first time.

McDermott doesn't know either:

Yeah ideally of course I want the explosive passing offense that can run up the score and make the defense practically irrelevant. Unfortunately we don't have the personnel for that. From Joe Marino's substack: I really think we are better off just going back to basics. The offense has to run through Cook, even as a pass catcher he should be more involved. Kincaid should be the #1 target on forward passes, ideally while catching the defense in heavy personnel, and Shakir can still do his 3-4 quick screens per game. If Palmer can get loose once or twice a game that is where our deep shots will come from. Coleman's role needs to be heavily reduced. These aren't good answers but they're the best answers we have to get out of this slump.

Last year at this time we had just lost to Houston (very similar to this year where we had a 2 game losing streak). We played the Jets the following week, scraped out a win, and then traded for Cooper. So if we trade for a WR I'm guessing at this point it will be after the Carolina game.

The crazy thing is that the best thing for our offense might be bringing that pass rate down even more. We still run the ball with Cook better than we do anything else. They've tried opening up the pass game in the last two weeks - the PA rate has gone up, downfield throw percentage has gone up, etc. - and it just isn't working. I'm going to quote @GunnerBill by saying it's not the offense I prefer but it's the one we need to run right now. When Kincaid is healthy 12 personnel should be our base. I'd start making Palmer (when healthy) and Shakir the highest snap WRs in that formation. Pound the run until defenses go into their heavy personnel and then throw it over the LBs. Pepper in some targets to Palmer on favorable 1v1 looks outside to keep defenses honest. If we're not going to trade for a legit WR there's no sense in trying to change our whole approach. We should instead lean even further into what we do well and try to ride that as much as possible.

Yep KC's offense took people by surprise in 2022. Defenses were still playing them like they had Tyreek Hill. In 2023 defenses adjusted to take away the easy short field completions and suddenly their offense started to struggle. So since then they have invested a ton into their WR room, and now right when their defense has fallen off a bit they have a passing offense to make up for it. That's what a forward thinking organization does. Adjust on the fly to work with the pieces you have, but don't get complacent just because you're able to make those pieces work for a short time. The Bills on the contrary are stuck in neutral. Whatever worked last year, just do it again. It turns out simply running everything back was the wrong strategy, as many people on here predicted. KC every year takes on a new identity.

KC scored 22.2 PPG in 2023 (14th) and 23.1 PPG in 2024 (12th). That's nice for them that they can have an offense outside the top 10 and still compete for Super Bowls. The Bills very clearly are not built that way. We need to score 30 PPG bare minimum to have a chance.

Rapp is missing 25% of his tackles this season! It's bizarre because last year he only missed 3.6% of tackles. That kind of regression is inexplicable. I have no idea what's going on there but Rapp even at his best isn't such a good player that you should stay patient and hope he figures it out. He needs to be replaced ASAP. I'm fine with a replacement level player at safety, but Rapp has become a liability.

Funny enough if Hamlin was healthy I'd put him in over Rapp right now. Hamlin has his athletic limitations but he plays his assignment and hits his landmarks, which is more than Rapp is doing this season. He also wouldn't be missing 25% of his tackles like Rapp is.

Related to this, they need to start treating Ty Johnson as the player he is this year and not the player he was last year. The player that Allen called "the best 3rd down back in the league" is not there anymore. He's had a few drops, he hasn't always been on the same page as Allen, his vision and his contact balance both look worse to my eyes. I think it's time to see what Cook can do on 3rd downs. I know he can't block but get him out on routes and see how it goes. Joe makes the point in his podcast that if teams are going to have a spy mirroring Allen, that should give us automatic space in whatever area that spy is vacating. Cook is the best player we have to take advantage of that space.