HappyDays

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.

There has been mind numbingly bad game management from both teams in the final 5 minutes of this game

So I guess Stroud is just bad now? Also watch the LT on this play for an easy laugh:

This is hilarious:

The weird thing is that the defensive identity and the offensive identity are opposites. On defense it's "prevent big plays, force the opponent to be efficient and mistake-free." On offense it's "be efficient and mistake-free, don't hunt big plays." In other words we've tried to build the exact style of offense that our defense is designed to force the opponent into. Very bizarre.

Indy hired Lou Anarumo and went from 24th in PPG to 8th. Atlanta hired Jeff Ulbrich and went from 23rd to 8th (tied with Indy). San Fran hired Robert Saleh and went from 29th to 7th. Yeah it's the coaching. 100%.

Given Stephen Ross' history, I wouldn't be surprised if his plan is to leave McDaniel in place all year to maximize the tank. Interim coaches occasionally give their team a bump. I think he is gunning for the #1 pick.

This is bad news for us IMO. Always tough for a defense to prepare for a replacement QB on short notice, and Dalton can read defenses better than Bryce Young can.

I trust Allen to maximize a new player much much more than I trust McDermott/Babich to maximize a new player. So that's an easy one for me.

Yeah I just don't know where the improvement is coming from short of a WR trade. Some fans have pointed out we had the same week 5 and 6 slump last year and then turned it around, but the trade for Amari Cooper was the catalyst for that turnaround. We scored 30+ in all but one of our remaining games after that. If we don't make some kind of comparable trade this year there's no reason to think the passing offense is suddenly going to take off. And then on defense Hoecht will help some but the DL really hasn't been the problem this year. With Hairston who knows when McDermott is comfortable enough with him to let him play. So the back 7 which has been the problem this year is stuck as is for the foreseeable future. I haven't felt this negative about the team since before the McBeane era. Really hard right now to find reasons to be optimistic. A trade for Olave or some other #1 WR is the only move that would give me real hope. Even with that I'm not sure it would be enough to overcome all of the roster and coaching staff deficiencies but it would at least give us a fighting chance.