HappyDays

So in your mind did the Chiefs lose the ability to throw the ball deep the past two years because Mahomes suddenly forgot how to do that? Obviously it's an issue of personnel. Also to be fair defenses aren't letting teams take those shots anymore. The Dolphins are the only offense regularly getting their guys streaking wide open down field behind the defense. All the other deep shots I'm seeing completed, it's usually the intended receiver just being an alpha and winning above the rim. Nice work if you can get it... But if you don't have vertical speed or contested catch specialists, even with elite QB play your offense is going to look a lot like the Bills and Chiefs this year. A lot of horizontal passes that go nowhere and long periods of time where everything looks hard. I don't agree we have the same caliber of pass catchers that we had last year. Diggs and Davis both have played worse this year than they did last year. For Davis in particular this is almost inexplicable but he has been flat out awful in several games this year. Shakir has been okay. Harty has been an afterthought. Sherfield never seems to know what route he's supposed to be running. Of those players only Shakir is better than the version of himself from last year but he's still a JAG. I will agree the OL this year is the best of Allen's career, as is the running game. Brady is maximizing the personnel much better than Dorsey did too. It is not a talent devoid offense at the level of the Giants or the Panthers for example, but no one objective would say offensive talent is a strength of the team either. It is below par compared to other recent championship contenders.

This points to another problem in our offense, we don't have anyone that can win at the catch point. Either Diggs wins his route or one of the other guys gets schemed open or forgotten about by the defense. I can't think of many offenses that don't have a go to guy where if you see him 1v1 you can just toss the ball in his general direction and there's a better than even chance he'll come down with it. Kincaid was advertised as a great contested catch guy but he isn't there yet. Similarly we don't have anyone that truly scares defenses with the ball in their hands. Cook is the best we have in that area but he is never going to catch a 5 yard slant and turn it into a 50 yard TD. The more I think about it the more perplexed I am by this thread. We have one pass catcher that consistently separates at an above average level and even he has not been dominant. We have zero contested catch specialists. We have zero elite YAC guys. As a result, the offense has a crazy low margin for error.

This season, for sure. I thought Diggs was easily a top 5 WR from 2020-2022. This year something has been off, especially lately. He has never been great at contested catches and now he is having trouble separating consistently too. It isn't just because he's bracketed. He wasn't bracketed at all against KC and did nothing 1v1 against Sneed. Drops have suddenly become a HUGE problem for him. There's been at least one 3rd down conversion in each of the last three games that he flat out dropped... Other than his former reputation, what evidence is there that he's performing like a top 10 WR right now let alone top 5?

Not this year though. Hill Brown Jefferson Chase Cooper Adams Wilson Samuel Those are pretty clearly the most dominant WRs in the league right now, with varying degrees of QB play obviously. Then you have guys in the next tier like Lamb, Evans, Aiyuk. Diggs is somewhere in that tier right now, for my money closer to the bottom than the top. He just hasn't been anywhere close to his dominant self in recent weeks. So I really don't agree at all that we have a top 10 group of weapons. Middle of the pack IMO. Davis has been invisible in like half of our games this year. Kincaid is a rookie, any hopes that he would immediately take over as our #2 pass catcher have not come to fruition. Honestly Cook might be our best skill player right now. If he can play as well as he did against the Cowboys for the rest of the season and through the playoffs, maybe we can be the first team in a long time to make it to the Super Bowl without a legitimate #2 pass catcher. That weakness certainly lowers the margin of error though.

Or what they can do when the ball is in the air... Drew Lock managed to out duel Jalen Hurts last night because his pass catchers made several exceptional catches on their game winning drive. You could probably count the number of exceptional plays by Bills pass catchers on one hand this year... Ditto for the Chiefs. For my money Allen and Mahomes have pretty clearly been the most valuable QBs this year and it isn't particularly close. I think the MVP voters should give it to a skill player though just as a nod to how important those players have been this year in particular. If they give it to Purdy might as well re-name the award at this point.

Yeah he is not a tackle breaker. That isn't ever going to be his game. But he is so smooth that he's consistently able to glide around or through arm tackles before they have a chance. He's also gotten very good at falling forward for extra yards while getting tackled.

Imagine before the game looking into the future and seeing these headlines: "Josh Allen throws for less than 100 yards" "Bills WRs and TEs combine for less than 5 receptions" "The Bills didn't bother blocking Micah Parsons" "Bills DBs drop 3 INTs" You'd probably bet the mortgage on the Cowboys. Insane game script.

Dan Orlovsky broke it down: This is the kind of offensive gameplan I love and for some reason it eludes most play callers. You don't have to be fancy. Find a mismatch and attack it over and over and over again.

This is a potentially big development for our playoff chances: Jags play the Bucs on the road next week. If Lawrence can't play their backup is CJ Beathard and I think Bucs would be the favorite in that scenario. The Jags dropping to 7 losses would mean we are immediately guaranteed a playoff spot at 11-6 no matter what else happens.

I'm not even thinking about 10-7 possibilities. Too many variables at play. We put ourselves in this position so now we have to win out.

All of the following things have to happen for the Bills to miss the playoffs at 11-6: 1) Dolphins beat Cowboys & Ravens 2) Bengals win out 3) Colts OR Texans win out 4) Browns win against the Texans & Jets but lose against the Bengals 5) Jaguars win out (assuming tonight's result holds) That's why we have a greater than 99% chance of making it in at 11-6. There are so many individual game results over the next three weeks that would immediately lock us in to a wildcard spot at worst at 11-7.

We are rooting for Texans over Browns next week. The goal is to get 2 of those teams to 7 losses. Browns and Bengals still play each other, Colts and Texans still play each other. So the Browns lose against the Texans we are guaranteed to get into the playoffs at 11-7. Easiest path is the Bengals just have to lose 1 of their last 3 games and we are in at 11-7 no matter what else happens.

He's had several key drops on 3rd downs over the past few weeks including one today. That isn't scheme related. I don't know what has happened to his hands but I hope he gets back to the relatively low drop rate player that he was before November of this year. That one handed catch was amazing, though. Easily the catch of the year for the Bills. Hopefully it gives him some momentum.

Exactly, thank you for saying this. I've been begging the Bills for years to take advantage of easy opportunities in the run game given to us by defenses selling out to stop Josh's right arm. There are wide open rushing lanes against every team we face because they're deathly afraid of us hitting a 40 yard pass.

Dallas did what every team has done, they called our bluff. They said "we'll give you a light box even when you run it down our throat because eventually you'll stupidly throw the ball downfield and waste a down and that will end the drive." This was the first game in a long time that we called their bluff back at them. Hopefully we keep at it.

Someone help me understand why any team would pay him more than what the Chiefs paid MVS? What skill set are they paying him for? He can't separate, he has an amateur level catch technique, he doesn't fight for the ball, he can't run short routes... Is someone paying over $10M AAV for a blocking WR?

Dawkins is having the best year of his career. I was wrong about him before the season.

There is technically a path for that not to happen, but it's less than .1% likely. Basically the Dolphins would have to beat the Cowboys and Ravens, Bengals would have to win out, Colts would have to win out, Browns would have to lose to only the Bengals but win their other 2 games. And probably some other games would have to go a certain way too.

Hire Dorsey back tomorrow, just to have the pleasure of immediately firing him again. Brady has been unreal.

Tough week because so many players deserve a game ball. I usually try and restrict it to no more than 7. Cook Dawkins Brown Brady Floyd Poyer Johnson

So let's assume we win out but Miami beats the Cowboys and Ravens. For us to get in as a wildcard we need 2 of these teams to drop to 7 losses: Browns (currently at 5 losses) Bengals (6 losses) Colts (6 losses) Texans (6 losses) Browns play the Texans and Bengals still. We should root for them to win out. Texans and Colts still play so that is a freebie to knock one of them down to 7 losses. Bengals still play the Chiefs and Browns. I'd be shocked if they win both of those. So basically if we win out we are all but guaranteed a wildcard spot.

Why are the Cowboys subjecting Dak to these hits?? Get him off the field and ready for Miami.