HappyDays

Just to put it in perspective, the Saints are currently +870 to win the game. The Bills are +800 at -32.5. So the sportsbooks think it is more likely that we win by 5 scores than it is that the Saints win the game at all.

I don't believe anything the Packers did in the early 90s has any relevance to the organization today. If that were true we wouldn't have gone from Jim Kelly to a parade of nobodies for two decades. And by the way I think Jordan Love is a pretty good QB but he has a long way to go to be mentioned in the same breath as those other two. I also want to be clear I'm not saying coaching can't make QBs look better. Like Brock Purdy doesn't become a $265M QB if not for Kyle Shanahan. But I also think Purdy's limitations are pretty obvious when you watch him play so while the system makes him look better within his own skill set, elite offensive coaching hasn't magically transformed him into an elite QB. I'm neutral on the subject of starting QBs early vs letting them learn from the bench. There are positive and negative cases on both sides. Allen pretty clearly got better as he played more throughout his rookie season but that doesn't mean it was inherently the best path to developing him. My overarching take is that it doesn't really matter - elite QBs will become elite, bust QBs will bust, no matter what their situation looks like early on. You can look no further than what Allen survived in his early years after taking over for a franchise that was nothing but a laughingstock. We've been so spoiled by Josh Allen's play we've forgotten how bad it was before. As recently as 2017-2018 we had all-time goofy storylines going on like the Peterman game, Kelvin Benjamin eating his way out of the league, Vontae Davis retiring at halftime. Same old Bills we said. But then Allen ascended and all of it went away overnight. And now retroactively we credit the same organization that produced those moments for Allen's ascension? Yeah I'm not buying it.

So you think the Pats organization forgot how to develop a QB when they drafted Mac Jones?

Watch how the entire defense reacted after that win on Sunday and tell me they don't have a culture. Jim Schwartz as we know from firsthand experience is a leader of men. The Bills didn't swarm Doug Marrone when we beat the Aaron Rodgers led Packers in Buffalo, they swarmed Schwartz. Kevin Stefanski has been coaching with both hands tied behind his back because the Browns owner made the worst trade in NFL history. Baker was a perfectly fine player when they decided to move on from him. Nothing more nothing less. It took him longer to reach his ceiling than Allen, that is true. Is your take that if Brian Daboll was in Cleveland they somehow would have flipped trajectories? Yeah I just hard disagree with that. Allen was the architect of his own success. He rebuilt his mechanics from the ground up. He survived years of horrible pass protection and bottom tier WR play. He created the stability in the organization, not the other way around.

Yeah it is kind of impossible to play the "what if Josh Allen had this roster?" game, because him being with that team since 2018 would mean their roster would be totally different. Since drafting Allen, Beane has only owned one pick inside of the top 20. And that trickles down to every round in the draft. Some teams get to pick #5 and #37 with their first two picks. For those teams their 2nd pick might fall in the same tier as our 1st pick. And we've had that disadvantage for 6 years now so there is a snowball effect. It is not easy to find elite talent in that area of the draft, although you think Beane would have gotten one just by pure luck by now. The Chiefs are the only real comparison to our perennial draft position and their talent has dropped off significantly over the years. The Ravens had a top 15 pick in 2022 and got Kyle Hamilton with it. The Eagles have had three top 10 picks since 2020 and came away with Devonta Smith (elite #2), Jordan Davis (meh), and Jalen Carter (elite). The Bengals got Chase in the top 5. These are opportunities that we just haven't had. On the flip side, I've said this before but having an elite franchise QB creates a compound positive effect that is impossible to quantify. It creates stability in the organization which means the coaches don't get fired, so every new player is joining a very well established culture and system. You get to stop spending draft picks on the QB position. In training camp you aren't splitting reps, the starting offense is the starting offense and they get all of the reps together. You get first dibs at reclamation projects that are looking to rebuild their image with a good team, especially on offense. There are certain free agents and tradeable players every year that only a few teams have a chance at getting and you're one of them. Your QB's mere presence on the field elevates everyone around him which makes their development track easier. All of these positive effects compound over the 10+ years that you have that QB. So if the Browns had drafted Josh Allen 1st overall I 100% believe they would be a Super Bowl contender right now. Hue Jackson probably would have still been fired after 2018 and I have no doubt Kevin Stefanski could have had the same success or more with Allen that McDermott has had. They wouldn't have wasted all those draft picks and money on Watson so if anything their roster today would be significantly better even after accounting for lower draft picks every year. They might be considered a super team by now honestly.

Yeah imagine being Daniel Jones drafted to the Giants for example. You have awful OL play, Brian Daboll as your coach, JAGs at WR. Thankfully Allen was drafted into a better situation than that.

I hope Beane is paying a lot of attention to him and makes an offer at the trade deadline. That's the skillset this offense is missing to put it over the top.

Do you mean the CB blitz that Tre whiffed on? I actually liked that play call. If there's anything to critique you probably want Benford to be the one blitzing there, Tre isn't athletic enough to make that play as we saw.

I can live with player mistakes that lead to 3rd down conversions. I can't live with the coaching mistakes though. There's too much experience in the defensive coaching staff including our head coach for that to ever be the primary problem on a play. Joe points out the 4th down conversion where we had Tre manned up on Waddle with no blitz called. That is a coaching failure, made it way too easy for Miami to execute. This drive ends in a TD. The end of half TD I put entirely on coaching as well. On 3rd and 3 from our 10 Tyreek Hill is lined up in the backfield which should be an immediate red flag; instead nobody on defense pays any attention to him at all and Tua easily hits him for the 1st down. On the very next play Tre is playing outside leverage on Waddle with no inside help. Easy pitch and catch, TD. So that is 14 points directly attributed to defensive coaching failures. If you call a blitz and the offense beats it, you tip your cap and move on. But you can't have plays where the play call is totally wrong for the situation, or hanging certain players out to dry. And it's not just a one game problem, it's a continuation of a trend from last year. That makes me less receptive to the idea that we can just execuse it away as one bad game. They gotta get it figured out.

Bills 35 Saints 7 I don't have any grand thoughts about this one. We're going to beat them by a lot but probably not by as much as we could because we'll be resting starters in the 4th quarter.

Yeah Brady is still the GOAT for sure. The crazy thing about his career is he has what I consider to be three separate Hall of Fame careers - age 24 to 30, age 32 to 37, and age 38 to 45. Any one of those stretches was an all-time resume. That's how ridiculously good he was. To put Allen's career in perspective, he's still 3 years away from Brady's 2nd Hall of Fame career. And he just keeps getting better. After an MVP season last year he's shown an even better command of the offense so far this year. So who knows what his career will look like at the age of 35. The common belief has been that his production will drop off significantly after his physical skills decline. While he obviously won't be stiff arming the Aaron Donalds of the NFL in 10 years, there's to reason to think his mental abilities will keep improving and that will counteract the physical decline. Brady got to a point late in his career where he had basically solved the sport and couldn't be fooled. There's no reason Allen can't get there after 10+ years of play.

Sure the win margin in a game like this can be unpredictable because who knows what happens in the 4th quarter if the game is effectively over. But to put it in perspective the Saints are +830 to win this game. The Bills are +800 at -32.5. The sportsbooks are telling you it's more likely we win by 5 scores than it is that the Saints win the game.

I didn't say they should sit Bosa or Cook. I said they should manage their reps. The season is a marathon and we should use the easy games on our schedule to give them a bit of a break.

If you were ranking the NFL in tiers, you'd have the Giants, Panthers, a few other teams like that, in the bottom tier. Then you'd have a big blank space below them. And then you'd have the Saints. This is not comparable to the Dolphins game, at all. The Saints are the only team that is starting a QB who is barely even backup quality. This is like those games we've had over the years where we've faced the Davis Mills led Texans or the Drew Lock led Broncos. And those teams had some sort of talent. The Saints have nothing they can hang their hat on unless Kamara just dominates. The ONLY way we lose this game is multiple wacky mistakes that this version of the Bills just doesn't make anymore. I was gonna say or if Allen gets injured but no even if Trubisky was starting this game we'd win. I'd bet even money on a 30+ win margin before I'd bet the moneyline on the Saints.

Funny enough if you ask Chiefs fans on social media they'll tell you Brett Veach hasn't hit on enough draft picks and has mismanaged the offensive personnel. He gave a massive contract to what turned out to be a terrible RT. They're 1-2 right now primarily because of major roster deficiencies at multiple key positions. The only reason they are still seen as a playoff team is the QB and the coaching staff. The rest of it is pretty middling. Not that they are a bad front office by any stretch of the imagination but they don't automatically get top 2 consideration because of the team's success.

Keep all of them out of this game. Make Landon Jackson active so Bosa isn't stuck getting 80% of the reps again. Call up Frank Gore Jr so Cook can get some rest too. The only thing that can go wrong in this game is someone important gets a new injury or aggravates an existing one.

Miami was one of the worst games I've seen him play. He was getting beat a lot. I know Tyreek Hill is a tough matchup for any CB but I'm not used to seeing Benford getting dusted as much as he was in that game.

That's just stats though. If you've watched their games this year, Herbert has made elite game winning plays, in particular against KC and Denver. That's been the knock on him. He can stand tall in the pocket and make all the throws, but can he make the big play in the big moment? This year he's making those plays. This is also the first year where I've seen him realize his legs are a weapon. In the past he's been hesitant to take off even with wide open space in front of him, but this year he's giving defenses that one extra thing to worry about.

I usually just scroll on past this stuff but this is the worst take I've seen in a while, from one of the guys that started Football Outsiders: In case you can't see the whole tweet:

In that scenario they're likely playing at LA or at Baltimore before they come to Buffalo, after having to play with full effort down the stretch of the season just to stumble into the playoffs at all. All that after spending multiple seasons in a row on deep tiring playoff runs. Meanwhile we'll have just rested everybody for 1-2 weeks. If we can't take the Chiefs out under those circumstances that is the final nail in the coffin on this coaching staff. The WORST case scenario is that they take out another top AFC team and then limp into Buffalo. That is an outcome we should be rooting for!

I want the Bills 1st Super Bowl win to be as easy as possible. Screw all the narratives. Get the monkey off our back. I think part of what makes the Chiefs great is that ever since they got that 1st Super Bowl they're not feeling any pressure. All of the pressure is on their opponent. I'm very confident that if Allen wins his 1st Super Bowl this year he'll win at least 1 more, maybe 2-3 more, before he hangs it up for good. That 1st one is going to be the trickiest one.

People say he's a locker room problem and that's probably true, but if the Eagles sign him nobody will bat an eye. He was PFF's 13th ranked safety in 2024 so it's not like he is washed. I would like to have a player with that kind of edge on defense. A psycho that makes the opponent hear footsteps, and he would be a great chess piece for our team if not a full time starter. But realistically there's no chance we will add a player like that. Yeah but if you approach it right this becomes a positive. I think every Super Bowl team has a couple jerks that you hate to root for. Anyways it's a moot point. The Bills will not be the team making that call.

I'd be more open to this argument if the problem wasn't a continuation of something that persisted for the whole season last year. At a certain point it's no longer something you can excuse away, it is a legit trend that shows no signs of getting better. Could it get better? Of course, I don't think there is anything inherent to our defensive roster that means we are doomed to a high 3rd down conversion rate. At this point I would even be okay with just getting to average in that area. But we're past the point of believing it will get better. They have to show measurable and consistent improvement or it will remain a concern. What I really didn't like about the Miami game in particular is there were at least a couple times where Babich directly was the reason for the failure. There was a 3rd down where Benford was somehow the only DB in the area of two WRs along the left sideline and Tua just easily threw to the one he wasn't covering. The end of 1st half sequence in particular was awful for Babich - I blame him personally for the Dolphins last 3rd down conversion on that drive and for Waddle's TD. That can't happen. Your DC can't be the primary reason the opponent puts 7 points on the scoreboard. And I'm not being nitpicky with these examples, it's not like he called a blitz and the QB beat the blitz and you just have to tip your cap, these are situations where the defense was just not in any kind of position to even have a chance of stopping the play.

3rd down defense is essentially the same as last year, 44.39% last year to 45.00% this year. But it's only that low because we held the Jets to 0 for 11. Against the Ravens and Dolphins combined it was 61.53%... So the biggest problem from last year appears to have gotten, shockingly, even worse. I know they have instituted some schematic changes to the defense and I worry that they only made those changes for the sake of change without a real plan in mind. This is by far the biggest concern moving forward and we probably won't get real clarity on if it's getting better until after the bye week.