HappyDays

Kind of off topic, but can we acknowledge how insane it is that Mahomes spent his first four years with Tyreek Hill AND Travis Kelce in their prime, AND Andy Reid calling plays? I mean that is an all time supporting cast. Arguably the greatest speed WR of all time, arguably the greatest pass catching TE of all time, one of the greatest offensive play callers of all time. Even I didn't fully appreciate how absurdly good that situation was until seeing what Tyreek Hill has done in Miami. And that takes nothing away from Mahomes, his otherworldly talent that defenses simply weren't ready for was the engine of the whole thing. The first year Mahomes had that supporting cast, Allen was throwing the ball to Kelvin Benjamin, Andre Holmes, and Charles Clay 🤣

Sure, that's why I don't focus too much on the details. The problem is on defense they have spent resources on starters and depth, whereas on offense they have spent resources mostly just on depth. This is the first offseason in Allen's career where Beane made a concerted effort to address the OL. He has not even attempted to address WR2 the past two offseasons. It is a legitimate failing of this regime.

Here's the way I see it. On defense we have invested enough into every position. The results haven't all been great but I don't think anyone disagrees that we have invested plenty at every level of the defense. On offense we have not invested nearly enough at WR, and IMO not enough at OL either. Using day three picks and paying the likes of Deonte Harty and Trent Sherfield is not true investment. Looking at just premium positions, we have spent a ton of draft picks and cap space on CBs and DEs, and comparatively very little on WRs and OTs. Parse all the minute details out however you want, the top end investment has clearly weighed much more heavily towards the defense.

This is not an excuse for the Bills, but every team in the league would handle this situation the exact same way they have. That's the sad reality.

Chiefs 30 Bills 29 I don't feel good about this prediction at all. On one hand I genuinely believe that we have a talent advantage over the Chiefs, especially with their recent injuries. I could see a scenario where we blow them out, seriously. On the other hand, I have totally lost faith in McDermott. If we don't blow out the Chiefs it's going to be another close game that comes down to the final seconds. Why would I bet on McDermott in that situation? I have to base my prediction on past results. So I believe for us to beat the Chiefs, it will have to be with us leading by 9+ points with 2 minutes or less remaining. I think that is possible. But I have also seen this team off the bye week in the McDermott era and even though the record is perfect, the play on the field historically has been sloppy for the first half or so. So I predict a slow and frustrating start for both offenses. Eventually they will both figure it out in the 2nd half and it will come down to some awful coaching decision in the final minutes that loses the game for us.

This is a huge matchup advantage.

I 100% believe that Beane and his staff control the draft process. But free agency? I can't buy that if Sean McVay or Kyle Shanahan were our coach, we would have spent tens of millions of dollars on the likes of Star Lotulelei and Vernon Butler and Jordan Phillips, while punting on a talent like DeAndre Hopkins. I'm sure Beane creates the contracts and manages the cap space, but I'm equally sure McDermott has a big say in the players that we sign. He would have to, right? His philosophy overrules anyone else in the building. He tells Beane what kinds of players he needs to build a successful team and I'm sure his defensive background influences those decisions.

Christian Watson is the answer here IMO. That isn't hindsight either, he had plenty of fans on here that wanted him in the 1st round. It remains to be seen if he can consistently stay healthy but the talent pops off the screen.

Yeah that is the obvious "should have" move that may have sunk our season. The more you think about it the more frustrating it is. His contract was not so restrictive that we couldn't have pried him away from the Titans. Let go of Hines, Poyer, Harty, Settle, and be willing to kick the can down the road a bit further. That's all it would have taken. And his skill set is so perfect for Allen's play style and as a complement to Diggs. Just a no brainer signing that Beane inexplicably didn't make... I like Beane overall but coming into the season with Davis still as the #2, when an immediate substantial improvement was available and willing to come here, is probably a fireable offense.

It really is annoying. There are so many bad personnel decisions that you could point to, many of which combine to become a bad trend. But a lot of fans choose to focus on a single bad pick where the lost opportunity cost was just a center? The Chiefs themselves had an unquestionably worse and less forgivable pick taking CEH in the 1st round over Tee Higgins. One awful pick didn't stop them from winning a Super Bowl. Overall I don't have a lot of complaints about Beane's drafting. He has found as many starting caliber players in the draft as any other GM in the league. My issue with him is he has consistently failed to even try and surround his franchise QB with an above average supporting cast. That speaks more to his poor work in free agency than in the draft IMO.

Yeah, that screen was brought to you by one of McDermott's patented final drive stupid blitzes. The same concept lost us close games against the Broncos and the Eagles too. Taking into context the talent of the defense and the talent of the opposing offense, our loss to the Pats was the worst Bills defensive performance of the millennium. Don't try and excuse away that coaching abomination.

Man we are a 6-6 team. I appreciate the optimism but it's too late in the season for the team to fix its myriad of problems. Dorsey WAS a big problem and I'm happy to see him gone but the other issues are not fixable at this point in the season. Just going off of pure math, it's incredibly unlikely we'll run the table. Here's how I see the odds of us winning each remaining game (you can bicker on the individual percentages, but I think most will find this fairly accurate): Chiefs 50% Cowboys 40% Chargers 70% Patriots 95% Dolphins 50% Statistically that means we are 6.65% likely to run the table... Even 4 wins against only our AFC opponents is just 16.625% likely. I'll keep the hope alive until they're mathematically eliminated but realistically this is not our year.

No. It's because Josh is not replaceable. He's our QB for the next decade. If his poor play single handedly loses us just one game a year that is a really really good outcome. McDermott on the other hand is easily replaceable. And he was the biggest reason for several of our losses this year. Trying to blame Josh for this disappointing season isn't problem solving, it's just whining. He totally sucked in that Jets game, it happens. I don't just whine about McDermott for fun. I want him replaced.

Nothing about Mac Jones can be described as salacious.

I 100% agree that Brady is a revelation and we would probably be coasting into the playoffs if Dorsey was fired after the Giants game. BUT even with our offense performing very well against the Eagles, and Allen having one of the best performances of his career, that still wasn't enough for our head coach and our talent to beat a true championship contender. We even caught them napping in the 1st half so the circumstances in that game were about as favorable as possible for us, and that still wasn't enough. So have we just accepted that under this regime the best we can do is lose a close game to a championship contender? We now have the great OC (at least based on early returns). If that doesn't get us over the hump, changes have to come elsewhere.

This is bad for our playoff chances at 10-7 IMO. Unless the Jaguars lose 4 of their 5 remaining games they're ahead of us in that scenario. They have a game against the Browns this weekend and we really need the Browns to get 3 more losses.

The Bengals backup QB beating the Jaguars, in a result that further hurts our playoff chances, pushed me over the edge. I hate that the Bills are likely to miss the playoffs but one silver lining would have been McDermott getting fired as a result. Without that, what is the point of this season? The most disappointing season of the millennium, with the Bills likely missing a shot to participate in the most wide open AFC playoffs maybe ever, and we're just gonna run it back with the same guy in charge next year? It's just hard to feel any glimmer of hope in that scenario.

Great news @DrDawkinstein. Based on tonight's result, we may not have to worry about the Bengals picking ahead of us.

Kind of gutless to not let Browning have a chance with the ball in his hands. He's played lights out in an impossible situation, and you just leave it up to your middling kicker. Of course the middling kicker made it as I typed this because every team other than the Bills can just have everything go right for them.

Fun fact: my fantasy opponent has Josh Allen as his QB so he started Jake Browning in relief.

Sure the 49ers model can work, just also have two elite WRs, an elite TE, an elite RB, an elite OL with the best LT in football, and the best play caller in football.

For real? The freaking Jake Browning led Bengals are going to hang around in the playoff conversation?

I'm good on DT and CB in the 1st round. But edge rusher is certainly a big need. It's the 3rd most important position on the team and we have just one above average player - Rousseau - on the 2024 roster. Arguably that makes it an even bigger need than WR. Re-signing Floyd is a no brainer but other than that we have a massive hole at that position heading into next year.