HappyDays

I think this is finally the year Beane should consider trading back in the 1st round. Late 20s is kind of no man's land IMO. Pick up another top 100 pick and restock the offense with as many players as possible.

No. His contract is fully guaranteed next year so might as well bring him back. He is still a solid starter even though he's underwhelming as a top 10 pick. His pectoral injury down the stretch clearly affected him. He is probably the best candidate on the roster for having a breakout season next year. I'd rather take those odds, slight as they may be, than get a meaningless 4th round pick while creating another hole on the roster.

This is inexcusable: Frazier's defense is great in the regular season but it is not built for playoff football. Might be time to get a new voice in the room

No I think good offenses have learned our checks. Too many times the Bengals had an OL pulling and running straight at Taron Johnson. I love Taron but that is a losing matchup every time. That's how they gashed us in the run better than any other team they've faced this year. Obviously better talent helps but we were straight up out-schemed by their offense.

It was the Jags game last year without the 3 turnovers and with a much better offense on the other side. Or for another example watch Mahomes against the Buccaneers in the Super Bowl. Any offense becomes dysfunctional when the OL is getting beaten that badly on most plays. Another thing that frustrates me about this article is it made me realize how stale our defense has become. Frazier's scheme has gotten figured out and easy to counter. Lou Anurumo's versatile scheme had us reeling all game long. Playoff games are won in the trenches and in coaching. We were totally outmatched in both on offense and defense.

Our offense had the same issues against Cincinnati that it's had for weeks, Allen just wasn't able to pull off enough magic to hide the issues this time. Immediate jailbreaks on the OL, a refusal to get our pass catching RBs intentionally involved, a WR dropping a pass on a key 3rd down. You can get away with that stuff against an inferior opponent and rally at the end to win. Against a championship contender it sinks you early. In this era of football you have to be able to win a shootout occasionally, especially with a defense as injured as ours was. No excuses for the offense. It collapsed in the biggest moment of the season.

The difference is in years past he has openly admitted the team's problems. After the Houston playoff loss he said we didn't have enough weapons around Josh. Two years ago he called out the TE room. Last year he said we didn't do a good enough job getting to the opposing QB. This year he didn't point out anything that needs to improve. Just said the current players went through some stuff and that was that. This team needs some major changes to get to championship level and I'm not sure Beane has a plan of how to get there. We are stuck in the 2nd class of the NFL if he can't figure it out.

Which injuries contributed to the offense scoring 10 points in a home playoff game?

One of Beane's greatest strengths has been his ability to stand in front of the media and deliver accountability and a clear plan of attacking our weaknesses. After each of the last seasons' disappointing endings his final press conference has always given me hope that the team was still headed in the right direction. Today was the first time that he seemed lost and unsure where to go from here. We've come to a point where several years of mediocre drafting and free agency spending has caught up to us and we have limited resources to fix the problems. I think Beane has realized that too and doesn't know what to say.

Not a good look to use the Bengals' recent failure as an excuse for why they are now better than us. Their free agency spending got them DJ Reader, Trey Hendrickson, Hayden Hurst. Ours got us Mario Addison and Vernon Butler. Beane has to take more accountability. Our lack of difference makers rests entirely on his shoulders.

I think it was less fun because the regular season was just a waiting game. I heard that from many Bills fans I know in real life. Everyone just waiting for the playoffs to see if we finally made it to the top of the mountain. Personally I still make it a point to enjoy each and every game no matter what, but the agony of 13 seconds was looming in the background all year and there was never any worry that we wouldn't be back in the divisional round at least with a chance to right that wrong. All of that waiting and it ends with a whimper as every unit on the team turned in their worst performance of the season. I respect the fans that want to give the team a break after all the adversity they went through. But honestly the biggest problem in this playoff loss is the same it's been for 4 straight years now - our opponent had more game changing talents on the field than we did. Allen and Diggs are the only guys that step up and make plays outside of the scheme on either side of the ball. It has been a problem all year long. To be fair Von Miller was that guy. But the other contenders have guys like that all over the field on offense and defense. I think if the team ran out of gas it's because there aren't enough top tier players carrying the load for their teammates, the way that a Nick Bosa and a George Kittle and a Christian McCaffrey and a Deebo Samuel do. I think Allen after 5 years of singlehandedly dragging this franchise into relevancy finally started to feel all the bumps and bruises at the end of the season. Diggs exploded in a way we haven't seen since he demanded his way out of Minnesota. That's not a matter of too much adversity, it's a matter of too much being put on just a couple of guys in a sport that requires 4 or 5 elite guys to carry a team to the top of the mountain.

The more I think about how this season ended the more I hate it. Our 2020 season ended with the motto "on the cusp." 2021 ended with the motto "Superman will get it done." 2022 ended with the motto "ran out of gas." I mean what the hell man. That is embarrassing.

Relying on rookies to fill holes is a mistake. They have to do what they did in 2020 and make a splash move for a known commodity. They can also draft a WR early if the board falls right but that can't be the plan.

DeAndre Hopkins is top of the list for me. He fits Allen's style so well and is still playing at a high level. That's a no-brainer trade even if we have to overpay. Michael Thomas I'm concerned with recurring injury issues but sure I'd take a shot. Cooks or OBJ would be fallback options. If we don't end up with one of those 4 the offseason is a failure.

He did that yesterday on his TD run. Running out of gas is an excuse. The team was unprepared from the coaches down to the players. I can believe Saffold was out of gas, but he has been that way since week one.

Different analyst but same basic points. I can't disagree with anything he says here.

I will say the defense does have a built in injury excuse. Von Miller and DaQuan Jones and Micah Hyde all being out is too much, you could argue those are three most important defenders. I still was not happy with some of the defensive play calls yesterday but it's hard to overcome that much loss of top end talent. The offense on the other hand has no excuses. We were down one starter from the beginning of the year, Jamison Crowder. The talent evaluation on that side of the ball has simply been a failure. Zero foundational offensive players drafted since Josh Allen. Knox is arguably the best pick they've made on offense which is really just not good enough. They have a ton of work to do on that side of the ball if they hope to compete for a championship next year. Personally I am all in on trading for DeAndre Hopkins and spending any remaining resources on the OL.

Eh this is the 3rd offseason in a row I'm going into it wondering if Oliver will finally put a complete season together next year. He's been mostly invisible since after Thanksgiving. This is where someone will mention his pectoral injury as an excuse but like Josh Allen said some players figure it out and some players get figured out. Still waiting for Oliver to figure it out. He's here next year no matter what and we can live with him as our starter but I'm not planning my future around him. If we have to push salary into 2024/2025 in order to make a splash move for an offensive player and that means we ultimately let Oliver walk I won't lose any sleep over that.

With Von Miller coming back and Rousseau in his 3rd season I don't see DL as a big need. They could use to add a DT in the 3rd round or later but they're pretty much set on the DL until 2024. We were down our two best DL today. That's just unlucky, not a reason to panic. WR, OG, OT, safety, in that order are all bigger needs. The defense overall does not need a lot of investment this offseason. Put all of our available resources into the offense.

I'll cut Rousseau some slack. His ceiling was always going to come in year 3. He took off an entire year from football and only started 15 games in college. It is not a surprise that he hit the wall late in his sophomore season. Teams can double/chip him with Von out of the picture. He was forced into too many snaps because of that injury. I still see Rousseau as a foundational piece of this defense. He and Milano are the only two that I see as 100% long-term starters here.

One thing I will criticize this coaching staff for is their gameplans appear to be generic on both sides of the ball, no attempt to attack opponents' specific weaknesses. On defense it is always play back and hope the opponent makes mistakes even when we face an offense that will not make mistakes. On offense it's trust our OL to pass protection long enough for our mediocre pass catchers to get open way downfield even when the opposing DL is getting home. And I think what's happening is that our generic gameplan looks really good against poor teams but falls way short against good teams, and then it's just a matter of Allen either willing us to victory or not. The other remaining teams have more than one way to win. McDermott and his coordinators have to open up their horizons. They cannot afford to be stubborn again because after next season their jobs are no longer inherently safe.

It has been evident since the Vikings game that his elbow injury is affecting his accuracy on short and intermediate throws. The bigger issue in our offense is it's too boom or bust. Either we hit a 40+ yard pass play or we don't have a drive. There are zero gimme plays in this offense which is really just unacceptable. So little margin for error so every drop or missed pass is accentuated.

So what is the argument against trading for him? Diggs can't do it all by himself and inconsistent Gabe Davis is not the answer. Backload his contract using the money we would have used to pay Oliver.

If the next season ends the same way that's when you make the change. McDermott and Beane get one more offseason to prove they can take this team to the next step. If they can't you don't waste any more of Allen's career.