Logic

I'd just like to point out that Beane has a history of making moves right before the trade deadline. Kelvin Benjamin. Nyheim Hines. Rasul Douglas. Three different years he brought in a guy via trade that he thought would help address what was ailing the team at the time. I tend to lean towards "he won't make a move" this year, simply because I think that within the halls of OBD the feeling is that this is the "get right" year with the cap, and while they may publicly talk big about going after a championship, I think privately they know that it's gonna be a down year. As such, I don't think they're gonna trade future capital to bring in a player for a year in which they don't realistically expect to compete for a title. BUT...to say that Beane usually sits on his hands and doesn't make any moves midseason simply does not reflect reality.

So was the last one.

He doesn't look "off" to me at all. After the first three weeks, most agreed that he looked the best he had since 2020, and that he was likely gonna be an MVP favorite all year. His time-to-throw was at a career low, and he was throwing accurately and decisively and going through his progressions with purpose and precision. He looked bad the past two weeks because the Ravens and Texans weren't scared of his receivers or the offensive playcalls, and they sent exotic blitzes and zero blitzes and played tight man coverage behind it. No one got open, and Josh spent most of both games running for his life and trying to create offense because his OC and WRs weren't giving him anything to work with. When Josh Allen has protection and WRs getting separation and an even decent offensive gameplan, he's elite. When every play is a jailbreak and no one's getting open and his OC is dialing up bad gameplans, he looks "off". Nothing is wrong with the guy. His surrounding talent and OC are the difference between "MVP season" and "something's wrong with Josh". It's early enough in the season that he can revert more to the former than the latter, but its gonna take his OC evolving and throwing counter-punches and his WRs getting schemed open or stepping their game up.

The "Bills can't win close games" things has been talked about ad nauseum. What you basically showed with your side-by-side statistics is that the Bills usually win games by comfortable margins, but when they lose, it's usually "just barely". They very rarely get blown out (the Ravens game was the first time since 2021, for instance). That's really all I take from that statistic.

I don't buy that the "guys in charge" -- be it Terry Pegula, Brandon Beane, or Sean McDermott -- don't care about winning a championship. Not for one second. I vehemently disagree with the way they choose to go about trying to win a championship at times, but not even one half of one percent of me believes that they don't care about winning a championship. That's about all I have to say on this topic.

The issues that seem most concerning to me right now: 1.) Failure to adapt. As you mentioned, defenses seem to have figured out how to stop Plan A. The fact that no reasonable Plan B has yet been presented is troubling. Opposing coaches take away what you want to do frequently in the NFL. Good coaches adapt and counter-punch. Brady still has yet to show he can do it. 2.) Unwillingness and/or inability to feature our best players on offense. Everyone said it was some kind of a GOOD thing that the Bills started spreading the ball around when they switched to Brady last year and stopped "forcing it" to Diggs. Well...why weren't they able to spread the ball around AND feature Diggs? Fast forward to this year and Brady hasn't shown that he has the slightest idea how to feature and maximize the talents of Dalton Kincaid, Dawson Knox, Keon Coleman, or $24 million dollar man Curtis Samuel. He doesn't have "gotta have it" plays for those players. He doesn't ever seem to go into a game saying "this is a Kincaid day" or "this is a Samuel day" and featuring those players. Does he even know how to do it? In retrospect, was his complete unwillingness/inability to get Diggs involved last year a sign of things to come? You can overcome a less-than-great receiving corps with a great coordinator. You can overcome a less-than-great coordinator with a great receiving corps. Right now, the Bills have a less-than-great receiving corps AND a less-than-great coordinator, and I fear they won't be able to overcome both. If things don't change, and change fast, they Bills don't have a prayer of competing with the big boys of the AFC come December and January -- if they even make it that far.

Brandon Beane - Criminally mismanaged the WR depth chart this offseason. Mack Hollins as WR1 on the depth chart in a real NFL game in 2024. Who could have foreseen this not going well? In an offseason where the NUMBER ONE PRIORITY should have been giving Allen MORE weapons, they gave him less. This Bills WR corps might be the worst of Josh Allen's NFL career. Unacceptable. Joe Brady - On a day when we needed a player to separate vs man, he refused to feature Curtis Samuel and Dalton Kincaid and Dawson Knox, or even James Cook in the passing game. He does not seem to have any idea how to effectively feature his best players on offense. Josh Allen - Despite the lackluster WR play and lackluster offensive gameplan, Josh did not have a good game, and some of it was on him. It's taboo to the point of being almost forbidden to critique Josh Allen these days, but I call it like I see it. Yes, everything around him was crap, but there were plays to be made at times yesterday that Josh didn't make. WRs - Woof. That about covers it. Heroic effort by the defense, all things considered. Wasted because the OC couldn't coach his way out of a paper bag and the WRs couldn't separate if their lives depended on it. Gross. Discouraging. Hard to see how much will change without a significant WR acquisition and some coaching evolution from Brady.

Well...The Bills managed to score a decent amount of points and lose only one game last year when he took over as OC. Then they came out this year looking dynamic in the first three games, scoring 30+ points in each one. So he HAS demonstrated success at the NFL. But as I mentioned in a recent thread, opposing defenses were gonna get "the book" on his offense sooner than later, and he'd need to show he has some counter-punches. So far, he has not done so. If I was to pinpoint one major concern with Brady, it's this: he seems to have either an unwillingness or an inability to feature his best players on offense. Whether it be Diggs last year, Kincaid and Samuel and Coleman this year, or even Dawson Knox. "Everybody eats" is fine, but there come times in NFL games when you need to think players, not plays, and need to have winning plays drawn up for your best players. How were Knox and Kincaid not featured yesterday? How has Samuel had by far his WORST year as a pro? I'm starting to fear that Brady doesn't know how to go away from his egalitarian offense and just say "you know what? Today needs to be a Kincaid day". I'm finding it very concerning that on a day when they need a guy who can separate vs man, Curtis Samuel is not a focal point of the gameplan. Concerning stuff, all of it.

Unless he's got an injury that's not on the weekly injury report or just suddenly turned to dust over the offseason, the only reasonable conclusion is that Joe Brady has been criminally misusing/underusing him.

Before the Ravens game, people were asking "how soon until Joe Brady gets a head coaching job?" Fast forward two weeks, and people are asking "how soon can we fire Joe Brady?" Life comes at you fast.

I don't think it's really up to Beane. Word is that he DID make the call. The Raiders would have to be willing to eat Adams' salary this year and...well...do you know much about Mark Davis?

...This is what it was like for the Patriots and their fans for 20 straight years. Sit back and laugh at the utter dysfunction of the three other AFC East teams. My, how the turntables...

Technically speaking, yes. I expect we'll see Smoot and Toohill kicking to the interior on passing downs, with a rotation of Rousseau, Epenesa, and Soloman at EDGE.

I seem to recall discussions this offseason about how our razor thin WR group would leave zero margin for error. So here we are, going into one of the biggest games of the season, with Mack Hollins, Curtis Samuel, and Keon Coleman at WR. I will always love Brandon Beane, and I'm still a big fan of his overall, but...he absolutely criminally mismanaged the WR position this offseason. It's maddening.

With a reasonably healthy roster, I'd feel pretty good about our chances at victory. With...whatever this is we're about to roll out on Sunday, not so much. Just to be clear, on defense, we're gonna be missing out best DT, a HOF edge rusher, an All-Pro WILL, our starting strong safety, and very possibly an All-Pro nickel and team captain MIKE. On offense, we're gonna be missing the only WR that has actually produced for us this season. I hate it.

No one on this forum could possibly have foreseen that players get injured in the NFL and that having a paper thin WR depth chart constituted clear and obvious roster mismanagement. Nope. No one at all. Frustrating. I think they'll survive the absence of the DTs and Rapp, but Shakir being out...that's a tough one.

This was one of the best -- if not THE best -- Thursday Night Football games I've ever watched. Passing fireworks galore, a close, back-and-forth score throughout, two quarterbacks playing at the height of their powers in a divisional matchup in front of a fired up crowd, overtime, dramatic walk-off big play ending. It had everything. OUTSTANDING game of football. Games like this are why I love the NFL.

Mixon being out would make a huge difference, in my opinion. I have a decent amount of faith in the Bills to be able to shut Akers down (especially after getting embarrassed in the run game last week, you just know McDermott is gonna be preaching run fits all week) and make the Texans one-dimensional. I think who does and doesn't play for the Bills could be the key to this game. As of this moment, Bernard, Johnson, and Dawkins are all questionable, and who from that group is active will go a long way in determining the Bills' likelihood of victory.

If nothing else, Beane's inquiry about Adams shows that the Bills are at least open to the possibility of acquiring a veteran receiver via trade this season. Cost will continue to be the issue, as the Bills don't have the cap space to take on any big contracts. But if any of the Browns, Titans, etc are willing to eat the cap hit in exchange for a higher draft pick in order to send Cooper, Hopkins, etc...I imagine Beane would continue to be interested.

Beane always does due diligence and calls to see what the compensation being sought is, as any good GM should. It's why you hear the Bills mentioned in just about every situation where a player is seeking a trade. I do not get the sense that Beane is going to be willing to give up a ton of capital to add a receiver. He wasn't willing to make a small jump up the board for BTJ on draft night. He wasn't willing to trade for a receiver all offseason. Why now would that have changed? I think he envisions this team being in a "get right" year and in year one of a mini-reset, and throwing a bunch of capital and money at a 31 year old WR doesn't feel like his M.O. at this moment in time. I also do not get the sense that the Raiders necessarily want to eat much of the cap charge this year. They've not historically been a franchise that loves spending money when they don't have to. I think that, in the end, the most simple and obvious thing likely happens: He becomes a Jet or a Saint.

I wonder if both Edwards and Cine could be active. Edwards would replace Rapp. Cine could take Miller's vacated game day roster spot. Of course, that would mean the Bills are going lighter at DE, but five guys there instead of six seems fine. Cine as the dime backer would be really interesting to me. Perhaps they feel he offers more against the run than Ja'Marcus Ingram while not losing much in pass coverage. Color me intriuged.

Call me crazy, but offenses like that of the Texans worry me much less than offenses like the Ravens. It's the teams that have a power run game and/or can capably employ heavy personnel that best exploit the Bills defense. The teams that can run just as well as they pass. Even the Chiefs, on the occasions that they've given our defense problems, it's often because of Travis Kelce, who is an elite big-bodied tight end. Teams like the Texans, whose main strength is passing -- Joe Mixon and Cam Akers don't really scare me in the run game -- I like our chances against them. That's the type of offense we ARE set up to stop. That's exactly what our defense is built to combat. I'm not saying the Bills are gonna completely shut the Texans offense down. In actuality, I expect Bobby Slowik to outcoach Bobby Babich, at least in the first half. I'm just saying I'd rather face the Texans of the world than the Ravens of the world, defensively speaking.

So you agree with me that it seems unlikely the Bills can afford him?

I think Bishop/Edwards is gonna become the starting safety duo sooner rather than later. I also can't help but be curious if Kareem Jackson or Lewis Cine from our practice squad have anything to offer. IF Micah Hyde comes back, I can't imagine it being until much later in the season.