Richard Noggin

Love this breakdown. Wonder if Chad Hall would be the guy to push this WR-centric offensive growth? (I'm a Dorsey guy, FWIW.) I know he's got more credibility WITHIN NFL team circles than he does in popular forums, like TBD.

I was fortunate as a long-tenured server at Tempo to watch so many coaches, front office personnel, and players interact with each other...and I'll admit, Hackett was one of the most boisterous and intense football minds even while out to eat. Really got caught up in talking football with his fellow coaches who were less...engaged. Marrone, on the contrary, was boastful and self-satisfied. I came away impressed with Hackett's football righteousness. For whatever it's worth (and it might be worth a little something on strictly relative terms, closely witnessing so many intimate interactions and comparing them to one another). The amount of access a few of us had back then was pretty crazy.

One of Johnson or Hamlin (the Bills #3 and 4 safeties on the depth chart) will be a PLAYER in this league. My money is on Hamlin. They're learning from the best players and coaches (w/r/t secondary play), and one thing the Bills do at an elite level is identify potential in DB prospects. All the ingredients. The Bills need to worry more about LB and DL.

Sign Byron Pringle? Get er done?

That's all fine and good and as usual I mostly agree. But I wasn't making any of those points you're countering. Carry on!

Eff it; you've got Josh freaking Allen. You can afford to play a more aggressive defensive scheme, and potentially forcing an early turnover or two could really let an offense like ours put a team away. Giving up some big plays here and there, as we've seen, won't burry this offense when it's playing unbridled. Aggression is the key to a team featuring Josh Allen. Or whatever. Probably just not in McD's DNA either way.

No, I just don't see things as simply black and white the way you do. I genuinely wonder about the myriad variables influencing career trajectories. You are a smart poster, but you are also not terribly flexible in your thinking when challenged or even simply questioned.

Hey, I'm mostly asking questions that I think shouldn't be overlooked. Circumstances have SO MUCH to do with any given player's success, but especially at the QB position. How things ultimately do turn out for young QBs in the NFL don't necessarily reflect the only way they could have happened. How many highly-regarded prospects could have benefitted from a complete redshirt rookie season and excellent one-on-one coaching, with elite weapons already flourishing in a dynamic scheme waiting for him once he took the field in year two?

Plus, do you think Mahomes would have had a similarly fruitful redshirt year here? In KC the coaching was well-established and the team was solid. Mahomes went through a daily QB camp for the entire season, breaking down his mechanics, habits, thought processes...before building them back up again. Allen on the other hand was thrust into the fire (do NOT forget who his offensive coaches were that season...and his offensive "weapons") and he relied upon outside/off-season tutelage to refine his game (at least early on).

Without digging up actual clips, I recall Bills d-linemen looking rather foolish against Mahomes in the 1st quarter especially, including leaving their feet and lunging at air. Mahomes just does it with a stick up his butt and awkward, short, choppy steps.

It may be due to the franchise's remarkable top-to-bottom turnaround since the day McD took over, dontcha think? Breaking the playoff drought his first year had a lot to do with his early legitimacy (we all know the way the Bills snuck in and how poor they looked once there, but he got the absolute most out of that roster). And he was largely responsible for bringing in Beane, and consequently #17, so...now the franchise is a legitimate SB contender every year until proven otherwise. Pretty amazing to be in this position after decades of mediocrity. He's likely earned at least two more seasons to win a SB, barring some kind of unforeseen debacle in 2022. The best organizations in the NFL value head coaching consistency.

So maddening from an opposing fan's/team's perspective. For example, Mahomes did very similar things early in the game.

The loss hurts so badly precisely BECAUSE of how well Allen played down the stretch (both in the last two games AND in the last two minutes of both halves against KC). So in a way, the author's claim is way off...emotionally. The Bills squandered legendary performances from a transcendent talent who did everything possible to win THIS SEASON (BEFORE his contract becomes an obstacle). The author is mostly ignoring pathos. In another sense, though, of course the author's argument has some merit...logically. We all witnessed the absolutely undeniable ascension of a formerly polarizing player to unanimously elite status. And typically, elite QB play doesn't waiver year-to-year the way defensive play does. So the sober, rational takeaway can be that Bills fans should reasonably look forward to 5-10 years of elite QB play, which gives the team a chance basically every season. In this way, the author's logos is sound (minus one caveat). (A logical counterpoint could suggest that the Bills failed to capitalize on what might be...looking back...the franchise's best path to a championship, given contract situations, roster makeup, top playoff seeds falling, etc. There are, in the end, so many delightfully painful ways to look at this loss WITHOUT even digging up the trauma of past devastations.)

Clearly I'm talking about Bills fans.

Same thing on the Hail Murray last season. No composure or discipline. Just all-out pursuit. While that same approach helps uber-talented edge guys like T.J. Watt rack up the sacks, it also helps opposing offenses rack up the rushing yardage in the vacated B and C gaps, and it helps mobile QBs escape contain.

I think he was trying to look at the overall event and our relationship to it, without blaming anyone or being a prisoner of the moment.

Also, chasing him to dive and tackle is NOT what was called for. Chasing him to corral and contain is what they should have focused on. Stay in front of him, cut down his escape routes, and gradually close in. Wouldn't have missed so many damned tackles and allowed so many scrambles with that mentality. The coverage plan was working for much of the game (of course that back-end discipline broke down eventually). But the d-linemen KEPT losing contain. WTF. Seems like Addison and others were gunning for sacks and glory when they should have been patiently compressing the pocket.

I'm a great deal of fun at parties, if I do say so myself. And it's funny, in my opinion, that we (including me) often share so much empathy for the players instead of for one another. I do it all the time. I feel for these guys. But, I mean, the WNY teacher and the fireman and the nurse and the server who maybe have season tickets and have suffered heartbreaks like SBXXV and the Music City Miracle deserve more recognition for their pain than the 20-something athlete who lives elsewhere, makes a handsome wage, and will likely move on sooner rather than later. It's a simple point that needn't be repeated like this except for your rejection of its central premise. So chill out. Let me celebrate my fellow WNYers and their legacy of disappointment before we lose an inordinate amount of sleep over the playoff plights of gifted young professional athletes.

Why can so few bring comedy to this pain?

Marino deserved NOTHING! How dare you suggest otherwise. Such a whining, petulant child who embarrassed his own guys all the time. Eff him. Rant over...

Unfortunately, this loss could be considered such a failure. Nothing is promised from year to year. Aaron Rodgers hasn't had another hack at a Superbowl in a long time, for example. Gotta capitalize on every opportunity, every game.

Your tone is ridiculous. I'm not saying anything so absolute as we shouldn't feel for these guys after a loss. I'm merely calling for some sanity. I see my own family, including myself, take it too far all the time. We're rooting for athletic, blessed millionaires who mostly don't even reside permanently in our region. We don't need to feel TOO badly for them when they lose a game. And that's the thing, I'm acknowledging that they ARE human beings who DO feel these disappointments in very real ways. Money doesn't absolve that. So let's appreciate their hard work, but not get carried away in the loss feels for THEM. I promise it's worse for most middle- and lower-class WNYers.

But of course you understand the kick could have shaved several seconds OFF the total of 13, right? (Or pinned the Chiefs deep if they called a fair catch.)

I would even argue Allen ascended to a NEW LEVEL OF QB PLAY during the end of the season and especially during the playoffs. I think Daboll's biggest failure tonight was not recognizing how effing dialed-in his elite QB was, and instead calling a balanced game during the first half. Eff that. We should have had the ball in Allen's hands for every 3rd down (and beyond). JA17 was ready to be transcendent from the start. We squandered that magic for two+ full quarters.

But their actual lives are NOT in the balance here. It DOES have to do with their financial positions. They and their families are forever taken care of in a material way. The vast majority of Bills fans are not in the same position. Professional disappointments for many of us actually result in financial hardship. But like I said, I DO actually feel for them on a human level for a short while. We just shouldn't spend too much energy feeling badly for such successful people who WILL be okay.