DCOrange

Damn, and I thought I was low on the defense. I'd be pretty shocked if it's the worst in the league. I don't think it's a top 10 unit like many here do...maybe not even top half of the league, but I don't think it's the worst either. I think Buffalo is likely to pick somewhere in the 4-8 range this year though.

Not due to a mandate about how many games a player can play in, but resting star players in baseball and basketball are both pretty normal. Obviously they play in far more games though, so the importance of each individual game isn't as high.

It's not increasing games for the players though, that's the whole point of this weird proposal. It allows the NFL to increase the regular season schedule to 18 games while increasing the amount of rest that players get and also not increasing the number of games each individual player plays in.

It's a really fascinating idea. No doubt it would be unpopular from the perspective of the fan that physically goes to the games because they might not get to see their favorite player play. Would be really interesting from the team perspective...basically would give each individual player 2 or 3 bye weeks rather than 1 and then there would be the strategy of "Do we bench all our good players the same week and just hope our backups can pull it off so that we're at full strength for 16/18 games? Or do we bench some sporadically so that we're never at full strength but we're at pretty good strength all 18 games? I don't really see this happening but it's a fascinating idea to consider.

Nah, that one was just a really bad spot by the ref. He dove for the first down and clearly got it; the refs seem to have thought his foot hit out of bounds when it hadn't.

I don’t think it makes sense to ask this question in the middle of the tear-down process. Very few positions have improved in the past couple years but that is on purpose. If this remains true in 2 years, Beane is likely gone IMO, but for now, he’s prioritized accumulating draft picks and cap space over improving the roster and from that perspective, he has done well. The signings of Star, Vontae, and Ivory still leave me scratching my head though.

If the Bills only allow 1 yard per carry like they did while he was on the field today, he's worth the money. He did what he was supposed to do today; pretty much nobody else did.

They were averaging 1 yard per carry when they were up 20-0. I didn't like Star to begin with and I hated the contract we gave him, but the run defense was absolutely fine when it mattered today. Vontae Davis was a much larger issue.

That's probably because he's old and they know they want him starting. My guess is we keep: Benjamin Kerley Zay Coleman Holmes Ray-Ray

We'll have to agree to disagree. The Bills O-Line was looked at as a top 10 unit last year and it's potentially the worst in the league this year. For example, PFF had them ranked as the 7th best in the league by the end of the season last year and has them ranked #29 entering the season. Tyrod was roughly an average to above average starter last year, and more importantly, he protected the ball at an astonishing rate (sometimes to the team's detriment). That ability to protect the ball, coupled with the defense forcing turnovers at an elite rate, is pretty much the only things that Buffalo really did well last season. Even with McCoy and a good O-Line, they didn't run the ball all that well. Obviously they didn't pass it that well either, but the fact that they didn't turn the ball over and also forced turnovers at a huge rate was easily the biggest factor in the team winning 9 games. That just isn't going to happen this year. I'm confident in Allen and think he'll develop into a very good QB in the future, but it would be very surprising if Buffalo gets improved QB play this season unless it's a result of a far better offensive system thanks to Daboll. Edit: I’ll put it this way. Tyrod was #13 QB on PFF and #14 in QBR. I don’t expect the Bills starting QB in 2018 to be ranked higher than either of those this year.

I've used Sunday Ticket's streaming service the last couple years, but I just can't do it anymore. Way too much buffering and sometimes low quality video for my liking; I did a trial of HeheStreams this preseason and it is absolutely incredible how much better it is IMO.

It's possible, but outside of the rookies, it's not like these players are unknown. They've clearly gotten worse on the O-Line for example. All three levels of the defense could go either way IMO. Same with WRs and RBs and the QB play will almost certainly be worse this year. I think the best hope is that Daboll might be a huge upgrade over Dennison.

It was considered overachieving because basically all of the stats suggest that the Bills are ripe for a major regression to the mean. They were a huge outlier team last year. It's not impossible for them to be an outlier again, but it's pretty rare.

It's really sad to see this. Can't help but think that it's just a matter of time before he seriously hurts someone. I hope someone is able to help him.

This is pretty close to how I feel. I have Cleveland pegged for 6-8 and Buffalo for 4-7, so there's some overlap where Buffalo could end up with more wins, but I'd lean towards Cleveland personally.

Tough break for the Redskins to be stuck with him

I agree that I'm not ready to throw in the towel on the run defense yet. I do think it could be an issue though, especially if Star is more like the player I think he is rather than the one that McDermott apparently thinks he is. Looking back at last season, specifically in regard to the run defense: Buffalo allowed 4.3 yards per carry if you include all 17 games that they played, tied for 7th worst in the NFL. If you exclude the 3 game horror show that they had as well as the blizzard game that simply didn't resemble real football, they allowed 4.1 yards per carry, which would have tied for 14th in the NFL. If you then eliminate the plays that Dareus was on the field for (54 carries for 136 yards), the Bills would have allowed 4.4 yards per carry even after eliminating the awful stretch. 4.4 YPC would have tied for 5th worst in the NFL. So even without counting the the awful 3 game stretch that the defense had, the run defense was still among the worst in the NFL last year.

158 yards or so on 29 passes so far. At this point he looks like the Jets 3rd best QB at the moment IMO. Having said that, all 3 appear to be serviceable which is obviously a nice problem to have.

I think it's probably this way with a lot/almost every NFL team, but as someone that's currently going through "High Powered Organizations in the 21st Century" training this week, watching the way the Browns operate is such a shock to the system; they pretty much go against everything that you learn about how a well-functioning organization should be run.

I don’t expect Buffalo to do it but I think DeSean Jackson could be had relatively cheap, like a mid round pick. Supposedly he’s looking at being the #4 WR in Tampa this year and that’s without accounting for the TEs that will be very involved too.

Just based on watching their preseason games and not what I thought of them before, I’d go: 1. Baker 2. Allen 3. Darnold 4. Toss-up between Rosen and Lamar 6. Rudolph with a big dropoff after Darnold

Was hoping to see more progress with his footwork...seems like all his bad habits are still there (which is probably to be expected this early but I was still hoping anyways). Seemed to throw a more accurate ball last night than usual despite the same footwork flaws though. He still reminds me a lot of Cam Newton, which makes me very excited. Really happy with the playcalling from Daboll. Makes me wish we had him last year; I never understood playing Tyrod while transitioning away from the shotgun handoffs that Buffalo excelled so much with under Tyrod/Rex

I cant watch the video at the moment but is the one you’re referring to the play that happened in the end zone? If so, that was ruled defenseless receiver rather than the new helmet rule.

Not to detract from the Reid argument that appears to have taken over this thread, but I think people are making a bigger deal out of the Mahomes INTs than it should be. Rodgers has also thrown 7 INTs in 5 practices and he's a pretty decent QB IMO.

For those that are reading through this thread but didn't catch the game last night, someone compiled a video of the penalties last night (though I believe the last two were actually called for defenseless receiver penalties rather than the new helmet rule but the commentators didn't realize that).