Inigo Montoya

I think the 300 yard passing stat is a meaningless football metric. If we play our starters against the Jets Week 17, the Bills with 2nd year QB Josh Allen, finish the season with an 11-5 record. The night we drafted Josh Allen, if someone had told you that the Bills would finish 11-5 in Allen’s second season, we all would have been ecstatic. What difference does it make how many passing yards he had as long as the team is winning?

Took my family last year and we'll be there again. The crowd was at least 50/50 Bills fans, and more likely 60/40 Bills. If was a fantastic atmosphere. I hope we can take over Bridgestone again. I'd recommend this away game to everyone. Nashville is a fantastic town to visit, you can walk everywhere from your downtown hotel, there are tons of great restaurants and bars, honkey tonks and clubs. It's not all country music either, there is a fantastic and diverse music scene in Nashville. You can even walk right to the stadium for the game. There's never a reason to have to get a cab or Uber. All of the bars downtown were full of Bills fans that weekend flying Bills flags and banners. The streets were packed with people wearing Bills colors. It was a great party atmosphere. To their credit, Titans fans are nice and hospitable. They really do have Southern Hospitality in Nashville. You can't say that at every away game. There is good natured bantering between fans but always with a smile, and I didn't see a single altercation or even a heated argument between Bills and Titan fans. Bottom line, if you can only go to one or two away games, you should really look at going to Nashville Week 6.

My reasons why the Pats can still have a playoff season. 1. Bill is the best coach in NFL history. He almost never makes a bad tactical decision in a game. He plays solid situational football and lets the other coach screw up. Cases in point, the Seahawks and Falcons coaches giving away Super Bowls they had in the bag with horrible coaching decisions. 2. They will still field a great defense despite their free agency loses. 3. Their special teams were a terror last year and will steal a game or two this year as well. How many punts did they block last year? 4. They get to play the Jets and Dolphins twice. 5. Bill is a master at industrial espionage. Sure it’s cheating, but it gives the Pats a competitive edge and I suspect it has been a real part of their success. I heard Bill talking about the edicts of Sun Tzu in the Art of War during an interview last year. Sun Tzu says the most valuable thing in warfare is timely and accurate intelligence on your enemy. Bill has taken that to heart. 6. Brady really wasn’t that good last year. I think Bill will make Stidham a game manager and focus on the running game. Those two things will mitigate the loss of Brady.

You are so right Mr. Weo. I too tire of posters here having good things to say about Brandon Beane. The truly intelligent posters on TBD, like yourself, realize that Beane’s time as GM here has been a catastrophe on every level. I wish more people followed your philosophy for posting here, “If you don’t have something bad to say about someone, then don’t say anything at all.”

I looked back at the wide receiver stats for the 2019 season to see where our WRs ranked in the three main metrics, Yards / Receptions / TDs. The Bills will have three different receivers who were all highly productive in 2019. When you look at their ranks remember that there are 32 teams in the League and all three of our WRs rank inside the top 32 in every category except for Beasley falling to #38 in yards. *** Check out the rankings linked to below, they have numerous WR with the same number of TDs clumped together. I'm not sure how they assign individual ranks for WR with the same number of TDs. That seems a bit arbitrary. 2019 NFL WR RANKINGS YARDS RECEPTIONS TDs *** Diggs 15 31 29 Brown 19 22 26 Beasley 38 25 27 We have gone from a team with arguably the worst WR corps, to one of the best units in the League in two years. There are weapons all over this offense now who can score points. Let's hope that Diggs can get similar production with Allen in Buffalo. If Diggs is even close to his production last year, this offense is going to be exciting to watch. I think the days of watching "defensive battles" every Sunday is over. https://fantasyfootballers.org/wr-wide-receiver-nfl-stats/

With the exception of the quartet on GMFB, none of the pundits in the national sports media pay any attention to the Bills. I listen to these “experts” discussing the Bills on TV and if they aren’t factually wrong about something, then they are simply repeating the same unsubstantiated opinion they heard or read someone else have about the Bills. The sports media is lazy and makes no effort to have an informed opinion about the Bills. Their coverage of Allen is simply a reflection of that laziness.

Members of the Patriot's organization were caught videotaping the Cincinnati Bengals sidelines while the Bengals were playing the Browns on December 8th. The Pats were scheduled to play the Bengals the next week. This was the first year for new Bengals head coach Zac Taylor who brought in new offensive and defensive coordinators with him. I'm sure the Pats already had reams of film on Marvin Lewis's sidelines, but now there was a new coach and systems in Cincy and the Pats needed updated film on the Bengals. On February 26th an article in Bleacher Report (see link below) said that the investigation was almost complete and the results would be handed over to Roger Goodell for him to look at and determine what, if any, punishment was going to be handed down to the Patriots. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2878088-report-nfl-nearing-end-of-investigation-into-patriots-videotaping-incident Video taping illegally is nothing new for the Pats, they were already caught filming the Jets sidelines in 2007 and punished for it so they are repeat offenders here. One would think that as repeat offenders they will face stiffer penalties than they received for the Jets' taping. For taping the Jets, the Pats organization was fined $250,000. Belichick was fined $500,000. Most importantly, the Pats lost their 2008 1st round draft pick. So we have an investigation into this Bengals taping that started in the beginning of December, almost 6 months ago, and still no announcement. To put this timeline into perspective, the Warren Commision report that looked into the Kennedy Assassination lasted nine months. Two months ago the investigation was nearly complete, but we still have no announcements from the commish. I think Goodell had two main reasons for dragging his feet on this; First, Goodell needed to make sure that the Pats were able to keep all of their 2020 draft picks to be able to field a competitive team just in case Brady did return to the Pats for one last run. The League would love nothing better than for their Golden Boy to go out on top one more time. Second, if Goodell had handed down the punishment before the draft, all the fawning sports talk about Tom Terrific and what he was going to do, and where he was going to go, would have been tarnished by the Patriots getting caught cheating again. Not quite the feel good story the League wanted to see. There is no excuse for this ongoing delay. Goodell needs to crush the Patriots' nuts. They are consistently caught doing crap like this. Bending the rules, pushing the boundaries, playing in the grey areas, and sometimes like in this instance, clearly breaking the rules. There needs to be serious sanctions against the Patriots, multiple draft picks lost, and Belichick needs to be suspended. Enough with the B.S. delays. Goodell needs to drop the hammer now.

I can't wait to see Epenesa line up next to Ed Oliver and watch them run stunts. I wouldn't want to be the linemen opposite that pair. It's going to be nasty!

I think that if we didn't draft him and he made it through the last two rounds without some other team selecting him, there is no way he signs with the Bills as an UDFA. No kicker in their right mind would chose to kick in New Era. They all want to kick in a dome. I'm sure a dozen different teams would have tried to sign him and bring him to camp to compete with their kicker and we would have lost out. Compared to another player who we could have gotten in the 6th round with this selection, I think Bass probably has the most potential to make the team and be a difference maker. He seems to have the tools. Let's hope he is the real deal.

I expect to get some heat for this opinion, but the pick I'm most excited about is Tyler Bass. It looks like he has the potential to be an elite NFL kicker. I've watched a video of him kick a fifty yard field goal standing stationary and just swinging his leg. He hammered a 60 yarder with one step. He says he hit a 71 yarder with a bit of a tailwind a couple weeks ago. He was the consensus best kicker coming out of the college ranks this year. After the QB, the place kicker is the one player on a football team who is most likely to win or lose a game for the team. A team with an iffy kicking game is in a very bad place, you see it every week in the League. We all remember Hauschka's mid season slump last year. Playing in New Era Field with the winds and weather makes the kicking game even more dicey. If Tyler Bass is as good as the draftniks say he is, he will likely have a bigger impact on the future of this franchise than any other player Beane drafted last week. Imagine the luxury of having a Justin Tucker on our team or a Vinatieri or Gostkowski in their prime? Tucker has a cannon for a leg and Harbaugh in Baltimore has no qualms sending Tucker out for 60+ yard field goals. He's just about automatic. In today's NFL with shoddy kicking all over the place, having a great place kicker is literally a game changer. Beane grabbing Bass with the 188th pick in the 6th round could turn out to be the most important Bill's pick of this year's draft.

@glazeduck Nice first thread. Welcome to the club. ?

Everyone knows that Josh Allen needs to take another big step forward this year. It is his third year in the same offense, he should enjoy better O-Line play, and he will have more weapons to get the ball to this year. If he isn't able to take a step forward this year, then we are probably looking at his ceiling and I don't think we win a Super Bowl with him under center. The same thing can be said about Brian Daboll. The offense has been the anchor around the neck of this franchise the last couple seasons. Not all of it is Daboll's fault, the offensive cupboard was pretty bare when Daboll arrived. That's not the case anymore. With the offensive continuity and the players that Beane has given him, the pressure is squarely on Daboll to produce a much better offense. He is out of excuses this year, just like Josh Allen. I think Daboll's biggest problem is that he just seems to outsmart himself at times. This year there should be no excuses for Lee "False Start" Smith being on the field, or DiMarco running routes 20+ yards down field, or Singletary disappearing for huge stretches of games when he is running effectively, or Cole Beasley disappearing for entire halves of games. Daboll needs to find his groove this year and this offense needs to finally start scoring some points. Barring catastrophic injuries, he has no more excuses, the cupboard is full of talent. Now Daboll needs to get that talent to execute. I don't think Beane and McDermott bring him back for a year four if he doesn't get the job done this year.

I suspect Beane and McDermott would disagree with your ambivalence towards Milano. Look at how the Bills' defense as a whole suffered in 2018 after Milano went out with his broken leg during the second half of the season. His skill set is essential to McDermott and Frazier's defensive scheme. LBs who are are strong against the run as well as being athletic enough to drop back into coverage and blanket TEs and RBs out of the backfield don't grow on trees. We need to lock up Milano for the next 4-5 years and keep him and Edmunds together. They have a real shot at being the best LB pairing in the League.

What you can't tell from the pictures is that Beane's draft room is actually 500 feet underground in a nuclear bomb proof bunker similar to NORAD HQ in Cheyenne Mountain. Beane is ready for anything...

Two tears ago we had an offense bereft of talent. Fast forward to today and we have arguably the best WR trio in the League. With Singletary, Hyde, and Akers we would have a upper tier RB room too. Beane the Wizard

I’d be happy to see OBJ out of the AFC.

Singletary got hurt last season in Week 2 after a grand total of 10 rushing attempts and after being targeted in the passing game 6 times. So in Week 2 after a grand total of 16 touches on the season Singletary pulled his hammy and was out for 4 weeks including our home game against the Patriots, which was an important game that we lost by one score. We had no one in the backfield that the Pats defense had to worry about in that game. Gore had a good game vs the Pats, but our offense only scored 10 points. Gore is a grinder but he was not a dynamic back by any measure last year. We missed Singletary a lot in that game. Why allow yourself to be put in that situation again? The era of the Bell Cow back is over. Smart teams have a 1A and 1b RB. Drafting an elite RB that who will actually get on the field this year and be there to spell Singletary and compliment him is more valuable to this team than a backup DB or lineman who is probably only going to be depth this year. We may disagree on this, but that's how I see it.

If Beane is sitting there at #54 in the 2nd round and one of the top three RBs has fallen to him, that needs to be the pick. Lock up a stud RB on a cheap rookie contract for the next four years. Better than drafting the 5th best EDGE or 4th best DB. There will be great WR talent in the 3rd. A free agent RB would be more expensive and on a short contract. You're just kicking the hole in the roster can down the road a bit. There is almost no learning curve for collegiate running backs moving to the pros. I say draft a stud RB at #54. Get an elite talent to pair with Singletary.

We may have to agree to disagree. The stats don't tell the entire story. Lamar Jackson was a top 5 QB at the end of his rookie year and he was top 5 QB his second year. He is a phenom like Mahomes. Josh Allen showed promise his rookie year, but his play was erratic. Did some things that were great and followed it up with a boneheaded play that was inexplicable. He couldn't throw short or intermediate passes to save his life. He would make one read and then tuck the ball and run. He finished the year 5-7. Year two Allen looked like a real QB. He only threw 9 picks the entire year, he only threw 2 picks after week 5 of the season. He became one of the most accurate short and intermediate range passers in the NFL. He finished the year 10-6 and he would have finished 11-5 if they had let him and the starters play in the regular season finale against the Jets. Was Jackson the better QB? Hell yes. Did Allen improve more year one to year two? Hell yes

Jackson didn't improve much from year one to year two because he just continued playing at the same incredibly high level he played his rookie year. Jackson started the last seven games for the Ravens his rookie year and went 6-1. The only loss in his rookie year was a 3 point loss playing on the road in KC against Mahomes, 27-24. I'll stand by my assertion that Allen improved the most.

MJS doing the Triple Lindy!!!

With two years under their belts, it's reasonable to look back at the top six QBs taken in the 2018 Draft. I listed the pertinent stats for the first two seasons, where I think they’re ranked with each other, and where I think they are heading into year three. Draft Rd - Overall pick # Game Starts Record 1-1 Baker Mayfield 29 12-19 1-3 Sam Darnold 26 11-15 1-7 Josh Allen 27 15-12 1-10 Josh Rosen 16 3-13 1-32 Lamar Jackson 22 19-3 3-76 Mason Rudolph 8 5-3 TD/INT '18 '19 Comp % '18 '19 Mayfield 27/14 22/21 63.8 59.4 Darnold 17/15 19/13 57.7 61.9 Allen 10/12 20/9 52.8 58.8 Rosen 11/14 1/5 55.2 53.2 Jackson 6/3 36/6 58.2 66.1 Rudolph * 13/9 * 62.2 Pass Attempts / Yds '18 '19 Mayfield 486 / 3725 534 / 3827 Darnold 414 / 2865 441 / 3024 Allen 320 / 2074 461 / 3089 Rosen 217 / 2278 58 / 567 Jackson 170 / 1201 401 / 3127 Rudolph * 283 / 1765 Rush Attempts /Yds/TD '18 '19 Mayfield 39 /131/ 0 28 /141/ 3 Darnold 44 / 138 / 1 3 /62/ 2 Allen 89 / 631 / 8 109 /510/9 Rosen 23 / 138 / 0 3 / 13 / 0 Jackson . 147/ 695/ 5 176/1206 /7 Rudolph * 21 / 2 / 0 1.) JACKSON No argument, Lamar Jackson has been the steal of the 2018 draft and is the best QB in the draft class so far. People who say he is just a running QB haven't watched that guy play. He can sling the rock and has the highest completion percentage at a fat 66.1%. The only concern I have is the same one everyone else has, how many seasons can the guy rush 150+ times without eventually getting hammered. On most plays Jackson is able to dictate the contact at the end of the run. He rarely takes a hard shot, he's too shifty or he gets out of bounds. It's a law of averages thing though. He is not only exposed to the dangers every QB has back in the pocket, but he also has all the extra exposure to hits when he runs. He's not 6'5" and 230 lbs like Allen is. You need to have an elite defense to contain Jackson and there aren't too many of them around the League. I'm sure defenses around the NFL will get better at defending him and he won't be as much of a video game going forward, but no one can deny the guy is a hell of QB and he is with a franchise that is smart enough to maximize his abilities. 2.) ALLEN Josh Allen is the 2nd best QB in the class and (I hope) has not reached his ceiling yet. Allen took a step forward in nearly every statistical category. Looking at all the statistics, Allen clearly made the biggest jump from his rookie year to his second year of any QB on the list. Year three is huge, fingers crossed. I'm not going to beat a dead horse about Allen here. We all know Josh's strengths and weaknesses, in year three he needs to improve his long ball, protect the ball better when he runs, and be able to identify the blitz and hit the hot route. If he can get better at those three things, then we are in good shape for a decade here. I'm happy Josh Allen is a Buffalo Bill. 3.) MAYFIELD Baker Mayfield is an NFL quality starting QB who I think is near his ceiling. He took a step backwards in year two. He went backwards in almost every statistical category. He should play better this year without Kitchens there, but I think his 2018 season is about as good as it will get. His emotional immaturity will offset his undeniable physical talent. You have to be even keeled to be a QB in the NFL. There is simply too much pressure involved week to week. His personality is anything but even keeled. He doesn't have the maturity it takes to lead an NFL locker room or franchise to long term success. 4.) DARNOLD Darnold looks like an NFL QB to me too. I think that Darnold overall is probably a better QB than Mayfield, but being on the Jets is a huge anchor hanging around Darnold's neck. So while I'd like to have him the 3rd QB in the rankings ahead of Mayfield, Darnold is a victim of circumstance and falls to 4th. Darnold was not snake bit to the extent that Rosen was, but Darnold is trapped in a dysfunctional franchise with Adam Gase at the helm. He has played behind the #25th and #28th ranked O-Lines his first two years and has had limited skill players around him. Darnold still managed to get better in most statistical categories from year one to year two despite the horrible supporting cast. The Jets new GM, Joe Douglas, is an Ozzie Newsome protege and is trying to right the ship, but that roster needs big help. If Darnold went to a different team in the Draft, even to Buffalo, I think Darnold could be a real franchise QB. Darnold and Rosen are great examples of how important the situation a QB steps into is for their future success. In my mind, Darnold's chances of future success hang on how long it takes for Douglas to rebuild that roster and fire Adam Gase. 5.) RUDOLPH Rudolph? Too little data to say. He played well when he had a chance. I don't suspect that he will be the "answer" when Big Ben finally hangs it up. He will probably hang on in the NFL holding a clip board for a few years, but I suspect that at the end of his career, Mason Rudolph will be best remembered as the guy who Myles Garrett clobbered in the head with a helmet. 6.) ROSEN Love him or hate him, the guy never had a real shot to succeed and probably never will. He'll hold a clipboard for a few more years and he'll be out of the League and probably ends up depressed, bitter, and a frequent flyer on TMZ.

If Ford is facing the Texan's sideline then he is PERPENDICULAR to his goal line. ] Ford facing Texan's sideline _______ Goal line The rule is to stop a player on offense from running back towards their own goal line (facing their own goal line, parallel to it) and de-cleating a defender moving up the field in pursuit of the play. We've all seen these bad hits before. A defender is running after the ball carrier who is ahead of him and gets drilled by a offensive player who had peeled back (the offensive player facing his own goal line) and de-cleats the defender who never saw it coming. THESE are blind side blocks. The offensive player is facing his goal line (parallel to it) and hammers the defender Give it up ScottLaw, you're simply wrong here.

Actually, ScottLaw, Ford is not parallel to his own goal line when he blocks the defender. Hell, the picture above shows him squaring up on the defender. Ford is parallel to the sidelines on that block. The defender is facing the sidelines and Ford hits him face to face. Don't take my word for it though, watch the video. Go to the 2:55 mark of the video and see for yourself and then come back and argue with me some more...

Give me a break ScottLaw. Watch the video. Ford blocks him face to face, Josh Allen is maybe two yards away from the defender, the defender is still actively in the play trying to tackle the QB, Ford does't de-cleat the defender or hammer him. It's a horrendous call. Period. If Ford's block is a penalty then there is a personal foul on every other running play that goes around the edge. And if you want to play the, "just read the ***** rules" game, just go ahead and read the rule on giving yourself up when receiving a kickoff, and then tell me why that wasn't a Bills touchdown to start the second half. I don't know how you can possibly defend that penalty call on Ford. It makes sense that you would though, all you do here is troll. I bet you have six fingers on your right hand... ScottLaw's Hand