CincyBillsFan

Again he hasn't sucked in any games he has under performed. There is a huge difference.

And what makes you so sure Bean & McD don't think we need guys that can make those types of catches? Against Atlanta on a 3rd & 10 early in a 7 - 7 game after the D had forced a 3 & out and the Bills were on their 2nd offensive possession Allen made a great throw under pressure to Shakir along the sideline for what should have been a 15 yard gain if he keeps his feet in bounds. Many NFL receivers would have completed that catch. Hell I just saw Luke McCaffrey do it on Monday night. My point isn't to trash Shakir it's just to point out that those types of catches are not his strong suit. Not having WR's that can routinely make those tough, toe tap catches 10 - 30 yards along the sideline downfield is a major issue. Both Davis & Diggs could make those catches as could Cooper.

I can sort of agree with this. Only time will tell.

I said with respect to the type of throws that Allen excels at. Maybe in the most generic sense our WR group isn't the worst, just a bottom 10 group. Our best WR is Shakir and he is not a good 15 - 30 yard yard receiver at the boundary. Moore is a gadget guy, Shavers is a blocking WR that would struggle to make the practice squad of many teams; Coleman has yet to step up and is not playing well by any metric and both Palmer & Samuel's have had availability issues. So excuse me if I'm struggling to see all the talent in the WR room. And I stand by my assertion that this is the worst WR group since 2018. But I do think that if Palmer can get and stay healthy he might upgrade the receivers quite a bit. I also haven't given up on Coleman who I would not be shocked turned things around and became very productive. But in the here and now we have a WR problem and I can't understand those that claim we don't.

The answer isn't going to the extreme in either direction. I like that we can run the ball. But the current WR group is so bad that it actually reduces the positive impact of the Bills improved running game. People have mentioned the Eagles but they can make defenses pay a big price with throws to Brown off play action when they key to much on Barcley. We need to be able to do the same. I saw a glimmer of this with Palmer against the Falcons but then he got hurt.

I think many of us are talking in parallel because we're using different definitions of "deep ball". I agree that Allen is not elite in throws over 40 yards which I define as a deep ball. But in the intermediate zone of 15 - 30 yard throws Allen is elite and these are the Allen throws that give defensive coordinators nightmares. And IMO it's pretty obvious that our current crop of WR's are the worst since Allen's rookie year on catching these kinds of throws.

I disagree. Cooper had an immediate positive impact on the Bills offense. The threat of now being able to do something in the passing game well that you could not do before will provide a big impact.

It's one thing to say Allen is "under performing" and another to say he's"sucked". To say Allen has sucked this season is to admit that you don't watch any other NFL games because if you did you would have a better understanding of what "sucks" really looks like.

It's not the answer - either short or long term. But it is an upgrade over what we have now. I would hope that they do not use the presence of Davis as an excuse not to pull the trigger on a trade to upgrade the WR room.

As long as it's not Rapp I'm cool.

When it comes to Allen who cares what this board thinks - there were a lot of bad takes on draft night and through Allen's first 2 seasons. It was apparent to the Bills that Allen was the guy at the end of his rookie season when they tried to upgrade the O in 2019. As others have noted though the strategic thrust of the Bills was building a Super Bowl Defense with the offense as an after thought. By the end of Allen's 2nd season the Bills were fully committed and went out and traded for Diggs. Allen paid them off with an all pro level season and a trip to the AFC championship game. It appears to me that the Pats are doing for Maye what the Bills should have dome for Allen.

I'm loving that Kincaid isn't even listed on the report and Milano was listed as FULL.

Over the last couple of seasons you could say the exact same thing about Mahomes for 3 - 4 game stretches as he looked "off". Of course like Allen, Mahomes was struggling with a very poor WR group.

I'm very confident that the best college QB's are having a much easier time adjusting to the NFL then their predecessors ever did. I've watched NFL football for 60 years and can't think of a time with more high quality young QB's. Hell, every year guys from college show up and tear the league a new one. IMO we are seeing the best and most productive QBing in the history of the NFL and it has a lot to do with the high quality training these guys are getting in youth & college football. Down here in Cincinnati the youth & high school football is very advanced. My grandson is a WR and his team mostly was in 3 & 4 wide out sets. They all had to look to the sideline to see what hand signals the offensive coordinator (yes they had an offensive coordinator in 7th grade) was using to call the play. They routinely moved back and forth from spread to tight formations based on the call. They employed motion on a 3rd of their plays. They played 11 games inducing 2 playoff games and 10 of those teams were heavy shotgun users.

AMEN and agree 100%.

Not today. Three anecdotal observations: 1) Down here in Cincy they're having a discussion about why Burrow must "learn" to play under center more. Evidently he wants to take the vast majority of the snaps from shotgun. 2) Watch a Saturday's worth of college football and tell me how many snaps are in shotgun versus under center. 3) My grandsons 7th grade team had their very good QB take about 95% of the snaps from the shotgun. Ditto for every team they played but one.

I'll answer you after I've seen the Thursday injury report. Kincaid going full all week and Palmer playing would have me feeling pretty good knowing that Spags is going to commit to shutting down Cook. On the other hand if Kincaid is limited all week and Palmer doesn't play I have a b feeling about the game.

Fair points about the health of Davis and Bean was 100% correct not to pay him 13 million dollars per year. At the same time and considering all of his short comings what Bills WR among Coleman, Moore, Palmer & Shavers has shown even a fraction of the big plays and production that Davis did over the course of a season? I hold out hope for Palmer but that's it.

I see no value in placing Allen's play under a microscope and nit picking his every throw. Of course Allen is not without blame here. But from what I can see the critique of Allen is that he isn't elite in every game. IMO that is an unrealistic expectation of any player. I could put together a 30 minute highlight reel of Allen making amazing plays through the first 7 games of this season. If you combined ALL the WR plays how many would truly be amazing? With the exception of Shakir's elite RAC plays the Bills WR's have not done much that would make anyone's highlight reel. As for saying that some of us are acting like "mother hens" protecting Allen all I can say is that Allen has earned it with years of elite play. Who else on the Bills can say that? Maybe Cook but his exceptional play has only been for a year and a half. I'm just not ready to embrace posts critical of Allen. They reek of "what have you done for me lately". That might change if I see a season long Allen slump where he doesn't put the cape on. And for the record there is a difference between an in the moment harsh of criticism of a bad Allen throw, which I have shouted at the TV on more then one occasion, and having entire treads wondering if his married life is causing him to now "suck". As for Marino I like and respect his opinion but I suspect there's more context here then you're admitting. IMO the issues with the Bills passing game, in order of importance are: * Lack of WR's that are effective at the boundary and can stretch defenses downfield. In fact the Bills have a bottom 5 WR room by any reasonable measure. * The design & structure of the passing game and the new emphasis on running the football. McD & Brady are robbing "Peter to pay Paul". * Allen is not as good a QB under center as he is in shotgun. I have confidence that Allen will improve here but the poor WR room complicates things. * The O line is better at run blocking then pass protection. And the low number of Allen sacks is due more to Allen's ability to escape then the O line maintaining the pocket. I suspect that if you fix the WR room so that it is average by NFL standards you will see a significant improvement in the passing game.

Which is still better then the current crop of "no play" boundary WR's. Beggars can't be choosers and it seemed like both Davis & Hollins had a knack of linking up with Allen on those off structure plays that Coleman/Morre/Palmer/Shavers haven't shown yet.

I guess we'll see when Allen actually has a game like that. What I wonder is why some of you guys have this weird fetish to throw shade at Allen and demand that we all agree he's been playing like crap? Sure , Allen hasn't put up the big numbers we're used to the last few games but he's hardly played badly. The most accurate description is that over the last 3 games Allen has been average.

Allen always admits it's his fault and I dispute that Bills media guys are pinning a lot of the struggles on Allen. Sure Allen could be playing sharper and he has been a part of the passing games problem but I've heard a lot of Bills and National NFL media types repeatedly pointing out that the WR's are not getting open. I would add that over the last 2 games the WR's on 3 separate occasions failed to make NFL level catches along the sidelines that would have converted 3rd down. Last night you saw 2 Washington WR's make tight toe tapping sideline catches. The only thing that makes sense is that Coleman dominates the Bills DB's in practice.

All true, BUT, you also saw Davis get open deep, make tough toe tap sideline catches and he had a knack of coming back to the ball and helping out his QB when the pocket breaks down. With the current crop of WR's I've seen very little of any of these things.

In the 2nd half. They struggled in the first half.

I agree. On the replay that's exactly what it looked like to me to.