Mikie2times

Rather not trade real things for some pie in the sky notion that this will somehow pay off long term. Maybe by some miracle it does, in the meantime we will be paying more money in a very real way for a lot more than just avocados. The tentacles of this thing reach everywhere. So we should expect it to change if Mexico or Canada somehow meets whatever his invisible standard is for immigration or drugs? Even if they wanted to comply 100% with everything he wants what does that even mean or how do they know that it even makes a difference? We have enough issues. We didn’t need to create new ones or exacerbate the ones that already existed. Pride is the only thing keeping his own supporters from calling this what it is. A complete turd for 99% of us.

Stock market is tanking, crypto is tanking, I just paid 65% more for an avocado. Super excited for the future. 😂 hope you’re doing well lady!

Hasn't the US had a drug issue for what? 60+ years? Generating a fake narrative to basically tax US citizens, under this instrument that is a hell of a lot more complicated than Trumps last few bankruptcy's, only to eventually lower taxes for higher income citizens. It's all so laughable that most the people who can't even clear 50k supported this guy. Idiocracy literally playing out in front of us.

I imagine the Trump voters had a intimate understanding of what these Tariffs would do to them.

Crazy trade. Unibrow for twinkayy

KC has averaged 23.1 points in the divisional round or later vs teams outside of Buffalo. Buffalo has averaged allowing over 27 points in the divisional round or later. KC can’t be the only reason. It doesn’t align with the data.

I considered this before the stat came out but it would have taken me forever to research. I think it is something like avg PPG in our losses, vs average playoff defense PPG. Its not logical how that stat is being used. I had considered the concept of looking at all games, divisional or later. Our avg PPG vs any team that had a minimum of 3 games since 2020. I did the ones below. I can finish it later if people find it useful. Ravens 4 games 17.75 Bengals 5 games 19.2 Chiefs 14 games 20.64 49ers 7 games 21.43 Bills 7 games 27.71

I know all the standard TBD talking points for both. I don’t really know how much I believe it. Good players, sure. Better while working together. Good system that does exceedingly well in the regular season. Positions in our system that don’t seem to require a lot of talent. So like I said, not entirely sure. But I understand you’re. Most feel that way.

I have no idea how good they actually were. Probably pretty good. But we still had trouble containing a lot of good passing attacks and we still have players who aren’t very good perform well at Safety. They still had teams not pursue them while being very young In FA. I don’t think every sign points to them being elite. But it’s a fairly unscientific evaluation process anyway.

If you notice Firechans lols at consistently odd times lol so I was just lol with him lol

You think he starts for more than half the league? That would be the real funny thing. lol

And yet good teams still did whatever they wanted against our secondary and neither were considered anything more than average starters from the teams we got them from. With very little free agent interest for either one. I’m not saying I know the answer here, but I think people who just assume they were, as you say “ the best safety combo in the league” don’t really have any way to prove that and it gets confused in a system where Rapp and Hamlin can actually look serviceable. When zero chance exists they could start for anybody in football.

Hyde and Poyer were low starting level players elsewhere. Rapp and Hamlin aren’t starters anywhere and they looked decent at times. Its so hard to tell with this defense just how good anybody in the secondary actually is (I think White was a great player prior to to injury). Agree on the pass rusher.

I’m starting to think the one tech DT in this system is one of the most critical roles we have.

Which then poses the question of just how much of these defensive picks fall on McD? We can really never know with this pairing. We know Beane looks for players who fit his system. But is McD outright moving the needle on the selections? I have attacked the scheme for a long time and my feelings in that regard haven’t really changed. But at the same time I’m shockingly underwhelmed with the construction of this defense. Further, as many point out, it’s not from a lack of investment. Shifting to the offense, while the offensive line construction, RB, and QB have been elite, that would be about it. TE has been very high in investment and has not delivered at the rate you would expect. WR has been a crap show outside Shakir. From a talent perspective this team looks similar to the drought era and worse in some regards (specifically outside QB, RB, and OL). Given the success that has to speak to Allen’s impact which we know is immense, but the defense in the regular season has been pretty good. Landing on the exact sauce with all this is rather complicated. But I’m starting to consider some different angles outside McD just crapping himself in the playoffs. Perhaps he’s sharting a bit and the real defecation is coming from the roster.

Certainly the good not great types. But I wonder how many of these guys are even starters on other teams. I imagine the number is close to half our starting roster. Which is sort of crazy when you think about it.

Sure, I get that, but which is easier to argue. Our defense has bottom 20 talent or top 10 talent? If it's the former, what exactly does that say about our talent acquisition on defense? Further, what's that say about what we have been able to do in the regular season with that? It also speak to where we should likely be making future investments. Mind you, none of those matter if you don't hit on them. Which has largely been the case thus far.

To me, one of the 4 statements has has to be true. Sure, a relationship exists between these concepts. It could be 60% coaching and 40% talent as an example. But one of the 4 statements has to be the most accurate over the rest. McD is bad and the talent is good Since 2020, 78 players have had a 10 sack season. The only Bills defender to cross that number was Leonard Floyd in 2023. From 2020-2023, 168 Pro Bowl selections were made for defensive players. Buffalo had 4 Pro Bowl occurrences good for a 7 way tie for 18th-25th in the league. This data did not include this year because I didn't have the full data, but it was zero for Buffalo thus year. Former starters who left for Free Agency have gone onto to do very little. McD is bad and the talent is bad The Bills have the 2nd best EPA on defense in the regular season since 2020. McD is good and the talent is good Since 2020, out of 18 teams that have played in the divisional round or later the Bills EPA ranks 16th. McD is good and the talent is bad........... To me this is a consideration worth exploring more as it seems to allow for all the the above being true. Bad defenses are not capable of performing as well as we do in the regular season. I know we like to to say we just feast on the lesser teams, which is true, but everybody else seems to struggle feasting at a level we do. Which means it's either coaching or talent that is creating this heightened performance against lesser teams. So then you say ok, what's a logical reason why we would be able to do so well in the regular season and be so bad in the divisional round or later? Some say KC. Well, we also played Baltimore and Cincinnati and it's been pretty ugly against all of them. It wouldn't seem to make sense to say, well, coaching is good in the regular season, but bad in the playoffs. I mean the balance could shift to that more, but how much? If it's good in the regular season can it swing all the way to bad in the playoffs? I guess it's possible but that seems like a jump in logic. So now we look at the roster. People seem to hold Beane in high regard and each season we hear about this notion of Buffalo Bills defenders being disrespected/Pro Bowl snubbed. Our success has made many posters not really focus on the actual talent or they just assume the talent level is high. Which I think could be a mistake. It could be possible that we have had a bottom 20 defensive roster the entire time McD has been here. One that simply breaks down when facing the higher end teams. If the roster is in fact very bad defensively, it would make sense that coaching could facilitate success in the regular season and potentially have the bottom fall out against the better teams as the talent edge becomes too much. Then sure, any decrease in coaching ability in the regular season vs the playoffs would really accelerate that downtrend. All this is to say, perhaps it's Beane that should have the warmer seat than McD? This isn't a fully formed opinion by any stretch. Just something I was kicking around and was curious how other felt?

In this factual data Ray Davis and Keon Coleman are worth more than James Cook and nearly worth more than Dion Dawkins this season.

He will throw one on one all the time. As he did with Hollins. It’s not the same thing as hitting your back foot in the drop on time and ripping it because you trusted your pre snap read. If you read the post I said he was the best QB in football.

Bengals?

100%. Which is why I called Josh out as a reason. Which is so contested on this site. Which I get because we would have no chance of being here without Josh. On a macro level I don’t think you could ask for a better QB. He will get more wins by himself than just about anybody who has ever played the game. But no OT wins in his career. Two gotta have it drives in B2B seasons and nothing to show for it. Which tends to get offset here by the critical drops, and that is true. It could have went the other way and his teammates did let him down. But on a micro level I don’t think his game translates at the level it does otherwise. Micro, singular drives, is when efficiency is everything. I just don’t see that in his game. He is not inevitable in the ways the greats were. What Josh does is hard, what the all timers did was easy. It was the exact same way for Favre and he got one, but he got 3x as many MVP’s and failed countless times in the postseason. So many other issues exist to talk about outside of this. It’s like blaming a piece of friend chicken for a heart attack with a life long smoker. But is it part of the conversation? Sure, but good luck having anybody here acknowledge it.

They played more man in the first matchup than they did all season. Maybe they should have saved those looks?