Mikie2times

I'm much more bullish on Claypool than most. We don't sign him unless he has a lot of good answers for why things went the way they did. His career is over if this doesn't work out. He likely needs the money. It's not a stretch to me that he might have just realized what he was about to lose. Easy to say he's already had those chances but those experiences might have been enabling if anything. It was probably a bit of a wake up to see nobody wanted him.

Do teams want a corner isolated on Claypool or Coleman while Allen goes madden mode? I don't think we need to run past them to threaten them downfield. Both these guys are a mismatch one on one downfield especially with the threat of Allen extending plays.

I would go Moulds but something intriguing about Lee Evans

I think it's a better group. It's the first time we ever complimented Josh with guys who are open when covered. He is going to make a ton of plays downfield that are off schedule. Even more than the past. Even if Coleman is slow coming along he will be hard to deal with when Josh breaks contain. Which is such a huge part of his game that wasn't maximized with the smurfs. You just don't want Coleman singled up downfield in a jump ball situation. You certainly don't want Claypool in that spot either. It's going to put a lot of pressure on defenses to stay in two high looks which will open up the run game and underneath stuff. Speaking of underneath stuff Samuel is really the first of his kind since Allen got here. A poor mans Deebo who can do a lot of similar things. That space the deep threats will provide will give him a lot of wiggle in WR screens and underneath work. That is something Shakir can really excel at as well with his YAC ability. Then perhaps one of the least talked about additions of this team is Kincaid being in his 2nd year. I think a pro bowl TE is more valuable than Diggs or Davis and perhaps both combined. I expect Kincaid to be at or near that level after this year. Claypool looks like he understands its now or never. If so what a haul for us. This IS likely a #1 WR we added for peanuts. I'm not very bullish on Coleman year 1 with how daunting it can be to be for a rookie in our system but I do think Coleman will add a ton of RZ value and contribute in the ways I discussed above. Also with some underneath possession work which he has shown strength in. Davis was the definition of a one trick pony. Diggs was not himself for most of last year. Shakir and Kincaid had yet to reach max output until maybe the very end of last season and perhaps they never did. This was a very weak group last season. I think the star power of Diggs and comfort of a returning starter in Davis covered for just how bad the diversity was. By the end of the year that one and two option was barely even used and I don't think it was random. Easy to scheme for, easy to take away. The passing game will be much more unpredictable this year and it will threaten teams in more diverse ways than anything we have seen in a long time.

It is confusing. Sort of the round peg in a square whole to most "theories". It very well could be situational or strategic in some ways. Maybe Reid doesn't go into his bag of tricks in our regular season match ups. Several of those games took place prior to the bye when the KC machine didn't fully take off. Even last year they were hardly in rhythm when we played. Not like we were either, but I would certainly rather they not be. I will break it down at some point but if you looks at both the regular season and playoffs it almost as straight forward as us performing against bad teams and not performing against good ones, especially on the defensive side. The Bengals have done whatever they want. The Colts did whatever they want. Both did so in postseason and regular season. Our dominance has come against awful offenses . Which maybe that's true for everybody? But I don't believe that's enough to label us talented. This is just our performance last year. Look at this cesspool of QB's. If we added 10+ EPA it was tagged Excellent, if we lost 10 EPA it was tagged bad. Every QB with a pulse is tagged bad besides Dak and Baker, and I doubt Dak has a pulse on the road. Zac Wilson x2 Excellent x1 Sam Howell Excellent Bailey Zappe Excellent Mac Jones Bad Trevor Lawrence Bad Joe Burrow Bad Mahomes x2 Bad x1 Tyrod Taylor Baker Mayfield Russel Wilson Dac Easton Stick Tua x2 Mason Rudolph Jimmy G

I mean, we subscribe to the theory that McD just craps himself in the postseason. Which I'm still more aligned with. But to me it's not a huge leap to think a Top 3 QB and an elite front running defense can have incredible success against average teams in a horrible division and hit a wall against better competition.

Our defense is like the option in college football. It's good enough to make average teams look really bad. It completely folds as the competition rises. Perhaps that's McD as many have pointed out, perhaps we just don't have the talent as we play better teams. If you run a query on playoff performance dating dating back to 2000 Buffalo's defense has the 27th rated EPA out of every team that played in the postseason. Since 2019 in the regular season we have the 5th rated EPA defense. We should at least consider that we overestimate our talent based on the performance we see in the regular season. Our system is set up to destroy teams that abandon the run and without a QB like Allen that would no longer be the case. I do think Cousins on Buffalo would field a competitive team but it would expose a lot of warts that people don't see as a result of his impact on both sides of the ball. Look at where we fall since 2000 in the divisional round or later.

I don't know why its so inconceivable to people to think we just aren't as talented as the higher level teams. This is PFF's breakdown of the Top 100 This is Prisco Top 100 https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-top-100-players-of-2024-patrick-mahomes-reigns-again-myles-garrett-top-defender-in-priscos-rankings/ Both have Josh Allen as the only Top 100 player. You can argue about Johnson, Oliver, Milano but it's an argument. While these "sources" aren't gospel they aren't completely inaccurate either.

More so Beane. If anything this thread is calling out how good Allen is. If he wasn't it would be easy to replace him.

I really don’t think you need to be that talented to win the AFC East and a wild card game with a top 3 QB. So ultimately I don’t know how talented this team actually is. I’m not saying I know anything for sure. It’s just a little silly to me that on one hand many people say how talented we are and on the other people basically make it sound like without Josh we have no chance. We can’t be that talented if Allen is the entire team.

Winner! That is what sort of prompted this thread. On one hand I was saying to myself how elite Beane is. On the other I felt like we would completely fold if something happened to Josh. I don't think both those statements can be true. Perhaps they can. I'm not sure. The playoff season we were outscored by 57 points in the regular season. The year prior we had a +21 point differential. Have you ever heard of Pythagorean theorem? That’s all that season was. Us being on the right side of it. Minnesota had a 50-37 record with Cousins and made two playoff appearances. They made it to a divisional round game. They came into Buffalo and beat the Allen led Bills. With Allen we have basically ended up no further than Minnesota did with Cousins. So it’s not exactly a leaping conclusion to think if they swapped places we might produce a worse result. Teams with a 65 or better QBR out of the QB position are 211-73 since 2020. Allen has done that every year since that time. That’s a better record than we produced. If the argument is “we would have different players” with Cousins, which is what you tried to turn it into, well, shame on us. We shouldn’t be handicapping ourselves because we have an elite QB. It doesn't feel like it's a huge stretch to say a team with low end talent and a top 3 QB will hit a wall at the divisional playoffs. So while everybody wants to look for the 3rd gunman on the grassy knoll maybe we bow out at that time because we aren't that talented. I know that's a crazy thought.

By all means you're welcome to contribute your thoughts on how this team would be materially different. It was asked like 10 posts ago.

I'm presume Beane will draft BPA whenever he can. If the modification is a slight tweak in style to better accommodate an immobile QB then maybe you think we would dedicate more resources to the OL? I don't think we would. Would we be pursuing different defensive players because I don't think we would do that either. We already had smaller WR's in the first iteration of Beanes build so maybe a few tweaks to what we see today but not a lot. Would you expect more investment where? I don't see it. So yes, the rest of the team would be largely the same.

It's been rather close with Allen most years. I would tend to agree with you.

Would we get better players? Would Brady not be our OC? If this change would completely alter the way this team is built I would be very surprised, I might even be concerned.

They went 50-37 with him making the playoffs multiple times and beating us at home. I just think everything looks different if Allen is gone. I don't know how Cousins could use these weapons. I don't know if the threat of the running game is present. I don't know if the defense wears down as the offensive production declines.

Would the Bills be a much different team than the Vikings the last few years if we swapped QB's? I started thinking the other day "what if Josh got hurt". We would be done I thought. I considered if that meant anything. That from my perspective we had no ability to support the loss of Allen when perhaps other teams sort of could. Bengals, Vikings, stayed in the playoff radar all year last season. Flacco took the Browns to the playoffs. Others stayed in the mix more so than I would expect Buffalo to. I decided to move the goal posts. What if it wasn't Josh, what if it was, I don't know, Kirk Cousins? Then what happens.... So not a back up but what the NFL feels is an above average QB. So would Buffalo be as good as Minnesota has been with Kirk Cousins as a starting QB? Again, I don't think they would. I think we could get to a wild card game but our ceiling would be no higher than the Vikings and in my opinion it would actually be lower. Curious what peoples thoughts are on this and if that says anything to them about the strength/development of our roster?

Seems like a lot of people think he is a 1st rounder. Which makes my head explode but we have seen some guys go early I would have never thought would. He's somewhat mobile but more of a pocket passer. I just can't get over his stat lines. A guy should have to go downfield on occasion to be in the conversation to be drafted.

Shedeur last year would be like 24 of 26 for 98 yards and 3 TD's 😆

Great memory! Then we had Jimbos TD run which I’m pretty sure started the year prior 😂

I grew up in the Detroit area and desperately wanted to go to the Lions and Bills thanksgiving game in 1994. My old man basically had me feeling like it was locked up. My excitement was at a frenzy the day before only for him to tell me that night that the plans didn't work out and he wasn't able to get tickets. I cried, moped, and complained basically until we had to leave for Thanksgiving that morning. We started driving to my grandmas and it was taking longer than I had thought. About the same time he looks over and says, you excited to see Kelly in person? I about lost it. I think I started crying. He was messing with me the whole time. Should have known better, he pulled a similar stunt when I asked to see Jordan. He's been gone a long time now but that is a memory I will always be very thankful for.

Bates, the UFL kicker signed with the Lions. He worked out for the Lions, Redskins, and Packers. I don’t understand why we won’t even look at guys. It’s like every position we have is open for competition but that one. If a little competition rattles Bass he isn’t right for it.

24 is a bit too crazy

Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer. If Dunne had regular face time with Mclapperson does that article ever get written? Likely not. https://12ft.io/ paste the link