DCofNC

To think, with one more guy withdrawing, Case Keenum could have been in there at QB.

Just get somebody in front of Allen that can hold their ground. I don’t care who, don’t care how. To me, WR needs to be addressed early, it’s now a 20M+/yr position (thanks idiot Raiders). You are going to have to not only find one, but have a replacement in the wings when you can’t re-sign the next one. The Bengals have a sweet deal right now with a rookie contract for their QB, and 2 stud WRs, that’s a game changer. We’re stuck on the other side of it. We’ll have to move on from Diggs sooner than later with the impending cap issues. It’s time to start flinging poop and hoping it sticks.

Exactly. I carry zero hope into next year. I won’t be surprised to miss the playoffs.

And 12 other QBs didn’t get there.. including Allen.. I can waste my time pulling up the stats Allen put up against the Jags last year or even just the last half of this season and we can determine he’s not a top 10 qb in comparison to others in a short snap shot.

The Bills already blew it with Oliver. There was ZERO upside to using the 5th year option on him or Edmunds. They now have a guy they can’t trade because of his underwhelming play and high dollar contract. He’s just a cap space eater, not particularly useful. Either one of them could have been franchised if they broke out or been signed to a long term contract earlier for less if they actually stepped up. Now, you will watch Edmunds walk, who I didn’t want back, but could have been signed for 5 years around 13M each, now is going to get 18. Oliver would also find himself at a bargain rate situation if he was hitting FA this year, now you get to over pay him for this year and IF he breaks out, you get to pay him an elevated contract for longer. It’s a gross misuse of the 5th year option.

Would have been nice. He’s always got somebody taking attention for him and he’s mainly a deep ball guy, so just wait for him to be THE man and I don’t see him being that special. A lot of guys look good with another dominant guy drawing coverage, can even have a small stretch where they appear good on their own, but once teams know who to take out of the game and how, it’s all over.

Burrow has beaten Maholmes when it matters, Allen hasn’t. That’s not a take, that’s fact. Burrow has also beaten Maholmes more in the regular season as well. Burrow had a far better year than Allen this year, that’s fact. Burrow destroyed the Bills and Allen, that’s fact. Burrow is currently regarded as the better QB by everyone that doesn’t love the Bills. Yeah? Who won? Who has the credit for the game winning drive? Who has won every playoff match-up? Sorry, but moral victories don’t count in the real world.

In his defense, he was throwing to guys the Bills cut and the Bills have some of the worst WR depth in the league. Oh please, I suppose you still think the Bills should have give Reich the reigns over Kelly too.

He’s another Peerless Price, let somebody else fall on that sword.

So far, Allen hasn’t gotten it done, Maholmes IS the unquestioned best, Burrow looks to be #2 at this point and he’s actually taken Maholmes down in their biggest games. Allen has yet to beat Maholmes in a meaningful game. I think Allen is more Farve than Rivers, he’s got that wild man to him, he’s fun to watch, he tries to do it all and his team is built just like GB, all the resources dedicated to anything but weapons on O and there are plenty of teams that are better overall, so he has to be perfect.

I agree he is over conservative, but maybe part of it is that the rookies just aren’t very good. This year, had to fit Elam in who’s a man cover guy into a zone scheme. Cook wasn’t even a starter in college. Bernard.. should have been UDFA, has absolutely zero NFL traits… etc.

Another Beane blunder, with the 5th year option, he’s virtually unreadable

Hines either renegotiates or is gone. Motor will have to be cheap, but in all honesty, I can’t see them bringing him back, he should get a reasonable deal in FA and the Bills should recognize they could have just kept their own UDFA last year and had equal production, there’s no real reason to commit resources to RB.

It looks like he can be a serviceable CB, if they think he can be a Hyde type and go to near elite at S, that’s awesome.

I know it’s wrong, but I kinda want all that to happen and have the Bills miss the playoffs so some changes have to be made.

I can understand looking at reality and saying, Dorsey wasn’t perfect, but we see potential, let’s let him run it back and get some more weapons for him. Kromer, major disappointment and I wonder if he got sent packing from LA because he’s great at an older approach and not getting the linemen where they need to be for a more wide open O. Purely a 2 second thought here, but the line was not good… I could see him being gone. Frazier, enough is enough. Yes, the scheme works well enough to win games when the offense scores a lot, but it’s actually counter productive to the team success. We want JA on the field, allowing teams to dink and dunk down the field and burn clock is NOT what we should strive for. Go for the kill, if you get burned, cool Josh, go get ‘em. If you get the ball back quicker, cool, Josh go get ‘em. Waiting for a good team to screw up means you lose the time of possession game and ultimately your offense has to be perfect and quick to win. It’s a bad formula for the post season. Ultimately, we need to look at the formula overall. You are a poor weather, outdoor team. Relying on a finesse game to score and big bombs down the field to be converted is fun, and doable, in good weather or a dome. As soon as the wind kicked up, snow flew and we had to play in the elements, the team began to struggle. Does everyone think it coincidence that Josh starts off on fire and flames out every year (statistically)? Or that many of his biggest games come on the road? I’m not saying build a Ravens offense, but I’m saying you need to look at something like the Pats ran with Brady. Quick hitters, the wind doesn’t bother, have a run game that can punch a team in the mouth and then when they try to take it away, go to the next level. I don’t know about you, but I thought it worked pretty well for NE. You could easily ask Diggs to play the Welker/Edelman role where he gets to do whatever the hell he wants, but mostly focus on the quick throws and gets fed the ball 15 targets a game. Use Knox as a Gronk type. If you destroy the middle of the field, they have to drop LBs back a bit and then you hit them with the runnning backs, who should be more the bully types. How KC finds Pacheco that late in the draft for a battering Ram with 4.3 speed is beyond me, but we need a guy like him or a rookie year Karlos Williams, big punisher with enough juice to make a missed tackle into 15 yards. We need to take a page from Bellicheck and dare I say it, Doug Whaley, get guys that are bigger and faster than the guys they are playing against. Be Physical. We don’t need dancing bears, we need Josh to have a pocket and we need some holes opened up for the RB between the tackles. Speed rushers never were Brady’s problem, you just step out of their path, the real key is some hogs inside that don’t let Dick Grabber come right up in Josh’s grille every pass attempt. Yeah no. I’m not accepting the “we draft too late” excuse. KC is drafting after us every year and keeps replenishing talent and whooping our ass in the playoffs. It’s poor talent evaluation and poor use of resources.

He was my favorite prospect of the QBs last year, not sure if it will all translate into the NFL, but they got a steal there. He’s got the “stuff” to be a good one, let’s see if it ever actually happens.

I’m sure teams think about interviewing him, for about 13 seconds, and move on.

Beane went with Hope as a strategy, it didn’t work. He counted on Davis making the leap, something he had never done, McKenzie being a starter and to his credit he did bring in Crowder, but he’s been made of glass so it was a known risk. Essentially, he let go of two veterans, replaced them with 1 and hoped everyone could move into full time roles, under a new, inexperienced coordinator, though none had done it before, oh and threw in a 5th round rookie. Take a quick look at what was out there besides Diggs, the highest drafted player was Knox, a 3rd round pick, and you had McKenzie who was a scrap heap find, Davis a 4th rounder who never had been more than a #3, throw in glass man, then you have TD Jesus, another scrap heap find, and your rookie 5th round pick. That’s what Allen got to work with. Show me another team with so little, that actually wins. There were so many opportunities to add talent and they passed, it’s sickening. Instead of giving up a low 3rd round pick for a massively talented, albeit giant douchebag, in Toney, they let him go to KC and tried John Brown. C’mon man. Couldn’t afford to lose another replacement level RB or ST Lb in the draft I guess. Even Valdez-Scantling was a option to pursue over anybody we brought in for FA. Let’s just not talk about the draft where they decided CB was the priority in round 1, took a pass catching RB they didn’t regard as a starter (Beane’s words at the draft, not mine) in the second, took a LB that would have been at best a 6th round pick based on measurables and athletic ability, quite possibly a UDFA, in the 3rd, 4th gone to go up 2 spots for the CB in the first and THEN they took a flier on Shakir.. wow.

We would be on to a new coach and GM after another year of missing the playoffs. Allen has saved them both.

Beane’s misses have put him in the corner, he hit on a boom or bust gamble in Allen and got a good player in Edmunds, from there he’s really not landed a single impact player in the draft and the COUNTLESS misses in FA have really hindered the ability to go get help. The media hype going into this year was a bit over the top. Calling this “the most talented roster in the NFL” was a pathetic joke at best. I sat here at the beginning of the year and said, the WRs are Diggs and a lot of hope. Well there’s a reason that hope isn’t a strategy and we are looking at it. Davis didn’t step up to the 2 and everyone else suffered. McKenzie drastically regressed, Crowder went full Crowder and barely played, a 5th round rookie looked like one and ya had to go dumpster diving to try to save the season. Then you look at TE, over paid Knox (vs production anyway), let a good Vet walk and rolled with 2 guys that offered nothing. The OL, again, had to have cap for awful defensive signings so we got guys off the scrap heap again. If you aren’t a Bills home and want more than a team just competing for the playoffs, then you have to look at Beane and REALLY start to question him. Unless someone pops up from this draft and really takes off, this is another in a line of over drafted, under whelming players. I’m a Groot fan and aside from Allen, he’s the biggest impact Beane has added, in comparison to the rest of league, he’s an average-ish starter. The multiple whiffs on DEs and RBs is scary and for a guy thats supposed to be a defensive guru, I think it’s time he lets somebody take over the decisions on LBs, because that’s the weakest group of dog crap in the league behind the 2 starters, thankfully they don’t need a third, we’d still be 3 years out. Did you consider the Bengals were without 3 starters on their OL and the Bills still managed zero pressure and got embarrassed on their own field, only truly down one starter on the DL?

I understand your frustration with what he’s saying, but look at the reality, there’s virtually no cap room, you are picking, 28th (?) and you have glaring holes. What are you going to say? “All the free agents I signed were a bust, so they are taking up cap space and the draft hasn’t looked much better, I’m pretty much running a top 5 QB out there with bottom 1/3 talent around him and hoping for the best.”? Let’s get real, he’s got to cling to the fact they had 13 wins, and he has built in excuses, new OC, Miller got hurt, Hyde got hurt, White wasn’t quite himself, Hamlin scare, snow storms, didn’t catch the groove at the right time. He’s basically going to be Teflon this year, wish all you want, he’s not going anywhere, nor is the team. Ironically, the first thing he did was get rid of all of the big contracts Whaley had signed with under performers and suffered a year of dead cap hits, only to be right back to it 3 years later. Beane is MMMASSSSSSSIVLY over rated, take Allen out and watch this team fold like origami.

It’s been obvious there’s not a difference maker on the line for a long time. Miller was a help, but obviously, you rolled the dice on an older player on the decline and lost. Quite honestly, this team needs to have the whole D revamped and the assets moved to the offense. If you don’t support what’s making you great, you’re going to lose. I’d personally looked at: Edmunds walks (try to sign and trade, but I don’t see it happening) Oliver, try to trade to clear that cap hit. Worst case, don’t resign. Poyer, gone- old and injuries, love the guy, but gotta rip the band-aid off. Hyde is back this year, gone next. Benford to SS Elam has to be CB #1 or 2 depending on what happens to White. If Tre comes back, cool, if not, I’m not shocked. Tre… prove it year, may need to take a pay cut or a hike, can’t play like he did this year and get paid big money. If he can’t get his speed back up, he’s not going to make it. Must find LB depth and ideally a more impactful starter to play along side Milano. DL is going to have to be what it is, the rotation means there is no point in paying for big time players, unless Beane is going to make a shift in mindset.

McDermott is a classic example of a mid-tier coach who’s an outstanding builder of culture. He rallies the troops and creates a great environment. That said, he’s as good as the coaches around him and the talent of the players. He’s not a guy that I look at and say, “look at that guy’s career after Sean got him”. His system “works” at making DBs look better than they really are, but he also punishes those that want to show they are better, because it won’t fit his system. IF, he was willing to hand the reigns over to the coordinators fully and embrace change, he could be amazing. He’s not that guy. He’s cautious at base line and he’s going to lose offensive coaches because Allen is going to make them look good, so we will be stuck in a loop of a soft defense that will have to be carried by Allen’s O, which will have to be rebuilt every year he truly shines because the coordinator will be scooped up as a HC. It’s a vicious cycle, I’d rather end now. You are not going to win the AFC with the talent present, without being an offensive juggernaut, you won’t build that without losing the coordinator. If they system leaves with them, you’re screwed. So hire the offensive guru as the HC and maintain the system.

A DL rotation like this basically proves there’s no discernible difference in the players. It’s like Parcells said, “if you have 2, you don’t have one.” Basically, we don’t have a clear cut starter at any of the positions that commands being on the field. Rousseau and Miller should be getting the Lion’s share of reps as should Oliver and Jones if they are the players the homers proclaim them to be. Yet nobody stands out enough to warrant being on the field more than another. With all the draft and cash outlays on the DL, it should be dominant. The defense will be this way under McClappy and hence, he needs to be fired. He believes in an antiquated strategy that continues to be beaten in the big games. It’s his system and it’s a failure when it matters. Meanwhile, we have to revamp the entire offense, everytime Allen makes another coach look good and they go to another team. Your NEED to hire an offensive guru to run the team, so you don’t have to rework the very thing that makes the team good, every damn time there’s another coach poached.