Billl

Your memory is so good you even remember things that never happened, then. Kincaid is a solid player. I've never said otherwise.

My point is that Davis gets dumped on here when he's been an incredible value to the team for four years. He's not a game wrecker, but he's provided competent WR2 play for less than a million dollars a season. If Kincaid has 2700 yards and 27 TDs in his first 4 seasons, Bills fans will be fitting him for a gold jacket. Meanwhile, his average salary in one season is roughly what Davis earned on his entire rookie deal. I guess I don't understand why everyone is so hostile towards a guy who never complained and vastly out-performed his contract and draft slot.

Gabe Davis as a rookie: 21 years old, 600 yards, 7 TDs, 9.7 yards per target

Gabe Davis: 24 years old. 750 yards, 7 TDs, 9.2 yards per target Dalton Kincaid: 24 years old, 650 yards, 2 TDs, 7.4 yards per target

This is the crux of the matter right here. A front office is always serving two masters. They are trying to win a Superbowl, but they're also trying to keep their jobs. If you believe, as I do, that the best path to a championship is to rip off the band-aid now, take your lumps in 2024, and target 2025 and beyond, the it's a question of whether McBeane feel they have enough job security to survive a 7-10 type season. To me, Beane is acting more like a guy who would rather continuing to kick the can down the road for as long as he can win 10 games and make the playoffs rather than someone who is singularly focused on winning a championship. It's why I think this board directs too much blame at McDermott and not enough at Beane. It's not just cap management, either. Even the draft picks have been safe lately. A 24 year old TE in the first round and interior OL in the second are solid pieces, but they're relatively high floor, low ceiling picks. They're not the type you take when your mentality is "superstar or bust". They're the type you target when you feel that you've got enough firepower on the roster already and need to supplement them with quality supporting pieces.

The reason for optimism with him for me is that he has steadily increased his number of QB hits each season. Generally speaking, that means the sacks will come. Alternatively, it’s why I’m not as high on what Oliver did this season. His sack total increased dramatically, but his number of QB hits was the same as it’s always been which tells me that this season was likely a bit of an outlier. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Rousseau were to lead the team in sacks next year. In fact I kind of expect it. If he never takes the next step, you let him walk after 2025 and draft his replacement. Overall, he’s great value on his rookie contract but at his current level of play he isn’t the kind of guy you give a huge contract. Setting the edge is great and all. It’s like Davis blocking downfield. But you pay DEs to kill QBs, and if you aren’t getting at least 8-10 sacks a season then you aren’t worth $20+ million IMO.

Extend him at what price, though? If it takes 4/$86 million with $60 million guaranteed, are you good with that? He's a solid player and a great value at his current contract of 4/$12 million. I listed him as the most likely Bill to have a breakout season in 2023, but it never materialized. Unless he finds another level in 2024, I think Beane can find similar production in the draft on day 2.

@SuccessThat’s a pretty big qualifier given that Allen, Milano, Diggs, Dawkins, Tre, etc. were added more than 3 seasons ago. This is a declining roster, and it’s no longer at a championship level. Losing a close game in the Divisional round doesn’t change that. The team was closer to missing the postseason than winning a Super Bowl.

I literally said the exact opposite.

He’s Montgomerie in the sense that he’s one of the best ever to not win a major. Colin is in the golf HOF, so that’s not an insult to Josh. Josh can absolutely win a title(s), and if/when he does, the Montgomerie comparison would no longer apply. Marino is the standard bearer for great QBs who never won a ring. He did make a Super Bowl and won an MVP award, though. I think Josh has at least a 50-50 chance of winning one. At that point, you start talking about his place in history and how he compares to guys like Favre and Elway. If he doesn’t ever break through, he’ll forever be on the list with Moon, Kelly, Marino, etc. It’s not necessarily fair, but that’s reality. I do think that OBD will be wasting a year of his career if they try to make a run in 2024 by hanging onto players who are on the downside of their careers. What’s more is that they’ll be throwing up roadblocks in the future by pushing bad contracts into future seasons thus potentially wasting additional years of his career which would be a crime. As a Chiefs fan, I want Mahomes to win every title from now until the end of time, but in the years that the Chiefs don’t win it, I’d much rather see a team like the Bills win than someone like the Eagles or Bengals.

I’ve been posting here regularly since before Mahomes ever stepped on the field.

Yes, the guy saying that Mahomes with his 3 championships, 2 MVPs, 3 Super Bowl MVPs, and 3 wins in 3 postseason games head to head is better than Allen is losing the debate to the guy saying that Allen is the better QB.

Brady is Nicklaus. Mahomes is Tiger. Allen is Colin Montgomerie.

I’ve seen him plenty. More importantly, I’ve seen enough CBs to know that age 30 is when you replace them rather than sign them to new contracts. If he were a star, that would be one thing. I’d still disagree with it, but I would understand. Douglas isn’t a star, though. He was a solid player who was the second best CB on the Packers who were happy to get a top 100 pick for him and his $9 million cap hit in 2024. Guys like him grow on trees. There’s no reason to give up a third round pick for him and then give him a new contract when you’ve literally got a 22 year old CB who you just traded up in the first round to get 18 months ago sitting on the bench.

The team is $50 million over the cap. There’s no way a team in that position should give up picks for the right to take on a huge contract. Beane should be fired on the spot if he even entertained the idea.

This is the answer, IMO. Beane and McDermott came to Buffalo with a plan, and they built up a championship caliber roster by following it. They didn’t quite win a championship, but they were a top 3 franchise over a 5 year span. That ship has sailed, and now it’s time to start over. Instead, they seem to be throwing good money after bad trying to run it back with a roster that’s 2-3 years past its peak. If I’m Pegula, I’m telling them that it’s time to clear out all of the old and/or injured players and start fresh with a youth movement. There’s simply no reason that so many of Beane’s draft picks can’t get on the field until they’ve wasted half their rookie contracts. You watched Wyatt Teller waste away on the practice squad because they wouldn’t put him on the field. Bernard barely played his rookie year, and then he looked like a monster year two. This year, White goes down and they traded a top 100 pick for a 30 year old CB with a fat contract a year after trading up in the first to draft Elam who can’t crack the lineup? Are you kidding me? Everybody wants to point to regular season wins against the Chiefs, but the reality is that Andy Reid uses the regular season to let his young players take their lumps. By the time the postseason rolls around, the youngsters who can play are out there contributing and those who can’t are wearing street clothes on the sideline. Meanwhile, OBD watches their old and/or injury prone players look old and injured in week 20 and now the discussion is how to pay these guys more money by borrowing from the future. If the goal is to be competitive every year and keep McBeane’s jobs safe, then they should keep doing what they’ve been doing. But if it’s really to win a championship, then it’s time to come up with a new 3-5 year plan. The good news is this time they’re starting with a HOF QB, so they’re halfway there. Stop pretending that guys like Hyde and Poyer and White and Douglas and Floyd and probably even Diggs are part of the solution. Go get younger, faster, healthier, and cheaper while Josh is in his prime.

Hard to argue with Vegas, but I’m not afraid of Purdy. At no point when watching the Super Bowl did I legitimately think the Chiefs were going to lose that game. Midway through the second half, I saw the look on Purdy’s face and his body language and knew he didn’t have it in him to rip Chiefs fans hearts out. The same cannot be said about Josh. He’s one of a very few players in the league against whom you can play perfect defense and he can still make a huge play.

I don’t think Mahomes deserved to win MVP this year.

In your opinion, is he on the level with Aaron Donald, Chris Jones, and Quinnen Williams?

It’s a good contract if you think he’s going to continue to be a 9.5 sack guy. The past three seasons, he’s had 4 sacks, 2.5 sacks and 9.5 sacks. In those same seasons, he’s had 14 QB hits, 14 QB hits, and 16 QB hits. On the one hand, it’s kind of amazing that he was able to convert 60% of his QB hits into sacks. On the other hand, that’s really difficult to sustain.

Clearly 98% of the voters are just morons and the guy who finished 5th deserved to win.

I predicted 10 or 11 wins and that the last game of the season would determine if the Bills made the playoffs. I would have been exactly correct except the Titans beat the Jaguars prior to the Miami game, so Buffalo was in either way. We’ll see how the offseason goes, but the team is facing some serious headwinds. Anything is possible, but IMO superstars win championships and Josh is the only superstar on the roster.

Nobody here has a problem acknowledging that other teams have windows. It’s only when someone suggests that they exist in Buffalo that people suddenly act like it’s an absurd notion. The Bills front office clearly saw that their window was wide open a few years ago. It’s why they signed Von to a heavily backloaded deal. They went “all in” as an organization knowing that the tab would come due down the road. That window is starting to close. This doesn’t mean that Buffalo can’t or won’t win a title in the next year or two, but it does make it more difficult. 23 months ago, the Chiefs window went from wide open to very narrow overnight. When Tyreek was traded, the focus shifted from the 2022 season to 2024 and beyond when the draft picks would start to mature. We know what happened next, and there’s nothing saying that the Bills can’t do something similar. They’ve certainly got the QB to make it happen, but the margin for error is much smaller when there are so many declining players soaking up huge dollars against the cap. At this point, a choice has to be made. Do you rip off the bandaid and do a serious blood letting in terms of the cap, or do you try to re-tool on the fly? I haven’t seen any indication that OBD intends to do the former, so Beane is going to have to knock the next few drafts out of the park. I thought they should have started the rebuild after last season, but that obviously didn’t happen. My guess is that it will take them completely missing the playoffs before the decision is made to go that route, and if that happens Beane and McDermott likely won’t be around to help clean up afterwards.

Did you watch Trey Smith, Isaiah Pacheco, Jaylen Watson, and Brock Purdy play in the Super Bowl?

It’s not even a pick route. The DB was literally left covering both the TE and WR. Once Ward stayed with Kelce, Travis didn’t even bother turning around. He knew the ball was going to a completely uncovered Hardman. Reid can call the same play that other coaches do, but his are going to work more often because he sets teams up for them in advance. He’ll put things on film in week 5 just so he can use it in the postseason, and he’ll use certain formations a certain way early in the game just to break tendency late in the game. It always seems like he’s a step ahead. Then sometimes he gets too cute and it looks like a clown show.