Billy Claude

However, opposition kickers have hit a higher percentage than Bass over a four year period.

Absolutely except for maybe Andy Reid since he would lose the State Farm money.

Just to add to this, the Jaguar game was the first game the Bills have lost in four years (since 2020) where the Bills actually had fewer turnovers than the opponents.

I am not disappointed because I didn't expect anything from a 35 year old coming off a ACL. If you want to blame somebody, blame the coaching staff for playing him so many snaps.

Here is the data from the last 5 years to put it into context. Opponent first and then the Bills' kicker. 2019 14/24 (58%!) 22/28 (79% Hauschka) 2020 23/25 (92%) 28/34 (82% Bass) 2021 23/25 (92%) 28/32 (88%) 2022 21/28 (75%) 27/31 (87%) 2023 26/27 (96%) 22/27 (79%) 5 years opp = 107/129 (83%) Bills = 127/152 (84%) 4 years (Bass only) opp = 93/105 (89%) Bass = 105/124 (85%) 3 years (Bass only -- not including this year) opp = 67/78 (86%) Bass = 83/97 (86%) League average in 2022 was 86% so Bills have been unlucky. The evidence also indicates that Bass is a good kicker who is having a bad year. He is good enough for what the Bills need but not elite even accounting for weather.

That's really selective memory. I guess you are throwing out the first Jets game, but even with the Charger's game; Bills are up 14-10, Chargers offense hasn't done much since the opening drive. Allen throws int and the Chargers get a field goal on the short field to make it 14-13. Do you need to go for the jugular there? Eagles game; Bills up 24-21, Allen throws interception, Eagles score to take the lead at 28-24. Both of these interceptions were on second down. These are the ones that I came up with off the top of my head but there were other cases where the Bills offense finally seem to be getting some rhythm only for the momentum to be completely killed due to a totally unforced turnover. Obviously the first Jets game this year and last year's Miami game comes to mind but there were others this year. When multiple opponents talk about how they bait Allen into interceptions, you've got a problem and it should be a problem that can be easily fixed (maybe it has -- no one has said that during the 2nd half of the season). I just don't understand the blind hero worship where one has to ignore or come up with an excuse for everything that your "guy" does (not just Allen, but in general). This does not mean I hate Allen. He is an elite QB -- the Bills obviously would be nowhere without him, however, he can be an all time great if he just fixes some flaws. I see no reason why he can't reduce his turnovers a bit without killing his style.

Folks who think that there's nothing that can be done for the turnovers must think that Allen is a real idiot. Is it really impossible for Allen to learn enough after 6 years to reduce his turnover by 20% without crimping his style? He has already reduced his fumbles from 13 last year to 4 this year. Why can't he cut his interceptions a little bit also? One would have hoped his judgement could be improved to that extent.

That is a incredibly Jetsy. At least replace the online coach.

I dislike the double standard. Knox drops a few passes with a broken hand and everybody calls him a bum. Allen has a bad game and it must be injury/oline/receivers/coaching. Allen is a great QB with flaws. If he can ever clean them up he would be GOAT.

I have no problem with winning this game ugly. Every team has a bad game sometimes and good teams pull out the win. If this happens again in New England, then they will be a one and done team if they even get into the playoffs.

The original question I was responding to was has kickers kicked unusually well against the Bills over many seasons? This interested me enough to go look at the data. Considering regular season only, in 2022, FG kickers against the Bills were 21/28 (75%) while Bass was 27/31 (87% - his best year). No one noticed because the Bills were blowing people out. 2019 was the year I remembered there were a lot of crucial miss kicks by opponents. In game 1,the Jets kicker (Vedvik) was 0/1 on FG and missed an extra point in a game the Bills won 17-16. He was replaced after two games. In game 5, the Titans kicker (Santos) was 0/4 and was immediately replaced after the game. Bills won 14-7. This was also the last game Mariota started before being replaced by Tannehill. Since the Bills barely made the playoffs that year each game was important. Overall in 2019, Hauschka was 22/28 (78%) while opponent kickers were a horrible 14/24 (58%). A lot of lucky things went the Bills way that year. I think people want to believe the refs/ league/ universe has something against the Bills but tend to never remember when luck goes their way. Given that, there is no doubt that the Bills have been very unlucky this season.

I don't think this is true. Certainly in 2019 there was a couple of kickers who were replaced right after they played the BiIls because they missed a big kick or missed multiple kicks.

First, later round picks are already behind the 8-ball money wise. Now you are restricting them even further from getting what the market might be willing to give them. Second, teams obviously do not always use their 5th year extensions on their first round picks, now you are allowing them use their unexercised extension on a a player that they were not going to be able to restrict before. In the end, it will be a net lost for the players and a net gain for the teams. No union would accept rules that will decrease their overall pay and flexibility without some giveback from management.

I don't get your point. Your original argument was that the Bills were bad at evaluating vets because they should have kept Teller and Van Roten. The people you listed are JAGs or folks from way before Beane (Hopkins, Greer) or way too expensive (Tremaine Edmunds -- a decent player but not worth the money the Bears gave him). So are you saying the Bills are okay at evaluating vets?

It is true that the Bills have not been great signing vet F.A. until this year. However, I have no idea where this narrative that players leave the Bills to become stars come from. Outside of Teller which was 5 years ago, which players would Beane regret that that the Bills did not resign?

Year 2 = not applicable

I don't know why you are getting such grief. Maybe if you change "somewhat probable" to "least improbable". Of course you would still get hit by the don't speak evil into existence karma folks.

It is true that it is just some random media guy's opinion, however, the fact that anyone outside of his mother/wife believes that he might make the pro-bowl is still pretty surprising considering how bad he was with the Bills and the Jets and how mediocre he has been his whole career.

It takes two to tango. Why would the NFLPA ever agree to something like that?

I don't think you can blame the Bills. Plenty of other teams had him evaluated him as barely a JAG before the Bills released him. If the question was "Which former 2022 Bill would make the Pro Bowl", he would have been pretty low on my list.

This is different from the Saffold situation, Saffold was living off his reputation while Van Roten's reputation was that he was just horrible with the Jets and with the Bills. If Van Roten actually makes the pro-bowl he has to be having the best year of his career.

Did Boras miss any cliches?

Holy confirmation bias. How could Prescott possibly have slid at the last nanosecond if Rapp actually dove over him?

Your analysis is great except for the part about the ST unit not being football "tragic". When the special teams has directly lost two games (and indirectly lost more than two games due to high percentage makeable miss field goals and the lack of confidence in the kicker adversely affecting in game decisions) and your fighting for a playoff spot than that is definitely "tragic" in a football sense.

Agreed. I don't understand how Patricia got the job in Detroit in the first place. The Patriots defense was 2nd worse in yards per play and 4th worse in total yards given up in Patricia's last year as D.C. in New England. Their defense also gave up 41 points to the Eagles in the Super Bowl that year. Partly the stats are due to teams playing from behind but being 31st in an important defensive metric is not good no matter how you parse it.