HaldimandBills

Maybe this is my Canadian ignorance showing but is it normal to take the opinion of NBA broadcast types as gospel when they voice an opinion on the NFL? Didn't Nick Wright, Colin Coward, Steven A Smith, and Skip Bayless all start as basketball guys? Just seems funny to care what they say. Then again I find sports talk to be idiotic unless I'm reading a Bill Barnwell who specifically writes about the NFL. Also carrying on about offense is the most casual fan cringe thing going. Bengals rode their defense to the Superbowl. Same with the Rams that season. Tampa had a great defense when Brady arrived. Patriots won multiple Superbowls with Brady playing smart football and the defense locking it down. Same with the Ravens and Steelers. Bills might hypothetically have this great defense during the regular season but one thing they've been awful/average at come playoff time is rushing the passer. Not sure how any move to improve this isn't applauded? Bengals only scored 20 points on KC after blasting us. Always found it interesting how we always have this top 5 defense in the regular season while KC has a bottom 10 but come playoff time KC seems to flip a switch and play 10 times better defensively while our defense implodes. What Cowherd should be questioning is why our defensive coaching which is the coaching backbone of this team keeps being manhandled in the playoffs while the Bengals and Chiefs seem to find another gear defensively? I still think we scheme too much from the secondary to prevent deep passes and not enough from schemes to gain pressure with the front 7.

What a ridiculously bad take. Must be nice to be a Mahomes and have competent linemen play and an all time offensive master as your head coach drawing up plays to mess with defenses. Or Burrow and Hill with their glut of offensive weapons. Nope Allen has a worse oline than all three of those teams and has had basically Diggs vs. those QBs having stacked offensive rosters. Meanwhile Allen and Diggs know there was no one competent so it was all on them. Mckenzie was our 3rd best receiver last season for f sakes. How is that possible for a Superbowl contender?

This has less to do with Josh and more to do with Beanes inability to provide Josh with decent targets, run game, and a O line. It wasn't a shock we could easily move the ball between the 20 yard lines and then stalled in the redzone. We had no power run game. Our interior oline was pathetic. Teams cheated like mad to take away Josh scrambling ability. Diggs was the only receiver who could beat a zone defense in the redzone unless Davis won a jump ball. Not all that shocking Allen has thrown so many INT. Maybe surrounded him with better talent so he isn't scrambling for his life having to make plays on the fly. Give us better short yardage RB so linebackers have to respect the run and not cheat and chase down Josh. Give him someone besides Digg who can actually get open in the Red Zone.

Great ambassadors for the Buffalo Bills.

My Wife and I are both first responders. In our interactions with the general public we have come to conclusion that the pandemic has tuned a lot of people into perpetual children. Your neighbour sounds like one of these children.

Canadian Bills fans deliberately refused to go to those games because of the pathetic farce it was. Another brilliant blunder by the idiot cable/internet companies who think they own everything up here.

Good luck in Indy. Its nice to see players who leave wishing they were still with the team. Means something is going well in Buffalo.

They most certainly do not. The ballpark they play in does. Josh Allen is well received up here. Only people who don't like him are prissy Pats and Dolphins fans. Pats fans can at least admit he's the real deal and he will be their tormentor for the next 10 years. Dolphins fans think Tua is winning them a Superbowl this season. Still have no idea how anyone who grows up in Canada becomes a Dolphins fan. Never met a Jets fan in Canada. Plenty of Giants fans though. Surprisingly Ravens and Eagles fans seem to dislike Allen up here. I think thats because or their love affair with Lamar and Hurts. Most people wish Allen was their QB. For those who are interested in terms of NFL Fandom in Toronto/Southern Ontario it goes. 1. Bills 2. Steelers 3. Cowboys 4. Packers 4. Giants, Niners 5. Dolphins, Eagles, Lions, Ravens and the Browns for some odd reason.

You're not wrong but ill say this. The Jets figured out the recipe to flat out dominate the Bills offense and the rest of the NFL followed that blue print for the remainder of the season. Bills were not the same after that Jets game. Maybe it had more to do with Allen partially tearing his UCL, but will never know. I had forgotten how many awful QBs the Jets played last season. That list is quite staggering. AFC East schedule will be brutal this season. After the seeing the schedule release I like the Bills a lot more. That early season schedule gives the Bills a lot of run way to take a early division lead if they can capitalize on it.

Stop acting like an NBA fan and being sucked in by fancy names. It's nauseating. Thats not how the NFL works. The issue is fans like you constantly bickering about a ridiculous ceiling that is hardly ever met while constantly ignoring the Bills at worst this off season raised their floor which is what good teams do to win. You can't clue in that by simply having Kincaid in the slot you take away coverage from Davis and you no longer have to put Davis inside to be the interior blocking receiver because no one else could do it last season. You aren't looking at all the trickle down affects. You're just thinking no Dehop the Bills are screwed. Football doesn't work like basketball. You can't see that our redzone offense will be significantly better? Adding power running backs, a mauling guard and a massive interior receiving target? You really can't see that? How many times did the Bills offense march up the field between the 20s only for our guards to be blown up in the short run game and Singletary being unable to move the pile? Who was Allen to pass to when every receiver was a smurf and Mckenzie had no clue how to beat a zone defense? No wonder Allen Redzone INT rate skyrocketed last year. We had a brutal interior oline. Allen partially tore his UCL, and we had no one inside to pass to who was over 5 foot 8. Not to mention Knox brother passed away right before the season and we have no idea what impact that had on him either. To sit there and honestly think the Bills didn't significantly upgrade the offense is tedious. Cowboys wanted to resign McGovern FYI.

These talks are always disingenuous and the idiots who agree. Bills off field chaos was the worst I had ever ever seen for an NFL team. Josh Allen partially tore his UCL. Again a talking point everyone including members our own fanbase consistently ignore. Our secondary was in shambles from Week 1 right through until the playoffs. Hyde and Von both had season ending injuries. That is 2 of our 4 most important defensive players. Another top 4 defensive player missed half the year recovering from a torn ACL and wasn't right all season. Let's not get into the fact our guards were trash and significantly upgraded upon and that Mckenzie was our 3rd best receiver and wouldn't even make the team this season if he was still here. Bills peaked is hilarious. Not even close. It's just main media nonsense.

I'm good with playing the Jets. Disgruntled we are not playing Sunday opening week two years in a row. Playing the Jets week one has some benefits for the Bills. For starters Rodgers has typically not been fast out of the gate. I think this helps our offense out as well. I do believe the Jets more than anyone exposed the simplicity of our passing game, Josh Allen's reckless scrambling, our pathetic guard play, and inability to do anything with the run or short pass game. The entire offseason has been about changing the entire offense to work against what the Jets do well defensively and what other teams would mimic to slow us down.

This and so much this. I have never heard Nick Wright, any of the so called experts at ESPN, etc ever mention this. Nick Wright and gang deliberately go out of their way to never mention this. It's why I pretty much stopped watching sports shows. It's all fluff and surface level bs. I feel like a lot of doomsday individuals on this message board only watch these type of shows. Its why they're clueless on how much more important it was to raise the floor around Allen rather than blowing your shot at one expensive weapon.

You can be depressed or you can be optimistic. I took my road. You appear to be taking yours.

Jets had a historically healthy defense and defenses 99% of the time see a regression to some level. Jets are scary but I doubt that defense is quite as dominant. In fact the Jets are who we should be thanking more than anyone. They are the team that showed all the major flaws in our offense. They built the blue print to dummy our guards, take away our perimeter passing game, show zero respect to our run game and intermediate to short passing game, and have a stud athlete spy Josh Allen. Our entire off season has been developing our offense so this doesn't happen again. Want to take away Diggs and Davis deep. Ok we can go short as Mckenzie won't be running the wrong route anymore. Want to play heavy zone and think you'll bully our guards? Guess again we have Kincaid and guards who aren't turnstiles. Think our run game is a joke in the redzone and you can just spy Allen and not worry about the Bills running up the middle? Guess again we have a massive guard now and RB who actually have size and have shown theyre short yardage specialits in the NFL. This isn't even factoring in Shakir taking a step forward. Harty who actually knows how to be a weapon at slot vs. Zone unlike Mckenzie and the fact Sherfield and Kincaid can actually block in the run game so we aren't overly relying of Gabe Davis and moving him inside to block and basically tipping off our plays to opposing defenses. Hey maybe Gabe will actually rebound as well only having to worry about being an outside receiver.

Bates is the wildcard. A lot of people penciling him in as the back up center and interior rotation piece. I however see a world were Brown doesn't meet expectations and Bates is our starting Right Tackle. Not ideal but you could do worse.

Maybe I will come off as a homer but we are absolutely a better team this season. Are we more worthy of Superbowl hype? No, that is mostly due to the improvements made by the Jets and Dolphins. Our schedule is also brutal so just making it to the playoffs will be more difficult this season. How anyone can look at this team and not understand that will be better is beyond me. Our secondary was a tire fire of injuries last year and that is including Poyer basically playing on one leg. Injuries are always difficult to predict but id have a tough time believing our secondary will be as beat up as last year. White is another year further removed from his ACL injury. Our dline actually has two legit 1 tech D tackles and will have a much healthier rotation. We will be adding another vet. Dend. Miller will be back. Linebacker is the wildcard but I wonder if will scheme our way out of issues. I think its pretty much universally accepted that the NFL caught on to Fraiser seat back in zone defense. Our guard play has monstrously been improved and Brown will actually have an offseason to train and get better. As it stands Brown is the one player on our offense that could hurt this team. Our receivers are light years ahead of last season. Mckenzie was our 3rd best receiver and had no idea how to play against zone. This year he wouldn't even make the team. Kincaid alone gives us a solution to our terrible short passing game and redzone offense. Knox will enter the season without having his brother pass away right before it. That was a horrific situation. Our RB actually have defined roles and we added maulers who can push the pile. I dont think Dorsey was as bad as people think. I just think we were led to believe we had more talent than we did and our offensive line collapsed and Allen started pushing the ball downfield and made dumb mistakes to avoid being crushed. Will also help that Allen won't have a partially torn UCL for half the season. Its amazing that this is constantly over looked. Then add in the Hamlin situation and all the off season choas such as a snowstorm moving the Bills game last second to Detroit and being stuck in Chicago over Christmas and you certainly have a avenue to a much better mentally focused team. I firmly believe that Bengals game was lost before it was played and the same thing for the Miami playoff game. The talent gap was just too wide for Miami that they couldn't take advantage of Buffalo not being mentally prepared.

Given we got the drafts best pass catcher and a mauling Guard in the 2nd I can live without the 4th round pick. Only reason I'd of like to have kept the 4th would be to use it to trade up and grab a MLB early in the 3rd round.

Both Drew Sanders and Jack Campbell are white. Want to maybe rethink your ignorant - post modernist opinion. I'm in my 30s FYI.

At this point just trade a 3rd and keep it moving. Can't be any worse than drafting Singletary, Moss, Ford, Basham, Epenesa, Bernard, or Brown.

The Bills biggest issues are completely related to line play. We lost to the Chiefs two seasons ago because we couldn't get after the QB with our dline. The Jets and Dolphins both considerably closed the gap strictly because their DL realized they could T up on our oline and get after Allen in ridiculous time. The Bengals had three back ups manhandle our DL and their DL like the Jets and Dolphins beat the snot out of our oline. Beane sucks at drafting lineman. and has wasted way too many high picks on RB. Outside Dawkins who appears to never be in decent shape he has flopped on all other picks. Epenesa, Ford, Brown and Basham have and were massive let downs and Groot hasn't taken that next step. Now add the fact he has drafted three RB within the first 3 rounds in the past 4 drafts and it really isn't a shock we are in a cap crunch scrambling to find bargain FA who might have some upside. Elam - regime doesn't trust him Cook - I didn't like the pick, but hope I'm wrong. Bernard - We wasted a 3rd on a special teams backer. Rousseau - hopefully will be a solid starter Basham, Brown, Epenesa, Moss - My word... Oliver - most Bills fans want to trade him Ford - worst pick of them all besides Moss Singletary - likely could've of grabbed him in round 5. Solid but not spectacular career thus far

I agree but history would suggest one of the Jets or Dolphins this season will be in for a massive let down and one will seriously challenge the Bills for 1st in thr AFCE. Both their olines are inferior to ours and likely won't be resolved this off season. Rogers played behind a far better oline in Green Bay and Miami is putting alot of faith in Tua behind that Dolphins oline. Let us not ignore this years schedule will include the following teams for all AFCE teams. Chiefs, Chargers, Payton led Broncos, Cowboys, Eagles, and Giants plus playing one another twice. Thats a daunting schedule. I feel like Miami the past 2 seasons has coasted off a stretch of games where they played seven bottom 10 teams in a row. Thats not happening this year.

I think we are in a good place and our downfall is greatly exaggerated. Need another stud on the offense and some solid line additions, plus a middle backer and we are better than ever next season since Josh Allen became our QB. Please, please, please fix the oline

I agree with you and it further illustrates my point. The Bills were mentally beaten the second half of the season and it came crashing down in that Bengals game. They didn't have the spark against Cincinnati. I just don't believe its a Cincinnati only thing. I think the Bills were running on fumes the entire second half of the season and it was only because of their superior roster that they were able to pull out last second wins vs. inferior opponents. You raise a good point. I dont think the Bengals looked flat per say vs. the Chiefs. I think the Chiefs found another gear as they were sick of the 0-3 (Mahomes vs. Burrow talk) and the Bengals trash talking before that game. Remember it took a bone headed late hit out of bounds for the Chiefs to attempt a last second field goal. I still think the Bengals were the best team in the AFC last year. I also think the Bills are closer to 50/50 with the Bengals than being beat down like they were. Looking back at the year before the Chiefs had nothing left after playing the Bills and collapsed in the 2nd half vs. the Bengals. This mental psych of a team is important. The Eagles and Chiefs pretty much faced zero adversity and basically waltzed to the Superbowl. Football is much easier when you can just focus on ball.

I dont think people are necessarily questioning if the Bills are as good as the Bengals. I don't think we are. I think people are saying there is a difference between losing and being shell-shocked dominated. Say what you want about the Bengals but something was wrong with this Bills team down the stretch and you could see things spiraling even before the first Bengals game. The Browns, Lions, Patriots, Dolphins regular season snow game, and Bears games all told me this team was not the same one who started the season. We struggled in every single game down the stretch. We could not create separation in any game and constantly shot ourselves in the foot keeping teams around until the last minute in the 4th quarter of most games. Mentally strong teams don't do this. We were up 17 - 0 against the Dolphins and just fell off a cliff and made a 3rd String QB all of the sudden competitive. People can say Josh Allen was sloppy but I honestly believe this team was mentally fatigue. I thought they looked fatigue before the regular season Bengals game. The Hamlin situation might have been the final nail in the coffin. Is that coaching? Are Players simply mentally weak? Did the defense just finally run out of juice with the secondary and dline constantly being in flux? Did the defense lose a step with Hyde and Miller out? Did Josh Allen's partially torn UCL having a bigger role with the offense collapsing? Did they have a massive weight on their shoulder with every media pundit picking them to win the Superbowl? Did Kim Pegulas medical situation, Stupid Punter nonsense, Knox brother passing, Miami brutal heat game, brutal snow storm and game change, Being stuck in a Chicago hotel over Christmas all catch up to them eventually? I don't know. All I know is this team went through a mountain of off field nonsense and no other team came close to the same adversity. I am not trying to make excuses for the Buffalo Bills. They're paid millionares and we're embarrassed by the Bengals. I'm just saying at worse that game should of been undecided deep into the 4th quarter. Every Bills fan knew that game was over 5 minutes into the 1st quarter. Think about that. I just hope our oline and dline are bullies this season. That we get a competent middle linebacker. We add another offensive weapon and that Josh Allen arm is healthy and the roster is relatively healthy. Would also enjoy an off season of Jets and Dolphins hype talk. The Chargers, Broncos, and Raiders were hyped last year and the Chiefs slipped under the radar and had a dynamite season. Thats what I want for Buffalo. Sorry for the long post.