PBF81

The image of Ed on a miniature horse/pony. LOL Shades of Gulliver's Travels.

Some of those are fair points. But several points. Given that, my first response, and not trying to be argumentative, but take it up with Beane. This is the team they've wanted six seasons (Beane) in. Secondly, his drops were only a signifiant issue last season. In his other seasons and overall, he's been within a reasonable range. But he was also injured last season. Other players seem to get a little lattitude when evaluating them with injuries, but not Davis for some reason. Also, he's easily been the most consistent and biggest force in he playoffs for us over the past three seasons, on par with Diggs in that way, and his drops in the playoffs have generally been insignificant. The "13-Seconds" game is a blowout for KC if not for Davis. Thirdly, right now he's on pace for 1,100 and 13 TDs. We'll see how that develops, but the whole "feeding Allen" thing is fine, but at the end of the day, it's a major uphill battle to suggest that another style of WR2 would yield better results, if in fact that came to pass. In short, there is merit to what you say, but it's also very hypothetical. I completely disagree with that bolded part. He's already made a few outstanding grabs in traffic or blanketed by coverage this season. Let's see how the season plays out. I wish I could get A22, damned DAZN. I'd like to see every one of his routes. Either way, for the sake of argument, suppose that's all true, it's also going to necessitate us getting a WR like that. What's Beane's track record for that? What, we gonna pay $15M/season for one? Value has to play into this somewhat particularly since we have a lot of dead money hanging out there now. Von Miller, While, Poyer, Knox now seemingly, etc. Again though, name names, but I'm curious which of all the other WR2s in the league, you think are better. I'll list them, as they presently stand, when I have time.

Presumably they want to. There's no reason to believe that they don't. But t the planning for it is in their hands.

Yeah, I wouldn't disagree with any of that either. I'm primarily stating things in light of the notion that many players are also often "committed to a city/team," but then the minute that they are offered $20M more, that commitment seems to vaporize. LOL Take it as a general comment. Who knows what they're thoughts are at this point.

Here's where you and others lose me with this. You say that, but he puts up notably better numbers than most of the best teams WR2s. I've already posted that data, I can put it up again if you like. TDs are TDs. 1st Downs are 1st Downs. Who cares how he does it. I don't get it. But in short, the argument implicitly then becomes, yeah, he's putting up good numbers, but we don't like the way he's doing it, so he needs to go. I'm having difficulty seeing where that even makes a modicum of sense. How are we measuring these "dropped passes"? Because there appear to be two standards. One for Davis and one for the rest of the receivers on the team and around the league. Are we using official stats? If so, then Davis has two drops and ranks behind Calvin Ridley, Tee Higgins, and Mike Evans in Drop %. He also ranks behind Knox who's 2nd in the league in Drop% with 3, on two-thirds or so as many targets. Why isn't everyone saying the same thing about him. Instead, his $13M contract was applauded by most here. Again, I don't get it. I don't think that bar is as high as you think it is. But my question to you is this then, of all of the WR2s in the entirely league, that's 32 of 'em, which ones do you think are better than Davis at logging 1st-Downs and TDs? Let's start there. I've already done that exercise so I have my answer. Not much disagreement with any of that. Well stated in fact! But that's the point. Davis fits in with what they're trying to do on offense. I understand that Davis isn't that WR with the incredible route tree, and far from a slot type guy, but he is what he is, and he delivers big plays, more often than not when they're needed. I thought I just read that he's the only WR in the league right now to have scored a TD in the last four straight games. He's averaged 72 YPG over the past four weeks. He's logged 13 1st-Downs in those four games. Show me another player on our team that's done that. Cook has teh same 13 1st-Downs, but both rushing and receiving, more YFS which makes sense, but only 1 TD despite all that. I could easily argue that Cook's the 2-down RB that he is and also isn't a typical RB1. Why is no one claiming that in the same vein? Just sayin'. Diggs has done it with 18 1st-Downs (5 more), 418 Yards (130 more), and the same 4 TDs, but he's also getting paid over 24x as much. For the price, IMO there isn't a better player on the team on a production-for-dollar comp than Davis at less than $1M/season. Now what he gets going forward is a different matter. But if we let him walk, given all of our other needs in the Draft, they'd better have someone to fill in and make up that production. Last season Davis was responsible for approximately 10% of the team's 1st-Downs and for 14% of the team's TD. That's a lot to fail to backfill for. Again, wishing and hoping for something better can often come back to bite you in the arseky. Extending him sooner would save the team a ton of money. Also, here's the thing, people at large are generally loathe to criticize McBeane here, but Davis is clearly a part of this mysterious ill-defined (really undefined) "Process." So if there are criticisms, why aren't they at McBeane?

OK, but understand what's being said. Three of our starting OL men's contracts expire after next season. Three. The point was that once that happens is not the time to start addressing that if you're the GM. Immediately following this season is, in the interests of good planning. That's not something we've seen here, good planning and a vision for our future OL to protect Allen. It's been the contrary until we drafted Torrence for the most part. And yeah, sure, Ford, etc., but out OL had a lot more weaknesses than G back then so the point remains. Waiting until they all expire, and who knows whether they'll resign any, but Dawkins will probably get more than he's worth from some other team, is not a strategy, it's reacting, not planning and proacting to the circumstances, which are fully known right now. Right. That would be poor management in any profession. We need to make post-Morse plans. Given his injury history in coming here, we've been fortunate with him. But he'll be 32 next season, which may not be "old" for a G or T, but which is old for a C. If he holds up this season he'll probably be fine for next season, but we shouldn't extend him. Time to move on there. Also part of optomizing the roster is knowing when to make the tough cuts, or in this case, not extend a player. Improved is one thing, consistently good, like our OLs of the '90s is entirely another. Until the consistent justifiable complaints about the OL play stop, we can improve. But once again, three of our five starters are only signed through next season, Morse being one of them. The immediate focus for us should be building a top-notch OL that will protect Allen to every extent possible and open up holes regularly for our running game. We didn't talk about our '90s OL like we do our OL today. IOW, draft Morse's replacement this forthcoming draft. Late in the 1st is a great place to do that if the best or second best is availalble. Bates may be the answer, but it's hardly a given. More importantly, get an OT to replace either Dawkins or Brown, if they're not planning on re-signing one or the other. And frankly, Brown's been better this season, "improved" as you said, but still only very average for a starting RT at best.

Fall of Hame?

The NFL, ... SMH. Talk about insatiable greed. I love the Bills, but hate the NFL. And when would it be played there, at midnight. LOL

When Pegula does make a change, fully expect it to be someone that understands QBs and offense. Then hire a DC and we'll take whatever the D is. As long as Allen is our QB here, offense is what is going to determine our lot and fate. Beane needs to start focusing on the OL. Brown, Dawkins, and Morse are all only signed through next season. McGovern for two more seasons. Waiting until the 2025 Draft is stupid and would indicate a sore lack of planning for the OL. Morse won't be worth resigning, everyone's talking about Davis getting too much elsewhere, but Dawkins will likely get more than he's worth somewhere else too. Beane's been asleep at the wheel re: OL since he's been here. He'd better get on the stick and start planning that immediately after this season. We should also expect that whenever Pegula makes a change, it'll be both McD and Beane.

What happens in the playoffs this year is going to drastically shape the narrative on McD. The regular season isn't going to matter. If we go 10-7 and get a wild-card but at least go to the Super Bowl, great. Same if we go 13-4. KC's not as good this season. There's not one other team except for maybe Miami that we should lose to in the playoffs. And Miami does not hat the defensive talent that we have. Either way, we own them and should be able to outscore them anytime we play them. If the D collapses again in the playoffs, McD's not going to weather that well. And there's still a dozen regular season games and some playoff games left for him to blunder some coaching decisions.

I realize that Davis isn't what many Bills fans want, but he does make big plays, his drops this season are very much in the normal range, and they use him in the way that they use him by design. If McD/Beane wanted a Higgins or Boyd type, they'd get one. And it's hardly as if Davis is overpaid. He's getting less than Shakir, less than Shorter, than Kyle Allen, Murray, Harris, Matekevich, Sherfield, Gilliam and a bunch of others. Honestly, what do people expect from a guy that's not even getting $1M this season. Dude's got 15 TDs & 1st Downs, as many as Cook, Harty, and Knox combined. Fine, he may not be worth $x-million, but for now he's a bargain. He's got nearly a fourth of the team's 1st-Downs, nearly a fourth of the team's passing yards, and over a third of Allen's TD passes. I simply don't get the criticism for a player like that. Most of the players listed do nothing and get paid more. Right now he's on pace for 1,100 yards and 13 TDs, which by last season's rankings would put him around 15th for receiving yards, 2nd for TD catches, and 2nd for YPR. That would be more yards than the #1 WRs of 20 other teams!! What do people want from him as a #2 WR? What, 20 TDs, 2,000 yards?

It seems to me that from what I've read, the primary criticism is why the drafted Kincaid if that's all they're going to do, particularly when other needs, like perhaps a blocker that wouldn't require us to have 7 blockers, and maybe only 6, or instead of 6, only 5 at times. Kincaid's on pace for about 400 yards, 0 TDs, and fewer than 7 YPC by season's end. That's going to be tough to justify on why the team believed that needed to trade up for Kincaid in the 1st. Kind of like last season when they traded Moss for Hines because Hines was a dynamic receiver. Then he caught a fraction of the passes that he caught on a per-game basis throughout his career. Those aren't the types of things that inspire confidence. And notice I've taken no side, just putting the facts out. But teams don't draft a receiving TE with limited blocking skills and then say to themselves, we'll be ecstatic if he puts up 25 yards-per-game and can get 6 or 7 YPR, and we don't care if logs any TDs. If McBeane & Co. don't want to be criticized, then it's pretty simple, start making decisions that make sense. Meanwhile, over in Indy, Moss is tearing it up. After this weekend he'll likely lead the AFC in rushing, outperforming Cook. What does that say about McD's coaching and Dorsey's coaching. Nothing positive to be sure.

I don't see why it would do any worse than our playoff defenses more often than not over the past few seasons. Seems like a solid pass D overall, our secondary was gutted last season too. It's the run D that should be of concern. But McD's a "defensive genius" and insists on bucking conventional wisdom constantly, so I'm sure he's got it figured out. Fortunately for this game all we're up against are former Bills backups Breida and Hodgins, along with an injured Waller, an injured Barkley, if both even play, and Slayton, another depth caliber WR. Honestly, if our B-team cannot win this game ...

LOL Which raises questions as to whether BB cheated in those Brady-less seasons. That would be even more damning.

This is not a bad game to give our players a week to heal up. Hell, even next week if necessary. Honestly, if we can't win this game if Kyle Allen started ...

Great! Let's move on from McD then. Otherwise, I'll defer to a 10-season career with some notable QBs BTW, Testeverde among them, with a .467 winning %, 78-89 record, 1-2 in the playoffs with two combined losses tallying 76-26, an average loss of 38-13, only three winning seasons in 10, two playoff appearances in those 10 seasons, and never a division win. Yeah, couldn't have been Brady who took Arians, an underachieving coach that had a single divisional round playoff win, to his only notable postseason play in his career with a Super Bowl win in his first season with Arians now, could it be.

On the former, sure, it's arguable, but I'd argue that it was more Brady's 466 passing yards and NE's 546 total yards that was responsible for the win, and not the Pats' defense which allowed the Pats to get into a 21-0 hole to start the game. As to the latter, sure, there's always a single data point in myriad of contrary examples. Kind of like using the fact that we only allowed the Ravens to score 3 points in our divisional playoff game in 2020 as a basis for the suggestion that our defense has been anything but bad in the playoffs allowing an average of 30 points, 25 1st-Downs, and 402 yards of offense in the other 6 games. ... which includes having held the offensively bereft Patriots to 17 points in '21.

BB has only done it with Brady, never with any other QB on the surrounding teams (aka Bledsoe and Cassel in adjoining seasons), and had been miserably poor in ten other seasons overall without Brady, while Brady has gone on to duplicate it under, at the age of 43 even, Bruce Arians. 10 other seasons, two playoff appearances, 1-2 in them with his only victory over the Bledsoe leg Pats, ironically, getting hammered in the other two, never advancing past the divisional round. There's absolutely nothing but extremely mediocre to abysmal performance there, argue as anyone may. And this season, ... LOL Hope that clears things up. 🙂

Not suggesting he had to be a force multiplier, but anyone watching knows what some of the issues are, at least force your OC to correct it.

His defenses got worse over time and he's supposed to be a defensive guru. They won very few playoff games because of their defense after Brady's early seasons.

Let's not go crazy now!

Just cut back, it's only the Giants.

Career Sack% 14.8. Ouch! LOL 49 in 11 starts with us at his peak sacks. 5 more games and he may have won 2nd. LOL

Well, when one of the two never had any success until the other arrived, even with essentially the same team othewise, then upon the departure of that other who goes on to do more of the same at an age considered ancient by NFL standards, and in setting records in that way, while the one reverts back to his ways pre when the other showe up, that also makes its own statement. The Pats' offense on Brady's watch was more Brady's than it was any of the OC's that they've had, which explains why they've all sucked elsewhere too, often repeatedly.

As Buffett laid out, it's 5 O'Clock somewhere.