PBF81

For a second there I thought it said DOMED.

Kinda early for that tho.

Yeah, it does, and the timing ... What's not mentioned is Terry taking over management of the Bills org, but no mention of Kim. Obviously she's out for the long haul, just sayin'. I wonder if he's positioning himself to keep greater tabs on McD & Beane, but odd there is that he just extended both of them. I can't imagine that Raccuia extended them w/o Terry's permission. But yeah, it does seem weird.

Interesting and astute take.

Sheeeet, I'll take 9 or 10 with a Wild Card and all road playoff games if it means being fresh for the playoffs and winning the SB. It's ALL going to come down to McD's management of the D, Dorsey, Allen's elbow, and the avoidance of Allen or Milano getting injured. I'm sure I'm not the only one that's concerned about the top five or six guys on our coaching staff all being retread coaches from when McD was in Carolina. I mean honestly, it's as if he's quietly brought that coaching staff here. It's not as if those teams overachieved or did anything special. Sheeeet, I'll take 9 or 10 with a Wild Card and all road playoff games if it means being fresh for the playoffs and winning the SB. It's ALL going to come down to McD's management of the D, Dorsey, Allen's elbow, and the avoidance of Allen or Milano getting injured. I'm sure I'm not the only one that's concerned about the top five or six guys on our coaching staff all being retread coaches from when McD was in Carolina. I mean honestly, it's as if he's quietly brought that coaching staff here. It's not as if those teams overachieved or did anything special. I can see us being the best offense, or close to it, of all-time and for sure in Bills' franchise history, or I can see us being 5th or 6th too. There are a whole lot of mystery balls up in the air entering this season. Gotta hope for the best. GO BILLS!!!

There should always be a preponderance of chicken wings over ice cream in these parts!

I think that's when McD would have thrown down the gauntlet and declared, let the Feats of Strength begin!

Even when it is, it's typically ignored. People have a tendency to generalize criticisms. This is going to be a very interesting season one way or another.

Without getting into the data in detail, a good reason for some of that was out lack of a reliable slot WR, which have the RBs more targets.

So by the eyeball test, IYO we were better in the '22 Playoffs than in the '21 Playoffs? Well, OK. My eyes tell me differently however. I'm also not sure that there's even any support for that outside of a subset of Bills fans.

LOL BTW!

🙂 As long as we are competence this season ...

This is really important to you I see. I went by scoring passing defense since that's what our conversation was involved with implicitly. Anyway, who cares. New season coming up. Let's hope that Davis and McD pull their heads outta their arses and don't botch it for us in the playoffs again.

Better is relative. You said this, which is false. The the defensive competition sucked as I just pointed out. We'd be very lucky to have that level of defensive competition again in the next five seasons. I'm merely qualifying things. I hate narratives because they form and then all rational thought seems to be discarded.

What I'm saying is who cares about regular season rankings. If we're going to look at it like that, then we need to look at a bunch of other data as well. Like the fact that we had 11 of 16 games last season with 23 or fewer 1st-Downs, whereas in '21 we had only 8 of 17 games with 23 or fewer 1st-Downs. ... as merely one item. I'd also be willing to bet that we played notably weaker pass defenses last season as well than we did the year prior. But you're trying to take fractions of a PPG or a ranking or two, maybe three overall seem like a big deal. We're going to have more YPP for instance without an effective "slot"/Beasley type, that's common sense. But then we shouldn't complain about dropped passes on deep balls because no viable short-threat ever developed, and when Dorsey was too obtuse to get Hines involved, who's an exceptional short-yardage receiving option. BTW, after a quick glance, of the 16 regular season games we played, 8 of them had passing defenses ranked 23rd or worst, that's half our regular season schedule against teams with passing Ds in the bottom quartile. And that doesn't mean that the rest were great, only three (Jets (twice), the Ravens, and Browns) were in the top-10. I'm not sure I'd be beating my breasts yodeling over that. Having said all that, I firmly believe that we have the offense in place to dominate the league in offense this season if it's coached properly, and if it isn't the best, then 90% (or so) of the reason will have been poor coaching. In fact, I am in the camp that says that everything is there for us to have one of the most prolific offenses of all time, in the league, not just franchise history.

I'm going to discount Davis' rookie season, and even then it's hardly fair to compare him to Diggs who's been in his 7th and 8th seasons in the league the past two seasons. Allow me to ask, how many drops in playoff games has Davis had over the past two seasons? How many drops in playoff games has Diggs had in the same past two seasons? Apart from those games, how many Yards and TDs have both had in their other playoff games in '21 and '22? Which of the two has performed better for us in our last four playoff games in 2021 and 2022? After reviewing that and posting it, let me know which of the two has been more valuable come playoff time. Clearly Allen figures into it as well as he decides where his balls get thrown. I wouldn't say overwhelming at all. The differences in rankings are marginal if not negligibile. ... except in the playoffs, where we were notably worse. It's obvious that our playoff offense was far better in '21 than it was last season in '22. You won't find anyone to reasonably argue to the contrary. Just scour the articles after our loss to Cincy. We can make excuses and provide reasons, but that's the way it was. Either way, I don't think that it's a different conversation given that the way the team plays in the playoffs is the complete opposite of the way it plays during the season. I can't speak for everyone although I know I speak for many when I say that between the playoffs and regular season, I couldn't care less about the regular season considering that we're locks for at least a wild-card with Allen at QB. I much prefer that the team shows up in January, when it matters. And the team includes coaching, which potentially cost us a Super Bowl win, likely so even.

You are correct, I was using totals, I forgot we only played 16 games last season. Either way, I'm not seeing a pronounced difference, but my point has always been that our issues are not in the regular season, but in the playoffs. Which is true. My points on the playoff offense stand, firmly. We'll see if it changes this season. But I know of no fan that would prefer being ranked #1 across the board going 14-3, and losing in the divisional round, over being ranked in the top-5 or even 10 everywhere, going 10-7, getting a wild-card and winning the Super Bowl. I will say, if we continue our playoff underperformance this season, I honestly don't know how people cannot point to McD, regardless of how they want it addressed. And back to the original point, Allen was best when Beasley was there for him. We've never effectively replaced Beasley who was among the best in that role. And if we get that slot guy, Davis will be more effective at what he does.

It's very important to separate the narrative on Davis with the truth. "He drops too many passes" has been overplayed. Sure, he drops some balls, but he also makes some spectacular huge play catches. He and Beasley were singlehandely responsible for all but bringing us to the Super Bowl in '21. Last season, he had only two drops in games that we lost. One was that 20-17 Jets loss, but Diggs also had a drop in the same game, and that was Allen's 2nd worst game in the last three seasons. The other was the Vikes game, but I find it difficult to blame Davis when he had 93 yards and a TD, to Diggs' 128 yards and no TD, and when the D stunk the joint up. Just sayin'.

We had fewer Yards, fewer Points Scored, by nearly 2/game. Fewer 1st-Downs by nearly 2/game. Fewer passing yards, one less passing TD. More TOs & FLs. Not sure how that's all better. In the playoffs our production dropped from 41.5 PPG and 26 1st-Downs to 22 PPG and 22 1st-Downs.

That's why we were so much better with Beasley. In that playoff game vs. KC, "13 Seconds," the only two WRs that did anything were Davis and Beasley. Beasley ate up the underneath routes and Davis did the deep work. Agree with you largely on Davis, he's more of an Alvin Harper/Tony Martin/James Lofton/Vincent Jackson type. I'm not sure that works as a #2 although it has in the past, but those teams also had effective underneath guys, which is what we've been missing since they cut Beasley. It's much easier to take two guys away when there's nothing else than it is to take both the top 2 split guys away with an effective underneath guy. That's on both Dorsey and Beane.

OFFENSIVE LINE!!!

And those "biggest games" are in the playoffs, where we can't beat the best teams. Regular season is not a problem for us, there's also there. I'd rather go 10-7, get a wild card, then sweep the playoffs. Game also runs low-percentage routes and is far from being the most versatile WR in the league. He's good at what he does.

Or problem has been that the playoffs however, and Diggs has been more invisible than Davis therein, especially considering his status. Regular season is not our issue.

They're trying to get in his head before the season.

If that's the way it unfolds, them let's hope Beane gets it right finally. That's why I'm not a fan of OJT hires.