PBF81

But not Allen who was drafted 7th overall? ... and over Peterman who had done nothing special at Pitt?

Goofballs, ... LOL You're concerns about McD wanting to control his staff are certainly warranted. It's slowly catching on to media. If Brady isn't all that this season, then it's going to become even heavier. The irony is that McD's doing whatever ends up happening to him by himself. These are his decisions, and his unwillingness to delegate to the extent that he's willing to give up complete control of the offense to someone that is far more likely to properly run an offense led by a historically gifted passer, is going to be his own undoing. If his defense is so good, then an explosive offense should not matter and we shouldn't be trying to turn Allen into a game-managing ball-control QB; and, it wouldn't continually choke in the biggest games in the playoffs. It seems obvious that he's more concerned about his own job security than he is about producing the type of offense that we should have with Allen at the wheel. What's concerning is the trend of downgrading our OCs. Daboll was brought in as the only one with experience in the role, and despite it having been with poor results. Then Dorsey was promoted. Now Brady with even less experience than Dorsey, and with what he has being poor also. There were a couple of articles yesterday where Diggs explained somewhat what happened when Brady took over. It's obvious from watching the games, but he confirmed it. He said that Brady did in fact change up the scheme(s) and uses of the WRs. The implication was that in his role under Brady he wasn't put in a position to do much, which again, is obvious from simple game analysis. The official argument is that Diggs "lost a step," which is ridiculous considering that if that's the truth then it must have happened all but literally overnight. This season in Houston will be interesting, as will Davis' season in Jax, in terms of indicting or conversely validating the official narratives here. If Diggs proves that he hasn't lost a step, and Davis continues to put up his 800 yards and 7 TDs while Coleman struggles, it's not going to be a good look. What validates that is that McD has stated that he wants to focus more on the short-medium passing game, against which it makes sense that they would draft a WR like Coleman and not a WR like Legette or Polk. It's difficult to see this going well.

Coleman has a huge learning curve, much bigger than most realize. He's not going to succeed here the same way that he succeeded at FSU anymore than Watkins or Zay Jones could at Clemson or South Carolina. The screens and bubble-screens aren't going to work well for him and honestly, if we, with Allen, start resorting to that ... SMH. The speed enhancement at this, the NFL level, is going to be problematic for him. It'll be interesting to see how they use him, that will be incredibly interesting. Of his "contested catches," he dropped way more of those than caught them despite the inaccurate narrative. That's going be more difficult, not easier, here as well. It's difficult to see him ever being much better than the third leading receiver on this team.

So you're not married then? Your dietician must be earning every dollar.

LOL, indeed. But Allen at 7th overall he shouldn't have. Remember too, McD said that Peterman gave us the best chances of winning. LOL

BTW, you implicitly raise something that I meant to bring up. If our D had played the same way down the stretch as it did in "Dorsey's" 5 losses and without any help from STs (Miami) or D (NE), we'd have been lucky to get to 3-4 and 8-9 overall. We allowed an average of 24 PPG in those first 5 losses. Had we allowed 24 in all of our last 7 games we'd have won only 3 pending the Chargers game which would have been a tie. The Chargers with a 24th ranked D and fielding absolutely nothing of starting caliber talent on offense in that game. We'll figure it out this season. Excuses and scapegoating can only go on for so long. As to Shakir, as I posted before, I see no reason why he couldn't be a 100 catch 1,500 yard and 10 TD WR in this offense. Will it happen? And consider, if it did, if we had someone that knew how to maximize our passing game, and Shakir did hit or even get close to that, imagine what Kincaid and the others would do on coattails. The offense would be explosive as it should be. Instead we render Allen to the short-medium game, focus on running, and defense. Seems to me that if we cut loose our passing game we could go 13-4 or 14-3 perennially and have a whole lot more success in the playoffs. The D would still be good, it simply wouldn't dominate our game strategy. No need for all of these down-to-the-wire games against siht teams, we should have blown most of the teams we lost to, and some others, out. We have the talent on offense.

This season will tell us more, much more IMO. You also pointed out that we were 5-5 under Dorsey while 6-1 under Brady. My perspective has not changed one iota. Sometimes when I refer to things I'm referring to the going narrative(s), not necessarily what you stated. I also forgot to point out that it's interesting that of those 6 wins "under Brady" (i.e. why never "under McD"), our defense allowed 6, 10, 17, and 22 points. Had our D allowed 6 or 10 in Dorsey's games we'd have won all 5. If the D had allowed 17 we'd have won 4 of the 5. We wouldn't even be having this discussion. In short, our having gone 6-1 the last bunch of games had almost nothing to do with Brady. And my main point is that we haven't had an OC yet that has been able to work with Allen at 100% of his capabilities, particularly in the passing game. Poor defense is what led to a 5-5 record more than any other aspect of our play. It was absolutely an "upper management decision" pushed on Brady. No competent and sensible OC structures structures an offense like we have with Allen back there without being forced to. That's the entire point. McDefense is deliberately not hiring anyone competent to not be outshone or potentially lose his job to that person, which it seems would be incredibly likely given how our D folds and we make biggest coaching blunders in team history in the playoffs while continually playing not-to-lose. But that's not the narrative, far from it in fact.

I'm also suggesting things that run entirely contrary to heavy unsubstantiated narratives here. Otherwise, you cited our W/L under Dorsey and Brady with the implication that Dorsey wasn't cutting it. I provided the critical details on those games and how our defense played more like a 30th ranked D than a 4th ranked D and asked you why we lost those five games, you chose not to answer that question. It's entiredy disingenuous for anyone to throw Dorsey under the bus without at least asking similar questions about the D side, which was obviously much more responsible for those losses. We don't have to get into what it says about a head coach that allows his OC to get thrown under the bus without taking his share of the heat for his defensive horrendousness. That's simply not an honest analysis.

I'm in no way claiming that we don't do well when he runs. What is being claimed is that our passing game is notches below where it should be for the simple reason that we have no one knowledgeable and experienced enough to have it perform where it should be performing. There's a clear difference there. Allen running as an option is one thing, his running out of the necessity due to the other aspects of our offense not being able to cut it independently is quite another. Also, you didn't answer the question. How is it possible that other teams without their QBs running anywhere close to Allen's running, outperform us and do much much better than we do? Why is our QB running entirely necessary, but only for us? ... or maybe the Ravens who haven't proven anything on Jackson's watch. I'm suggesting things that are implied or which otherwise are entirely related to the points you brought/bring up. Not really. It's directly related as to why we have OJT OCs. Understandably you think that's fine, so I get that. But McD is the one that instructs Brady (and formerly Dorsey and Daboll, which was obviously the source of some of Daboll's issues with McD) how to run his offense despite knowing nothing about offense. It's not complicated, at least that simple aspect of it. OK, you seem to be getting emotional now. That's fine, I get your position. But you've entirely missed the point on that. By implication you seem to believe that Brady's all we need and that we won't be able to improve significantly on him, Dorsey, or even Daboll. That's fine. Some people believe that. This season should once and for all reveal much.

So in essence, you're on the side that claims that we cannot win games with Allen primarily passing the ball then? That it takes a QB, for us anyway, that runs the equivalent of 150 times/season, for around 700 yards, and nearly 20 TDs in order for us to win games then? OK, let's run with that premise. How do other teams with other OCs manage to outperform us without their QBs doing the same? Weren't the same people saying how we needed to run Allen less a year ago at this time? What about our running game? How come no OC that we've had can seem to piece together a decent rushing game for an entire season? Is it possible that it's our OCs? Who selected them? Why did that person select them? What happens if that same person selects a ringer OC and that OC excels with the offense but it's the defense that lets us down in the playoffs, ... again? What would our passing offense and offense in general look like if Ben Johnson or Andy Reid, among others ran it instead of a couple of OJT people that Allen is buddies with? It is, but maybe it's those OCs. Not one came here nor has since distinguished themselves in the role. Last season we lost 5 games with Dorsey as the OC. Why does everyone point to Dorsey? How does McD incessantly get a pass, particularly as the one orchestrating the D. So in essence, you're placing the reasons for our losses on the shoulders of Dorsey. OK, let's run with that. First loss, the Jets. So you're placing the blame for that loss on our offense which went up against a defense that was playing top-ranked D in the first half of the season, and not on the shoulders of a defense, ranked 4th mind you and raved about by everyone here, that allowed nearly 200 rushing yards with QB Zach Wilson for offensive balance while allowing them to score just over their season average against our 4th ranked D in regulation then, while then allowing a 65-yard punt return to lose the game then? Who's more to blame for that loss of all the possibilities? Second loss, the Jags. Again, our illustrious 4th-ranked defense allowed the Jags to post the most 1st-Downs, most Total yards, and most rushing yards by a wide margin it can be added, and their 5th most passing yards on top of it, while allowing them to score 2 more points than their season average. Is that consistent with a 4th ranked touted defense? Our defense allowed three long drives averaging over 80 yards for three TDs. Oh, and we allowed the Jags to have over 38 minutes time-of-possession too. Who's more to blame for that loss of all the possibilities? Third loss, the Pats. We allowed Mac Jones to post the third best game of his career while having our 4th-ranked illustrious defense allow the Pats to put up over twice their scoring average on the season to put up their most points in any game all season. Our 4th-ranked D allowed the Pats to put up their 3rd most 1st-Downs, 2nd most total yards, 2nd most passing yards (Mac Jones), and 3rd most rushing yards all season. Again, who's more to blame for that loss of all of the possibilities? Fourth loss, the Bengals. Allen ran 8 times for 44 yards and 1 TD btw. Once again our illustrious 4th-ranked D allowed the Bengals a FG more points than their season average. We also allowed them their 4th most 1st-Downs, 3rd most total yards, and most passing yards that they had all season. Our illustrious pass-D that is. Once again, who's more to blame for that loss of all the possibilities? Fifth loss, the Broncos. Once again, our illustrious 4th ranked D allowed the Broncos 3 more points than their season average, their 6th most 1st-Downs, 5th most rushing yards, and average total and passing yards otherwise. Again, against a 4th ranked D. Once again, who's more to blame for this loss? The answer is clear, it's just that a lot of people have cognitive dissonance that disallows them from seeing it. Either way, it's a defeatest attitude when people throw in the towel on a better passing game than we have while we possess arguably the strongest armed QB in the history of the game, one that can make any throw, etc. Allen would be so much further along right now with good coaching, but hey, we want to focus on "complimentary football" and running the ball, largely with him, while focusing on the defense. The problem is that that's all we're going to get until we get someone on this staff that is capable of turning the offense into the juggernaut that it should be under Allen. Sadly, that won't happen under the current leadership.

The link works, but there's no detail on the stat source he used.

Oh, believe me, I didn't think that you were making it up. But those are stats that come difficult to find in a sortable manner. Football Outsiders used to have a great stats section with all kinds of stuff that couldn't be found elsewhere, but games, by three-game stretches, the season, etc. It was great. They've been gone for a while. No, I was genuinely interested in your source. As to the stuff above, and presumably you read my last reply otherwise, which also addresses that somewhat, those numbers are fine, but the problems occur when you consider efficiency, not merely totals. For example, Allen's carries doubled from just under 5 (as I recall) to nearly 10, almost double. Is that really what we want our generationally talented QB with a cannon arm to be focusing on? And then why the diminishment in compl. % "all other things being equal"? How many of those rushing yards is Allen responsible for? Cook? Did you look to see how Cook's YPC average plummeted to 3.6 over what, I think the last five games of the season? If we look at the body of Dorsey's 10 games contrasted with Brady's 7 games, the distributions offensively are essentially the same. Two of our top three and 3 of our top-5 rushing games were under Dorsey. Brady and "his offense" have gotten credit for taking us to 6-1. Is that realistic? His offense produced 14 points v. Miami and we only won due to the unlikeliest of PR-TDs. We put up a tremendously average 24 points against a banged up poor Charger D. Against NE same thing, we put up 21 in very average fashion. Much worse offensive teams put up more points than us against those teams many times. Our offense averaged 19.3 PPG in those three to "win" them. Allow me to ask, suppose we add another FG to that, 22.3, and that's what we would average under Brady, what would you say that our record would be this season? ... So why was it the reason we won those games then? Those numbers are nice, in isolation I suppose, but what I'm trying to get you to do is to break it down more. Tell us about Cook's performance? Sure, "we ran more," and he tore it up against a depleted Dallas team in an emotionally high game for us, but otherwise over 6 games under Brady he went 92 carries for 328 yards, and 0 TDs. Is that good? It's an average of 15 for 55 yards, no scores, and a YPC average of a bottom-dwelling 3.7. Is that good? Is that what's going to propel us to yet another division win and some success in the playoffs? The question is, again, who is driving that? Is it really Brady that truly believes that's the best way to get the offense to be all that it can be? Is that what you think? Do you think that our ticket to winning, any season, not merely this one since our offensive strategy seems to change every season as it has, is to have Allen run more, force cook or some 4th round RB to run the ball, but never on 3rd-downs, and limit Allen's passing game to the extent that he posts 60% completions and a pace of 24 passing TDs/season, which would have been good for 11th last season tied with Stafford and Jackson. IDK, maybe you do. Some people obviously do since they parrot McDefense's "complimentary football" unoriginal and ill-suited to this team's offensive talent, largely Allen. I don't think it is when you have a generational talent at QB with arguably the strongest arm that the league has ever seen and athleticism that would make any coach drool with anticipation at getting their hands on him with some creativity. But call me crazy. Apparently the answer is to put him in a short-medium passing game box, have him run the ball more while opening himself up to not only more hits and tackles running, but also more QB Hits and QB Hurries as the stats indicate under Brady. We will see to be sure. If I had to guess a theme heading into this season, it might very well be be careful what you wish for, you may get it. Either way, and hopefully I'm dead wrong, but what do you think? What are your answers to those questions? ------ Edit: BTW, I just clicked on that Niagara Gazette link hoping to find the source, unless I missed it it wasn't included. What I did notice was the discussion about how Allen largely picked Brady. Obviously the forum applauds that and people give credence to that. But Allen was also the reason in the same exact manner as to why Dorsey was picked. He also loved Daboll who had his flaws. Maybe someone knowledgeable should decide who's best to get the most from this offense, someone that can see the forest for the trees, i.e. not Allen. And coaches and players develop personal relationships and tight friendships amongst themselves, which would obviously bring bias into the mix. The question is who, who has that offensive wherewithal to make such a choice and decision. HINT: it's not McD. And think about it, even if it were, if we were to bring in an OC that caused our offense to explode, and yet we went to the playoffs with the D failing as it has, what do you think that the outcry would be? ... maybe that's why McD hasn't gotten anyone else but from within or those that he knows personally. Just sayin'. Once again, let's ask ourselves, had Allen arrived here before McD, would anyone have chosen McD to be the Bills' coach? Would you have? ... you have Allen, now you need a coach. Would you have had McD on your short list? It's largely a chicken-egg thing. Keep in mind, McD was the only one in the world that wanted Peterman, and he had to have media and fan pressure change his mind. What does that in and of itself say? More food for thought.

You're a narrative parrot. Disagree as you may on Davis, but there's not a credible draft profile out there that will support you. And when you repeat narratives like that Diggs sucked after week 6 despite posting 21 catches for 214 yards, 2 TDs, on a catch% of 68% over his next three games, how is anyone to take you seriously. Extrapolated over a 17 game season that'd be 119 catches for over 1,200 yards, and 11 TDs. Sorry, but that's simply idiotic in the literal sense. I'll respond to Doc Brown, but we're finished here. Piss into the wind elsewhere.

Yes, this team is a different team in the playoffs. So was Allen. We've gone over that. That's out of context with the discussion. Gee, bit step up there. LOL But Davis isn't > Singletary or Moss. Both of them had greater credentials coming into the NFL than Davis has. This is a wash/rinse/repeat thing by McBeane. None of our RBs ever get significant 3rd-down carries, but you knew that, right? This will all come clear in the fall in every likelihood. Then everyone will be saying the same things then that they said, or similar anyway, while avoiding the core issue, that they said about Dorsey.

Excellent!! Love your approach here. BTW, where did you find credible Yards-per-Drive stats without having to get them individually yourself? Always interested in stat sites that provide info not typically provided, broken-out/sortable that is. Those are the questions, and more, that everyone should be asking. That's how we get to the bottom of things. And BTW, again, it's at least somewhat complex. There are complex causes sometimes, but the effects aren't always so complex, quite often they're fairly easy to spot. But you said this above ... Every other metric (ppg, ypg, yards per drive, etc. were pretty much identical in the 10 games under Dorsey and nine games under Brady). Is that really true? You have to be very careful when using words like "every" without any qualifiers. And BTW, we could write a book on this season alone, but let's look at some of the more simple indicators. To start, it's common sense that Brady was at least in part, a part which can be discussed, Dorsey's offense, right. But it's also equal common sense that the further away we got from that transition, the closer we got to a Brady steady-state, which we'll see in all its glory this season. Ergo, it's therefore common sense that as the season progressed, Brady implemented more of "his" scheming than that of Dorsey's. He certainly didn't go back to what Dorsey did, which makes zero sense. So having said that, what else is important are trends and patterns. We started off with three strong offensive games on Brady's watch. If anything, those leaned more "Dorsey" than his later games to any extent that it did, which many here insist was to a big extent, and which is otherwise also common sense. Our team has a history of getting up for certain big games, much as we got up for the Rams the season before last to open up, or against Miami the first time this season, or against KC in the regular season as a few examples. So too, we got up for Brady's first game, but against what had then become a hapless Jets team. Then we played the Eagles who had just come off of a huge MNF road game @ KC, an advantage to us with an additional day of rest despite the game being @ Philly, and where their 7th ranked offense put up more points on our 4th ranked D than our 6th ranked offense put up on their 30th ranked D. After that overrated Philly, which nearly everyone agrees on, went 1-6 streak culminating in an blowout wild-card round loss to a 9-8 Bucs team that was lucky to make the playoffs. Then Dallas, which had just come their biggest game of their season against Philly for the division in essence. They were obviously flat coming to Buffalo. It was their worst offensive game of the season. So we started strong, but with mitigating circumstances. Keep in mind we lost to the Eagles. OK, so now we begin to see Brady's offense taking greater shape, at least more so than the prior games, over the last three games, and hardly against tough defensive foes. The Chargers brought the 24th ranked scoring and 28th ranked yardage D; The Pats brought the 15th ranked scoring and 7th ranked yardage D; and the Fins brought the 22nd ranked scoring and 10th ranked yardage D. Yet, during that three-game stretch, the most important of the season at that time, our offense averaged fewer than 20 PPG. (19.3, which is bottom dwelling, good for 25th on the season.) Allen's metrics under Brady on a per-game basis were also not great. Four of Allen's 6 worst rated games were under Brady as were his 4 worst Compl.% games along with 4 of his worst 7 YPA games. Why bother to point all that out you may ask; ... what is the strength of our team? Around what/whom does our entire success revolve around? You also said this, which is key; We just had more yards passing under Dorsey and more yards running under Brady. We did, by 16 YPG. Despite seeing an increase in average depth-of-target from 8.4 to 9.1, we also saw a 10% diminishment in Allen's Compl.%, which is huge; A 26% diminishment in Allen's passing TDs/game; Similar INTs; A 23% increase in sacks sustainted; An 11 point drop in Allen's Rating; An increase in both the percentages of QB Hits and QB Hurries that Allen sustained; And a slight diminishment in Allen's 1st-Down%. That's for all 7 of Brady's games, but how does that rub against what you said above, that we ran more, which we did. Why should those metrics suffer like that if our running game was truly doing all the work, or most of it. I'm going to go thru the data to document the # of pass & run plays in every game along with a few other things when I have time. But to simply dismiss that late season trend is, first of all, not good form for analysis, but second of all, quite the excuse-making for Brady's system. Here's some food for thought though. What's driving this? i.e., what's driving our proclivity towards running the ball, particularly using Allen, which just a year ago McD said he wanted to get away from? Is it really Brady? Put yourself in the shoes of being a new OC for our team, being handed Josh Allen. What's the first thing you say to yourself? Is it really that we need to run more and become a run focused team? That that's how we get to and make the playoffs, but more importantly win therein? That that's how we optimize and get the most from this offense in terms of scoring? I'll collect that data when I have time. We'll look more into it then. Again, interested in your yards-per-drive source if it's not one that I'm familiar with. You ask good questions that are part of a more complex situation. But don't simply ask the ones that suit a particular argument, ask them all. BTW, slightly off-topic but related, why did Kincaid's YPG production diminish under Brady in terms of YPG and TDs? How about why Shakir only scored 1 TD under Brady? Is that problematic going into this season given that the two most familiar targets for Allen averaged a season-totaling 880 Yards & 2 TDs and 690 & 0 TDs under Brady? Food for thought. I'll ping you when I have that game data. Thanks for engaging!!

Sure, of course. Any post that doesn't directly or indirectly pertain to the topic at hand counts.

Well, OK, let's suppose we say probably so despite any lack of evidence in our "Diggs lost a step" world. How does that support the narrative that the O played better under Brady, clearly otherwise unsupported? Keep in mind, it's not merely a nominal drop, it's a drop near to near league worst in two key metrics that are far from what typical playoff QBs demonstrate. It's at least somewhat more complex than having a single reason no doubt, but at the heart of it and from where I sit, it's largely due to the notion that Allen was forced to play an aspect of the game that is a weakness for him, not a strength. ... which BTW also led to his having twice as carries in running the ball as well. We'll find out more this coming season to be sure. Unless Brady entirely changes his offense, from what it was under him that is, there's little reason to expect much more than more of the same. Anyone then thinking that we're going to win the division by winning games on D/STs TDs or by barely beating teams with poor Ds like the Chargers on top of that may be heavily disappointed. I have my strongest of suspicions otherwise, but I'll keep those to myself for now.

FWIW ... https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1335258/000119312512075895/d277780dex211.htm

What's ironic is that with paper tix you could get arrested depending upon where you were selling if you sold for more than face. Granted, many places didn't care, but many did. But apparently if you're a corporation you can charge more straight out of the gate. And years ago, not sure whether it's still the case, but TM had a subsidiary or an arrangement with another company, which bought tix in seconds after the initial sale, the best seats of course which no one else had a chance to get, and they immediately went up on the other site for quite a bit more. There may have been a lawsuit over that too. It used to be too that you could actually go to the venue's box office and buy them without the fees, straight face value. Can't even do that anymore. It was good if you were trying to get more than one or two tix, worth the trip to the box office. Not sure whether it was the same company, but it used to be called Ticketron.

It was Zappe. And still, they had more total yards and more passing yards and nearly beat us except for a D TD. You're leapfrogging the point. Your implication is that A, the NE D was actually something better than average, and that we actually played a good game offensively. LOL

LOL, ya know, great point. Besides, we know that the NFL has designs on getting teams in London/UK and Europe. It'll probably happen at some point. The NFL is going in an opposite direction of what we as Bills fans having grown up in WNY have appreciated about having the Bills. I hate the NFL, just love the Bills. If the Bills ever left town my interest would drop to nil. I think I've watched one of the last five or six Super Bowls. It's a pop-culture event more than anything else. The more that dipsihts like Swift get involved the less appealing it becomes to a lot of football fans.

Mad, ... LOL Either way, changing the argument every time you react is hardly a way to discuss this. Otherwise, getting emotional doesn't help. Let's wait and see what happens. According to you things should go swimmingly, we all hope so.

Have you looked at the context of this exchange? Also, for a couple of seasons now the coaching staff themselves have stated that they wanted Allen to run less. Then Brady takes over and they want him to run more. What's the obvious conclusion? OK, and we should have lost against Zappe and the Pats who outplayed us. We struggled to beat a Chargers team that was siht. Seriously, look at the Chargers' roster for that game, and come back and tell us all how many games in a 17-game season we'd win if McD were the coach of that team. What, two, three by accident. What's nonsense is that Brady was the difference.

Imagine if everyone else that didn't care also posted that. Just sayin'. 😏