PBF81

They've been very very good this season! A huge part of that is the chemistry, both week-to-week as well as overall. If we look at the Snap Counts for the 5 starting OL-men, they're all above 96%. Those are the top-5 snap counts on the team, offensively, defensively, STs, anything. It's remarkable that they've all stayed injury-free.

It would be a good consolation prize parley.

That's not saying a whole lot though.

Well, in all fairness, that would be inexcusable. 😏

Their D is hit-n-miss, but I wouldn't want to have to rely on Flacco, who'll be 39 by the time the SB hits. That seems a little precarious. I'd rather be us.

Indeed. Mine wasn't in any particular order. The opportunity for us is there, even as a Wild Card. In fact, I almost prefer us being a Wild Card. Less pressure, more resolve. But who knows. A couple of home playoff games would be nice too.

KC's receivers blow and that's been their strength. KC isn't going anywhere this postseason. It's between Baltimore, Miami, and us. Whichever team doesn't siht the bed in the playoffs will represent the AFC in the SB. Ironically, Cleveland may be the next best team at this point.

I guess, but the way that I look at it is that even with our injury losses, other teams with less talent played better and beat those same teams. So it's difficult for me to put it on that. Either way, right now we're in a catbird seat of sorts.

There are a lot of ways someone could argue that. First, we didn't lose Allen. We also had adequate depth, clearly, and we didn't lose our key players on the cusp of making the playoffs. At any rate, currently, I'd take our talent on offense over that of any team in the AFC right now.

There is for sure. Also, so are inuries. Consider, the Chargers were just without Herbert, Allen, and Bosa, three of the best at their positions in the league. ... and others. aka we're not the only team in the league to sustain key injuries.

Yes they are, from a player perspective, particularly on offense. The TBD $100,000 question is whether or not coaching is up to the task. Generally speaking the AFC playoff teams have good coaches at the division championship level anyway.

And BTW, to provide a more in-depth answer to that part, my perspective is that of all of the teams presently, and realistically, in the race for AFC playoff spots, we have strengths in just about every category across the board. QB: Apart from Mahomes (more on KC below), we have Allen vs. Jackson, Lawrence, Too, Flacco, Minshew, Stroud, Pickett, and Browning RB: Cook has more rushing yards than any other AFC RB, and better yards-per-carry than all but Jaylen Warren on Pittsburgh. WRs: Of all of the receivers in the top-100 for all of those teams ... We have Diggs, Davis, Kincaid, Shakir, and Cook Baltimore has Flowers, Beckham, and Andrews Cincy has Chase, Higgins, and Boyd Cleveland has Cooper, Njoku, and Moore Houston has Collins, Dell, Schultz, and Brown Indy has Downs and Pierce Jax has Ridley, Kirk, Engram, and Etienne KC has Kelce and Rice Miami has Hill and Waddle Pitt has Pickens and Johnson Cook and Etienne are the only two RBs among the top-100 (on those teams) in that mix, and Cook's better than Etienne across all cats.

Yeah, I left the analysis up to the reader there. As for MO, when Baltimore is the strongest AFC team, then it's a weak field given their offensive skills-position players. As you can see, my emphasis was on offense. As to the teams Brady's faced, the SOS was for the entire season, so take that into consideration. But the current ranks of the rushing defenses the we've faced are 8th, 15th, 18th, 19th, and 24th. (Avg. = 17th) The current ranks of those five scoring defenses are 3rd, 5th, 14th, 26th, and 27th. (Avg. = 15th) The current ranks of those five yardage defenses are 3rd, 5th 8th, 17th, and 29th. (Avg. = 12th) The current ranks of those five teams in 1st-Downs allowed are 2nd, 8th, 12th, 21st, and 29th. (Avg. = 14th). At a quick glance the doesn't seem to be out of line with the rest of the schedule on average.

The Bills are like a box of chocolates ...

It is an interesting topic to discuss. To start, any semblance of newness always takes a handful of games, which can vary in number, for a steady-state to emerge. At the end of the day however, the needle hasn't moved that much on game metrics. Brady's been the OC for the past five games, started with the Jets game. Since then we've averaged 27.8 PPG contrasted with the 26.2 PPG prior to that, for a marginal +1.6, an improvement but hardly earth-shattering, and still down from last season's 28.4 and with an easier schedule as well. Our 1st-Downs have also increased marginally from 22 to 23.2, a +1.2. Our total yards haven't increased at all for all intents and purposes, having bumped from 380 to 382. The biggest difference as you point out is our running game, with Cook obviously being our primary ball carrier. His carries have increased from 12 to 17.6 per game on average. His receptions have increased by 1 from an average 2.8 to 3.8. So in that sense there's somewhat more balance to the offense run/pass. The Dallas game is what has skewed everything statistically for both him and the team. In the other four games Cook has averaged a pedestrian 3.9 yards-per-carry. In all four of those games he's got 244 rushing yards, in the Dallas game he had 179 on 7.2 YPC. His YPC in the other four games were 4.3, 2.7, 5.8, and 3.5, with that 5.8 being his low carry (10) game in which he had 11, 12, and 15-yard runs. His receptions have increased from an average 2.4 to 3.1, but his receiving yards have increased to 42.2 from 22.2, nearly doubling. Having said that, in our zero-sum-game of the same yards per game, Diggs' production has averaged a mere 4.6 receptions for an average of 40.4 yards, down from 7.3 catches for 86.8 YPG, fewer than half the yards. On a season, under Brady so far, Diggs' 17-game average is 78 catches for 687 yards and 3 TDs. Having said that, our average number of pass attempts has dropped by 12 from 45.5 to 33.6, while our average number of carries has increased by 15 from 22.4 to 37.4. A good chunk of that is the skewed Dallas game where we ran 49 times and had only 16 pass plays. Nonetheless. We'll be fully steady-state by the end of the season if we aren't already. The referendum on this season is going to come down to the playoffs, against what is generally considered to be the weakest field in the AFC at least since Allen emerged in 2020. There's no dominant team and with Allen we arguably have the best offense in the AFC and more than a good enough defense to compliment it.

Merry Christmas to all!

Phrasing your original post a little differently may have been better.

We were only mostly dead at the half.

Merry Christmas!

For all of the complaining that's done here about our receivers, they didn't have a single receiver on the field yesterday that was better than Diggs, Davis, Kincaid, or Shakir. We cry about our injuries, but they were without Bosa, Herbert, and Allen. They fielded a JV offense at best. That offense logged 273 yards, has more 1st-Downs than we had, and managed 33 minutes time-of-possession.

Possibly, but a big part of that is because McD doesn't know offense. Either way, who's in charge, Allen or McD. It's a questionable look at best. They are enough general team and defensive SNAFUs to implicate McD in the grand scheme. As to Kincaid vs. LaPorta, there are too many variables to compare them outright fairly. For example, Kinaid would probably be doing better on Detroit and visa versa re: LaPorta. The whole draft world had Kinaid as the better receiving TE.

Chargers? You'd rather have Ekeler, Keenan Allen, Josh Palmer, and Gerald Everett (TE), than Cook, Diggs, Davis, Shakir, and Kincaid? We're well above average regardless. The way everyone talks you'd think we suck in the talent department. This offense should have been seeing records this season.

Less expensive than eating out too. Homemade Bleu is much better too.

I think I've been to the Warwick Tavern in the past. When I go somewhere I'll typically Google "best Wings ..." and evaluate from there. If the comments are all about how great the breading is, that takes that off the list. LOL I make my own these days.

A huge part of McD's problem is that he, admittedly, doesn't know offense, which is a monumental problem when Allen is the focal point of your team. Yet, he stood by Dorsey like he stood by Peterman, ignorantly. If Allen had shown up before McD, McD never would have gotten this particular job. He's a better fit for a team that has an average or even mediocre QB, and that has acquiesced to their D being the focal point of their team. And since we were talking about how the Bills would have to go through the interview process to make Brady the OC, why didn't they have to do that with Dorsey after Daboll left?