PBF81

What was their competition in the AFC at the time? Favre never missed when his scoring offense was ranked better than 10th. Marino did three times when his offense ranked in the top-10, but with defenses ranked 16th, 24th, and 26th. So for a team with a 5th ranked offense and a 5th ranked defense, not sure you'll find a team in the free agency era anyway that whiffed on playoffs like that.

Given our schedule there's zero excuse not to be at least 10-2 right now, possibly even 11-1 with a runaway path to 1st and homefield. Otherwise, this discussion doesn't even approach being complete without factoring in the one person that is responsible for this debacle.

Josh Allen was the horse and he happened to be on it.

That's a fun stat, but only one of those teams finished with a winning record and none were playoff teams. Obviously quite a bit different now.

First things first. Let's see if we can log a W @KC. It's going to come down to our D. Hold 'em to under 21 and we have a great chance. Not, and not so much. Then Dallas at home. If we can go 2-0 there ...

Do you know what The Process is? If so, do tell.

Chiefs are tough at home. They've allowed a max of 21 offensive points, and to some to top offensive teams too. Philly 21 Chargers 17 Fins & Lions 14 Bears 10 Broncos 8 Denver's not going to catch them, but they're fighting for seeding. I was hoping they'd beat GB. Less pressure for them to win our game. Don't bet the over.

Indeed, and as usual, were left to our dreams of what could have been. I'm still PO'd that we're not 10-2 and in the lead for the 1st Seed and homefield. I mean the skids were greased for that one. They're different. Mahomes has a better short soft touch, Allen has a stronger arm. Either on KC would be in the same place.

Here's a follow-up question, which of the contending teams have better receivers than we do? We have the best QB apart from KC, whose WRs blow. It's gonna take 9 straight wins. When's the last time that happened?

The NFL has turned into a pop-culture siht show. The closer it gets to the Super Bowl the worse it gets. I don't even bother watching the Super Bowl anymore unless the matchup intrigues me, which is rare. Same for the playoffs. If the Bills weren't in the league I'd probably never watch a game. People are going to have different opinions on this, but IMO it's best days were the '80s and '70s.

I didn't know whether to laugh or agree. LOL

Well, of course, and without beating this into the ground, that's what I was referring to, having him get questioned enough to press him for his thinking.

LOL ... so much cynicism. Just curious what he thinks about it now, or whether it will affect his future decisions, to be wiser ones. That seems to bother you. Why?

I'd like to hear what he has to say about that signing in general.

They typicall do them during the offseason or at the end of the season in "wrap-up." I should have been more specific and said every few weeks or so to answer some of the questions that get brushed aside by coaching pressers. BTW, I don't typically watch pressers unless they're linked somewhere. I also read very little of what other people/journalists think. I do my own homework pretty much top to bottom. Did Beane get asked a question about Miller's contract sometime recently?

This is his 4th season with one and we're regressing. Lost the CCG in '20. Had it won 'til he gave it away in '21. Got our a$$e$ handed to us because he couldn't get his offense to put up more than 10 points at home in a cataclysmically embarassing divisional round loss. This season likely not even getting in, behind some incredibly mediocre teams. The real tragedy is that there isn't a dominant team in the AFC this season. Not one. We cry about not having a #2 WR despite having Diggs and arguably the best up-and-coming receiving TE in the game. But here are the receivers that the top contenders in the AFC have, and they're a whole lot more consistent and far better coached than we are, besides Miami which has the 22nd ranked defense: Baltimore: Zay Flowers and Mark Andrews (TE) Jax: Christian Kirk and Calvin Ridley, two 1,000-seasons between them in 9 prior seasons. KC: Travis Kelce and JAGs after that They're all 8-3 of 9-3 with the 8-3 teams all playing weaker teams that they should beat today, and, all having had tougher schedules than we've had with our list of bottom quartile offenses faced for two-thirds of our games. He has an elite QB this season, and this is the best that he can do. The narrative that has taken shape isn't going away, it's only going to get worse unless McDimwit takes us to a Super Bowl where he's entirely outwitted and out of his league as a HC. Pegula can do what he wants and will, but at some point this is going to spill over to our ability to attract players. But this notion that we're scared to hire someone else because they could be worse, while settling for the above should raise questions about those that take that stance. Poona Ford's already out there spilling the beans on the mythical "Process" and who can blame him. Carroll wants him back. Pegula always seems to be a day late and a dollar short on things like this. He puts his sentiments ahead of his business sense. We as fans don't deserve this. Shhh! He's busy tinkering FFL style with his [recious defense, ... that folds come playoff time. DO NOT DISTURB!!! Could be his mental accuity that is the issue there. Just sayin'.

GMs should have to do press conferences too, periodically.

Re: insights, we're looking at this from the wrong perspective. This team is already capable of going to the Super Bowl and winning it. There isn't a dominant team in the AFC this year and we have as much if not more (with Allen) talent than any of them. We need a coach that doesn't prevent it with his idiotic defensive play-calling, horrid decision-making contrasted with his peers that he'd be coaching against in the playoffs and is otherwise out-coached there, and one that knows at least something significant about offense since Allen & the offense are the strength of this team, and one that isn't obsessed with having a top defense at the expense of the offense because that's what he knows best. If you look at it that way, you'll find that the question you've asked is the wrong question.

That translates to coaching though. The primary issue with that, and a huge problem for us, is that when your rookies develop late, you waste their "cheap contract years." In essence, you're creating unnecessary cap issues for yourself.

You give a lot of coaches Josh Allen and this team isn't missing the playoffs. Imagine Allen in the NFCS or the AFCN for example. Or even the NFCN. Even in our current division. Our division's been ridiculously easy from '20 to '22, last season. Now it's one team tougher for the first time ever since Allen blossomed and look at our status, we're 2-1/2 games behind them, and they're good but hardly great. In fact, this is the easiest season on Allen's watch to date where there's no single dominant team in the AFC, and we're in the outside looking in needing all kinds of help just to make the playoffs. A good coach would have this team at no less than 10-2 right now, possibly 11-1 ,and in line for the 1st Seed and a home playoff run. McD's specialty is supposed to be D, which looking at his average 17th Scoring D ranking at Carolina should have already been suspect before we ever hired him, but narratives are often formed accurate or not, but now take this, and given that he knows nothing about offense and if anything has the offense performing worse as well, not better than it should be, despite significant improvements, anyone questioning whether he should be in the role isn't being objective. As has been pointed out, he got here before Allen. Suppose we drafted Allen first, and Allen got on his game, and we needed a coach. Who in their right mind thinks that he would have even sniffed that short list of options. Whatever he's done here has been done. People can give him the credit for whatever they want. A "winning culture," ... [eyeroll]; "The Process,"... does anyone even know wtf that even is, ... making Buffalo a more liveable place, ... making the water in the Niagara River taste better, ... making wings the national food, but he's not adding anything at this point. There's very little that he's adding from a performance perspective, his team is underachieving and has been regressing since "13-Seconds" to the extent that it's an embarassment for Buffalo. He's subtracting and making things less, nor more, efficient. Who made McD the DC? He did. It wasn't whomever on the D staff is about to get fired, it was himself. That was his decision entirely, not partially, and it's backfired in spades. He's been slowly giving himself enough rope to hang himself with, now he's got his hand on the lever of the gallows. He's done this, no one else. Some simply do not want to see that so they opt not to. That doesn't change any of it. That's their choice. I too am in the camp that doesn't believe that Pegula will fire him. Who knows what makes Pegula tick. It's respectable that he's got private family issues that are prioritized, but then he needs to hire someone to oversee what is in the best interests of the Bills. So that's on him. But he hired a head coach before hiring a GM. which is highly irregular and creates the very problem we're seeing now. Who knows what happens in KC, but if we end up losing to Dallas at home, the boos could be and should be heard in the Adirondacks. At some point this has to be effecting the players also and our ability to retain and sign them. Otherwise, here's some interesting info from data that I just ran, curious by this thread. One would expect a "defensive-minded head coach" to be able to at least be on top of his D. Keep in mind that this is currently the 6th-ranked Scoring D. One would expect a top-ranked D like that to hold opponents to fewer than their average points scored in games. However that is far from the case. For starters, the offenses that we've played are terrible. Of the dozen, 8 rank 20th or worse, with Washington ranking 20th. Only two rank better than 12th, Miami 2nd and Philly 4th. In half of our games our opponents scored more than their season average to date. NE, Cincy, Philly, Jax, Denver and the Jets in the season opener. The other half of our games we held opponents to fewer than their season average to date. Tampa, Raiders, Washington, Jets, Giants, and Miami. Those teams after Miami currently rank 23rd, 27th, 20th, 30th, and 32nd in Scoring Offense respectively. That's McD's big achievement, being able to hold the worst offenses in the league, and MIami in a rogue game, to below their scoring averages. And that hardly means that it's been the top scoring teams to score more than their season averages against us. The Jets and their 30th ranked scoring offense did, the Pats and their 31st ranked scoring offense, Jax and Denver with their 12th and 13th ranked scoring offenses, and Cincy and their 24th ranked scoring offense, which granted, was before Burrow's injury, but even there, our D allowed equal to or more points than 6 of Cincy's 9 other opponents with Burrow starting. The implications of that for playoff production, which fully matches recent playoff history, are damning.

Thanks for reading. You finished?

LOL I'd say that it's the opposite. Those that blame him for so much have the fetish. All I'm doing is pointing out the blatant inconsistencies. Have we ever seen so much blame assigned to the lowest paid starting player on a team? Have we? It obviously bothers you quite a bit even though in this instance it was on the lighter side. Why?

Alright, settle down. I've answered them to the extent that they're reasonable. Who cares, is this something that we can change?

Billy Joe Hobert should be a shoe-in for QB Coach.

Just trying to be on the lighter side of things. Gets too serious in here often.