colin

i had a lot of hope for ed, but he's a jag+. he might be still hurt, and has played hurt before, but at some point you judge the player as he is, injuries and all. groot is a monster and a top 10-15 overall DE in the nfl. he's not a great pass rusher, but he's a good pass rusher, plays the run great, and most of all for us is a real physical presence on the line, which we need with guys like toohill and solomon playing on the other side like 25+ snaps a game (solomon might develop as a pass rusher, but he's really small for DE imo, toohill is below jag). normally i look at injuries as a luck thing, but the number we keep having on D really makes me think our smaller D is just a little bit too physically frail for all of the ball hunting screaming head on fire stuff they are asked to do. milano and TB are both small and have had lots of injuries, von obv, ed has been hurt a lot, etc. i remember thinking star would be a great signing because he was a physical monster who a lot of people had pegged as the best player in the draft when he came out, but he was a physical monster who just didn't care much about football, it was a way for him to earn 10s of millions of dollars and he didn't have the temperament to match his body. our only chance this season is if we get everyone healthy enough to play their best, and that includes ed who i will give some excuse for as i think his hamstring is still not right.

i was expecting to read a list of hitler, stalin, and pol pot's meaner sister.

gosh, that was so flipping stupid.

He has his cheerleaders in this board, but ya he's sucked bad this year Just a non factor

the cynic in me will say that the bills schemes basically roast bad teams and sort of hope that good teams make mistakes vs us, and what we are seeing here is how little the missing talent really helped us win games when we had it (additionally, that the talent missing wasn't that great to start with). what's interesting in the past two weeks is what we saw was the team operating almost entirely within the scheme/plan. Last week vs miami the d was slow cooked but managed to greatly limit deep passing, which they came out and said was their plan. they didn't get any pop plays at all and it lead to miami just having long long scoring drives. yesterday vs the colts we saw the d make the opportune negative plays within the scheme (3 picks, 4 sacks) as well as the weakness of the scheme (the big run by taylor looked like a very typical bills d breakdown for huge yards, vs the constant 8-15 yarders vs miami). we also saw a bit less of allen going off script and supermanning a play late. i really hope getting cooper, coleman, kinkaid back on O and getting a healthy DL and milano back for the playoffs put us in the best position to win it all, but my cynical concern is that we have seen a fully loaded bills team fold vs teams with injuries (cinci and the scrap heap oline that murdered us at home in the playoffs, 13 seconds can't get a stop, the houston game where we let watson break tackles and steal the win) and an injured team (the aj klien debacle vs kc at home last playoffs) lose looking more or less how our team looks now. the common refrain from the mcd haters on this board (myself included) is that he can make mediocre chicken salad out of chicken poop, but can't make anything much better vs good opposition with better talent, and we constantly have players come in who just don't get burn or don't fit (mjs, samuel, bishop, edwards, in the past hines and others).

lol, it's not playing well vs the run, i can tell you that. we've seen him line up vs back up interior OL and get washed so so many times. at first i thought we got a great deal on his contract, but honestly i think its basically his full offer side market value, or even a little over. we had him and miller and the odd DT here and there out after the baltimore loss. it really didn't show on the field as much as it should given he was a top 10 pick and we retained him. there were what, 3 other DTs taken that year after him who are head and shoulders better.

the data with brady, just over a season of games, show's that we are at our best when we run the ball well, use motion, have 1 TE on the field, hit underneath stuff to rbs in the passing game, and use multiple concepts in passing to allow josh to find the open man. two TEs (im not counting the extra OL being eligible), traditional screens, too many formations and no motion, underneath stuff to wrs (except shakir, he's our surest target no matter where he is) and gadget stuff basically sucks for us. samuel seems to only be used in the second list above. he might suck, but he's been used in in ways that we stink at anyhow. we also need play action. we are so so much better with play action than without it makes me wonder what brady is doing sometimes. i think his biggest weakness is essentially his play selection and timing. he's got plays that work wonders (anything on 3rd or 4th and short or near the goal line that goes to the edge, for example) but he dials up gadgets (baltimore), straight drop back deep passes (late houston), qb draws (so many wasted downs near the goal line with poorly done ones right into the teeth of the D), bad tendencies (runs on first down), and gets way to far away from whats working be it a given back or play action. i think samuel is basically a free agent bust for us, but can be salvaged if brady figures out his play calling just a little bit more effectively. if we are down cooper, coleman, and kinkaid vs kc we are gonna need a stellar performance from brady to have a chance and samuel will have to end up being a plus player for us.

I'm not nervous about this game because I don't think we are healthy enough at wr to beat them, so it's all about seeing the team do the best it can. I just feel like the 2 or 3 seed is a near certainty, and the 1 seed is a near impossibility, so playing strongly in defeat and then getting healthy for the end of the season is acceptable. On game day I reserve the right to retract these rational thoughts and go ape at every little thing.

Our dts have sucked out loud this season. Ed Oliver is not a high level guy, I know there are posters in this board who hold hands and pretend he's some kind of impact player, but at best he's good when healthy and just always hurt -- which is the same thing as not good because ability requires a availability

Game of the year? Just an insane display of some team/video game football. Detroit looks like the NFC team fo destiny. I saw a chart on Twitter, interesting title, something like menacing vs charging taking about impact plays on I and d. Bills were like top 4 in both, kinda surprising on d but it's because we are +13 on turnovers. The most dominant on menace (the d state) was Houston and boy did you ever see that last night. That d plays how MCD wants the bills to play, hair on fire and athletic and the fastest on the NFL. Being down their top wrs really knocks them down a peg. We are missing maybe more of you include d injuries, but the quality of our rb/te/ok really shines vs what they have. I think with the exception of Baltimore the ds in the NFL have taken the mantel from the os, exciting season

i was really high on bishop, i'm pretty disappointed in him so far, but it's early and he's really athletic. i hope he pulls it out

i could see pittz edging out baltimore in the north, and pittz being 4 and baltimore being 5 and baltimore at pittz becomes a pivotal game in the afc playoffs. i think pittz plays baltmore really well, and can match up physically up front. russ is great at one thing, that's extending plays and throwing deep rainbows and baltimore plays d like riverboat gamblers and loads up the front and dares you to go over the top (while commit fouls on nearly every play hoping they don't get called, my gosh they are physical and dirty). this kinda sets russ up, who struggles vs disciplined d's but gets big plays vs aggressive ones. this means if buffalo beats the 6 seed as the #2, who imo is one of houston, colts, chargers, but i think houston wins the 3rd seed so it's prolly the chargers, they host pittz in the divisional round and i think we match up well vs russ team that is a better fit to beat baltimore. i suppose the even more silly dream scenario is that kc hosts bmore in the division round (not that unlikely, if bmore is the only wild card to win week 1 in the playoffs) then we have a shot at hosting bmore in the chip round presuming we win our divisional round (vs i suppose houston, who will be 3 seed imo). that would get the kc monkey off our back via luck if bmore beats them, and then you have what might be the most interesting game possible with bmore and lamar who crushed us vs the at home bills for the afc chip. they crazy bit of it is if we win that and go on to face detroit in the chip, we will be playing games with our absolute worst match ups and not facing kc. another goofy thing i could see is the above, we beat bmore at home to get to chip, but detroit turns into a pumpkin vs a veteran philly team and we have the absolute easiest shot at a chip because while hurts and barklay are tough matchups, i don't think philly is as big of a grind it out without mistakes team as bmore or kc or detroit, and they just don't get pressure on the qb well, which sets up a legendary allen performance.

Bmore is so flipping dirty

That was so close to a pick. This game is awesome

Were the ravens showing cover 0 or 1 on those two downs? Generally, if they are showing an aggressive front and not much behind the idea is to attack deep (which we have had trouble doing) but I think they were too greedy on those plays. Baltimore is such a strange team, run and pass numbers are historic, d is statistically horrible vs the pass, have lost to crummy teams, but they are talented and well coached Just an all or nothing bizarro team

Please note my post above on the greatness of Joe Biden. If you recall, President Trump was impeached for conduct during a telephone call with leadership in Ukraine, a key American ally and the recipient of enormous military and monetary aid, questioning the former Vice President who would become President defeating Trump in 2020 and winning the stand out number of votes in the above graph. It has been clear that Biden is America's choice as president, and he has never appeared on a ticket where his side did not win the majority of votes and indeed set records.

The biggest thing I've learned from this is that Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. is singularly the greatest force in modern American political history. The president he served under was seen as a political giant based on his victories and the total number of votes won, but I think we can clearly conclude at this point that Biden was the real driving force behind Obama's two terms of victory. Obama won (more in 2008, fewer in 2012) on average within in a few million votes of what Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris won in 2016 and 2024. He was also the first DNC president to win an actual vote majority since Carter barely eclipsed half at 50.1% in 1976. I thought at the time Obama was a strong political talent who was the figurehead ushering in the new Democratic party, but it was clearly the inclusion of Biden as his VP which won the day. When Obama was removed from the ticket and Biden defeated Trump in 2020 (beating an incumbent president after having himself gone back to continue his long tenured Senate role in Delaware) soundly and won a staggering 81MM votes. When Biden was removed from the ticket in 2024, with his VP (Kamala Devi Harris) running while he was still the sitting president who endorsed her, facing the same Trump who he earned the above mentioned record number of votes against, Harris earned ~13MM (counting is still ongoing in the more tardy states) fewer votes than Biden. The vote total that Biden won was so earth shattering that the second and third greatest number of votes won in a presidential election, both by Trump once in defeat to Biden and once in victory over Harris, were 6MM and 8MM fewer. Every single time Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. has been on a ticket for the White House, his party has won with a majority of total votes, and set or challenged records for total number of votes won. He is the real champion of the 2008, 2012, 2020, and 2024 election, and it is clear that if had run in 2016 he would have been victorious with a then record (possibly shattered during his second run in 2020) number of votes.

our scheme is a bit too one note for my taste. it's great vs bad qbs, you make a negative play here and there vs the run which you run down and force a 3rd and long and make his day hard with a disguised coverage and your up the field fresh legs (why we platoon the dl) pressures the qb and forces an incomplete. vs a complete team or a good qb, you get what we had vs miami, or baltimore. the issue for me is our scheme puts immense pressure on the dl to penetrate and not get trapped or washed out, and our LBs and nickle back have to read the gap correctly and blast up the field and make a play. it makes milano an all pro because he's a human torpedo. the d "works" when you have DL who can create pressure and win up front, smart near mistake free LBs who read the gap and just destroy it, and a sophisticated secondary who communicate and confuse to stop the deep passes. the long term success of the d is very good, great stats and has been number 1 twice i think in terms of yards. as we all know, vs good qbs and coaches, it gives a nice open book for them to read, so if you don't just flat out plays made up front, or in the back end off of confusion for turnovers, the O just takes what is there and your small D gets gassed out running after the ball and tackling all day and they get hurt too because the average size is small at LB/NCB. i will say it looks better than what the ravens have, with lots of giant scary athletes but who just allow insane long passes at the worst rate in the nfl, but at least the ravens can modify what they do to take away the bills strength, for example, while we look the same in every loss. remember the new england win game in like 2020 or 2021? they attempted what, 4 passes all day, and beat us just running the ball down our throats. it also means our roster construction needs a lot of DL to platoon, and a single injury to NCB or LB makes the opponent's QB play on easy mode because they just target the weak link over and over again.

the concrete reasons we have not gotten a chip since 2020 are: free agent dollars getting us sub par returns (Star, that white DE from washington, addison, settle, that OT from the jets, spain, several more. right now smoot is good, but hurt, nothing from the safties we signed, samuel is trash, von obv blows) Injuries (in afc chip game brown and bease were toast) huge coaching and defensive failures (13 seconds, the d in the divisional round in our last 3 seasons) i think mcd has outsized impact on our roster vs other head coaches. we consistently get new guys on O who just aren't used (hines, samuel but he's prolly hurt, kinkaid doesn't get the burn a 1st round te should get) so im not letting beane off the hook for that, but the bad d in the playoffs, non impact free agents, and injuries (because we run such a small and not fast d) all have some impact from mcd. mcd's scheme is limited -- reid lost with it and is now winning with spags, it is so precious and exacting that it made us take the shell of aj klein off the beach over a 3rd round rookie to ensure a loss vs kc, and i think this scheme lends itself to smaller guys getting hurt more because they have to run so hard to get to the ball and tackle. the coaching blunders are simply 100% on mcd. we've been outcoached flatly in games too, but the bone headed stuff is just a bridge too far. we are a bit of an open book on D, and we saw miami eat our lunch on sunday and baltimore walked away in a laugher by just changing up their scheme to destroy us, and we had a player talk about how tenn was busting us up early and he said that they had to return to their normal plays at some point. we are a one note band there. so, i do get that firing mcd and beane opens the door to a downgrade, but I think we need change, so either mcd finds religion and just improves, or we have to make a change. if you remember, the bucs had dungy who built them up but could not get them over the hump, they ditched him for gruden. gruden won a chip for them, and dungy went on to win a chip for the colts. some times you just need to change what isn't working. philly had ried but never got over the hump and won their first chip after bringing in a new coach too.

cook dropped what looked like a td on a drive that resulted in 3 as well

they let a lot of what used to be holding go now, if the DL does a rip move putting the OL arm around the head and shoulders of the defender, they allow a "hook block", i've actually read the rule in the book on that. I think some of these refs are looking for too much detail and make calls based on the result of the play at the line rather than if a rule was broken. it also seems like they just aren't calling as much DPI as they did before. it was a terrible call, but i think the hold got called because the DL jumped and flew and spencer brown's hand slipped to his back, but in no way was he held, and brown didn't even really push his back. a couple of these calls (rapp UR and that hold) going the other way really flips the game script and ends up w a bills cruise to victory instead of a nail biter.

i wish i could say the same! so, i remember in SF TO dropped a bunch of passes, but caught a bullet from steve young to win the game at the end. hopefully, this kick will be like that catch for TO, the play that solidifies his confidence and lets him be his best. it was a truly epic kick, woulda been good from 65

i kinda agree and kinda don't, im a silly fence sitter! i was mad at brady for how useless we were vs houston and baltimore, but (sadly now injured, along w a lot of other talent, what else is new) cooper solves some of that IMO. but, brady has been our best performing coach over the duration. our o was pretty sick last playoffs, it took some big mistakes by diggs et al to sink us on that side of the ball, and the two games above aside, the O has been hyper hyper efficient.

I think this is largely true, but I still have an issue with the scheme. aside from just no difference makers (closest we have is a healthy milano and TJ at his best), we have too many holes with who we put out there (elam seemed weak yesterday, hamlin is obviously not great, dorian either has a knee still or just isn't ready to execute the scheme, TB is not right either). and eliminating all the holes isn't possible (for any team) but our scheme especially on short passes and runs sort of exposes our holes at each position. the real salve for all of this is a sick DL. a wreaker or two on the line sort of covers up all the issues and gives us some negative plays in the run game. if after the no gain stop on the last or second last drive by TB on first down, we had some DL hit the turbo button and create a negative play or a holding, we force a punt. without that, our db's are scrambling to stop a big gainer from getting bigger. this game reminded me of the kc loss in the playoffs last year. kc did it with more passing, but a fluke turnover stopped them, like it stopped miami, and we forced one single punt. the difference is davis had a huge touchdown catch vs diggs dropping a dime, and bass nails the go ahead. i also think we managed the clock well in the miami game vs the kc game. if miami can put us there, then kc, baltimore, cinci, maybe pittz, an top nfc teams can too. it's just frustrating knowing that our FO, coaches, and roster just have no answers for a well executed O.

im still fantasy rostering myles garrett to us, but that's a like zero shot.