colin

The bills make basic fundamental errors and get confused playing KC. Not having cook get more touches isn't solving a riddle, it's not falling back into the same mistakes that we've made four times vs kc. The reason we want to change MCD And co is because it's gone stale, and at its best it wasn't good enough Philly fired reid and won a chip, Tampa fired Dungy and won a chip. Those are two guys who won chips themselves who their teams fired and then got themselves a Lombardi. Sometimes you just have to switch it up

Mikey, I'm a little sad you are leaving the MCD haters club. You have been on a well argued tear and we value your contributions here at the fire MCD side of the aisle. So, in the spirit of positive energy in this thread: We are close. A great point above is that we made the Chiefs. We lost to them narrowly for them advance. Three one score losses means while we are losers to them, they aren't pulling away from us or anything. Talent. I think it's been made pretty clear that the blue print for winning in the NFL is a star model. You get the most game impacting talent, particularly at high value positions, as you can. It's way better to have a few super stars and fill in the gaps than have what we have sort of fallen into. The good news it's not that big of a shift to get us there. Allen is imo the goat. He does more with less and succeeds more consistently at a higher degree of difficulty than any player I've ever seen. Dawkins and Brown are both top 5 tackles at their positions. Trench warfare is big and we have great players there. Cook is a top 5 back, and might just be number 3 behind Barclay and Henry. He's young and has very few miles and hasn't been banged up. During the playoffs I'd say Oliver was our best player on D. He turned it on and got huge pressures and disrupted plays better than I've ever seen him. Groot and AJ had a couple good games but were not good vs kc, Jones did his job but nothing super. Milano was our second best player on d IMO. He might have another season or two of tread left on the tires if he can stay healthy (sadly, he never has). If we can add one more actual weapon on O, say a Higgins or something on the outside who can stress the d vertically, we'll have an o that talent wise can match up with anyone at anytime. On d, I think we've seen the same story too many times. Statistically the worst playoff d over and over, but an impact player might be just enough to get them to not be trucked constantly, give our o another possession or short field and we might have the 9 point lead we need to beat KC. This wouldn't be a Colin post without a negative! Coaching. Presuming we don't blow out MCD, we almost have to improve on the special teams coach. Even if we make the above doable upgrades (I say fill in the rest of the holes w draft picks and people we already have) we need our coaching to have the ability to get our players ready and have some extra play calls designed to counter the counters. Clearly I'd like to blow out the entire front office and bring in Bill the cheater, but I don't think that happens so I guess I'll just have to hope that our front office can find a stroke of luck or just smarten up. Just like how the pats won all those chips w late kicks and grind out wins, the path to beat KC requires us to avoid killing ourselves with stupidity.

marv levy is the best coach the bills have ever had by most accounts. he's the only coach to get his team to 4 consecutive super bowls. he is in the hall of fame, and he was loved by the fans and the players alike. marv levy should have been fired after the first super bowl loss. the arguments made to keep him were the same as the arguments made now to keep mcd. it could be so much worse, we might fall apart, oh no, we can't change anything because we should be paralyzed by fear! jim johnson, multiple champion in the NCAA and NFL, was giving a presentation that i saw on tv. he was talking about their scouting of the bills for their super bowl games. he said buffalo was a reckless sloppy team. a very talented team, but they didn't take care of the football, they ran too many of the same plays, they could be baited into passing the ball when they should be running it. their defense can be attacked, and they don't have adjustments to change that up. marv levy was a better coach than mcd is. hanging on to marv kept the bills winning the afc with that insane roster with multiple hall of famers. a team who's back up qb engineered the greatest comeback in nfl history (they were deep as well as talented). but not changing out marv freaking levy cost the bills an actual shot at a championship. mcd has hit his ceiling over and over again. he can get, with huge investment, a number 1 defense, division championships (in a very very weak afc east) and a home playoff win, some times 2 home playoff wins. he's never had a road playoff win, his defense has always produced historically bad outcomes vs good qbs in his losses, and while high scoring, his offenses always make mental errors in key moments. his special teams are awful. gave up a fake punt to denver, allowed a huge runback vs kc, insane fake punt attempt w a terrible athlete vs kc at home. we can win this trash division and a home playoff game vs a low seeded team with any real coach, that's about the floor. but we cannot win a chip with these terrible coaches. they need to change.

I disagree strongly. we have a window NOW to win it all. we don't lose to the chiefs because they are a magic group of magic men who use magic to magically win. we lose to them because our coaches are morons. our run game is our advantage, it is where we are BY FAR the most efficient, where we match up the best vs kc, how we score most of our points, and the thing that KC has struggled the most with stopping. it also keeps kc off the field, letting us wear their d down, and puts pressure on them to score quickly calling bigger shot plays which is not what the want to do. denver and baltimore had the top Ds in terms of EPA vs the run, we ran all over both of them. we ended the season with the 2nd highest epa running next to the commanders. our oline struggles with blitz pick up, our qb has shown problems identifying pressure and adjusting protections, we have physically over matched low quality weapons who generate literally the worst separation in the nfl. our fastest player is james cook, our other best runner is josh allen. we have giant athletic tackles who can both pull or block power. what does 35 year old first full year as an OC brady do? he gets cute, he goes empty and predictable, he tries half a dozen tush pushes exactly the same way over and over again, and runs the exact plays kc has seen before in high leverage situations. he took the ball out of cooks hands as often as he could. 4 carries the first half, no touches on the final drive of the season. the reality is clear, we have allen, we have some very talented players (dawkins, cook, brown, all are top 5 at their positions), we have some decent role players. half the coaches in the NFL could get this team to the divisional round, we had the division won in november. our coaches are chokers and losers. all they had to do was use what was working. instead, it's some weak screen to kinkaid who can't fight through contact and gets a bad spot and then a repeat of prior failed tush push plays. being in 4 down territory and not using your head and shoulders best offensive weapon, particularly when you struggle vs pressure and are facing the number one pressure team, is criminal negligence for a coach.

Did you bet on the Saints going over their expected wins for next season?

C'mon, they punted in the second half, that's terrific! Let's spend another 50mm of cap and 5 pics so Hamlin and his sob story can inspire us!! Literally the easiest game of mahomes career (highest success rate per drop back) last night. Like, what do these people think a bad d looks like?

No way dude, this poll is solid. There should have been an option that read: "move early into the new stadium and don't tell the entire front office and just hire a whole new one and see how long it takes to notice.". I think MCD would show up to an empty building for a week before he bothered to make adjustments. Even for the people who like him, how is it sane for a coach who has the best QB and is supposed to be too good to fire for fear of regression trotting out these dog water assistants? Smiley blows, we didn't have enough guys for a pint block vs Houston! We had the 12 men loss to Denver, like what kind of HC has people like that? And Dorsey and Brady and babbich, no one had anything to say about these goofs because they've never done jack.

Good post dude. Personally, I'd have been more negative and rip the coaches more, and post frequently and get in constant arguments, but that would prolly defeat the purpose of a long time coming heartfelt poast. I like your idea of gunning for talent like the rams

Reich knows the game and has had some success with good and smart offenses. I'm sick of having coordinators with so little experience learning on the job while we have Allen.

Ya, he's not Brady. Here comes a rush push, let's go empty every 4th down, time for the bench cook! Solid take man, are you a pro coach?

He has now gone to two super bowls w a running back at QB. He's doing something right

Bean drafts guys that he thinks MCD wants. MCD is the boss in this organization. MCD greatly values traits that do not contribute to being a good football player, and he does not recognize players who are good when he has them at times (extending that jets rt, and Spain and trading teller, that's going from all pro to a guy who can't make a roster, and burning cap in the process). You can't win with slow weak guys, even if Allen bails your team out most games

Lol, between that and the Carolina connect, this explains why we have who we have I saw some comments on cowherd where he said that MCD is McCarthy, but w a d focus (lol, I'm saying we should replace MCD w MCC). B+ but not good enough. They also said they didn't like siriani that much, but has two super high paid assistants, implying the bills have cheeks coordinators. I'm just so sick of signing players from prior teams (Benjamin and the old Tolbert dive in second down) and coaches he knows won't threaten him. Even his hero osama knew he had to get some high level psychopaths around to really be a villain!

I'd make him OC in one second flat

I said earlier in the season the real issue w the line was out stunt and blitz pick up. They seemed to figure it out for a while, but spags saw a ***** in the armor. It's odd to me that Torrence didn't block anyone and Brown went right. If the protection was shifted left, the only free runner should have been on the right, not the gut. I think Spencer went right. If the most central guy got picked up, I think it's an easy throw and hopefully catch.

he absolutely should not have played, it was so obvious after he got bumped by hamlin. 4 of our 5 starting dbs (maybe all of them if douglas got his head rocked and i didn't know about it) have had concussions or at least nasty looking head on hits, two of them wear the padded helmets.

i know im being a little contrarian here, but i think on d we need to add one real impact guy, and just be cheap and young everywhere else. keep our young guys, have rookies start, ditch von, let groot walk after his extension year, just roll w carter at 1t and whoever else we draft or sign cheap. my view is -- we get the same performance in the playoffs no matter what our d looks like player wise. we had all these guys come in, paid these contracts, signed all those fa linemen, had the all pro safety tandem, had white at corner, had levi wallace (lol), had benford, lost him for elam, etc etc. the results are all identical. same scheme w a few tweaks, same crap all around. i say get one real talent, DE or DT, so we have one play maker to dial something up sometimes, and just roll w who else is there. put the resources into going from a really good OL to a monster OL (upgrade RG, maybe another swing guy to compete with torrence/whoever), add a real outside wr talent (higgins) and just let the rest fight it out to see who can stay (kink vs knox, coleman vs samuel, the backs, who ever). assuming we stay w the same coaches, who i am on record hating, let's not put good money after bad on D. get younger and faster and cheaper and let the chips fall where they may. we can roll w bishop and someone cheap to replace hamlin, or even just hamlin, at safety.

i was high on bishop pre draft, but for a 2nd pick at a non premium position in a d that has historically good play at that position? he sucks so far.

lol, that's so true. allen was their best pick by 10 thousand miles the traded the pick for mahomes for tre white, who got hurt and became terrible after they extended him (mc corch trading mahomes for CB, such a clappy move). they traded for diggs, who was great for a couple years and then got extended and fell off and dug a huge hole in our cap (these extensions aren't great for us, are they?). the pick they traded? JEFFERSON. nice! they traded up for kinkaid, he sucks. traded up for edmunds, he was a decent player but we let him walk and didn't miss him (low value position) drafted groot, he's been good drafted oliver over 2 or 3 much better DTs, he's been good but not consistent, great playoffs this season. traded the worthy pick to kc (another great trade!) for coleman and of course, elam. if we got anyone besides maybe lamar in that allen draft, beane and mcdermot are working in carolina between then and now and got again at some point. anyhow, to address the OP, allen's legacy will be the greatest most exciting player who rescued a trash organization from itself. he's the barry sanders of qbs.

what's butler doing now?

we can keep making the playoffs and losing the same way forever. we might not be able to have such exciting close losses, but until the division gets way better we are good for a home playoff game any year allen is healthy. i think allen leaving is a more present risk than his play falling off hard. i presume they will want to extend him to bring in some talent this offseason, if he plays ball then he's here for a while longer. if there are any breakdowns in that conversation then i think he's out in a couple of years and then mcd will be leading the team to tough close losses to not be mathematically eliminated from they playoffs in october.

the bills are a stupid team. the chiefs are a smart team. we have allen and cook and some ballers here and there, and they play their butts off and when things are new and open and not predictable, we play loose and well enough to beat them over and over in the regular season. in the playoffs, the chiefs study what we have been doing and create plays to defeat what we do, and our coaches are scared and just do what they do with maybe the odd small variation. we see this in the regular season vs other teams, we get off to a slow start and allow early scores and then adjust based on what we saw. most egregiously, our low iq coaching staff keeps trying things that have not worked, or that the d is clearly prepared for (being predictable based on down and distance and formation, tush push, empty sets on high leverage downs) and we LOVE to get away from what is working (see Cook, James). defensive time outs and challenging hopeless plays, but no challenging stuff like the spot on the kinkaid 3rd down when we were up 1, the deep kick and defensive calls in the 13 seconds game, the fake punt w hamlin, the aj klien lead D. look at it this way, if some other team had an absolute top level qb and their head coach was a defensive guy who's ds were always absolutely terrible in playoff losses and they did things like the hamlin fake punt and 13 seconds, would you think their coaching was good?

i reviewed the game log of the game last night. kc had 63 offensive plays, we had 68. that's a very short condensed game. we allowed some weak leak out runs early, but stuffed them really well for the rest of the game in runs. mahomes had the highest epa of this season, and the highest success rate (which means how easy it is to get first downs) of his career. we made the game as easy as possible for mahomes, our d is undermanned, and we sucked. with that said, the offensive coaching decisions were much worse. the tush push was failing but we kept to it. we got into empty late WAY too much. we had a couple great bombs to hollins (can you believe he's our best outside weapon?) and stole a couple first downs with passes to shakir, coop, and coleman. the rest of our production, and the back bone of all of our td scoring drives, was james cook. we averaged 4.6 yards on plays where cook didn't get the ball, and 8.5 on plays where he did. that includes two short TD runs and a couple 3rd down short yardage conversions. with the season on the line, cook doesn't get a touch, and he got 4 total carries in the first half, and 16 touches in the entire game. on the tush push they ruled a no conversion (horrible spot) shakir was in the back field pushing allen. no cook to be a run threat if they wanted to mix it up, and no big guy helping allen get an extra foot or two. on the ill fated 4th and 5 call, it was empty and cook was off the field. just like daboll and dorsey, brady just doesn't have a feel for the game. he runs the same ish, the d knew what to do and dared us to stop it, and when they were overloading and blitzing late to sell out vs the run, we had nothing dialed up to put the ball over them. they never stopped cook, really. he might have broken a few more for big gainers, but im quite certain at the very least he would have converted some of those 3rd and shorts and was giving kc fits all day. you don't have to play great d vs the bills. you just have to wait for the bills to run a predictable empty, or a bunch formation they've run every game for two months, and you just know there are no wrinkles or counters to different pressures and you make allen play at difficulty level 100. we are always outcoached and our roster is poorly constructed.

mahomes had the highest success rate per drop back last night OF HIS CAREER. no one has allowed him easier first downs in any nfl game he has ever played than our d did last night. the sucked balls and they gotta change. beane and mcd have built and coach a putrid awful d. they don't just fold vs good teams, they literally allow good qbs their best and easiest game every single playoffs. mcd farting around, using the tush push over and over including on a 2 point attempt after we could see it wasn't working is nasty work. if we just kick the extra points and run cook we win that game in the face of all the rest of it. two rookie no resume no accomplishment coordinators under mcd is not a way to beat kc.

bad protection call from josh and the c, bad drop by kinkaid, bad decision to have guys like benford and kinkaid risking their physical well being while not being effectively healthy, and most of all horrible coaching to have the one thing that was working, cook, have zero touches in the last drive of the season. we are a stupid team.