Low Positive

I agree 100%.

Comparing the Bengals to the Bills is an interesting case study in NFL team building. The Bengals have done the following, in comparison to the Bills Invested their limited resources completely in high-end talent and let all marginal players and high-end players at non-elite positions walk. That means that they have a QB, the best WR room in the NFL (which makes TBDers drool), one highly-paid OT (Orlando Brown), and one elite pass rusher. The rest of their roster is trash. They also let players like Jessee Bates (Safety) and DJ Reeder (DT) walk to get the cap space to pay Higgins, Chase, and Burrow. They also let Germaine Pratt leave this offseason to gather funds to pay Hendrickson. They have let their star QB have complete say in personnel decisions. Burrow demanded that Chase be drafted instead of OL. He also demanded that both Chase and Higgins be paid. He always gets exactly what he wants. The Bills, on the other hand, look for value. So, they are trying to win without elite talent at the WR position because those players are, from an analytics standpoint, overpaid based on their game-to-game contributions. They have invested heavily in the OL and DL. Analytics tell you that there is value in doing that. For example, you can't scheme an elite LT out of contributing in a game. I think that neither approach works, but the Bills have had more success in the regular season than the Bengals. The Bills lack the elite talent to get over the hump in the playoffs, while the Bengals fail at trying to outscore everyone. They have been a bad regular season team since 2022. People want to blame Burrow's inuuries, but last year he was healthy for 17 games and the Bengals went 9-8. But they are A LOT more fun to watch.

We didn't think that at the time. We complained about being one-dimensional and a lack of consistent high-level play from Josh Allen. The OL was also a constant source of complaints. Again, I don't want to call posters for being "incorrect," especially in the heat of a post game thread after a bad loss. I'm using them the way a historian (which I am by graduate training) uses primary sources to get an idea of what public opinion was at the time. We know that the perfect game was in the future for that team. Nobody would have predicted that after the 9-6 loss to the Jags.

Highlights are misleading. I'm negative right now too, but we forget how we felt in the past. We complained about the offense before, just highlighted the lack of a running game and Daboll's playcalling. Let's look at 2021's disasters. I already posted the Jags postgame thread in the Daboll thread, but here are a few more. I'm not going to single anyone out because this is not about posting receipts. What interests me is the primary source material of how we felt in the middle of what many remember as our best team of the Allen era. Here is the post-game thread after the wind game. Here is the post-game thread for the Colts blowout. A lot of people declared the season "OVER!!!" Remember, the Colts missed the playoffs that year.

As Bob Dylan said, if you're not busy being born, you're busy dying.

That Colonel Sanders looks like Bruce Ariens.

Why did you move the goalposts from 200 yards to 300 yards?

Nothing in those report cards trumps money or winning in players' free agent decisions.

Mike Evans is out for the year.

All true. But everybody eats is failing not only in Buffalo, but also in Green Bay. It all works until you need someone to make a play even if the defense takes everything away. Neither Josh nor Jordan Love has a guy they can throw to, even if he's covered, who can make a play. Green Bay lost on Monday Night because of this. The whole philosophy doesn't work if a team needs to come from behind. This is actually a deeper discussion. Beane is very wedded to the concept of "value." You see it in where he devotes money and draft resources. Elite WRs cost almost as much as QBs, but they only touch the ball 5-7 times a game. And any WR catch carries, by definition, an opportunity cost for the production of the other skill position players on the team. So, they thought you could spread that money, and therefore the opportunities, around to a bunch of good but not great players. Their thought was that the production of a bunch of 500-yard guys is equal to the production of one 1,400-yard guy (Diggs) and one 700-yard guy (Davis). This is true, until someone needs to make a single play to win a game. Then, Shakir + Kincaid + Moore + Coleman do not equal one Justin Jefferson or even one Tee Higgins.

We'll continue to show up. What else are you going to do on a Sunday in Buffalo in November and December but drink beer in a parking lot? But the crowd will not stand for losing as much as it did 15 years ago. There will be bags and boos. In fact, if the Bills go three and out to start this game, the boos will rain down. You can hear a new level of frustration across Bills mafia as this team's window closes.

I have never seen this fanbase turn on a player like this. Ever. This level of vitriol is usually reserved in Buffalo for tall defensemen who don't like to hit.

I'm as negative as anyone right now, but last week was the first time all season that the Bills went 3 and out to start a game. They have started strong on offense in every other game.

I feel ike I've taken a time machine back to 2014 and the Bills are "in the hunt."

That loss in Miami keeps growing in significance as the week goes on. We'll know by about 2:00 on Sunday if McDermott has lost the team. If this team comes out flat on Sunday and again on Thursday in Houston, the last few home games at Highmark will be ugly with fans booing and demanding McDermott and Beane's heads on a platter. We can all see the window slamming shut and the emergence of another dark period on the horizon, and if Terry does nothing, the fan revolt going into the new stadium will be epic. For me, there is no going back to drought-era apathy and rooting for a lovable loser. We all got a taste of success and will demand nothing short of Super Bowl contention. This has the potential to get really bad.