BillsVet

Daboll is who he is. What he's not is the guy defining their overall football philosophy and establishing their correlating roster priorities. The cost of not having a top receiver group is that your QB is asked to do more and in Buffalo that's Josh running. He becomes the default option to make up for personnel deficiencies which, as we learned in the Baltimore and Houston games, isn't himself enough. Maybe retaining Cooper, seeing Coleman improve combined with a healthy Shakir and Kincaid are that group. But if Josh is carrying the ball more, that's largely because their receivers aren't good enough.

One would think this is enough for McBeane to recognize sub-par receiving talent leads to this outcome every season.

They haven't had the mid-season downturn either this year. SOS is light currently, but after those BAL and HOU losses and acquiring Cooper they've been steady. As in, no 6-8 week stretches where they don't play to expectations like they had in from 2021-23. Seems like players are more focused this season.

Still not sure what their offensive identity is short of just hope Josh makes a play with his legs. Which is more obvious the better the opponent. Hard to believe considering they've had the same staff and front office for several seasons now.

Yeah, media in general has resorted to too much happy talk to fill time. I get that material for a 4 hour show isn't easy, but those topics in your second sentence drone on too long. I doubt many people care about that stuff, but there's not that much news from day to day about the team. 2 days after a game it's talking about injuries, the 10 minute window they saw at practice and what else? But they need to fill that segment and you get Halloween costumes, what they got out of the vending machine, and some other nonsense. You can't talk about offensive philosophy, schemes, or anything nuanced because it'll lose the surface-level fan. Kinda reminds me of a story Mike Lombardi, a former personnel type told years ago while working for CBS He was about to do his segment on the pre-game show and had planned to talk about a rumored GM change for some team. I think it was Jim Nantz who told him no one cared about that stuff and to focus it on players or something else. The inside baseball stuff loses people...but the alternative seems to be happy talk.

More quibbling 101. Pre-season SOS? Do you get credit for that now? The next 4 games still go a long way toward confirming or denying they are set for a deep playoff run. When you regularly beat quality opponents, i.e. teams likely to be division winners and/or finishing with 11+ wins it tells the story. I do not expect them to go 4-0, but the embarrassment that the Baltimore and Houston games were should prompt a wait and see approach.

Buffalo's strength of schedule is currently 3rd easiest in the NFL and 2nd easiest in the AFC. It's a first place schedule with 6 games against the moribund NYJ, MIA, and NE. And who are those first place teams they'll play? BAL, HOU, KC, and DET, whom they're 0-2 against and have yet to play the latter 2 teams. This season still is about winning in the playoffs and the best predictor of that is how you fare against good teams. Your record is what you are and 8-2 is good. It's also deceptive in the way that 7-3 was at the same juncture in 2019.

"I don't like everything the way it is now compared to the way it used to be."

Yeah. No one is demanding they throw 50x/game, but to feature an offense which can routinely out-score their opponent when/if the defense breaks down. Because if the entire defense needs to be healthy, the likelihood of that is lower as the season plays out. The stretch versus KC, versus SF, then at the Rams, and at Detroit will tell the real story about the 2024 Bills. Because right now, 7-2 is nice, but with a strength of schedule the 4th easiest in the NFL and strength of victories sitting at .333 so far, it's not a complete reflection of how good they are. Because the real games are about to start and either they've improved over the ugly Baltimore and Houston losses or they're a similar team. In which case, their playoff experience is likely to end before the SB.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let Your perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen. RIP John.

With throwing to the backs, there seems to be something disjointed about how they align play-calling with personnel against a specific opponent. It's like the OC's forget that they can throw to the backs and never recall in-game that option exists. They also seem intent on throwing to the backs given their draft picks/acquisitions, like when they traded for Nyheim Hines in 2022. Then, they just didn't use him for that purpose. Or, now having Cook, Davis, and Johnson who combined have 33 targets in 8 games. And that's as the passing game has been stifled at times. Just strange.

Making a trade at positions they're not dealing with significant injuries is a sign the off-season plan was significantly flawed. This off-season you'd hope they revise their predictable offensive and defensive schemes which means downstream of that...their roster priorities. Can't have the HC, GM, and the staff being so complacent with their beliefs and not acknowledging what they do often doesn't work against the better teams. That is, if you want to get to and win the SB. Anything less is failure at this point, especially with the way the league is situated with no dominant team.

Buffalo was ridiculously healthy for a few seasons, notably in 2020 and 2021, which predictably gave the false impression that a team should be expected to have all their starters by the playoffs. This is such a ridiculous assumption to make, but based on the fact that until late 2022 they had almost no significant injuries on either side of the ball. Tre going down in late 2022 followed by Miller ended that fantasy, but the reality is teams can and do lose contributors all the time. And still make due. Yet, almost no one ever looks at their good fortune...as in having a healthy OL for all of 2023. Heck, their offense has been exceptionally healthy since 2020.

Predictable move given their injuries at the position and go for it mentality. Question I have is...did Chiefs fans do the "woe is me" routine when Brown, Rice, and Schuster went down already this season? Did they throw in the towel on the season because no way could they win with that kind of adversity?

Now we're going to get into a debate about which metrics constitute the level of play for that unit. And there'll be no agreement, but in terms of running the ball I based it off their 3 primary RB's are averaging 4.3 ypc (630 yards on 147 carries) which is about league average. In only 2 games have those backs surpassed over 100 yards rushing (at NYJ and at MIA). Way off topic anyway.