BillsVet

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.

At least they admitted in-season their offense and personnel weren't working or going to without a true WR investment. Don't think it was the plan, but OK. I wish they'd learn from these types of critical mistakes and not repeat them. As in, that the DL thing every year is not sustainable and RB's don't turn predictable play-calling paired with average OL into a plus running game. The offense will improve I believe featuring an excellent WR which opens up other players as we saw on Sunday. McBeane gotta be more honest with themselves in the off-season reviews and look in the mirror.

Can we have more threads that ask a question like it's Yahoo News/Sports/Any other click-bait news company?

McBeane have gone CB, RB, LB, TE, G, LB, WR, S, and DT with their last 9 RD1-3 picks. The RD3 and RD4 picks are guys who may turn out to be solid players in a rotation or even become starters. Doesn't remove the fact that safeties, DT's and RBs are available in UFA at discounted rates which demonstrate that their value across the league is low. Same with LBs and OL. Compare that to a good starting WR2 or even 1 who is gonna get substantially more on the market for their services. If that's the case, the Bills should have drafted another there so they wouldn't be needing (again) to tap the UFA market. After all, Hollins isn't likely to get another contract, Coleman's NFL future isn't assured, Samuel's been a dud so far and they'll need someone even if they keep Cooper for another season or 2.

McD has a track record of offering backhanded compliments to players and abrasiveness toward assistants. It's his MO and by now if that's not obvious I don't know what to tell you. I'm sure he also doesn't like having a franchise QB get more credit for their success than him. The Saleh comparison doesn't carry because he's a full-on meathead. McD is more subtle than he'll ever be, but is prepared to respond when criticism comes. And based on what's been said all off-season, they believed that post-Diggs, they could feature an offense that worked without a top-end WR. They spent the the off-season talking about "everybody eats" because they had serious issues after the draft with their WR group. And that showed against Baltimore and Houston, likely playoff teams. And then they have to trade for Cooper because almost all the metrics and film point to their receivers not being good enough as most every objective person could see. There were some bruised ego's having to make that move and because they heard it from media about how badly the offense went into the garbage without better WRs.

McD comes off as a petulant child with comments like this because it's not really about showing support for the guys in the room for him. It's because his grand vision for the offense effectively failed by Week 4 and required this move. And Beane did what needed to be done to fix that in-season. If anything, you'd think McD would humble himself, thank Beane for making that move, talk about improving and admit this offense experiment (even secretly) could not work regardless of the QB. Kinda wonder if a rift is developing between the GM and HC is developing, if slowly.

Great example of the data available to the average fan now on outcome efficiency to confirm or deny opinions is amazing. Hopefully, this contributes to knocking down the idea Josh is the main cause for their issues. If anything, his performance has improved, but that he cannot hold up inferior talent to the degree people unreasonably thought he should.

I always saw the MVS signing 2 weeks post-draft as their desperation move acknowledging the lack of a deep threat. It was as pathetic then as it is now. Hard to take a leadership group seriously that assumed this offensive strategy would work for an entire season using these WR/TE/RB.

Main reason this topic is getting attention is Buffalo's WRs are so bad...as reasonable people could see after the draft was over if not before. Last night didn't dispel that their WR group is pulling the entire offense down. Jets are a cluster and still likely don't make the playoffs. Doesn't change that McBeane have taken a once-strong offense and turned it into one that struggles tremendously which now absolutely needs an infusion move to even get back to average. 18 points scored per these last 3 games demonstrate that.

And it's into the 4th season across 3 coordinators with the same QB that these issues persist. As much as those coordinators weren't great, the guy hiring them has a lot of say into those offenses.

Wow. McD strikes me as the guy who worked hard and expected that would succeed at all levels of coaching. Maybe it did to the coordinator level, but HC's need to think fast and process in-game and he can't. Makes sense what Belichick said...the game plans seem dull, unimaginative, and ultimately safe. I expect that from McD on offense because he undervalues that side, but the defense doesn't confuse better teams. I don't think he's got more than one pitch and when it works, great. But it's starting not to work so much.

They install the offense across months of the off-season and in training camp with personnel typically suited to it. You don't pivot to something different that will work (based on how defenses are now playing you) without making some significant changes in-season. And once deep into the off-season, you've got the roster you're going to play with. Specifically the talent gap they have at WR. You might deal for one, but can't trade out 2-3 of them at this point. As for this cap situation...it's the product of their own doing. Bad contracts, over-spending on UFAs who didn't deliver, and some 2-3 underwhelming drafts add up over time. Their issues were coming there and that was before trading Diggs and taking a 31M cap hit.