Where's the Disconnect- Who's Disconnected? Bridging the Divide Between Bills' Fans Expectations & Media Predictions

[DaBillsFanSince1973]

On 8/14/2019 at 10:47 AM, RoyBatty is alive said:

First off, for Colin Cowherd to say we are the least talented football team in the league is pure ignorance.

 

We have essentially a brand new O Line + coach. 85% new WRs and TEs, half new RBs and a second year QB that is obviously physically talented but has always struggled with his accuracy.  Those are a lot of huge question marks.  How long does it take to get the O Line to work as a unit?  Only way to tell is to see the games and pray our new O Line coach knows hat he is doing.   Also I thin we have some serious issues with our run defense emerging.

 

So yes I think it is totally understandable for the media to be wildly split on the Bills this year, from Colin Cowherd to Adam Schein saying we are his Cinderella team to Micheal Robinson saying we will win the AFCE.

 

[Royale with Cheese]

14 minutes ago, DaBillsFanSince1973 said:

 

 

 

[Royale with Cheese]

On 8/15/2019 at 1:46 PM, SoTier said:

 

This team is not that talented at all, so their depth isn't impressive either.  Almost all of the talent on the Bills today is concentrated in young guys, only one of whom has "made his bones" in the NFL to this point, Tre White.  In this unproven group is Dawkins, Milano, Allen, Edmunds, Oliver and Ford.  That Zay Jones is a starting WR underscores the lack of talent at the receiver position, both wideouts and tight ends.   On many playoff caliber teams, most of these guys -- all of whom started/will start as rookies -- would have started as part-timers, and some might still be rotational players. 

 

Hyde, Poyer, and Hughes are solid, but the rest of the veterans are old or haven't demonstrated that they have regained their pre-injury form.    The only other established veterans are this year's FA crop.  Brown and Beasley are decent wide receivers but Pro Bowlers they're not.  Except for Morse, none of the OLers were bonafide starters.  They were backups who landed starting roles when the regular starters got hurt.  As for Morse, he managed one practice in pads and has been in concussion protocol since, so his availability through the season is certainly much more dicey than if he'd never had a concussion.  Now, the OL may turn out to be decent without Morse, and maybe even good with him, but nobody knows. 

 

As for Allen, he looked pretty good in his first outing in the first game.  There's reason to hope, but he still has lots and lots of room for improvement.  Certainly the Bills offense didn't look as good as either the Jets or the Ravens offenses looked under Darnold and Jackson.  That may have less to do with Allen than with the players around him, but media folks aren't looking at how Allen played last year so much as they're looking at how he plays compared to the other NFL QBs, especially the QBs in his draft class.

 

Snap counts:

Zay Jones - 42%

Cole Beasley - 70%

John Brown 86%

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

Keep in mind the word fan is short for fanatic.  Anyone who takes the time to post on message boards is somewhat taking things to extremes.  How many times does someone get arrested for something, you read about all the evidence, but yet his family says he's innocent.  As fans we see things with rose colored glasses and hope.

 

Having said that do agree that many of the national media don't see enough to get a clear picture.  This past week, all the write ups about how bad Allen was 4 turnovers, but as some articles did point out, none were the result of poor decision be him and more just dumb luck.  The local beat writers do see the team on a regular basis and are certainly more objective than a fan will be.

[plenzmd1]

Did not read this whole thread, but think it is like Jeremy White always says

 

teams are generally good one year before most "expect" them to be good. 

[jletha]

21 minutes ago, plenzmd1 said:

Did not read this whole thread, but think it is like Jeremy White always says

 

teams are generally good one year before most "expect" them to be good. 

That I agree with but it is weird that so many people dont take an objective look at things. Putting the Jets ahead of us is a just low-hanging fruit take. Both teams with 2nd year QBs, we won more games than them, we upgraded O-line with better players than them, our defense was one of the top in the league and retained starters, we are in year 3 with of a HC and year two of OC. They had a new HC, worse record the year before, worse defense, all new system, etc. It just seemed unanimous that the Jets were going to be better without really any objective justification.

 

Im so glad we beat them in NJ to boot.

[Alphadawg7]

It’s simple really:  

 

Fans follow this team closely through all offseason, practices, preseason, etc.  

 

Media get crib notes, probably less than crib notes really.  They only go deeper on the more relevant teams, whether that be big name acquisitions (Browns, Raiders, etc), most popular teams nationally, proven beat teams the previous year, storied franchises, etc.  

 

Buffalo has been none of those things since the Kelly era.  Outside of local reporters, they aren’t going to expend as much energy on a team that’s isn’t going to be talked about as much.  

 

So they rely heavily on previous years performance and common bias until it’s proven different on the field.  Bills keep winning and they will get media attention and respect.

Edited September 13, 2019 by Alphadawg7

[rayray808]

there is Josh Allen reviews based on just looking at the stat line vs Josh Allen reviews where you actually watched the entire game

 

that sums it up for me regarding how people view our team

 

for example:

 

WEEK ONE: Bills barely beat the Jets by 1 and Josh Allen had four turn overs in the first half. YIKES. Dumpster fire in the AFC East.

 

vs

 

WEEK ONE: Bills come back from a 16-0 deficit. Despite fluke turnovers in the first half, Josh Allen has an electric 4th quarter and throws game winning TD. Are the Bills catching up to the Pats this year?

[Nextmanup]

I see us as an 8-8 team this year too, but I have no idea why people would be happy with that.  

 

That's a very typical season for the Bills and a typical season for most of the league.  

 

After 3 years of completely gutting the organization and making it over in the McBeane mold, I expect more.

 

[Mrbojanglezs]

No star players. I think that has a big factor in national perception 

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

Colon Cowturd.   ?

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

On 8/14/2019 at 10:43 AM, Logic said:

I see two things at play:

First, the media always bases its predictions off of last season's results. (.....)

 

What you wrote as a whole is a good post, but in terms of explaining the disconnect, really you could stop right there.

 

The media bases predictions and expectations for next NFL season off last season's results until proven otherwise.

[Low Positive]

Cowherd was the #1 cheerleader for Darnold in the lead-up to the 2018 draft. He said that Darnold was the only one of the group ready to play right away and that Mayfield is too small and cocky and Josh Allen was too inaccurate to play in the NFL. I don't remember his takes on Rosen, but he definitely had them all behind Darnold. He has a lot of professional capital invested in his being the best QB of that group, and his assessments of the others, especially Mayfield, have to be seen in that light. In fact, all of the sports talkers made hot takes about those QBs and they try to shift the narrative to those takes. Our problem is that none of the daily bloviators were high on Josh Allen. But the great thing is that the players themselves have the power to set the ultimate narrative by playing well. But in order to shut them up his stat line has to be better for a few weeks in a row. Over 300 yards, with at least 2 TDs and no INTs this week and next week would do the trick. 

[dubs]

How many thread are we going to have on the media’s perception of the Bills??  It does not matter at all. It doesn’t contribute to any wins or losses!  All we have to do is watch and wait and see how this season plays out. 

 

Also: if it is such an important topic to the board, can we create one monster thread called: Media and the Bills or something and put all these in that one?

 

 

Edited September 13, 2019 by dubs

[ddaryl]

I not only expect playoffs this year. I'm expecting to be in the conversation for a Superbowl appearance this year. Anything less is unacceptable.. This team is good enough to make that kind of noise.

 

As for media disconnect. They can only go by past performances, and the Bills have so many new faces nobody can really tell where they are going to go. Also IMO the sexy teams, The teams with high FA payrolls don't translate into SB winners very often. There seems to be a handful of teams that buck trends and dictate the next era of NFL football. The Bills are that team

 

So I pay less that 0 attention to media perception, and judge our team based upon 45 years of being a fan...  This team is built radically different then most of the NFL teams in regards to the FA"s they choose, the way they handle their cap and their out standing drafting in the face of so many nay sayers.

 

So use your own eyes. I know the Bills had 4 turnovers against the Jets, but they were almost all correctable and or were just bad bounces. Josh ain't going to fumble that often. Beasley will not have many passes bounce off his thigh pads, and tipped balls at the OL can be avoided.. Josh could learn to use that pump fake here. BUT even in the face of 4 turnovers one thing stood out, the Bills were moving the football well

[Hapless Bills Fan]

 

Quote

Bottom line is that Buffalo, as a franchise, has simply never been that good outside of the glory years (all four of 'em, during which we won zero Super Bowls).

 

Overall I have no quarrel with your logic, but speaking as someone born the same year as the Bills franchise and who grew up and toddled around the living room watching the Bills, this isn't quite right.

 

The Bills over most of their 59 year history have been cyclically good and bad, like most teams. 

AFL championship in '64 and '65, lost the conf in '66. 

Winning team '73-'75.

Playoffs '80-'81

Winning team '88-'93, including the 4 SB appearances

Playoffs '95-95, 98-99

 

It's really the stretch from 2000 to the present where the Bills have been, not consistently bad, but mired in mediocrity.  Not good enough to win, but not bad enough to lose and draft high for a few years, and suffering from a continuous carousel of coaching change and either absence, unqualified, or hampered GMs.  An overall rudderless ship, adrift in the NFL ocean.

8 HC in 17 years at the point where McDermott was hired pretty much says it all during a period where the most successful NFL franchises have had 1 or 2 coaches.

 

[ngbills]

Fans always see their team differently. They know the ins and outs of every player. They listen to the reports of how great Duke Williams looks in practice. They listen to the coach talk about changing culture and winning. Fans sometimes overlook that every other team is doing the exact same thing. The national media does tune that out for the most part. That can lead to them missing the boat sometimes. But also they dont tend to over hype the stories local fans latch onto.

[Low Positive]

8 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

 

Overall I have no quarrel with your logic, but speaking as someone born the same year as the Bills franchise and who grew up and toddled around the living room watching the Bills, this isn't quite right.

 

The Bills over most of their 59 year history have been cyclically good and bad, like most teams. 

AFL championship in '64 and '65, lost the conf in '66. 

Winning team '73-'75.

Playoffs '80-'81

Winning team '88-'93, including the 4 SB appearances

Playoffs '95-95, 98-99

 

It's really the stretch from 2000 to the present where the Bills have been, not consistently bad, but mired in mediocrity.  Not good enough to win, but not bad enough to lose and draft high for a few years, and suffering from a continuous carousel of coaching change and either absence, unqualified, or hampered GMs.  An overall rudderless ship, adrift in the NFL ocean.

8 HC in 17 years at the point where McDermott was hired pretty much says it all during a period where the most successful NFL franchises have had 1 or 2 coaches.

 

Exactly. The average number of wins during the 16 year drought was not 4 or 5, but 7. So, not good enough to win but not bad enough to draft highly and unfortunately our highest draft picks came during years with less than stellar drafts. 

[Shaw66]

There is a simple dynamic at work that causes the disconnect between the media coverage generally and fan perception.   Actually, two dynamics.

 

One, of course, is the fans are homers and as a general rule think the team is better than it actually is.   That's a given, and it's always at work.

 

The other is this:  (I know there are journalists who actually form independent judgments and state what they believe, but they're in the minority.  I'm not talking about them.)   Most journalists are in a business.   The business is producing content.   They succeed in their job if they produce content that people accept, because that keeps people coming back to hear what that journalist has to say.   If you're a journalist and you write or say things that people generally don't believe, then people stop listening to you.  

 

The general football public thinks the Bills are a bad team.  They think that because the four Super Bowls were followed by what they believe was consistent failure, and it pretty much was.   The running jokes about Buffalo and the Bills reinforce that belief.    Okay, if I'm a journalist writing for a national audience, and I write the same old crap, and simply update it with Allen is not accurate, there were doubts about him coming out college, Bills were 6-10 last year, etc., my audience generally believes it.  It all sounds right to them, so they think I'm a smart guy, and they move on to another article. 

 

However, if I write something like I did in May, saying the Bills are the next great franchise in the NFL, people think "WTF is this guy talking about?"   They might read what I say, but most people simply aren't going to believe it because, well, it hasn't been true for 20 years, so why would be true now.  And they're going to think I'm an idiot.  If they think I'm an idiot, they aren't going to listen to me next time.   Now, I don't really care what people think, so I write what I want.  But if I earn my living writing this stuff, I care A LOT about what people think.   

 

Five years from now, when the Bills are the next great franchise, nobody will remember that I said what I said and that others didn't.   So there's no upside for journalists to stick their nexks out saying the Bills are going to be great.   All that will happen is that fans will think they're stupid.  

 

It's especially true for a small market team.   There's some upside in predicting the Giants or the Bears or the Rams are going to be good, because there's a big market there that wants to hear that.   No national journalist really cares all that much how much of the Buffalo market he's capturing.  

[Seven-N-Nine]

Bills fans have been the ones proven wrong, for the last couple decades. Allen pretty much looks the same as last year so far, a mixed bag. Mixed bags are inconsistent winners. The Vegas win total  line is probably right.

 

Only way this changes is if Allen is no longer a mixed bag.