WideNine Posted May 5, 2021 Posted May 5, 2021 44 minutes ago, Process said: A 21 page thread debating Bills vs Browns, in May?! Bills fans really are insecure. I think bored is more likely... we briefly got a pulse up for the draft and are flat-lining again. Sucks as over a decade ago I could just switch to following the Sabres, but they have been an epic dumpster fire managing to miss the post season forever. Oh well... have to wait for the paddles when OBD releases the next shocking Bills uni change, or see how much we can milk arguing about the schedule when it is officially released. Harder to wait now that we have a competitive team. 2
Buffalo03 Posted May 5, 2021 Posted May 5, 2021 On 5/2/2021 at 1:25 PM, Inigo Montoya said: The Chiefs entered the off season after getting man handled in the Super Bowl because their O-line had fallen apart. They blew up their O-line and decided to rebuild. On paper at least, they look to have improved the line. They signed Joe Thuney to a 5 year $80 million contract and he will slide into the left guard position. They then signed Kyle Long to a one year deal to step into the right guard position. They resigned Mike Remmers to play right tackle and then traded with the Ravens for Orlando Brown to step in as their left tackle. They signed Austin Blythe from the Rams to play center, and then drafted the 2nd ranked center, Creed Humphrey, to push Blythe and develop into their future center. The only free agent they lost of any consequence was Sammy Watkins which should not slow them down much. I think on the whole the O-line is upgraded and they kept the rest of the band together. I don't see any reasonable argument to say the Chiefs shouldn't remain the #1 seed in the AFC heading into the 2021 season. The Browns will leap frog us this season and be the primary threat to the Chiefs. If you look at the playoffs last year, the Browns came within a fumbled football out of the endzone from beating the Chiefs. The Bills by comparison didn't even make a game of it against the Chiefs. The Browns' roster seems to match up better against the Chiefs, and that was before the Browns very impressive off season. The defense was the weak side of the ball last season and the Browns attacked this off season with that in mind. They snagged John Johnson the best free agent safety on the market to address a huge weakness and also added CB Troy Hill who will be an instant upgrade. They brought in Clowney to stack opposite Miles Garrett on the D-line. They then drafted CB Greg Newsome and LB Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah who should both start this season. The Browns bring back their offense intact and Mayfield will have the benefit of playing in the same offense for the first time in his career. OBJ will also be back this season. The Bills did a great job of resigning their key free agents this year and also upgraded the backup QB position. They brought in Sanders to replace Brown which could be an up grade and added Hollister to the TE room. We all hope that having Star back will have a ripple effect on the D-line and result in better play across the entire line and allow our LB play to improve as well. The entire team will benefit from another year of coaching and scheme stability and hopefully some of our young players like Oliver and Edmunds will take a step forward this year. Overview A lot is made of the Bills retaining their own talent, and I agree that Beane did a great job of maintaining a roster that made it to the AFC Championship game, but the uncomfortable truth is that the Chiefs maintained their roster too AND improved their O-Line. The Browns also avoided any key free agency loses AND improved their defensive secondary and brought in Clowney on the D-line. The Browns and Chiefs will also benefit from another year of coaching and scheme stability just like the Bills. The off season isn't over yet, but the free agency period is winding down and the Draft is over. Baring injuries, any changes to the rosters of the Chiefs, Browns, and Bills before opening weekend will likely just be on the margins before opening weekend. When Andy Reid looks out across the AFC, I think he is probably more worried about what is going on in Cleveland than what is going on in Buffalo. I think the Browns have improved enough this off season to move past us and become the primary threat to the Chiefs this year. At this point I'd rank the AFC; 1. Chiefs 2. Browns 3. Bills I disagree, I think if the Browns came to Orchard Park for the AFC Championship game last year that we were going to Tampa. I don't think the Browns stood a chance on our home field and even if the game was in Cleveland, I think we still would have beat them
cle23 Posted May 5, 2021 Posted May 5, 2021 4 hours ago, GoBills808 said: Hill is a slot DB going to play corner for the Browns on a 2 year/$9M deal, and Ward is basically Wallace. Maybe a little better. Their safeties are fine. Ours are AllPro caliber. Johnson is a top tier safety. Ward is pretty close to White, he's just injured more than you'd like. Hill will be in the slot as he has been. They now have Newsome to go along with Ward, Hill, Greedy Williams, and Delpit back at safety. Ronnie Harrison is pretty decent too
CincyBillsFan Posted May 6, 2021 Posted May 6, 2021 5 hours ago, Process said: A 21 page thread debating Bills vs Browns, in May?! Bills fans really are insecure. I love that Montoya put out a thread like this because it gives us something to argue about. And May is boring from an NFL standpoint. But that being said IMO the ranking in the AFC is Chiefs, Bills, Ravens, Browns/Colts. Buffalo had two quality playoff wins against the Colts & Ravens before running out of steam against the Chiefs. The Browns, who lost to the Ravens twice last season, got past Pitt in the playoffs with what could only be described as the Steelers playing one of the worst quarters of playoff football in NFL history. The Chiefs were clearly looking past the Browns and had Mahomes stayed in that game they would have won it by 17 plus points. Buffalo added a couple of guys who I think will show up big time next season (Hollister, Sanders & Breida) and the Bills have a number of young players entering their 2nd - 4th years who stand to improve (Allen, Davis, Singleterry, Moss, Knox, Edmunds, Oliver, Espinoza to name a few). This is a team that won 13 regular season games and 2 playoff games. They clearly are the #2 AFC seed going into next season. 1 1
Hapless Bills Fan Posted May 6, 2021 Posted May 6, 2021 8 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said: Good discussion! So if you follow the breadcrumbs Beane has dropped about being very unfair to blame the backs for the rungame, and if you buy in to some of the film breakdown analysis Cover1 did on the run game, the #1 problem with the rungame was blocking - OL, TE, and WR. I'm trying to break down how I think Beane sees it here and the moves that might make a difference (or might not). OL: The center and the tackles are the same, so presumably they weren't ID'd as the problem (or the problems ID'd with them were decided to be coachable) So this comes down to RG and LG. RG: Winters game 3-11, then Feliciano LG: Spain game 1-2, then Ford game 3-6, then Boettger games 7-10, then Feliciano Game 11, then Boettger I think Beane has a 3 pronged approach: 1) improved play by last year's injury-hampered intended starters 2) improved play by developmental guys 3) replacement by 2nd tier guards picked up good run blocking teams Either Ford and Feliciano were hampered by off season rehab/in season injuries that they didn't represent their best selves OR Boettger at LG and Devey at RG can take a step OR Lamp (off the Chargers) and Jamil Douglas (off the Titans) I put them in order of possible solutions but I'd say off hand Douglas is seen as ahead of Devey if Feliciano doesn't step it up. I'm not quite sure that's it. I think we ran when we needed to at times - all game against NE, against the Chargers, against the Steelers to put the game away. BUT, we could not run against the best run defenses, that's for reals. More later. Ok I'm back. Again, this is my capture of my view on how I think Beane sees the run game and what he thinks he's done about it. So fundamentally, in terms of prioritizing resigning our own Beane put $11.54M cap $$ at re-upping Williams, Feliciano, and Boettger - which is basically last year's OL. The Ed Courage award and the "struggling to lift a 10 lb weight" and the stuff he said about Ford says to me that Beane may be giving them the "purple heart pass", but signing Boettger and $3M of additional FA in Lamp, Douglas, and Hart implies to me that Beane is hedging his bets and there's a shot across the bows "we will have holes in the run game, or else...." As far as TE, Hollister lost playing time to Dissly and Greg Olsen in 2020, but from what I saw he's a more capable run blocker than Knox last off-season. SI had this to say: Quote Though he's not known for his blocking prowess, Hollister was on the field for 130 rushing snaps and he produced just a single blown block (tied for second-fewest among all tight ends with at least 100 rushing snaps). Among all tight ends with at least 40 pass blocking snaps, the Wyoming product also finished with a single blown block, according to Sports-Info-Solutions.com. Along with the 26-year old’s unexpected blocking numbers, his ability to create a ton of separation in the passing game will likely be an attractive quality for his case against Willson next season. My knock on Knox, from what I saw and in Cover1's breakdown, is that he's totally inconsistent. If it's clear to him who he's supposed to block and he has time to get set he can do OK, but if he's facing elite quickness or if there's some kind of read-and-react decision making involved "let's see, if the LB drops into coverage and the CB comes then I gotta block him", he's totally "lost in space". I hope he improves, but I think Hollister is a "shot across the bows" to Knox that he better shape up, or there WILL be an alternative who can both block and gain separation in the passing game. If Sweeney has learned anything during his year off, maybe two because I sure liked what I saw of him when he was on the field and his college tape. As far as the RBs, I think they were sent off with a laundry list of stuff to work on. My personal take is that Singletary lost focus last year - as we became a passing team and the run blocking struggled, I think he was "phoning it in" sometimes. He ran the world's worst go route in one game; it was notable in the Ravens game he had a hole and ran right into his blockers. Hopefully his offseason work that Ty Dunne wrote about indicates that he got the message. But just like the OLmen, I think Breida represents a bit of a "shot across the bows"; he was a capable back with the SF 49ers gaining 5.3 and 5.1 ypa, 58 and 48 ypg. Beane doesn't want to be left with no alternatives if his primary plan that our current backs will look better if the blocking is better does not pan out. The other part of signing Breida is as a 5th year guy who played for a Superbowl team, I think Beane is expecting some veteran leadership out of Breida to help keep the room focused even if they aren't getting much business as rushers sometimes. I would expect to see Beane watching the waiver wire and the cutout bin, as well. OK, so, it's not the "blow it all up and start over" sexy that some here would like to see, and I'm not intending to get all up in the "whoo, done more than Browns" or anything like that. I'm just pointing out that what Beane has done to try to ensure we have a run game next season may be a bit more than folks see. 2
Hapless Bills Fan Posted May 6, 2021 Posted May 6, 2021 7 hours ago, WideNine said: The knee-jerk reactions are funny as this is a plausible take. Folks can assume the Browns will stay in the basement forever. The same was thought about the Bills not that long ago. Just a point here, that there's a lot of space between "Browns will stay in the basement forever" and saying that they are now ahead of the Bills in the AFC. They may be, they may not be - they made a lot more offseason moves because they had more ground to gain IMO.
WideNine Posted May 6, 2021 Posted May 6, 2021 1 hour ago, Hapless Bills Fan said: Just a point here, that there's a lot of space between "Browns will stay in the basement forever" and saying that they are now ahead of the Bills in the AFC. They may be, they may not be - they made a lot more offseason moves because they had more ground to gain IMO. Truth, but they made good progress last year and I do not see enough roster loss or FO/coaching change to have a good justication for them losing ground. The Steelers are a shell of their former selves. Baltimore has been losing some ground, and the Bengals are the Bengals... Browns have a pretty good shot at winning their division again. The Bills backed into the playoffs, to end our drought, and have since earned our last two appearances. The Browns finally broke their post season drought (2002) last year. I won't count a team as actually "ahead" of us till they beat us and not just once. A lot comes down to matchup. If we played the Titans twice would we beat them?
Hapless Bills Fan Posted May 6, 2021 Posted May 6, 2021 9 hours ago, WideNine said: Truth, but they made good progress last year and I do not see enough roster loss or FO/coaching change to have a good justication for them losing ground. I'm pretty much aligned with the notion the Browns probably gained ground. I just go here: 9 hours ago, WideNine said: I won't count a team as actually "ahead" of us till they beat us and not just once. A lot comes down to matchup. If we played the Titans twice would we beat them? People like to treat the NFL like a transitive property, A>B and B>C so A>C. It doesn't work that way. 9 hours ago, WideNine said: The Steelers are a shell of their former selves. Baltimore has been losing some ground, and the Bengals are the Bengals... Browns have a pretty good shot at winning their division again. I've been looking at the Ravens off-season and wondering just how much they lost. On the one hand, they lost a couple good players off their offensive line, Fluker, Skura, and Orlando Brown by trade. On the other hand, they signed Villanueva from Pitt and G Zeitler from the Giants and drafted a guard in the 3rd. On the third hand, is that enough? They had OL problems last season and their run-centric offense is critically dependent upon that. Center is IMO their big Q. They had ?? behind Marquise Brown and they theoretically improved their WR significantly with Watkins and their 1st round pick Bateman The big losses appear to be Matt Judon to NE and Ngakoue to LV. On the other hand, Harbaugh is IMO a very sound defensive coach and they've had a strong defense for a very long time in part because they are good at developing depth, so one has to think they have a plan beyond drafting Oweh. 1 1
GunnerBill Posted May 6, 2021 Posted May 6, 2021 3 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said: People like to treat the NFL like a transitive property, A>B and B>C so A>C. It doesn't work that way. Agree. It is a match up league. It is entirely possible to team B to be better than team D but team D to have a better shot of beating team A. 1
Generic_Bills_Fan Posted May 6, 2021 Posted May 6, 2021 (edited) On 5/2/2021 at 1:48 PM, GoBills808 said: The Browns couldn’t beat the Chiefs playing Chad Henne at QB Right they were down 19-3 against a clearly injured mahomes in the first half. If mahomes finished out that game the browns get absolutely blown out and the conversation is completely different right now.. Also yea Cleveland went 11-5 but they had a negative point differential. We get a little too hung up on who's roster is the best on paper in the offseason I think. That 8-8 Rex Ryan bills team was arguably one of the best rosters on paper that we've ever had and where did that get us lol I think theres a better chance that the browns have a decent season but miss the playoffs than them making any kind of noise in the afc Edited May 6, 2021 by Generic_Bills_Fan 1 1 1 1
GunnerBill Posted May 6, 2021 Posted May 6, 2021 25 minutes ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said: Right they were down 19-3 against a clearly injured mahomes in the first half. If mahomes finished out that game the browns get absolutely blown out and the conversation is completely different right now.. Also yea Cleveland went 11-5 but they had a negative point differential. We get a little too hung up on who's roster is the best on paper in the offseason I think. That 8-8 Rex Ryan bills team was arguably one of the best rosters on paper that we've ever had and where did that get us lol I think theres a better chance that the browns have a decent season but miss the playoffs than them making any kind of noise in the afc Unless major injuries bite the Browns are not missing the playoffs.
Nihilarian Posted May 6, 2021 Posted May 6, 2021 Power ranking by the NFL network has the Bills at #3 and the Brownies at #6! #1 Bucs, Chiefs, Bills, Packers, Baltimore, Cleveland, Rams, Seahawks, 49ers, Saints, Steelers, Titans, Colts, Dolphins, Chargers. https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-power-rankings-bears-49ers-on-the-rise-after-2021-draft 1
Figster Posted May 6, 2021 Posted May 6, 2021 15 hours ago, CincyBillsFan said: I love that Montoya put out a thread like this because it gives us something to argue about. And May is boring from an NFL standpoint. But that being said IMO the ranking in the AFC is Chiefs, Bills, Ravens, Browns/Colts. Buffalo had two quality playoff wins against the Colts & Ravens before running out of steam against the Chiefs. The Browns, who lost to the Ravens twice last season, got past Pitt in the playoffs with what could only be described as the Steelers playing one of the worst quarters of playoff football in NFL history. The Chiefs were clearly looking past the Browns and had Mahomes stayed in that game they would have won it by 17 plus points. Buffalo added a couple of guys who I think will show up big time next season (Hollister, Sanders & Breida) and the Bills have a number of young players entering their 2nd - 4th years who stand to improve (Allen, Davis, Singleterry, Moss, Knox, Edmunds, Oliver, Espinoza to name a few). This is a team that won 13 regular season games and 2 playoff games. They clearly are the #2 AFC seed going into next season. I agree, I think the continuity Buffalo has been able to establish is going to be a big plus this season IMO. I expect players like Gabe Davis, Edmunds and Oliver to benefit from it. Good post Cincy Great thread for discussion OP... 1 1
WideNine Posted May 6, 2021 Posted May 6, 2021 14 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said: Ok I'm back. Again, this is my capture of my view on how I think Beane sees the run game and what he thinks he's done about it. So fundamentally, in terms of prioritizing resigning our own Beane put $11.54M cap $$ at re-upping Williams, Feliciano, and Boettger - which is basically last year's OL. The Ed Courage award and the "struggling to lift a 10 lb weight" and the stuff he said about Ford says to me that Beane may be giving them the "purple heart pass", but signing Boettger and $3M of additional FA in Lamp, Douglas, and Hart implies to me that Beane is hedging his bets and there's a shot across the bows "we will have holes in the run game, or else...." As far as TE, Hollister lost playing time to Dissly and Greg Olsen in 2020, but from what I saw he's a more capable run blocker than Knox last off-season. SI had this to say: My knock on Knox, from what I saw and in Cover1's breakdown, is that he's totally inconsistent. If it's clear to him who he's supposed to block and he has time to get set he can do OK, but if he's facing elite quickness or if there's some kind of read-and-react decision making involved "let's see, if the LB drops into coverage and the CB comes then I gotta block him", he's totally "lost in space". I hope he improves, but I think Hollister is a "shot across the bows" to Knox that he better shape up, or there WILL be an alternative who can both block and gain separation in the passing game. If Sweeney has learned anything during his year off, maybe two because I sure liked what I saw of him when he was on the field and his college tape. As far as the RBs, I think they were sent off with a laundry list of stuff to work on. My personal take is that Singletary lost focus last year - as we became a passing team and the run blocking struggled, I think he was "phoning it in" sometimes. He ran the world's worst go route in one game; it was notable in the Ravens game he had a hole and ran right into his blockers. Hopefully his offseason work that Ty Dunne wrote about indicates that he got the message. But just like the OLmen, I think Breida represents a bit of a "shot across the bows"; he was a capable back with the SF 49ers gaining 5.3 and 5.1 ypa, 58 and 48 ypg. Beane doesn't want to be left with no alternatives if his primary plan that our current backs will look better if the blocking is better does not pan out. The other part of signing Breida is as a 5th year guy who played for a Superbowl team, I think Beane is expecting some veteran leadership out of Breida to help keep the room focused even if they aren't getting much business as rushers sometimes. I would expect to see Beane watching the waiver wire and the cutout bin, as well. OK, so, it's not the "blow it all up and start over" sexy that some here would like to see, and I'm not intending to get all up in the "whoo, done more than Browns" or anything like that. I'm just pointing out that what Beane has done to try to ensure we have a run game next season may be a bit more than folks see. Good stuff - especially the TE breakdown. Was my beef with Knox, more than the occasional lapses in concentration and ball security as a receiver, was his "ole" lookout blocks. He also was no great shakes when called upon to block for runs. Daboll could trot Lee Smith out, but that tipped our hands towards calling a run. In the red zone it led to more than a few instances of Smith lumbering wide open into the end zone uncovered. He was downright prolific as an end zone receiving option for the first time in his career. Although it was nice to see a grinder like Smith get some love from the game plan, the ideal is to have that TE who can do both well from anywhere on the field to keep defenses guessing. 1 1
WideNine Posted May 6, 2021 Posted May 6, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, ScottLaw said: The browns have to beat us twice for them to be considered better? Why? We are not talking an exact science, this is completely subjective as much as any power rankings - fun to debate. If we are just talking AFC win records projections that is another conversation and probably has more to do with strength of schedule which is not an exact science either. My thoughts are that when a team beats you more than once in a season they probably have your number. One time can be a fluke or a terrible game plan or injured key players etc...Teams may adjust strategy, get healthy, and return the favor to end up splitting (thinking more in terms of interdivisional rivalries, but playoffs are viable as we saw KC twice last year and both times they handed it to us). If you split with a team then I feel strength is a matter of overall conference record after that. If the conference records are the same the pundits can debate who is better, but as they say "any given Sunday" or in the Bill's case "Monday", "Thursday", etc... as we get more prime-time exposer. Like I said, not an equation and as others have pointed out, some teams may have subpar AFC records yet be a terrible specific matchup for your team that has a great record. Edited May 6, 2021 by WideNine 1
Nihilarian Posted May 7, 2021 Posted May 7, 2021 2021 Browns schedule besides Steelers 2x, Ravens 2x, Bengals 2x. Cardinals-@Patriots-@Vikings-@Chargers-@Chiefs-@Packers-Texans-Lions-Bears-Raiders-Broncos. Cleveland has the #9th toughest schedule in 2021. https://fbschedules.com/cleveland-browns-schedule/ Unless Baker Mayfield hits another level I don't see Cleveland making the playoffs in 2021. JMO 1
Wayne Cubed Posted May 7, 2021 Posted May 7, 2021 1 hour ago, Nihilarian said: 2021 Browns schedule besides Steelers 2x, Ravens 2x, Bengals 2x. Cardinals-@Patriots-@Vikings-@Chargers-@Chiefs-@Packers-Texans-Lions-Bears-Raiders-Broncos. Cleveland has the #9th toughest schedule in 2021. https://fbschedules.com/cleveland-browns-schedule/ Unless Baker Mayfield hits another level I don't see Cleveland making the playoffs in 2021. JMO The bolded is the most important point, tho I think they could still make the playoffs if he doesn't. I think where the Browns will fall down is in the playoffs. I don't see the Browns becoming a Championship team unless Baker takes another step. The QB talent level in the AFC just won't allow it to happen. And the Browns don't have a dominate defense. And this being Bakers 4th season, I think the likelihood of him taking that step is slim. His trajectory has stayed pretty much the same in his 3 years.
Boxcar Posted May 7, 2021 Posted May 7, 2021 23 hours ago, Nihilarian said: Power ranking by the NFL network has the Bills at #3 and the Brownies at #6! #1 Bucs, Chiefs, Bills, Packers, Baltimore, Cleveland, Rams, Seahawks, 49ers, Saints, Steelers, Titans, Colts, Dolphins, Chargers. https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-power-rankings-bears-49ers-on-the-rise-after-2021-draft The Bucs being #1 is ridiculous. They should have lost to GB. You can't judge an entire team based on one game.
BarleyNY Posted May 7, 2021 Posted May 7, 2021 40 minutes ago, Wayne Cubed said: The bolded is the most important point, tho I think they could still make the playoffs if he doesn't. I think where the Browns will fall down is in the playoffs. I don't see the Browns becoming a Championship team unless Baker takes another step. The QB talent level in the AFC just won't allow it to happen. And the Browns don't have a dominate defense. And this being Bakers 4th season, I think the likelihood of him taking that step is slim. His trajectory has stayed pretty much the same in his 3 years. As mentioned before, Baker had three offensive systems in his first three years. Last season he didn’t even have a proper offseason to learn and practice this one. He looked bad early, but finished strong. Now he gets to, for the first time as a pro, stay in that same scheme for a second season. Let’s see how he does with that before passing judgement.
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