This was the year, and the coaches blew it

[Rampage]

Okay maybe a bit dramatic. Allen still has another 10-12 years of top level play left in him but this year was the perfect storm to win a Super Bowl.

 

The NFC was weak this year, there was no clear cut favourite other than a 45 year old Tom Brady. The 49ers don’t awe you and the Rams are and up and down football team. Who knows who wins Sunday. The AFC had a lot of mediocre playoff teams. Vegas, Pittsburgh, Tennessee had no offense down the stretch yet we’re a one seed. Cincinnati is playing out of their minds right now but need a last second FG to beat Tennessee and Vegas went down to the last play.

 

Speaking of Cincinnati, they’ll only get better. Burrow another year older same with Chase. KC still has Mahomes. You have to think the Chargers begin to start

putting it together in Herbert’s third year. Baltimore gets Jackson back, who were 8-3 when he got injured. Cleveland could be back in the mix, they made the AFCCG last year and played the Chiefs close. Indy has a good team other than Wentz. Etc. The NFC who knows, I don’t see any franchise quarterbacks up and coming in that conference.
 

After 2022 Allen’s cap hit goes to 40 million dollars, unless that’s adjusted we start losing room to build a team. Competing gets tougher. Bad teams overpay our good players because we can’t afford them. And winning gets harder. With Allen, winning every game is possible but it’s not as straight forward as it could have been this year.

[GunnerBill]

This year was A chance. And a good one. It wasn't the only chance. The Bills will be back.

[Greg S]

I think they had a good shot as well but I also think the Rams would have had a good shot to beat the Bills. That game would have been a 50/50 IMHO. I do think the Bills would have beaten the 49ers though.

[Mynamemike]

2 minutes ago, Rampage said:

Okay maybe a bit dramatic. Allen still has another 10-12 years of top level play left in him but this year was the perfect storm to win a Super Bowl.

 

The NFC was weak this year, there was no clear cut favourite other than a 45 year old Tom Brady. The 49ers don’t awe you and the Rams are and up and down football team. Who knows who wins Sunday. The AFC had a lot of mediocre playoff teams. Vegas, Pittsburgh, Tennessee had no offense down the stretch yet we’re a one seed. Cincinnati is playing out of their minds right now but need a last second FG to beat Tennessee and Vegas went down to the last play.

 

Speaking of Cincinnati, they’ll only get better. Burrow another year older same with Chase. KC still has Mahomes. You have to think the Chargers begin to start

putting it together in Herbert’s third year. Baltimore gets Jackson back, who were 8-3 when he got injured. Cleveland could be back in the mix, they made the AFCCG last year and played the Chiefs close. Indy has a good team other than Wentz. Etc. The NFC who knows, I don’t see any franchise quarterbacks up and coming in that conference.
 

After 2022 Allen’s cap hit goes to 40 million dollars, unless that’s adjusted we start losing room to build a team. Competing gets tougher. Bad teams overpay our good players because we can’t afford them. And winning gets harder. With Allen, winning every game is possible but it’s not as straight forward as it could have been this year.

I think with the way Allen plays five more years of this level of play is probable.  He keeps taking the beatings he does he’s going to hit the Cam Newton wall and his body will fall apart after 30. Our window is smaller than what people are thinking.  10 more years of this style of play and he’ll be using a walker by the time he’s 40.  Nothing says he can’t be more of a pocket passer but the elite running/throwing from him is only viable a few more years IMO.

[Success]

The Rams are probably a better team than us.  Not that we wouldn't have had a great chance, but their D is fierce, and D usually wins championships.

 

We were more of a one-man team this year, even in our good games.  I'd love to see the D-line move up a tier next year.

 

[Augie]

Oh NO! We suck AGAIN! 

 

Couldn’t this go into one of the many other “we suck” threads? We will be back. We have Josh, a strong FO and good coaches, despite making some mistakes and being imperfect. Andy Reid got fired for such events, and I bet the Eagles would like him back.

 

 We will have more chances. Every year 31 teams go home unhappy. At least we were a serious contender. I’ve stepped away from the ledge. Maybe look up the serenity prayer. 

 

EDIT: Some might argue we didn’t get as far as last year because we were not in the AFCCG. I would argue we improved and gave the Chiefs a SERIOUS run for their money this year. I call that progress. 

 

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Edited January 28, 2022 by Augie

[GunnerBill]

Just quickly on salary as well and affect of Josh's hit.... the cap is jumping up $26m this year and is expected to jump another $15-20m next year. 

 

2025 is the one year I think it will really hamstring the Bills at $51m cap hit by which time I'd expect the cap to be at about $265m. But they will likely restructure then to kick some can down the road. 

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

10 minutes ago, Greg S said:

I think they had a good shot as well but I also think the Rams would have had a good shot to beat the Bills. That game would have been a 50/50 IMHO. I do think the Bills would have beaten the 49ers though.

Rams are a terrible match up for the bills.  Ironically rams match up poorly vs niners.  But Their front four alone is ludicrous. 

Edited January 28, 2022 by Over 29 years of fanhood

[Rock-A-Bye Beasley]

So true. And even if the Bills had already won multiple Super Bowls those 13 seconds would still be an epic screw up by the coaches. The fact that this could’ve been the first and all the history makes it that much tougher to swallow. 
 

The AFC is filled with good young QBs so there’s no guarantee we will ever get the the SB. Marino only made one and he had a good coach. 
 

Our coach has screwed up in all of our playoff losses in some way. He doesn’t have to be perfect but I don’t want Allen to have to overcome him his whole career. 

[FilthyBeast]

4 minutes ago, Success said:

The Rams are probably a better team than us.  Not that we wouldn't have had a great chance, but their D is fierce, and D usually wins championships.

 

We were more of a one-man team this year, even in our good games.  I'd love to see the D-line move up a tier next year.

 

 

I think realistically they are the only team that can beat KC that is left because they have a similar formula the Bucs used last year against Mahomes.

 

And as good as Creed Humphrey and the rest of KC's new look oline has played this year Aaron Donald is the type of player that will truly expose the situation especially with Miller on the outside to compliment.

 

Ed Oliver is not Aaron Donald but he's as close as we are going to get to him and that's why Beane must make a power move to land an elite pass rusher on the edge to exploit the situation.

[Beast]

Just sell it all off and start over.

 

Imagine what we can get for Allen?

[Back2Buff]

Before the year started every reasonable person knew this was the year, but Beane did barely anything to improve this team.

 

KC went out and rebuilt their entire oline with less money going into the offseason than what we had.

 

They then traded for Ingram at the deadline.

 

This season was not just on the coaches, Beane let everyone down by not going for it.  He still defends taking a DE in 2nd that was inactive for half the year.  Look at who KC drafted in 2nd.

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

2 minutes ago, FilthyBeast said:

 

I think realistically they are the only team that can beat KC that is left because they have a similar formula the Bucs used last year against Mahomes.

 

And as good as Creed Humphrey and the rest of KC's new look oline has played this year Aaron Donald is the type of player that will truly expose the situation especially with Miller on the outside to compliment.

 

Ed Oliver is not Aaron Donald but he's as close as we are going to get to him and that's why Beane must make a power move to land an elite pass rusher on the edge to exploit the situation.

It’s really annoying after all those free agents and draft picks that Jerry is still the best pass rusher by a lot. 

[Patrick Duffy]

I'm sure they are aware they blew it, main thing now moving forward is learning from it. 

[Peter]

I cannot think of bigger coaching blunders in the entire history of the Buffalo Bills than the decisions our coach/coaches made from the kickoff through each defensive call until the end of the game.

 

This is especially true given the magnitude of the game.

[HOUSE]

Maybe this wasn't the year and the coaches knew it

[MJS]

Maybe just post your identical opinion in one of the countless other threads that exist on this topic.

[Patrick Duffy]

Just now, MJS said:

Maybe just post your identical opinion in one of the countless other threads that exist on this topic.

Lol, yeah it does seem to be quite a few of these, "13 seconds/coaches blew it etc" type threads. 

[ToGoGo]

27 minutes ago, Mynamemike said:

I think with the way Allen plays five more years of this level of play is probable.  He keeps taking the beatings he does he’s going to hit the Cam Newton wall and his body will fall apart after 30. Our window is smaller than what people are thinking.  10 more years of this style of play and he’ll be using a walker by the time he’s 40.  Nothing says he can’t be more of a pocket passer but the elite running/throwing from him is only viable a few more years IMO.

 

His style will change with Daboll gone and improvements in our O-line and RB game, which will be Beane priorities moving forward. That's when we finally win a SB. 

 

We'll look back on these years as miraculous that we did as well as we did with what Josh had. 

[Niagara Dude]

3 minutes ago, ToGoGo said:

 

His style will change with Daboll gone and improvements in our O-line and RB game, which will be Beane priorities moving forward. That's when we finally win a SB. 

 

We'll look back on these years as miraculous that we did as well as we did with what Josh had. 

As much as I appreciated the hard running we received from Singletary late in the season I still think that our greatest gift to Allen this offseason is getting him a running with burst/speed and improving out defence so he is not expected to score on every series to beat good teams with elite QB's this this league.  While I am ok with Allen running more in playoffs,  I want him running less in the regular season to avoid taking shots.