This was suppose to be a rebuild year

[BillsVet]

13 hours ago, Sierra Foothills said:

You know, before the season began the Bills had the 6th most difficult schedule in the league:

 

https://www.giants.com/news/2024-nfl-strength-of-schedule-for-all-32-teams-steelers-packers-cowboys-49ers

 

Part of the reason for the poor record of the teams the Bills have beaten is because the Bills are 8-0 against them. Also teams with fragile psyches like Jacksonville and the Jets let the losses to the Bills compound and affect the course of their seasons. Every year lots of teams underperform. The Bills are not one of those teams.

 

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.  

[Dr.Sack]

17 hours ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

 

True, but if you don't have the money, you don't have much of a choice.  The NFL doesn't have salary cap loans.

Same can apply to the draft. What do you value and where can you get the best ROI?

[ngbills]

Rebuilding year is when Allen is gone. Absent of that you cannot call it a rebuild. If you don't see it that way then the Chiefs are rebuilding every year or so and winning super bowls in rebuild years. 

[somnus00]

I never understood the whole "rebuilding" narrative. Besides Floyd and Morse, the Bills lost a bunch of guys who were no longer contributing at a high level (if at all).

 

We didn't lose the Poyer, Hyde, White, Diggs from 3 seasons ago. Don't even get me started on Gabe.

 

The on-field production lost, was absolutely replaceable with player development, a decent free agency, and a good draft. The Bills happen to have an elite GM who had a plan.

[BigAl2526]

I think the Bills management and coaches had a higher opinion of what the team could do this season than those outside of OBD, especially compared to national pundits.

[BillsPride12]

On 11/11/2024 at 9:03 PM, ghostwriter said:

Any time Josh Allen is your QB, you are not in a rebuild year.

This is true but the term rebuild has been mis-used in this entire thread.

It was certainly supposed to be a "re-tooling" year

[ChasBB]

A "rebuild" year is when you no longer have Josh Allen on your roster.  So long as Josh Allen is our QB, let's just call higher-than-usual offseason roster activity "re-tooling".  We always have a chance with Allen at QB.

[GASabresIUFan]

It's kind of funny for the media to call this season a rebuild when we brought back 8 starters on offense (JA, Cook, Kincaid, Shakir and 4 OL) and arguably 10 on defense (Groot, AJE, Miller, D Jones, T Johnson, Milano, Bernard, Rapp, Douglas and Benford).  Any reasonable GM would have moved on from White, Dodson (with Milano coming back), Floyd (with Miller coming back), Poyer, Gabe Davis and Hyde.  

 

The only real shocks were Morse and Diggs.  Given Morse's age and concussion history I understand why Beane made the move.  Moving Diggs without a proven outside threat was the biggest shock, but Diggs' poor attitude, drops and decrease in performance once Brady became OC created the environment for him to move on as well.

 

 

 

 

 

[streetkings01]

On 11/11/2024 at 1:36 AM, appoo said:

Keep in mind the bills have played 2 games against teams that will make the playoffs (probably), against the Ravens and Texans and lost both - (and got blown out by the Ravens).  

I think this is a good football team but probably the worst of the Lept Allen teams. 
 

But really games against the Chiefs and Niners will tell us much but right now my thinking is the team ends up with 4-5 losses and the 2/3 seed, wins a wild card and then loses the divisional to either Baltimore or KC or Houston.

 

And honestly that’s a good season for a group with a rookie WR as its best WR,  and what looks like a lack of blue chip across the DB other than Taron Johnson and across the front except Ed Oliver (who’s having a strange season)

Keep in mind we were missing a ton of pieces against the Texans…Miller, Oliver, Shakir, Rapp and T. Johnson!

[ganesh]

7 hours ago, GASabresIUFan said:

It's kind of funny for the media to call this season a rebuild when we brought back 8 starters on offense (JA, Cook, Kincaid, Shakir and 4 OL) and arguably 10 on defense (Groot, AJE, Miller, D Jones, T Johnson, Milano, Bernard, Rapp, Douglas and Benford).  Any reasonable GM would have moved on from White, Dodson (with Milano coming back), Floyd (with Miller coming back), Poyer, Gabe Davis and Hyde.  

 

The only real shocks were Morse and Diggs.  Given Morse's age and concussion history I understand why Beane made the move.  Moving Diggs without a proven outside threat was the biggest shock, but Diggs' poor attitude, drops and decrease in performance once Brady became OC created the environment for him to move on as well.

 

 

 

 

 

The biggest thing the Bills are missing with Diggs is his ability to score TD in the red zone.   He always came free in the End Zone for Josh to make the play and he was consistent. 

[GoBillsForeverAndAlways]

This year has been an absolute pleasure to see so far and I'm very excited to see how we'll do in the back half of the season. I think we have every chance to go very deep into the playoffs and I can't wait to see how we do.

[Sierra Foothills]

On 10/22/2024 at 1:24 PM, GerstAusGosheim said:

I'm starting to think there's no such thing as HOF Coaches. Just coaches lucky enough to have a HOF QB.

 

One example of a HOF Coach would be Joe Gibbs who won 3 Super Bowls with Joe Theismann, Doug Williams, and Mark Rypien as his QBs.

 

11 hours ago, Donuts and Doritos said:

 

The Giants only plan for Daniel Jones should be:

 

 

 

 

 

[FireChans]

The off-season discourse around the Bills was always funny.

 

We lived through the Pats dynasty. Best QB in the division + best HC in the division equals cruising to division titles. Doesn’t matter if the team is less talented than the year prior. 
 

But of course, folks were out here thinking we were a 7 win team. Foolish then, foolish now.

[Mikie2times]

11 hours ago, streetkings01 said:

Keep in mind we were missing a ton of pieces against the Texans…Miller, Oliver, Shakir, Rapp and T. Johnson!

That defense beat the hell out of us and after seeing them vs Detroit I'm pretty sure they would do it again. 

47 minutes ago, FireChans said:

The off-season discourse around the Bills was always funny.

 

We lived through the Pats dynasty. Best QB in the division + best HC in the division equals cruising to division titles. Doesn’t matter if the team is less talented than the year prior. 
 

But of course, folks were out here thinking we were a 7 win team. Foolish then, foolish now.

I'm agreeing with you too much lately 

 

 

[Big Blitz]

On 11/12/2024 at 3:06 PM, somnus00 said:

I never understood the whole "rebuilding" narrative. Besides Floyd and Morse, the Bills lost a bunch of guys who were no longer contributing at a high level (if at all).

 

We didn't lose the Poyer, Hyde, White, Diggs from 3 seasons ago. Don't even get me started on Gabe.

 

The on-field production lost, was absolutely replaceable with player development, a decent free agency, and a good draft. The Bills happen to have an elite GM who had a plan.

 

True but I’m not sure anyone thought of it as a “rebuild” year until Diggs was traded.  
 

I was in between.  Reboot more so in leadership but largely agreed what we lost in talent wasn’t irreplaceable - outside of maybe Morse.  But still thought we could compete for the playoffs no question.  
 

 

FYI speaking of Morse, I’m currently not thrilled with the pass pro of the IOL.  I read that Torrence and Edwards were 2 of the worst graded out Bills vs the Colts. 
 

When Allen doesn’t look comfortable - look right up the middle.  That’s likely the culprit.  
 

Our Oline is great run blocking.  Our OTs have been good in pass pro.  IOL in pass pro not so much.  
 

But I digress.

[Mikie2times]

It's a bit striking how few really strong wins this team has the last 3 years or even how many game against strong teams we have had. We have played 6 regular season games in three years vs teams that eventually made the divisional round. Half of those games are against KC. While I don't penalize this team for not playing more of these games as clearly they can't control that, I do hang the "just how good are we" perspective in full force (especially this year) given our penchant for early playoff exists. It is entirely possible in my view that with Allen accompanied by a very smart roster/disciplined coach that we have the juice to do what we have done to the .500 club, the max wild card pretender club, but just not measure up to anything further. The sheer amount of success would seem to make that unlikely to be the case but the sheer amount of failures in big games really makes you wonder. This years shellacking by Baltimore and beating at Houston didn't help to eliminate those concerns. I feel like this team is Cowboys good, but not actually good. We will certainly learn more the next few weeks. 

 

2021- 1-2 against teams that eventually made the divisional round  (win vs KC)

2022- 1-0 against teams that eventually made the divisional round  (win vs KC)

2023- 2-0 against teams that eventually made the divisional round  (win vs KC and TB)

 

[Big Blitz]

7 minutes ago, Mikie2times said:

It's a bit striking how few really strong wins this team has the last 3 years or even how many game against strong teams we have had. We have played 6 regular season games in three years vs teams that eventually made the divisional round. Half of those games are against KC. While I don't penalize this team for not playing more of these games as clearly they can't control that, I do hang the "just how good are we" perspective in full force (especially this year) given our penchant for early playoff exists. It is entirely possible in my view that with Allen accompanied by a very smart roster/disciplined coach that we have the juice to do what we have done to the .500 club, the max wild card pretender club, but just not measure up to anything further. The sheer amount of success would seem to make that unlikely to be the case but the sheer amount of failures in big games really makes you wonder. This years shellacking by Baltimore and beating at Houston didn't help to eliminate those concerns. I feel like this team is Cowboys good, but not actually good. We will certainly learn more the next few weeks. 

 

2021- 1-2 against teams that eventually made the divisional round  (win vs KC)

2022- 1-0 against teams that eventually made the divisional round  (win vs KC)

2023- 2-0 against teams that eventually made the divisional round  (win vs KC and TB)

 

 

We should ask that question about new league darlings Washington and also Pittsburgh.  

[uticaclub]

Just now, Big Blitz said:

 

We should ask that question about new league darlings Washington and also Pittsburgh.  

It's surprising that Pitt hasn't played a single division game yet, especially since we're already halfway through the season. The Steelers will likely receive the benefit of the doubt because Coach Tomlin has a history of success. On the other hand, Washington is a young team with a promising future. Meanwhile, Buffalo has both a coach and a roster full of players who haven't been able to have that much success in the playoffs.

[Mikie2times]

17 minutes ago, Big Blitz said:

 

We should ask that question about new league darlings Washington and also Pittsburgh.  

Buffalo has been considered a legitimate Super Bowl contender for years now. While never having really beat a lot of quality teams (with the exception of KC regular season). Who I actually think they match up well against. Hell, a lot of people here are certain KC is our biggest hurdle. How do you know that? We have played them close so many times. Where teams that have a physical presence like the Colts used to, Bengals, or Ravens just crush us. It’s not close. Not like the KC games typically are. 

[Big Blitz]

The Chargers wins are against teams a combined 17-40. 

Notable win:  At Denver
 

 

The Bills for the record:  

24-42 (Miami twice - Tua started both) 

Notable wins: Miami twice; at Seattle vs Arizona; at the Jets (Houston lost there) at Indy 

 

The Chiefs: 

 

42-45 

Notable wins:  Vs Likely’s cleat color; 4th and 16 DPI vs Cincy; OT at Tampa minus all their WRs; at SF minus CMC and Deebo; vs Denver’s FG protection 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 14 by Big Blitz