Being a top 3 team in scoring. Does it matter how we do it?

[NewEra]

5 hours ago, Dr. Who said:

Zebras always seem to be force for evil, or at least one-sided judgment. Luck is something one can hardly prepare for, but having superlative players is at least a partial counter, because elite players have greater capacity to respond to those moments where a clutch play is needed. I don't think this is much beyond common sense, but if you think it is a bad take, have at it.

Elite players will improve our chances of winning a Super Bowl.  I don’t think the lack of elite players is the reason we lost to KC last season.  Or the year before.  Or in 2021. 

[FireChans]

Just now, NewEra said:

Elite players will improve our chances of winning a Super Bowl.  I don’t think the lack of elite players is the reason we lost to KC last season.  Or the year before.  Or in 2021. 

Very interesting take when you think the difference in the game was making a play or two on offense or defense.

 

I personally believe that good players make more plays than bad players and elite players make more plays than good players. 

[SoTier]

32 minutes ago, FireChans said:

Very interesting take when you think the difference in the game was making a play or two on offense or defense.

 

I personally believe that good players make more plays than bad players and elite players make more plays than good players. 

 

In single elimination playoffs where the teams are fairly evenly matched, luck is a much bigger factor than pure talent.  Anybody can make a mistake that changes the course of the game, ie the Minneapolis Miracle.  Anybody can get hurt in a game, ie Dre Greenlaw's Achilles injury in the Super Bowl.  Anybody can have a bad day, ie Andy Reid n the last Super Bowl.   A roster filled with big stars (and supposedly elite players) doesn't even guarantee a playoff berth much less a playoff win, ie the Dallas Cowboys for the last 20 years.

 

A team has to have all its ducks -- from things it can control to random events -- line up in a row in order to win a Super Bowl.

 

[NewEra]

50 minutes ago, FireChans said:

Very interesting take when you think the difference in the game was making a play or two on offense or defense.

 

I personally believe that good players make more plays than bad players and elite players make more plays than good players. 

As I said-  elite players would increase our chances- but they certainly aren’t locks to make clutch plays and imo, aren’t the reason we haven’t advanced further.  Non elite players are certainly capable of making big plays and have throughout history.  
 

Yes-  Elite players would help

[FireChans]

3 minutes ago, SoTier said:

 

In single elimination playoffs where the teams are fairly evenly matched, luck is a much bigger factor than pure talent.  Anybody can make a mistake that changes the course of the game, ie the Minneapolis Miracle.  Anybody can get hurt in a game, ie Dre Greenlaw's Achilles injury in the Super Bowl.  Anybody can have a bad day, ie Andy Reid n the last Super Bowl.   A roster filled with big stars (and supposedly elite players) doesn't even guarantee a playoff berth much less a playoff win, ie the Dallas Cowboys for the last 20 years.

 

A team has to have all its ducks -- from things it can control to random events -- line up in a row in order to win a Super Bowl.

 

Nothing guarantees you a playoff berth much less a playoff win. 
 

like @Dr. Who said, you can’t control for luck, so what are you supposed to do? 
 

the answer is do your best to make luck irrelevant. Or the refs irrelevant. Or injuries irrelevant. 

[FireChans]

14 minutes ago, NewEra said:

As I said-  elite players would increase our chances- but they certainly aren’t locks to make clutch plays and imo, aren’t the reason we haven’t advanced further.  Non elite players are certainly capable of making big plays and have throughout history.  
 

Yes-  Elite players would help

Nothing and no one is a lock to make clutch plays.

 

Josh Allen isn’t a lock to make clutch plays, but I would take him over the field, wouldn’t you? Doesn’t that make him the next best thing?

 

I find this take very odd tbh. Do you have a method for “locks” to make clutch plays? Or a method to improve our luck? If so, can you please tell One Bills Drive before I die?

[Dr. Who]

Let's remember the context of this discussion based on the OP: it was the question of whether it matters how one scores, if one happens to be a top 3 scoring team. There is a presupposition built into that question, which pertains to the crowd that believes that all the handwringing over WR1 or the talent surrounding Josh Allen, however one wishes to phrase it, is misplaced, with the frequent, but not uniform corollary that we ought to just focus on the defense.

 

So, there is a kind of implied conversation in the question. There is a reshifting away from that when it becomes a narrower conversation about specific aspects of whether or not players should have made plays in Buffalo playoff games. And yet, I think that does implicitly redound to the question of quality, and obviously FireChans and I agree on the basic point about roster building and doing what one can in terms of how best to increase one's chances of success. 

 

 

[Rock-A-Bye Beasley]

On 3/29/2025 at 6:08 AM, machine gun kelly said:

Yep.  This team has failed on defense as good as it was at times in the past.  The Jim’s and Joes, not the coaches.  The problem is unless we seriously give up draft capital, we always draft so late as we keep winning as much as the last few years.

 

How so? not 13 seconds? and why not all the other times? 7 yards off Chase and Higgins on 3rd and 5? You just don't want to fault McDermott at all it's pretty clear. 

[artmalibu]

12 hours ago, FireChans said:

Lmao the fantasy football forum. Very funny. 
 

See you in October when we have to desperately try to find an answer at WR again. 

 

Fair enough, but my counter would be that it’s unlikely that a WR significantly better than Metcalf becomes available for anything other than 2 1sts starting price, which most would likely say is far too much to pay.

 

Sad that you reference last October, I remember how the Bills defense allowed the Texans to pass for over 110 yards over their average for the year.  But, thats not too bad since Jax was the only team to give up more passing yards than the Bills.  

 

I do have to ask, who do you think the Bills should have gotten at WR this offseason?

[FireChans]

14 minutes ago, artmalibu said:

 

Sad that you reference last October, I remember how the Bills defense allowed the Texans to pass for over 110 yards over their average for the year.  But, thats not too bad since Jax was the only team to give up more passing yards than the Bills.  

 

I do have to ask, who do you think the Bills should have gotten at WR this offseason?

DK Metcalf. 
 

Do you remember Josh going 9 for 30 against the Texans?

Edited Sunday at 01:05 PM by FireChans

[oldmanfan]

It doesn’t matter.  Some teams have defenses that are easier to run in so you score running the ball.  Some have weaker pass defense so you score with the passing game.  Some have a QB prone to turning the ball over so you get a score or two from the defense.  Or special teams mismatch.  

[Big Turk]

On 3/28/2025 at 8:05 PM, PrimeTime101 said:

So last year scoring, the Lions, Bill and Ravens were top 3. 

https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/nfl-top-scoring-teams-2024

 

Did it feel hard to score for us last year to you guys? We basically did it without a field stretcher. How will it feel to you all if we did it again, TOP 3. Without a true viable field stretcher on the team? How do we continue moving forward with THIS team on offense with the WR/HB/TE combination we have on the team now, or do we still need a EDGE WR to stretch this field this year?

 

Just a question to you folks. This may of been covered in other topics... just wanted to read more direct answers to this topic.

 

Thanks. 

 

Hard to score? What games were you watching if you thought that?

 

There were a few times they needed to get revved up, but basically once they got in rhythm they scored just about every possession until the end of the game afterwards.

Edited Sunday at 01:43 PM by Big Turk

[artmalibu]

17 minutes ago, FireChans said:

DK Metcalf. 
 

Do you remember Josh going 9 for 30 against the Texans?

 

Dk is good for sure, and would love to have him.

 

But, the average of 30 million a year average many have made it that Benford could not have been signed.  And the 2nd in the trade for DK that we are hoping will turn into a starter/contributor while being on a rookie contract.  

 

The 20 points scored against the Texans should have been enough to win or at least take it to overtime.  Defensive let downs that game, and scoring 40 points in the Rams game to lose kept the Bills out of the #1 seed.  The Bills didnt get to play in the Super Bowl because the Defense let the Chiefs score more points than they did in any other game.  The biggest problem of the 2024 season was not due to the WR position.  

 

Remember the topic of this thread "Being a top 3 team in scoring. Does it matter how we do it?"   My answer is NO. 

 

The Bills Offense was #2 in the whole league in scoring points while the Defense was #7 in the AFC alone in points allowed.

I guess the differences in our opinions is where the Bills concentrate their available resources.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

[FireChans]

7 minutes ago, artmalibu said:

But, the average of 30 million a year average many have made it that Benford could not have been signed

Benford was already on the team in 2025.

 

Maybe the cap goes up another $25M like it does every year and it would make no difference at all? 

 

9 minutes ago, artmalibu said:

And the 2nd in the trade for DK that we are hoping will turn into a starter/contributor while being on a rookie contract. 

I mean hoping for a starter/contributor in the draft vs getting a proven one is an easy answer. I would take DK over the rookie contributions from AJE, Ford, Boogie, Bishop, Cook, OCT etc etc all day every day.

 

11 minutes ago, artmalibu said:

I guess the differences in our opinions is where the Bills concentrate their available resources

Obviously. Y’all are hoping the next draft pick saves the defense. Or the next middle class FA DL player. Maybe it will. But it probably won’t. Just like the last dozen haven’t. 
 

This is the false choice that I’m talking about though. We could have 8 picks in the 2025 draft to pick defensive or offensive players AND DK Metcalf AND Benford on the Bills in 2025. trading for DK doesn’t mean that you can’t take 2 defensive players in the first 3 rounds. It doesn’t mean Benford is playing in a different uniform in September.
 

You keep incorrectly framing it that way. I think it’s a Beane defense mechanism lol.

17 minutes ago, artmalibu said:

The Bills didnt get to play in the Super Bowl because the Defense let the Chiefs score more points than they did in any other game

Score more points than them and it doesn’t matter. Score at the end when Kincaid couldn’t catch a pass that hit his hands and it doesn’t matter.

[90sBills]

3 hours ago, FireChans said:

 

Josh Allen isn’t a lock to make clutch plays, but I would take him over the field, wouldn’t you? Doesn’t that make him the next best thing?

 

Allen is great in alot of ways but clutch isn’t one of his strengths. Of the 4 losses to KC in the playoffs he has came through in only one game where you can definitively say there wasn’t much else he could’ve done better.

 

The last two losses he needed to be clutch with the ball and a chance to win at the end but failed to delivered.

[Thurman#1]

On 3/29/2025 at 9:14 AM, SoonerBillsFan said:

Just score.  I don't care if we run it 40x per game.

 

 

Cha ching!!  This!!

[Thurman#1]

On 3/29/2025 at 12:02 PM, T.E. said:

We just rarely seem to be "clicking on all cylinders." I agree that there is a huge Allen bump in regard to our scoring due to his improvising. Kirk Cousins is a consistently good QB; Jalen Hurts is a SB MVP QB. Do either of those guys get this team to 13 wins? I don't think they do.

 

 

Jeez, I saw us clicking on all cylinders often. Not always, but nobody does it always, nobody.

 

Kirk Cousins? That's a good comparison. 13 wins? No, I don't think so. Kirk is no Josh Allen, but he's pretty good (not that I saw him much last year but from what I hear the problem there was a lot deeper than Kirk). IMO the Cousins of the last four or five years gets us to maybe 11 or 12 games or so. Maybe closer to 11 than 12. Maybe 12 because of how awful the rest of the division was, but Josh had that advantage as well.

[FireChans]

33 minutes ago, 90sBills said:

Allen is great in alot of ways but clutch isn’t one of his strengths. Of the 4 losses to KC in the playoffs he has came through in only one game where you can definitively say there wasn’t much else he could’ve done better.

 

The last two losses he needed to be clutch with the ball and a chance to win at the end but failed to delivered.

Fair, but I would say more often than not Josh delivers in the playoffs. 

He isn’t Peyton or Lamar.

 

Also, he’s so good that you can’t reasonably expect or want to upgrade. He’s elite. I wouldn’t trade him for anyone.

 

But there’s a way to help him be even better. And when he makes a miracle 1 of 1 pass on 4th down with the game on the line, maybe getting him a pass catcher to help make the play is one of those ways.

 

Maybe being up 10 points instead of down 3 with 3 minutes to go makes the point moot as well. 
 

I don’t feel like any of this stuff is that radical tbh.

[artmalibu]

1 hour ago, FireChans said:

 

I think it’s a Beane defense mechanism lol.

 

 

Dam the Bills ownership really screwed up, they should have hired you to be the GM.  

[FireChans]

3 minutes ago, artmalibu said:

 

Dam the Bills ownership really screwed up, they should have hired you to be the GM.  

Nice retort. I must have really put you in a pretzel with that last one. It really sucks when it makes so much sense and there’s nothing you can do about it. I feel it all the time.