Thurman#1

Correct, I don't know this. It's not just me, it's everybody. Except a few nuts on these boards who love crazy conspiracy theories. Doing this would be a crime. It would be unethical. And it would be a thing that neither of these guys would do. Much less would McDermott then hire a guy who he knew would be willing to betray him when his back was turned. Hiring Beane after seeing that he was willing to lie and betray his employer would be acting as stupid as the guy who marries the woman who he met by getting her to cheat on her last husband. There are plenty of slowcoaches around who do that kind of thing. But they're addle-pated and you can find a huge majority of them wandering around with their head in their hands a year or two later, saying, "How could I have known she'd cheat on me?" That's what you hear about Beane and McDermott, isn't it? That they enjoy surrounding themselves with lying, backstabbing, untrustworthy thieves, right? Right? Right? I mean, you hear that all the time, don't you? Except of course you don't, because that's pretty much the opposite of what they're about, guys who can't be trusted to do their jobs without turning traitor and giving away all their secrets if it suits them. But again, kid yourself if you have to. But pretty much everyone else is going to look at who these guys are and what they stand for and know to expect behavior from them that's congruent with who they are. But plenty of others don't let common sense hold them back. It's fair enough, though it will contribute to being wrong much more often than not.

We did do some blitzing, and seldom enough that it was surprising and unpredictable. And Mahomes absolutely ate it up, every drop, with gravy. The answer isn't more blitzing. And you don't use a tactic on Patrick Mahomes because it works on the younger and rawer Josh Allen. Allen just didn't appear to have the poise he has mostly played with all year. Mahomes was oozing with it..

He coached conservative, is what he coached. I didn't like the decision either, but I do agree with you that we were outmatched and this wouldn't have made the difference, or even close, IMO.

When you hear people say "brutally honest," they're inevitably using it to mean "very pessimistic, intentionally annoying, intermittently wacky and evidence-free." You've lived up to that here.

That says more about problems with your thinking than it does about McDermott. Doing that would literally have been stealing from his ownership. It would have been industrial espionage. It did not happen. But if you feel the need to believe that, go right ahead. There's plenty of room for completel nuttiness in the world. You might want to look in on the "JFK and Elvis are alive and living together on the moon" thing. I hear they've got a few vacancies over there.

One this year, one next year.

First, how could John Brown have caught that ball. It was deflected. The Athletic put an article up about it. The bottom line is that the reason most of those plays you are talking about fell for the Chiefs is that the Chiefs were better. More experienced, and they had Kelce and Hill and nobody can guard both, much less when Mahomes is the one throwing to them. I wanted them to go for that. But it wasn't the reason things happened the way they did. IMO if we'd gotten closer the Chiefs could have stepped it up. I think if they played 10 games we might win one, maybe. Maybe.

No possible way they sign him to a contract that pays $30+ mill next year. Saying we shouldn't do that is like advising me not to pick up a rhino in my left hand and three elephants in my right. I will follow that advice, but not because the suggestion was worth hearing. It's not absolutely crucial to sign him this year. If it doesn't happen it wouldn't mean much if we then signed him during or after next season. But there's no particular reason we shouldn't work out a way now.

Top 4 in the league. We're good enough for nearly anything. And the reason we're cash strapped is largely the coronavirus-related depression of the cap number. I don't see a lot of fat, myself. Though I agree those two don't look like they'd fit the value parameters we're likely to have to use in our current situation.

He's not under contract. And we're already cap-strapped before we try to re-sign Milano, Daryl Williams and Feliciano, not to even mention Andre Roberts. I like Yeldon too, but it's not an easy or obvious decision.

Yeah, I could definitely imagine that.

I bet he gets it ... next year. Or maybe they could go ahead this year and give him some extra guaranteed money in '22 or '23. '21 is not a good year to be asking the Bills for extra bucks if you care about their competitive ability.

No reason necessarily to think he didn't know. Two possibilities: 1) He didn't know, or 2) He knew, and did it anyway, figuring it was better to serve the spirit of the rules rather than the letter. They do this every once in a while, like on the play last year where we kicked it off and the returner tossed it towards the ref without officially giving up the play. IMO it made sense to go with the spirit of the game both times.

His tape did scream OLB ... ... ... ... to you. And some other Buffalo fans. It really should be obvious though, to anybody, that it really did not scream OLB to McDermott and Beane. Or to the people who've made Edmunds a Pro Bowler the last two years. Or really to much of anyone but a few obsessed fans on boards and such. Thing is, you guys aren't the decision-makers, Beane and McDermott are. And thank goodness for that. Another example of missing the point is thinking there were people around to fill the role of Lotulelei when the optouts happened. Lotulelei opted out on July 28th, when we didn't have much left on the cap, when camp was almost here, and when the good players were long since on other rosters. There wasn't a good move to be made for replacing a guy with an unusual skill like Star. It's like saying that when the girl you thought you had picked up went home without you at 4:30 a.m., you should have replaced her with another stunning single woman from that same bar at that time. Good luck with that.

Nice post. We are indeed unlikely to make big splashes with our cap as it is and guys to re-sign. There are some guys to cut but they would then have to be replaced, which costs money that people never include in their "I love this guy so what can I do to make that work?" calculations. And this defense is scheme-based rather than star-based. They work as a unit, and do need a big space-eating 1-tech to maximize them.

Yes. And apples are hand grenades.

Took me nearly a full second to come up with the goal-line run stop on 4th down against the Niners. He makes plays, Hap. If you're going to forget, who's that on? More, how many times has a QB looked in the middle and held the ball, putting him in jeopardy? Hard to say, but this defense is one that works as a unit, in scheme.

Yes. Very solid. They're both building blocks. That's not the problem.

It wasn't so much zero fear after the catch as it was willingness to put up with the consequences. They got some nice little gains when they went that way. No, we don't have a Tyreek who you'd fear like you do him. But when they got the ball to the short receivers, we did OK, fairly consistently.

Which LBs covered Kelce this year? The guy is uncoverable. You have to scheme him, whether it's doubling or hitting him as he comes off the line, or both. Milano is terrific. But you can't expect him to do what nobody else in the NFL can do either and then if he doesn't do it blame him. Makes no sense. I wouldn't mind, though you left out Dawkins as well as far as being a game changer. And as for all pros, two is pretty good in four years. If you count 1st and 2nd team, there are only 44 all pros on 32 teams and very very few maintain that kind of level. IMO their pass defense has difference makers. But not so much on the DL. A bit stronger rush, one more guy who can win the individual battles and that D would be really really good. They're already very good, but with KC you need to put them under pressure with your offense .. and then rush Mahomes with four, though he handles that pretty well too.

I politely disagree. I mean, yeah, it was a momentum killer. And we had momentum killers on how many other drives? So so many. Sacks, throws that weren't quite there, runs that were met by three defenders ... it just went on and on. And the same on D, missed tackles on third downs ... Singletary seems to be the new scapegoat here, and that sure wasn't a good play, but there were a lot of bad plays on our side.

Nicely put. Worth remembering that KC lost it's first conference championship game with Mahomes in 2018. Experience helped him and should help us. Josh will have to develop more. A still-existing tendency towards hero ball rather than playing within the system hurt him. We probably need a big nickel as well. Taron's a good nickel, but not a big nickel. Kelce hurt us by continuing drives consistently, but Tyreek killed us. As he kills everybody. Mahomes was doing what Josh should have done, playing the short and medium game, but Tyreek could turn those into insane gains. A bit more work on the OL, another draft and another year of development for everyone ....

No thanks on Tyrod, but yeah, IMO a redshirt year would have served him well. I wish they'd brought in Anderson and Barkley earlier. Josh has still made amazing progress. But that first year he had to spend a lot of time on specific game plans and such rather than spend time on the more global things Mahomes was able to work hard on his first year, like mechanics, HT diagnose defenses, dropbacks, etc. Benefitted. No, you absolutely do NOT need to throw to learn and get better. That's nonsense. Rodgers and Mahomes are only two of many examples of guys who learned what they needed to know without being in the game and throwing.

Nah, the Chiefs are better. Kelce and Hill were unstoppable, and their QB took the short balls when available while ours didn't. Josh had - was it three - major loss sacks due to hero ball and feeling the pressure to be great instead of just good enough. The Chiefs lost their first AFC championship two years ago. But we'll be hurt by our cap situation. Hopefully we'll be back soon and better.

Yeah, Brown was hit as the ball arrived and while it wasn't possible to say without slo-mo, the ball may have been tapped or his arm hit. It was terrific defense.