Thurman#1

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.

Certainly Josh wasn't the reason we lost. The teams just weren't equal. But Josh deserves his fair share of the blame. Mahomes didn't kill drives with major sacks from holding the ball too long. But we got little pressure. That hurt. Part of that was that Mahomes was hitting the short passes when we pressured, and Josh was looking long. If a team schemes to take away the long ball, take the short ones all day long. That's mostly what Mahomes did, and it was what the Chiefs needed. Agreed. If Josh has shown anything it's that he's a voracious learner. He'll get a lot better from this.

Figure out whether Morse's problems are only temporary. He has been very good for most of his term here, but not lately. And spend more time with the OL on run blocking. We just don't appear to have a group that this year was a tough group on run blocking. Our OL was very good pass blocking, but not very good run blocking. Getting Ford back, at guard, should help. But they probably need one more interior DL, not to mention figuring out RT in terms of whether or not we can afford to keep Daryl Williams. If we don't, it doesn't look like his replacement is on our roster. Run blocking is often a lot about mindset. Didn't appear we had that this year, we were mostly devoted to keeping Allen upright, with some good reason behind that.

He's made a difference in several games, along with Moss. Running the clock down at the end of several games, getting several important first downs, making some nice catches and runs and doing an absolute ton of terrific blocks keeping our QB unsacked. And a couple of TDs on top of that. Oh, and thanks for the total lack of any new spin, facts or point of view on this.

Morse hasn't been the same since he went out for the concussion, but overall that wasn't a bad move at all. If he doesn't regain his former level, yeah, he could be gone, but he might easily regain his old level. And while some on here thought Dawkins should be a guard, the Bills never thought so, nor did many of the rest of us.

He's generally considered the best in the league at handling the blitz, though Brady has always been terrific, and Allen lately has looked just as good. You can blitz him, but not regularly. Regular blitzes he handles like an advantage to him. Occasionally, as a surprise, it can work. And it also helps if you do it in a non-standard way, like blitz an LB on the left and back up a DL on the right. If it's obvious how you're doing it, Mahomes knows just where to throw, into the area the blitzer vacated.

Is this a Tonya Harding thing? Because I think that's wrong. Probably.

Or it's a totally reasonable decision based entirely on the medical evidence. No reason to think that's not so. It's possible it isn't true, but this decision doesn't underscore anything, really. I mean we don't even know for sure he ever had a concussion. Could've been a sleeper hold type of thing, as reported.

He was kind of a coach on the sidelines and in the meeting rooms while he was playing. I think that's what they're referring to. So maybe yeah, if anyone can do it he can. I doubt anyone can do it, myself. Always liked the guy. Good luck to him. It would not be a good decision now, though. After 10 or 15 years of coaching experience, then maybe. It's really too bad, though. I understand why Watson feels he wants to pressure them to get a good head coach. But the instant he did so he made the job toxic and the possibility of actually getting someone good pretty close to zero. It's now a self-fulfilling prophecy, making his departure much more likely.