Thurman#1

One penalty? Wow, hadn't noticed that. That's great to hear.

This. His first year or so less so, but after Allen became Allen, McDermott became aggressive. This'n.

As a tendency, yeah. Always, no. He's had a few big games where he didn't step up as well. But it's questionable whether over his career he'll throw so many fewer playoff INTs than season INTs relatively. Again, is it a thing or not? IMO hard to tell. He doesn't play DE .... not sure what you're getting at there, but it's certainly hard to argue.

Relatively low sample size, with 378 playoff passes thrown. But I'll take it if it's a thing.

Mahomes had his worst year in a long time last year. 2021 - 2023 Mahomes Passing TDs 105 INTs 39 Turnovers 58 Team Rushing TDs 16 plus 18 plus 9 equals 47 Allen Passing TDs 103 INTs 47 Turnovers 79 Team Rushing TDs 20 plus 15 plus 22 equals 57

Interceptions come with the territory. A higher percentage of INTs does not. Josh's INT percentage was one of the highest in the league and has been for a while.

Heh heh heh. Nice!

Please. Virtually nobody ignores completely or even downplays his production. Maybe a couple dozen guys in dusty internet corners. And it's great that Allen has all those TDs, if Allen wasn't getting those running TDs, they'd be handoffs instead and many would still be touchdowns. As great and productive as he is, having too many turnovers hurts. It just does. Don't spin and try to ignore it. It's a factor that needs to be considered. It hurts the team. All factors need to be considered. Including the TOs. It's a good sign that he has fewer INTs this year so far this year. Shows they're taking the pressure off him. He doesn't feel he has to win the game himself. Small sample size concerns, though. He's terrific. Second-best in the league, IMO. But that doesn't mean that being one of the highest in the league in turnovers doesn't hurt his team. It does.

Yeah, Dalton was Lewis' best QB, you say? Um, no. Lewis' best quarterback was Carson Palmer, who was damn good for a few years there. Still they couldn't win a playoff game. And McDermott's Bills teams over-achieved their rosters even the first two years when Allen was an enthusiastic runner and a tough leader who looked like maybe he might have a good future if his passing game improved enough. Yes, having Josh has helped a ton. No, it didn't mean everything was now fine. In the last few years the defense has done a ton to make this team successful, that's simply a fact. Wins and losses is a team stat, and that's for good reason. Agreed that they haven't sacked Mahomes enough in the playoffs, but you say, "McDermotts defenses have factually not sacked Mahomes once and haven't intercepted him once in multiple playoff games." Great point except for the three sacks they have against him in playoff games. One in 2020 season and two the next year. So, not "factually" so much. That's three in three years, which is not great for sure, but until they brought in Von they just didn't have a really good pass rush guy, and then Von got injured. IMO if Von stayed healthy we have at least one Lombardi, but it's a guess. One of the problems with being really good is you never get great draft picks that allow you to get obvious elite pass rushers. Injuries is indeed an excuse. One that has a gigantic impact on seasons, excuse or not. But the Troy Brown year is a horrible example of your point. Outside the CBs, the Pats were extremely healthy that year, nothing remotely like the Bills defensive injuries disaster. Yeah, Troy Brown was a damn good player and did a pretty solid job as a fill-in CB. He didn't do a brilliant job because Belichick made him go zero to hero due to brilliant coaching. He was a good athlete capable of playing pretty well at corner. He played QB for them in the preseason one year. He was a terrific all around athlete. And the guys around him were really healthy, the safeties, the line and the LBs, and the offense too. The Bills have also had guys who could move between positions, though not as well as Troy Brown. Belichick was lucky to have the right guy on the team. Including a guy named Tom Brady, he was pretty influential in a lot of those wins as well, including that Troy Brown year. And again, except for at CB, the 2004 Patriots were actually really really healthy. Nothing remotely like the Bills defense last year. Oh, and Schotty didn't fail to "stop legit offenses in the playoffs," as you claim. Nonsense. Just as an example, in their 2004 playoff game against New England, they held Brady to 27 for 51 for 280 , 2TDs and 3 INTs. Brady didn't have much of a game at all. It was, as usual, team against team. The Pats snuck past them 24-21. with Philip Rivers having an even worse game than Brady. Oh, and your idea about McDermott being replaced? It's nuts. Seriously. Completely whackadoo. Unless he somehow loses the locker room or something he'll be the coach next year and probably long term, and that's what's best for the Bills.

They looked dominant out there. It ain't pretending. Sensational? High-flying? No, fair enough. But they really did look very good. "Only had two sustained drives yesterday," you say? Come on. First, they had a a one-play 51 yard TD drive on the Cook run. That's to be held against them? The fact that they scored quickly, that's bad? Here's all the drives. 12:16 Q1 63 yards, 6 plays Touchdown 3:21 Q1 4 yards, 3 plays Punt 0:41 Q1 31 yards, 7 plays Field Goal 10:54 Q2 85 yards, 9 plays Touchdown 3:45 Q2 51 yards, 1 play Touchdown Kneeldown at end of half 15:00 Q3 33 yards, 5 plays Punt 2:40 Q3 25 yards, 5 plays Punt 11:47 Q4 32 yards, 6 plays Missed FG 2:02 Q4 9 yards (1 1st down, then 3 yard loss) Kneeldown That's ten drives, two of which were end of half kneeldowns, so out of eight drives they had four scoring drives and one missed field goal. While not terrific, that's impressive. Allen looked like he could have beaten the hell out of them with the passing game if they'd felt urgency to score, which they never did after three TDs and an FG in the first half. Running the ball a ton makes them look less urgent and get fewer drives, but if it results in big wins, that's anything but a problem.

I'd put that at late October or early November, but yeah, this is the right idea. The rest of the season might look like these two games, or maybe totally different. Too early to say at this point. This really is too small a sample size. Sure looks good so far, though.

I'll chime in on this ... ... the minute I get access to Tua's medical records, full access to his doctors and to Tua and to his family. Until then, I've got my opinions but I just don't think it's any of my business.

You might not say it. But he is truly very good already. Probably not great yet. But very good? He's already there. But certainly good enough that comparing him to Marvin Lewis is ludicrous. Lewis was a genuinely good coach, but his winning percentage was .518. 0 for 7 in the playoffs. Zero. Lewis was a good hard-nosed coach, always put tough physical teams on the field. But while he was a good defensive coach, he wasn't scheming himself any wild advantages. I liked Lewis a lot, but he's no McDermott. Schotty? Yeah, maybe. He's greatly underestimated. That guy got untalented teams to overperform year after year. He had about two years when he had teams with personnel that apparently had the horses to do real damage Also, stuff like 13 seconds does happen to truly good coaches. Check out Belichick's last few years. Or his years in Cleveland. Or Philly Special and losing to the Eagles in the SB. Think Belichick had ever coached the players not to let anyone get outside of them including the QB? Of course he had. Sometimes players make mistakes, even under really good coaches.

Yup. And while $11.7 M doesn't look great at all, at the end of last season, before they started re-structuring and cutting and making those moves we were around $60M BELOW the cap for this year, if I remember correctly.

Yeah, I really noticed it, even before the announcers said anything. The Bulls should have plenty to crow about during recruiting. Come here, we've got a pipeline to the Bills and it isn't just guys barely making the roster, it's guys contributing in the NFL without having been highly touted recruits.

I had a ton of confidence in the offense going into the season. Thought we'd be very successful there. I was deeply worried about the D. So far the defenders have really showed the league some things about themselves. The players have stepped up pretty much without exception. And McD's scheme has continued to show that it can hold teams down even when a few of it's best players are down, and that's not so usual. It's a long season, but man, so far so good, even on D.

They'll wait till the picture on Tua is much much clearer. It would be disrespectful not to. If Tua retires, I can see them trading him, yeah. Alpha's post here makes a ton of sense as well.

Gotta disagree. His first two years he was pretty good. Looked to be trending up. Hasn't showed much since the injury though. Fins fans are hoping.

You were right on about the price. I like it, myself. And over the first two weeks I think he's played really well. It's not a sure thing, I'd agree with that. But I like it.

This comment was immediately postgame. It's not Kyler's responsibility to watch the Coach's comments so he doesn't say anything even slightly against him. More, Kyler was NOT contradicting him. At all, really. Kyler said this, "Obviously, I have a sense and a feel for the guys when they aren’t getting the ball and when they are getting the ball, but I leave that up to (offensive coordinator Drew Petzing). He tells me, ‘Don’t worry about that type of stuff. Just keep playing your game and get the ball where it’s supposed to go.'” Gannon: “They obviously were trying to take him away,” Gannon added while talking to reporters. “But we had a bunch of guys catch balls, so that’s how our offense is gonna be built. The ball should go where it should go depending on the coverage.” There's no real disagreement there.

Agreed, this is a move aimed mostly at the long term. May lower his cap this year fractionally, but not significantly. Past few days they did a few deals to free up money. This is why. That's a really pessimistic look at how he's been. "Trash" is nonsense. Basically, when healthy he's been good. His first year he was really looking good at times, particularly for a rookie and particularly late in the season when he started to get used to the speed in the NFL. He's trended up and is continuing to do so. No guarantee this works, of course, but IMO smart getting him early for a discount. We got some bookends.

These days you can't get a decent one for less than that. Price of doing business lately. I like the move, myself. I'm sure they got a serious discount for signing him this early. Not at all, they've had pretty good pass protection from early on.

KC was way better than you're saying here. 2nd in both scoring defense and yards allowed last year, they're a damn good D. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2023/opp.htm Where are you seeing that KC's D last year was so bad at home? If they were 24th best at home, it would've been almost impossible to be 2nd best overall, which they were.

It isn't Trevor that has one playoff berth. It's his team. There isn't one QB that has a playoff berth. It's a team stat, one that a QB has a major input on, but a team stat nonetheless. Maybe I'm misreading you but you appear to be disparaging him here. But IMO Lawrence still has a chance to have an excellent career. I agree with everything else you said here, though. QB is a really really difficult thing to predict results in the pros from college performance.

He's better than you're saying here. But he does have problems in the passing game, no question. On the other hand he's not so weak there that they can't win an SB with him behind center. But they'd be better off with 5 - 7 other QBs, IMO, including Allen or Mahomes. KC's line outplayed the Ravens OL and it made it awfully hard. This wasn't a good game, in passing anyway, but every QB has some bad games. He deserved the MVPs.