Thurman#1

This. It ain't written yet. He could still be really good in Buffalo. Or not. Remember last year and last off-season, when Bernard was a massive miss? And when Epenesa was a bust. Anyone with any kind of memory for the overstatements, oversimplifications and early conclusions on here could go on and on and on. And on. Makes you more likely to be wrong. That's the reason. I see the wink, but ...

Don't think that was criticism of Dorsey, particularly. Just a suggestion, particularly after seeing him showing pain during this game. We saw the camera close-ups of Josh's reaction. The coaches were likely looking elsewhere, without closeups, and have direct access to Josh himself and to the doctors. It was and is a reasonable opinion. I don't necessarily see criticism, though.

Um, yeah, the fact that you didn't seem to understand that an average is just an average is what I was pointing out. Sorry I didn't put it in a way you would understand. Oh, and you're right that nobody gets 7.7 per catch in the stats. Completely irrelevant, but definitely correct. But no, a lack of YAC is absolutely NOT the reason Beasley stopped being so productive. The idea's dumb, because it's basically untrue. Just check Pro Football Reference. His YAC/Reception was 4.9 in his 2019, 4.3 in 2020 and 3.7 in 2021. That means about a yard per reception difference between his best years here and the year he dropped off so much. The problem was YBC/R (Yards Before Catch Per Reception). That was 6.7 in 2019, 7.5 in 2020 and 4.7 in 2021. That was where the dropoff was for Beasley. To get him open Josh had to throw sooner and mostly on zone downs, and he became much easier for defenses to predict and defense. Kincaid has had seven games as a pro. He has gotten open against man and zone. He shows every sign of being an excellent possession receiver. In his last two games he averaged 9.5 and 9.4 YPC (and a catch rate of 100%). He's improving weekly. He's getting open. There's no reason to think he won't be that guy.

His name is Kincaid. And yes he is going to change that getting just 8 yards per reception. Most third downs are for less than 8, and those that aren't aren't can be made by slightly longer catches. This might seem amazing, but just about half his catches are for more than his average. Mind blown, right? And no, that's not why they had to move on from Beasley. Beasley stopped being able to beat man-to-man.

Politeness requires a link. Diggs has done a million interviews over the years, and google doesn't know them apart. Nor do we if we haven't heard the interview. And many times over the years people have said, "Player X said Y," and when you read the interview, he didn't say Y at all, he said A or B or C. Many many many times. If we get the link we can see what he said and his own words.

He didn't like a lot of things (says Morse played much worse than usual, that Torrance was bad, Spencer Brown allowed two big pressures and Gabe Davis also, that James Cook was "a disaster in pass protection,") etc. He had plenty more criticism of others, as well. So he certainly did not blame it all on Josh by any means. But ... "As I watched this offensive tape, it became very clear to me that Josh Allen really struggled in this game. And I know that nobody ever wants to hear that Josh Allen played poorly, and I'm sure that lots of you are going to yell at me for saying that Josh played poorly, but he did. "Could things have been better around him? Absolutely. Could Ken Dorsey have been a little better in this game? Absolutely. "But I thought the top reason for how the offense performed against New England was the play of Josh Allen. "Let me give you some themes from what I observed, and I think that as more people study the tape, you're going to see a lot of what I'm sharing here being echoed throughout those who watch film. I thought his processing and decision-making was really off in this game. He had some very frustrating turndowns, especially under pressure. And I thought his whole mental approach was very poor with protections and how he set protections, working away from where the protections were set, not necessarily feeling or sensing or seeing or reacting to pressure schemes correctly based on what New England was giving him. "I thought his tempo was poor. He didn't get through progressions with enough urgency, especially when New England either had pressure or had very obvious route combinations leveraged and his eyes needed to be in different places. He was late to process pressure, I mean they're sending extra guys and it's not affecting the way that he's attacking the play. I thought his trigger was incredibly slow. Once again his average time to throw over 3.15 seconds. That's going to put a lot of stress on your offensive line. And I have plenty of criticism for those guys, but I mean Mac Jones got the ball out in 2.2 seconds, literally a full second quicker. The amount of stress that puts on the offensive line compared to what Josh did is really different. "He absolutely had some accuracy lapses, right? The two misfires to Stefon Diggs, the deep shot, then the outbreaking pattern, missed them. Josh has to get back to taking profits and playing smart football. His average depth of target against New England was 10.6. "There were issues with Josh Allen not getting the team out of bad run looks. Another situation where they're trying to run the ball to a side of the formation where there's four Patriots players for two Bills offensive linemen to block; you can't run the play. "Not making correct decisions on run-pass options. I mean, honestly minus the quantity of turnovers, I felt a lot of things about Josh Allen that I did in that Jets game in Week One. Thought he was chasing some plays and just not doing the smart correct thing with any level of consistency that's needed to win a football game. "And I'm not talking about Josh Allen not being Josh Allen. that's not what I'm saying. But within the context of a football game, there are certain times where you just need to take the profit, you need to go to the smart place with the football. And Josh Allen didn't do that. "Now, I'm confident this analysis is going to be met with some resistance, some anger at me for daring to say that Josh Allen played poorly, and not pointing enough fingers at Ken Dorsey or enough fingers at being able to trust the offensive line, or weapons or whatever you want to point at. "I watched that game, I studied it in depth, the biggest problem on the offense was 17. ... Josh Allen is not perfect, he has bad games and this was absolutely one of them. Missed so many opportunities. And he did some good, there's no doubt. I enjoyed the three touchdown drives in the second half. I did a lot of what he did to get the team in scoring position in the first half. "But I'm left thinking a whole lot more about the plays he didn't make, about the plays that were left on the field, about the times he could have done the smart correct thing with the football and just mentally was not sharp in this game: decision-making issues, protection issues, just issues galore. "You need more out of Josh Allen. And I know that's hard to say based on what he's given you. "But when you look at this game, and that's what I'm talking about, this game, this loss to the Patriots, I thought the biggest problem with the offense was the quarterback." ... "He refused to throw hot on several occasions during obvious pressure looks. He didn't have the team sliding in the right direction, just too many miscues. He has to manage that better, both the pre-snap and the post-snap part of pressure, and Josh just played poorly." Joe had plenty to say about the defense too. As usual, he gets into a ton of detail.

Nah. It's win a Super Bowl or try again next year. In any case, they sure didn't look capable of that this week. It's been three weeks since they looked like a good team. Some teams that look this bad at some point for a few games win Super Bowls. But plenty don't. They'll have to play much better if they're to be considered contenders.

Don't know where it can be easily quantified, without massive amounts of play-by-play work anyway, but it was visible, and not just to the naked eye. When you go to New Gen Stats and look at the pass distribution charts of opposing QBs against the Bills there just were very few passes thrown against the Bills to the middle between about 6 or 7 yards out to about 20. That pattern lasted throughout the Edmunds years. Compared to other teams a lot fewer. I looked at a ton of those from about 2019 to 2021. It was there. It was easy to see. As an example of one of these charts if you haven't seen them before, here is Trevor Lawrence's chart from two weeks ago against us: https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/charts/single/pass/team/2023/5/trevor-lawrence/LAW514099

Don't see it. Maybe a year or two down the road. Losing DaQuan in particular will make it tougher. He was playing at a level this year we haven't seen from a DT in a long time. And that makes it much easier on the LBs. But the young guys really are playing well so far. Remember when they - in particular Bernard - were both huge draft mistakes according to many on these boards?

That's nonsense that Davis is only going long, just nonsense. Fair enough that there are some routes he doesn't have much success at, particularly the short routes requiring quickness. But he does have a lot of success at various intermediate and deep routes. And Davis very much does keep the chains moving. More than 70% of his catches are firsts. The fact that many of them are not just first downs but firsts with some added yardage beyond the sticks isn't a bad thing by any standard. As for the continuity receiver, how much clearer could it be that that's what they drafted Kincaid for? He might not turn out to be that guy, but it's way way way too early to say that and there's no question that they Bills brought him in to fill that role. If the Chiefs had wanted a true #1, they had a way to do that. Could've kept Tyreek, but ... they didn't. For obvious reasons. Yeah, the Chiefs are looking to improve, given the right fit and the right contract, but the guys they are bringing in are not contenders for #1 status. Yeah, sorry, I was still editing. I hadn't meant to imply disagreement. You can see I changed things. Couldn't agree much more.

For teams with later draft picks I'd argue it's less feasible than theoretically possible. You generally have to get very lucky with a draft pick that far overperforms his draft spot. And even then the teams with two #1s don't see a ton of high level success. Some. But it's not that common and the list of SB champs, as you know, tells a story about how well getting two #1s generally turns out.

No, James Lofton was still a really good player, but he was not a true #1 by that time, he just wasn't. The Bills got him when he was 33 years old. He did have one really good year when it is arguable he played like a #1 with us. The other three it just is not. His four years here he put up 166, 712, 1072 and 786 yards. Even at the time, except for that one year, those were good solid #2 numbers. Generally speaking if you want to get two #1s, the way to do it is to suck and get a nice high draft pick when you've already got one #1 on your team. There are certainly exceptions, but overall that's the way to go about it. Most true #1s are high draft picks. Now, name a team with two #1s who have won a Super Bowl in the last few years. The 2022 Chiefs? Nope. The 2021 Rams? Nope. The 2020 Bucs? Nope. The 2019 Chiefs? Nope. Hill missed a lot of games and racked up 860 and was still far better than their #2 WR, Sammy W. The 2006 Colts, definitely. Where is another team since then? What you more often see is a really excellent QB making up for not having two #1s by spreading it around, and including TEs and RBs and #2s and #3s. He is not agreeing with you at all. Ah, thank you, Mango. You put it far better and more succinctly than I did.

Less than Gabe will get. The 60th highest AAV WR salary is $3.4M. The 50th highest AAV WR is$4.75M. Gave will more than double that 50th highest.

Yup. And it doesn't make anymore sense from Simms than from the armchair folks.

Performance is inconsequential? Um, no it isn't. Those are performance indicators. 4 - 2 is a better one. But that's not great either against the schedule we've played. We had no control over the record of the Chiefs or Bengals. Just over our own. Which is not good, because of some performances well below our capabilities.

They didn't do it because they chose to because they got a check. But yeah, the Bills should have won both of those games. They're a significantly better team than either of those two. If they'd lost to the Fins, that wouldn't have bothered me nearly as much as bowing to those two stiffs. Nonsense. Their coaching is good. And thinking that Josh Allen's legacy is already estabilished or known is flat-out nuts.

You know what it means if you lost the two games by a total of 11 points? It means you lost two games. Wouldn't have been better or worse if we'd lost by more. That's a pure justification, pure spin. 4 - 2 isn't awful. But with the schedule we have played so far, it is not good enough. We have played the Jets (3-3), the Raiders (3-3), the Commanders (3-3), the Dolphins (5-1), the Jaguars(4-2) and the Giants (1-5). This was an easy part of the schedule. We should be 5-1. Possibly even 6-0. The hard part of the schedule is not here yet. You have to make hay against the schedule we had. Having said that, the situation isn't that bad. We're a good team, a team that is likely to contend for a Super Bowl. But of course we're disappointed a bit. Well we should be.

Perhaps in our imaginations. Yup. Small cap differences between these two teams. Next year, the Eagles have $20.2M left under the cap. Whereas the Bills are $33.5M OVER the cap. For next year. (Spotrac) Under those circumstances, the chance to bring in a guy who had 299 yards and a 55% catch percentage last year look quite different to each of these teams. Surprised you realized this.

I hear you. But again, when Josh was having those sensational years, two or three other (great) QBs were too. Defenses were bamboozled. That's not happening nearly as much this year. So far, this looks like a bit of a sea change rather than just one QB having a bit of a down year because he's changing tactics.

It isn't all about the coaching. Defenses have made changes. They're using those two-high shells better and better. They're doing it not just to Josh and to us, but to all the teams with great QBs. AFC teams in particular have had to understand that learning to play good defense against excellent QBs is going to be required to get to a Super Bowl. Look at Mahomes. His TD percentage is the lowest it's ever been. His yardage is on pace for his lowest since his second year starting when he only played 14 games. His YPA and AYPA are career lows so far. His QB rating is lowest since his rookie year when he threw 35 passes. Look at Burrow. Look at everyone. An awful lot of this about defenses stepping it up bigtime and forcing QBs, even the best of them, to play differently. They're working hard to take away the big plays and they're doing a damn good job.

That's one possibility. Otherwise, though, he could be signed. Basically, we just don't really know, either way.

Where are all the teams with the highly productive #3 WRs you folks are talking about? Beckham with the Ravens with 113 yards? Miami with Berrios with 179 yards? The Jets with Cobb at 20 yards? The Pats with DaVante Parker with 136 yards? The Browns with People's-Jones at 75 yards? The Steelers with Allen Robinson with 137? The Bengals with Tee Higgins with 149? I was actually pretty surprised there, expected that to be higher. The Jags with Zay Jones at 78? The Colts with Alec Pierce at 149? The Texans with Robert Woods at 227? The Titans with Chris Moore with 140? The Raiders with Hunter Renfrow at 59 yards? The Chiefs with Skyy Moore with 145? The Raiders with Hunter Renfrow with 59? The Broncos with Jerry Jeudy with 222? That's all of the high-powered AFC, folks!! Who stands out there beyond Bobby Trees with 227 and Jerry Jeudy with 222? Wanna throw in Berrios at 179? You're living in a fantasy universe where all the #3 receivers are these wildly productive creatures. When you add in the TEs and RBs beyond each team's top two receivers, there just aren't that many balls to go around. Particularly for a team making a move towards running two TEs so much.

What offensive issues is he getting a pass for? A lack of perfection? The inconsistency which every team in NFL history shares? Or is it the being in the top five in points and yards every year since 2020? Including this year? Is that the thing that's the responsibility of the head coach?

Um, no. wrong for many reasons. First, he's not a one-trick pony, the idea's dumb. He does a lot with deep and intermediate routes, with sideline routes, and with getting open when Allen extends plays. Second, this isn't an offense that wants to play dink and dunk, it's an offense that wants to be multi-faceted, and having a deep threat is useful in any offense except an offense that never throws deep. We are not an offense that never throws deep. They certainly want to be able to dink and dunk, and having a deep threat helps that by opening things up underneath on plays when they want to go there. Third, he's not a deep ball specialist. He catches quite a few more intermediate routes than deep ones.

Take a look at his passing location chart for this game. https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/charts/single/all/team/2023/week/tyrod-taylor/TAY764868 This is just the kind of thing we'd see with the Bills. Tons of short stuff. A bunch of longer stuff to the outside. And very little to the intermediate or deep middle. This predictable pattern made it easier for teams to defend him. He's a great person, and he gave his all to this team. But nobody should want him as a starter.