Thurman#1

Those are all factors, especially all the defensive injuries this year, but the #1 factor is this: Mahomes and the Chiefs. The only other team to knock us out caught us when absolutely emotionally deadened by the Hamlin thing, Knox's brother's death, the supermarket shooting, and on and on. Mahomes and the Chiefs were fractionally better all three times, just barely eking past us.

Barring injury or regression, hell yeah!! He was still having a few problems early, but he got better and better and better. Against DeMarcus Lawrence, you just about didn't see Lawrence all game. I really noticed that.

Nonsense. Nonsense that they "traded up for mediocre defensive players". Guys in the last four years we've traded picks for on defense are: Elam, Benford in the 6th, Baylon Spector in the 7th. Those are two very good late picks. Elam sure isn't looking good so far, but that could easily turn around, and they traded a 4th rounder to get that pick. A 4th isn't nothing, but it's not like they gave up a pick on the first two days or something. When (relatively) healthy at the beginning of the year this defense was excellent. Nonsense that they neglected to give Josh Allen adequate weapons when they got him Stef Diggs, they used their 1st round pick on a weapon who shows every sign of being a terrific player, and they used a 2nd on Cook last year who was 6th in the league in yards from scrimmage, and not a distant 6th. He was 19 yards away from 4th place overall.These three aren't adequate weapons. They are far better than that. Could they have used more? Sure. But they had better weapons than the Chiefs.

It didn't matter because the injuries on that defense absolutely decimated them. Losing a couple of guys is par for the course. But having five or six of the original eleven starters out including probably four of the five or six best players on that defense was devastating. There isn't a unit in the league that wouldn't have been greatly affected by those kinds of losses.

This team was built extremely well. Without all the defensive injuries, IMO they beat the Chiefs. The injuries just killed them.

This is dumb. Guts isn't an issue. And the fact that you think you know what his ceiling is now only shows you don't know the difference between opinions and facts. This will be about making educated guesses at the future, with infinitely more knowledge of Tre's medical situation than you and I have and trying to fit a situation with dozens of moving parts and information that can never be complete into the teams's situation, which has millions of moving parts and can never be even anywhere close to complete. Is it possible they ask him to take a bit of a cut? Yeah. Does it have anything to do with guts? Nope.

So, someone needs to get better at what they do? Wow. This is really deep. And at the same time unbelievably simplistic. You should contact Stuart Smalley. You're good enough. You're smart enough. And doggone it, people like you.

Dude, I love your name and avatar. Thanks for posting this.

Translation: I don't like McDermott. I'm sure many people care what you feel about this.

Hall has it tougher. That doesn't mean he's better. He's faster but I'd take Cook through the middle for hard yards and Cook's got better moves as well. Hall is a very good player, but I take Cook, personally.

He's absolutely a #1 back. No question. They're likely to continue cycling through #2s. Wouldn't be surprised to see Ty Johnson here again.

They didn't neglect Josh by any measure. Both of the first two picks, Kincaid and Torrence, were directly aimed at making things easier for Josh, and both turned out to be great picks.

Yup. This.

It is indeed very simplistic. Like many things that are obviously correct. And I wasn't saying saying that winning the Super Bowl validates every single decision you've made, of course. I was saying that if you take a massive risk, make a decision to break one of the standard rules of football, and it doesn't clearly work out And don't trade up and give away major valuable picks for a non-QB is one of the standard draft rules. Break it and you had better be right. Whether they were right on that trade is at best questionable, but winning a Super Bowl after making that kind of a decision puts that decision beyond reasonable criticism. Taking that risk, ignoring the rule that had been proven again and again over time, didn't prevent you from reaching the ultimate goal. The Chiefs WON the Super Bowl. The Falcons did NOT. There's a massive difference there.

Oh, and it's generally accepted that the Julio Jones trade was a success. And that's questionable. There's a very legitimate argument that it was a failure. Julio is a terrific player, there can be no reasonable argument against that. But did they give up too much? In 2010, Atlanta went 13-3. They felt they were only a player or two away and made the Julio trade. The next year they went 10-6, despite Julio putting up more than 900 yards. The year after that, 13-3. The year after that, 4-12. That was followed by 6-10, 8-8 and finally the one year they made the Super Bowl but lost to the Patriots in Jones' sixth year. A lot of their problems in those years came down to a lack of good players ... players who might have been on the team if not for the Julio trade. If they win that Super Bowl, the argument's over. But they didn't. Lombardis justify just about any tactic. But they lost. Was the difference between Julio Jones and a replacement guy acquired after #27 or in a trade worth all they gave away? Questionable. Yeah, not agreeing with me makes plenty of sense a pretty fair number of times. But calling Beane "horrible" is disagreeing with anyone with a brain cell count in the triple digits or above. It's dumb.

If it tells you that, it's a clear sign that you shouldn't be handing out opinions on the internet Beane is by no means a horrible GM. Anyone who thinks so is to be pitied. He's traded up for Josh Allen, Shakir and Kincaid, among others. He's not perfect at this. Nobody is, absolutely nobody. But he's damn good.

No, we're not in win now mode. No more so than any other year. Just because some fans feel that way every year doesn't mean the Bills should. We should go into win now mode when Josh hits 36 or 37 years old. Oh, and saying we "need an elite WR to put us over the top" is absolutely and completely ridiculous. Where is the elite WR on KC this year? Or last year? The fact is most SB winners have either one or zero elite WRs. That's a fact. And more have zero than one The reasonable answer to this question is that it would depend on the price. If we get a terrific bargain, sure. But realistically, we're not going to get a terrific bargain. So, no. A small tradeup of some kind? Sure, go ahead. But we have got to come out of this draft with three or four good players. You don't manage that by trading away most of your best picks.

While I largely agree with everything here, when teams run two safeties deep, the middle is absolutely one of the places teams go to hit a weak spot. They try to exploit the seam between the two, as well as the sidelines. Having said that, you're dead right that teams have put huge amounts of effort into stopping Josh from throwing deep. As for your question about looking at the stats for deep right and deep left and so on, it's easy to look at that kind of stat with NextGenStats and you're right, some teams are weaker in some areas than others, as you'd expect. So many things might affect that, from QB habitual preference to having a stronger receiver on one side, but I'm sure that's exactly what you're pointing at here. Here's Josh's "QB Grid," as they call it. https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/charts/single/qb-grid/team/2023/week/josh-allen/ALL529264 And Mahomes' https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/charts/single/qb-grid/team/2023/week/patrick-mahomes/MAH401939 Mahomes' QB rating was worse, though this is again probably only between the hashes. Here's the page with all of the QB grids for quick comparison. https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/charts/list/qb-grid Oh, and Tyrod had bad numbers in the deep middle. But also the intermediate middle, which gets a lot more throws. That really did allow teams to allocate less resources to that large area and make things tougher elsewhere. Plus, Tyrod had this problem consistently throughout his career. Josh was much better to the deep middle in other years. He was excellent there in 2022, for example, according to the same QB grids. https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/charts/player/josh-allen/ALL529264/2022 Josh had a hard time with long balls this year. He overthrew a lot of them, where in some other years he was terrific.

On Wild Card weekend they went 1/2 on those. I also wonder about what is meant, precisely, by "middle." My guess is that some people mean between the numbers and others between the hashes. Maybe others attempt to divide the field into equal thirds. The guy in the article is probably referring to between the hashes. It's easier to quickly check that way. In week 3, Allen hit one that went 26 air yards and was in the middle of the field. (NextGenStats). https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/charts/single/pass/team/2023/3/josh-allen/ALL529264 In Week 5, he hit one that was 45 air yards in the middle third was completed. Week 10 21 yards in the middle third completed but not within the hashes. I also think this isn't really a fair comparison without looking deeper. If one guy threw 20 passes to the deep middle, 80% of which were between 20 and 25 yards long, and another guy threw 20 passes to the deep middle, 80% of which were over 40 yards, the fact that the first guy was more accurate than the second doesn't mean he's a better thrower to the deep middle. It just means he threw passes that were easier to complete than the 2nd guy did. It's an interesting stat. Worth a further look, probably, but I don't have more time to do that.

So, where are you getting those stats? I'd love to see week by week data. In any case, there are many causes. It's not one thing, it's many working together. But a lot of it is that Josh has a bit harder time with short throws than with longer ones, and that he sometimes puts mustard on balls that are short, making it really hard to handle. And mustard from Josh is hotter than just about any other in the league. More short throws under Brady than under Dorsey. That's not all, though. Receivers certainly have a part in it. Oh, and take a look at your math. It's a small difference, but 21 drops in 229 passes is 9.17%. I assume you meant in-season drops, right? That's 229 attempts. If you were including the playoffs, it would be 69 more throws. So, not 10.1%. Instead 9.17%. Not that that's a great figure either, but correct figures are more useful in understanding the world.

I'd add in DT. Right now DT looks like Ed Oliver, Kameron Cline and Eli Ankou next year.

The Atlantic? I didn't know they did sports reporting I don't think that's a given. Certainly very possible, though. If his stats hadn't dropped this year, probably. But I think there is a much wider range of possible outcomes here than people are predicting. The question is how much of his statistical and productive drop is on him in not getting open and how much on the offense for using him as a clear-out guy, a blocker or a 3rd or 4th look on plays.

Yup. But it's also four 1sts and two 2nds in two years total. It's more that they accumulated great picks than that they beat the odds on how the picks performed. Hutchinson and Williams appear to be future mainstays, though at #2 and #8, it's not a big surprise.

True, but considering LaPorta had 918 snaps and Kincaid 699, their production is closer than it first appears.

You're a lot likelier to get a great draft haul when your first four picks are #12, #18, #34 and #45 as the Lions did. The Lions fourth pick was #45. The Bills are likely to have only one pick that high this year. Their second pick will be #60. And their fourth pick (since they traded away their 3rd rounder for Rasul Douglas, but will likely get a 3rd round comp pick for losing Tremaine Edmunds) will likely be #128 or very close depending on how many comp picks are given out in the 3rd. #128 is a lot less likely to get you a starter for your 4th round pick than #45 as the Lions had. To sum up, the Lions first four picks last year were #12, #18, #34 and #45. The Bills first four picks this year are #28, #60, about #99 and about #128. The Lions did a great job acquiring picks. I wish the Bills would start one of those conveyor belts of picks like the Pats used to use, where they'd trade a 4th rounder for next year's 3rd, then the next year trade that one for a next year's 2nd and so on. That will start getting you better chances at better players.