Thurman#1

Wait, IronMaidenBills is done with making excuses for this team? Wow, call the media. Oh, not only that, but IronMaidenBills refuses to believe otherwise? Holy Moses, alert Schefty. Nobody but you cares what you think. We care what the Bills should do. And as of right now, they should look at your recommendations and run the other way. And your final question there is weak weak sauce. You ask what will their excuse be when Beane fails to win the Super Bowl. That's just stupid. It's just as weak as someone asking you what your excuse will be when we win a Super Bowl. How long does Beane have to fail before I put him in the hot seat? Another stupid question. I don't put him in the hot seat. Nor do you. And so far he hasn't failed. He and McDermott took a team that had missed out on the playoffs for an eon and got them in five out of six years. A team that had crested at mediocre for nearly two decades and they've been competitive for a Super Bowl for three consecutive years. That's not failure. Disappointing? Yeah. Failure? No. It's just not. There may come a point. If it happens, it's likely to be quite a while, barring some huge collapse of some kind.

Brandon Beane is on the hot seat? Good lord, dude. No, he's not. Yeah, he's under some pressure, as is every NFL GM. On the hot seat? Only in your mind. And no, you don't "have to" take the kind of big swing that will seriously handicap your ability to handle things in future years. They took their big swing last year with Von Miller. Clearly you define "sitting on his hands," as not doing exactly what some guy on the internet named IronMaidenBills demands you do. Here's a hint, though: nobody else defines "sitting on his hands" that way. He's not sitting on his hands. He's just not doing what you want him to do. Some fans want to take a big swing every year. That's not something you have to do, especially if your team is good enough to seriously compete right now. And this team is. It's not a mistake that Vegas has us as in the top two to win the AFC and the top three to win the SB.

"We proved that we couldn't outscore Cincy"? No. They didn't prove that at all. We proved that we couldn't outscore Cincy on a day when the whole team, including Josh Allen, played their absolute worst. We scored 10 points. Ten points. That wasn't because the roster wasn't good enough. They had a crappy day. We didn't have another game all year under 17 points, and the only two other games under 24 points were division opponents who know us really well, the first Jets game and the Miami game when it was 126 degrees on the field.

Really? You're citing Crowder as an example, a comparison for Allen? Ridiculous. Crowder's last four years before coming to the Bills: 2018 9 games played 2019 16 games 2020 12 games 2021 12 games David Allen's four years in the league: 2019 16 games 2020 16 games 2021 17 games 2022 4 games Yeah, great example there. If it weren't for the fact that their histories and play times are vastly different, you could almost say that they were similar. They clearly aren't. But you could almost say they were if you didn't mind being quite wrong.

Since Allen came into his own, 4-3. Pretty good, though certainly we all wish it was better. So, 55-21 regular season record building off a rebuild, and 4-3 in the playoffs in the last three years. Among the best. Again, wish it was a bit better, but still quite good.

Yes, we made the playoffs with Preston Brown at MLB. We went 9-7. That doesn't mean we played defense tremendously well. We were the 26th ranked defense, 18th in scoring allowed. They weren't awful by any means. They were better than the offense, but still not all that good.

Sorry, man, doesn't make sense. At all. We DID fight Mike Tyson in his prime. We fought the team that beat the Bengals in the Super Bowl, the Mike Tyson of the NFL last year, the Chiefs. And we kicked ... their ... ass. And as for the Bengals "being well on their way to blowing us out" in the real season game ... again, sorry, that's utter crap. They were ahead by four. In the first quarter. You thinking that is "being well on their way to blowing us out" says a great deal more about what you are desperate to show than it does about reality. Complete crap. The first shovelful is that you say the Bengals were "driving with ease again." That's ridiculous. They had had two plays on that second drive. Two plays doesn't mean squat. They were at midfield, having started at the 35. They might have had a successful drive. Equally, though, they might not. Two plays isn't "driving with ease again." It's maybe at best having successfully started a drive. The second shovelful is even thinking that they were "well on their way to blowing us out," as you said. By that definition, the Browns were "well on their way to blowing us out." What happened? We won. Patriots were also ahead of us 7-3. What happened? We won. Bears were also ahead by 7 and then by 4 and moving the ball easily. What happened? We won. And in five other games this year we were behind but came back. Sorry, but this is just dumb. Being behind by four in the first quarter with the other team at midfield isn't in any way a giant probability of "blowing us out." Your hunger to pretend it's so doesn't make it so. That early, the probability of a win for Cincy is probably around 55 -60% Unlike the playoff game, we were still very much in it and the offense looked solid. In the playoff game, our first drive was a three-and-out. Second drive? A three-and-out. In the canceled game, our first drive was eleven plays long, going from the Buffalo 25 to the Cincy 7. Two totally different starts, despite your clear eagerness to pretend the two games looked alike.

Or not.

Yes, absolutely. Guys like Fletcher Cox, Chris Jones, Quinnen Williams, Jeffery Simmons and Dexter Lawrence. It appears likely that two or three DTs are going to get contracts somewhere in the neighborhood of $25M next offseason. And there's a reason for that. They're worth it for the havoc they cause. Hargrave got $21M/ year. He's worth it too. Guys like that give coaches sleepless nights.

They did drop off a bit near there when Von Miller was inured in game 8, the first game after the break. They never looked to have nearly as effective a pass rush after that. But the team overalll played well the last half of the season, especially considering all the injuries on defense. Most of the season was after the bye week. Ten games, during which they went 8-2. They were much much worse in the Bengals game than they'd been all season. Ten points, they scored there for Pete's sake. Ten points and 325. Their next worst scoring total was 17, and beyond that 19 in the 120 degrees on the sidelines in Miami game. And it's not like Cincy was a sensational defense. They ranked 16th for the year. They're good, not great. We just played awful in They went 8-2 and won one playoff game. He's right. The dropoff (beyond the effects of the loss of Miller) didn't happen there. It happened in the Cincinnati game.

Yeah, that's the way it looked to me, even as the game was going on. Sure, the coaches weren't without blame. And yeah, the defensive injuries hurt a ton. But the players just didn't play well enough. Even Allen. As you say, there were a few exceptions. But not many.

Nonsense. We're every bit as good of a roster. And that's not an excuse. It's blaming themselves. That's the opposite of an excuse. Taiwan is simply saying what a number of players said that day, that they had an awful game. That it seemed they just couldn't play their best, that they ran out of gas. None of them said that was OK or acceptable. But a bunch said that's what happened. Taiwan clearly agrees in the Dunne article. After the game, we heard this: --------------- "It was emotionally draining for obvious reasons, you guys all saw that," OL Rodger Saffold said. "I just kind of feel like we were tired. Guys were exhausted during the week and our coaches did the best they could to try to modify the week to get us back to stuff. But it was just uncharacteristic things that were kind of happening. So, I have to kind of put that into a factor, not as an excuse. This team has been fighting for so long and fighting through all this adversity, you run out of gas at some point." ---------------- "Guys just continued to fight and fight and a lot of it motivated us and just at the end we just ran out of gas," Hyde said. ---------------- While not pointing to it as an excuse for the playoff defeat, WR Isaiah McKenzie, TE Dawson Knox and OL Rodger Saffold said the emotional toll of the season caught up with them. When Allen was posed with his assessment on his teammates' point of view, he concurred with them. "I can agree with that statement. I don't know for me personally. But, again, you gotta play your best against really good teams, and we didn't yesterday," Allen said. It clearly said that there is more behind a paywall. In what was there, it looked like Dunne was the one asking for a philosophy change, not Taiwan. So I'm with you that it was a bit frustrating getting less than what was teased. That's the modern world, though.

Holcomb was hired before Frazier came to them and told them about this On the 28th, they said Frazier had come to the team and discussed his feelings on stepping away "last week." Holcomb was hired on Feb. 8th. But yeah, they're dealing with this with the folks who are already on the staff.

Possible, I guess, but I doubt it myself. Most have not really noticed how few passes across the middle we've dealt with for so long, and how important that has been as a key to success. That's very likely to not look as good this year. If we pick a 1st round MLB, maybe things won't be too much worse there, but we have several needs that could be addressed in the first. Several of them aren't going to be addressed. You're talking my language here. Preach on!!

I'm guessing we keep Oliver, myself. But certainly he might go. I think we're also more likely than many think to grab at least one DT in the early to mid-rounds. And yeah, I'm all in on extending Da'Quan.

So, you have a guess, and that makes the pick unacceptable? That's not really how it works. Way way too early to know how that pick will turn out. I didn't like it. But as usual we'll have to wait and see.

You're saying that we won't draft a receiver early and the reason is that Beane thinks that Gabe Davis is a #2. Well, assuming that you're absolutely right that Beane thinks Davis is a #2 (he is, his stats and efficiency show it clearly) that in no way proves that they wouldn't try to strengthen their WR group by drafting another guy early who would be good enough also to be a #2. The evidence you present simply doesn't back up your conclusions there. "Those looking for a receiver early on in the draft will be disappointed," you say, but the only evidence you present that backs that up logically is your own personal belief that Beane sees Davis as a #2 and the fact that we have cap concerns. That's spectacularly weak evidence that we won't draft a receiver early. "Those wanting olinemen in Round 1 or 2 are going to be happy because I believe this is the direction," ... dude, seriously? We will be happy because it's your opinion? Because you have opinions, with no further evidence that supports your opinions with any real strength, you are convinced that you know what's going to happen? Jeez. Maybe. Maybe not. But signing McGovern and Spencer Brown recovering his health easily could.

I'm willing to believe that you would be amazed about it.

"Worrying about comp picks is the new worrying about the salary cap," you say? Fair enough. Both of them matter a lot. Teams that handle each of them better have an advantage over teams that don't. If we get a pick for Tremaine, it'll be a third-rounder. That matters a lot. As for having to replace Harris anyway, no, some FAs do not count against the comp pick formula. People who were cut, for instance, or RFAs, or people signed after a certain date. Harris, a UFA, does matter, but how much is as yet very unclear. My guess is that he's going to be a signing for much less than the $7.1M AAV that has been mentioned, and that the number of FAs lost and gained is where he'll make an impact.

No. Nobody can confirm what's completely unclear at this point. It's way too early to know how many we'll lose or how many we will gain. It may have slightly increased the odds we don't get the pick, but even that is way too early to say for sure.

I'm with him that there's no great need at CB, though I wouldn't be surprised at a mid- to late-round pick. We have a serious need at DL, though. We need pass-rushing DE and DT to replace Jordan Phillips and get ready for the loss of Tim Settle next year (I expect), and if you're one of those that doesn't want Oliver back to replace him as well. We don't need a justification to go defense early. It would make perfect sense.

Four years, four years and one year. But I hear you. Why didn't Chicago try harder to keep him? Same with L.A. It may not be mental, effort or both. But the last two years two teams have easily let him go, and IMO it's probably not a coincidence that he managed 410 yards and 339 yards respectively those two years.

Yeah, if you don't have a clue, I guess you might look at it that way. Even the clueless might be hard-pressed to come up with something that obviously wrong. The guy's last five contracts before his new deal were each one year deals, for $805K, $895K, $1.187M, $1.212M and $3.5M. Anyone thinking he wasn't undervalued isn't worth paying attention to.

Jeez, they're predicting him that high? $7.1? That's crazy, IMO. He's a good back, but not nearly that good. I guess it's somewhere between $2.5 and $4M, hopefully more towards the lower regions of that range. If it's more than $4M, I'd be a bit disappointed.

OBJ is asking for a long-term contract at $20M per year (though he's now backing away from that a bit). He probably won't get it, but unless you want to wait and hope he slowly comes down, you don't get him without paying a lot. Hopkins' base salary this year is $19M Easy to say you want them but wouldn't break the bank for them. How would you work getting them without breaking the bank? Many here would say, "Just rejigger the contract so they don't cost much this year," but that would mean we'd be back in the same situation next year, only worse, again stuck with very little cap space and people screaming for impact FAs. I think we still have a distant shot at OBJ if he simmers in free agency purgatory for a few months without getting any great offers. But IMO if it happens soon, it will be because a team has cracked and given him too much.