thurst44

Well, at least it hasn't cost us a game... oh... oh wait!

I said "not that far off" for Pitt and gave specific parameters (ifs). I do not think they are top 50 all-time. I'm just saying it's not a ludicrous notion that it could be. They have an insane amount of talent on defense and if it all. My opinon on the Dolphins D was pretty clear, but to be clearer, they are arguably not even top 10 this year. However, they were among the tops yardage-wise last year (pretty sure they were one when we laid a 56-spot on them).

Well, they would pretty much have to in order to be a top 50 all-time defense. Based on the first two games, I'd argue our D could be dominant... a far cry from top 50 ;).

He might not be that far off with Pittsburgh, but it's a long shot based on Highsmith and players in the secondary beyond Fitzpatrick coming into their own. Dolphins D is a solid D for this year, but poster seems to be basing it on one element, its secondary and arguably they don't even have the best that in the league.

That he was excellent last year means SOMETHING this year as it means that he has played well with this group in the past and may revert to form. I'm not saying I entirely disagree as he's been the weakest part of the line from my (admittedly amateur) vantage too, but I'd contend it's too soon, partially b/c of reasons in the post you are responding to, but... While Spencer Brown is likely not ready at this point (although he has looked ahead of schedule in a very small sample), it is much more likely he is indeed being groomed as Williams' replacement at RT to be a bookend with Dawkins for years. Dawkins looked much better this week and he's signed through 2024. Dawkins is just 27 and most experts opine he's an above-average LT. It's much more likely Brown is there to eventually replace the older tackle with the shorter contract.

I'd argue it takes a little more nuance to understand that other teams also have a lot of these flaws and "sloppy moments" too as have many teams that have won the Super Bowl. Only one out of 32 teams can win the Super Bowl. Sometimes you have to enjoy the wins when they come. I'll admit, after 40 years of watching this team, I don't get some people's attitude of being miserable after a 35-0 win. I don't get multiple fans wishing we could cut the defensive captain after two defensive clinics where we allowed the second fewest yards in the NFL b/c he left early with cramps. It doesn't make me any less of a fan. Nor do I think that you are any less of a fan. I don't think even the OP was saying all negative fans are not fans or bandwagon fans. He (or she) was just exhausted by trying to enjoy the game and figuring fellow fans would be excited. Negativity can be exhausting. I'll admit that I don't get the negative ("realist") fan mentality, to not be able to enjoy a win. However, that is your right. But what "we're seeing" is just as valuable as "what you're seeing." I saw Epenesa, Rousseau, Singletary, Moss (save one fumble), White, Wallace, Hyde, Poyer, Oliver, Edmunds (when in), Milano, Taron Johnson and others making great plays. I see that there is positive in that the defense is playing elite, and the run game looks better (currently 6th in league), so if Josh Allen gets back to being 2020 Josh Allen (which seems likely), this team could be something special. They might turn out not to be. But I'm definitely going to enjoy a 35-0 win.

I mean, really! How is anyone's first thought after a 35-0 win to come on the fansite to come at the team's defensive captain?!?!?!?! And some of the best counterpoints here have had "well, he's not a top 5 mlb" or "we can get out of his contract" equivocation. You know who does think he's a top 5 mlb? His peers. Also, many coaches who voted in a recent survey. So, maybe, maybe not, but this seems a very strange subject to come to after a game where the defense (that he leads... captain is not just an honorary title) dominated. Oh, by the way... Darius Leonard's team? 0-2, and we knocked them out of the playoffs last year. I'm not arguing Edmunds is better--at this point in their career, that would be foolish. Just making the point that maybe as fans we should be a little less ridiculous. If you are going to be miserable after a 35-0 win on the road, what is your fandom doing for you or to you? Should we have dropped Josh Allen or not signed him b/c he's "not Pat Mahomes" at this juncture?

I'm not "legitamitely concerned" about Allen b/c he has proven he's a great QB in the league so I'll grant him a slow start.

Personally, at 4:30, I will be reading this site feverishly or closing it for 7 days.

Or maybe the offensive line had a bad game and plays better the week they pley the Chefs or Bucs. Or maybe they improve. I've mentioned this before, but we only have to look back at our team three years to find a six quarter start where the defense could not stop anyone on any drive and were by far the worst defense by any metric over that 6 qtr stretch. The remaining 58 quarters of football that season, they had the best defense in football (at least going by yardage) and wound up third overall. I'm wary of the phrase "[Team X] has no answer for [y]" because having watched football for so many years, it's clear that a team can look terrible in one aspect one week and better the next week against a team that is better at exposing that very aspect we're talking about. No team that has lost once in a 17-game season has EVER won the Super Bowl. We're doomed!

Fair enough (i did look back and notice that and the "oh my god" and "yikes"), but "bro" is another level of condescending douchebaggery. Also, how was his exactly "calm." It was obnoxiously lashing out at a team of whom he's supposedly a fan. When someone attacks the team in an unbelievably dumb fashion, OK, I might say "oh my god" or "yikes" and it's not "bursting a blood vessel" Most importantly, I was actually at least responding with an argument. He just was dismissive without offering any facts in his original post or response... just obnoxious, trollish negativity. I at least responded with examples and not BBFS nonsense. But go after the guy who's defending our team. They also lost to the then winless Jets with the season on the line and were lucky it did not knock them out of the playoffs--yet they then won in the playoffs and played the Chiefs well.

Oh, lay off with the condescending nonsense. You relax, "bro" I'm always amazed at people who will write something that's easily read as a rant and ridiculously hyperbolic and when someone responds, well, that person is unhinged. You wrote on a public board, something absolutely ridiculous, over-the-top and easy to counter and I did. calmly, I'm fine. You worry about your Cassandra self if you are going to rip a team apart after a close loss to a playoff team. The idea that "no SB team has a loss like this" is ludicrous. Arguably, every team but the 1972 Dolphins did. And you say that the other poster "watched a different game."

In 2018, the Bills defense gave up somewhere around 70 pts and the most yards by far over the first 6 quarters of the season. For the rest of the season, they had the fewest yards allowed (and wound up a close third overall)... I doubt that it was just that Vontae was that bad. Things can change in a hurry from game to game and the offensive line did not look like that last year and it was almost the same guys, so maybe it was just one bad game against possibly the best front 7 in football. Get that punt off, or run Josh up the middle on the 4th & 1, and we might be having a very different conversation today. But, ifs, buts, etc. It was a bad game but far from a hopeless game.

Oh my god, a Super Bowl team ACTUALLY had a much worse game--I know it's hard to remember because it was a whole year ago, in week 1 even, and they got blown out. The KC Chiefs were 2-4 over a stretch of games that looked a lot like this in 2019. Even the friggin' 1985 Bears had a "game like this" against Miami. We also did not get "beat bad in all aspects." Najee Harris had one long run and was otherwise completely bottled up. Singletary looked very good. It was a close game that turned on a blocked punt. A fluke? It's not like we were 3-13 and turned it suddenly around last year... we've been building a great team for years and were coming off a 10-6 playoff season. Yikes

He had 969 all purpose yards in his rookie season and even 956 total yards last year when the run game was a total mess so I don't think 1000 would be that surprising.

Yeah, it has us up against the Houston Texans, with them as a higher-rated seed which is on the surface, patently absurd. Has anyone ever met a Texans fan? However, it's the 4th biggest city in the country, so there are probably lots of people who put it reflexively on their Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook pages that they are a Texans fan in their bio without truly caring. However, being a Bills fan runs in the blood. Fox Sports could have at least matched us up with a different 3 seed as they know we are a much more frenzied and vocal fanbase (as that very Tweet makes clear) and making us an underdog to an expansion team that hasn't really found a huge footing yet is a bit insulting. Ultimately, it won't matter, because as a poster said upthread, we always wind up winning or placing in these things. It's a dumb metric though. For one things, in onboarding/unboxing, Twitter is more likely to recommend you either local teams or someone like the Dallas Cowboys or Green Bay Packers and passive fans will just say "sure". Also, it hardly measures the intensity of the fandom. I'm pretty positive if they measured it using an algorithm that took into account mentions or length of threads when teams are being talked about, we'd be higher up on the list. Just look what happens anytime anyone says a slightly bad thing about us on Twitter. Prognosticators will often apologize in advance or joke "Bills Mafia, don't come after me" when they say something slightly negative about our team. For a few years, I ran the content at a relatively short-lived social media site where you could "check-in" to things, mostly TV, and discuss them but since live sports have become one of the few major drivers of appointment television, NFL teams were a major component. It would always surprise me and depress me a bit how little chatter and how few check-ins there were on the Bills page and I would try to do what I could to juice conversation to no avail. However, I knew it had nothing to do with the ferocity of our fanbase (even if at the time we were over a decade into the drought), but had more to do with the quirks of the medium.

353 miles by the Gmaps suggested route, 5 hrs 54 mins. (Belleville, NJ).

Not that levels of suckitude really matter, but I don't think it is safe to say that. Geno 41 g, 31 st, 29/36, 57.7 completion, EJ 30 g, 18 st, 20/16, 58.1 completion. EJ might just have been wise enough to know it was time to hang it up sooner and take an announcer role (which he's really not bad at from the little i've heard). The real mistake was as the poster you're responding to said, Buddy putting himself in the situation where they had to take a QB in the worst possible QB year. Picking EJ or Geno would have been the same wrong move anyway, Geno was more of a trainwreck where EJ was just meh.

And it's a double-win, b/c if they are big contributors, that's probably not a great sign for the Raiders. I know unless something goes wrong with this team, the Raiders are not a worry to us, but I've never much cared for them nor for Gruden.

The CB depth thing seems an overreaction to me. White and T. Johnson did not play. Wallace looked excellent. Neal and Jackson had rough games, but are you really ready to replace them--perhaps our best special teamer who has looked solid in multiple seasons and a guy who looked great last season b/c of one pre-season game. It's a concern--maybe. A serious problem? That seems a stretch.

Oh, now I see... you're on a quest against Beane. You're not necessarily wrong about the DL, but maybe we should not completely judge based on the weirdest season in NFL history. I say this as someone who never liked the Butler signing particularly, was meh about Addison (seemed safe and consistent enough) and thought Jefferson was intriguing (he was the one who showed up least on rewatches.

You used stats to attempt to show Addison was better than Houston (there's no other way to read your post) and neglected to put Addison's next to them--maybe you knew they were similar, maybe you didn't. But don't lash out at me when I called you on it. I'd agree that Houston is the better player overall, and definitely so in his prime. At this point in their career, not quite as much. I'm not lobbying for either player on this team (as I said in my post). It's just that we have a tendency to go after whipping boys in a dishonest manner and it gets tiring eventually. Mario was mediocre last year. You're not going to get any argument from me, and I'm fine if they cut him. I don't want Houston at this point in his career either based on cost/benefit. Just don't use bogus "facts" that are easily countered as proof of how much better one player is than the other. If you want to go by stats from the last 4 years, as you did, well, then the 4 years of Addison before we signed him are close to the same as Houston--Addison had more sacks, Houston more tackles. I did not realize we were going by the measurable "People that know football know..."

Mario Addison's last 4 years before he got to Buffalo: 9 sacks 9.5 sacks 11.0 sacks 9.5 sacks I'm not saying Addison is on the same level, but those stats might not be the best way to prove Houston is better. I'd be fine with Addison either staying or going (last year could be fluke, leadership), but at this point I'd prefer to see Hughes, Epenesa, Rousseau, Basham, Obada.

With signings like Lamp, Hart (ew), Adams, Marquel Lee, keeping Devey, A. Smith, etc., it felt a bit like stocking up, hoping those expanded PS rules would remain in place. Beane is probably smiling from ear to ear.

Can anyone?