billsfan89

Bosa in 2024 with the Chargers played 66% of the teams snaps roughly in the mid 30's in terms of raw snap counts per game. Bosa managed to play 14 games last year. In week 1 Bosa played 35 snaps accounting for 66% of the teams snaps. So very heavy use similar to his last year in San Diego where he missed a few games. In week 2 Bosa played 26 snaps accounting for 55% of the teams defensive snaps. I think the Bills are going to have to try to keep Bosa much closer to his week 2 snap count and percentage if they want to keep him healthy. What worries me is that unless the game is a garbage time Q4 game like against the Jets the Bills don't have much at DE to rotate him out until Hoecht gets back from suspension. Groot is playing as heavy a snap count, AJE and Solomon rotate in but both guys are better suited in rotational roles. I would bite the bullet so to speak and play AJE more with Groot and have AJE hit a higher snap count even if he's less impactful than Bosa. When Hoecht gets back they can have Hoecht take most of Solomon's snaps and eat into Bosa's snaps too. But that's 4 games from now. Hopefully the Bills can just blowout the Fins and Bosa just gets pulled in the last quarter of the game and this is a non-issue.

I remembered thinking don't trade up you need to build a complete team around any QB you draft and if you have to take Lamar at pick 12 just take him and use all those other picks to grab some O-line and WR's for him. But then when they traded up I thought I was a "wrong Josh" guy. But then I looked at what I wrote and I seemed to like the pick and not mention anything about Rosen. I think I was worried about the accuracy issues but understood that the accuracy issues with Josh may have been overblown in college. It wouldn't have been terrible to have Lamar and merely get the second best QB in the draft and a top 2-4 QB in the league but I'm super glad we got Josh Allen. I guess my memory was faulty and I wasn't as off on Allen as I thought...

The Bills are just not going to be able to trade for a proven guy like Parsons. The Bills don't have the cap space to do it. The picks the Bills would be willing to part with but the Bills can't pay 40 million for a pass rusher. The Bills are going to have to draft D-line players and hope to find a hit or take on older injury prone or flawed vets like Bosa. Hopefully Bosa can stay healthy this year and the Bills get that "war daddy" pass rusher for this year while they develop the 3 D-line they drafted (Walker looks like he could be a complete stud if he stays healthy and builds out his lower body). Groot and Ed are very good and you need those D-line players. But the Bills outside of that brief time with Von in 2022 never had that one guy that defenses had to account for week in and week out. The Bills path to finding that is gonna be through the draft which is hard or through lower end free agency which means taking on injury risks.

Josh wasn't the only issue certainly. But he was the driver of a lot of turnovers from 2021 to 2023, he would just make a few throws a game where it was like what were you thinking? Then he would make a few "force it" throws too. I think Josh's maturation as a QB has helped him avoid the obvious bad throws and the scheme putting less pressure on Josh by developing a ground game and making things easier on him and protecting him better so there's less need to "force" the issue. I think if I had to pinpoint the issues of the turnovers in 2021-2023 I would say Josh was the primary but not only driver of them. He cleaned that up a lot in 2023 when Brady took over and in 2024 he vastly improved even further. Of course the RB's fumbling less and WR's and other players being better in their roles have helped. There's some variance in turnovers year to year that are luck based but largely if you are a smart well coached team with a good QB you are going to be in the top 10 in turnover percentage each year. Now some years you might be top 5 others you might be 10 because of the variance with luck. But coaching and QB play always kept the Pats well above average in turnover margin.

I actually thought I was a "wrong Josh" guy for years. I don't know why I remember liking Rosen in the draft process more than Josh (I actually liked Lamar with no trade up better than trading up for either) but my posts at the time weren't thinking "wrong Josh". I recently looked back at the initial thread of when Josh was drafted back in 2018 and I saw that I actually liked the pick at the time. I was concerned about his accuracy issues but thought he could work it out. I also liked the Bills staying put at 12 and drafting Lamar as I thought his ceiling was Eagles Mike Vick which is a good comp even if he has exceeded that a touch. I'm super glad to have Josh here, I hope we could at least get one Super Bowl with him here, because teams rarely get a good QB to come around let alone a great one...

I know turnovers has some variance with luck (DB's dropping passes, fumbles being recovered by your own team, and just some fluky bounces on special teams and other circumstances) but Josh has fixed a lot of his turnover issues and that's reflecting on the Bills positive turnover ratio.

I am nervous that Williams will get picked on by McDaniels but I also think that McD also knows how to hide LB's if needed by simplifying the game and reads for them. So overall I think Milano getting a week off and the "mini-bye" is fine. Williams can get the start Shaq and Buffalo Joe plus a PS call up will be there for depth.

I think there was real critiques of Beane to be had as a GM but if we have to go all the way back to Benjamin that's a stretch. I think in 2021 and 2022 Beane missed a big window to take advantage of the rookie deal Josh was still on. Von Miller in 2022 was obviously a big whiff but that was more so due to a rather freak injury as Von was really good the 11 or so games he played in 2022. But in 2020-2021 I remember the Bills bringing in a bunch of JAG to OK D-linemen on big contracts. Mario Addition and Butler types. Where the Bills could have probably just spend more on one or two really good players to complement the players they had as opposed to having 5-6 OK players rotating in and out. I also think the in ability to address the interior O-line was frustrating at the time. However, I would say the Bills since 2017 even if you wanna cherry pick post Josh and say since 2019 the Bills are a top 5 drafting team in the league (Eagles, Rams, Ravens, KC are maybe better not sure if you can find any other team that's consistently been drafting better in that time period) and they have done a good job in free agency of supplementing parts even as Josh's contracts have tightened the cap and they have had to get out from under veterans and take big cap hits.

ST unit looked rusty week 1 but so did almost every single other teams ST unit. I think Special Teams across the league is sloppy weeks 1 and 2 because there's so little practice time in the off-season and one less pre-season game.

Funky things happen in the NFL, its an away game too. I doubt that's gonna happen but there is going to be one "funky" loss on the schedule, happens to almost every team every year.

The Bills need to be able to have a conventional ground game. As great as Josh is this team plays in the elements esp in the playoffs and deep in December. This team has to be able to do bully ball. Dorsey's offense was as if this team had a dome and could play a spread offense. It put a lot on Josh and I think the best way to utilize Josh is to not ask him to do everything all the time. Just because he can do it all doesn't mean he should, if he has to do it all consistently it means the supporting pieces aren't doing enough.

The issue with KC longer term is going to be can they generate a pass rush without blitzing? Through 2 games thus far it seems like the only way they pressure the QB is by blitzing. I agree, that offensively they will probably be OK once Rice/Worth come back. Hollywood Brown and Kelce as complementary vets plus Worth/Rice are enough weapons to keep the offense competitive. But their formula relies on good ST and a very strong defense to keep them in games and allow Mahomes to make the plays late. If the defense is above average but not elite then the whole thing puts more pressure on the offense and without all their weapons they are short handed. I think they will beat up on the Giants and look just fine but if they go 0-3 then we can bring out the panic meter because that's a big hole for any team to come out of let alone a team that dropped one of their easiest games on the schedule and dropped a game to their division rival.

I think what is going to be key for the Bills in the early going up until the bye is to be 6-0. I know that a loss to NOLA or ATL is not a huge deal but NOLA is a team that at home you should "get fat" and pile up wins against. The Fins and Pats divisional games are always key and you have to take care of business with two home games there. ATL away is probably the one you think is possible to drop and not be a "big deal" away NFC game against an at least decent opponent. But I think the Bills if they want the one seed are going to have to go 13-4 at a minimum and possibly 14-3. I think you really are home heavy in the first 6 weeks and against opponents you "should" beat and going 6-0 is something that a team looking for their division early and the one seed are going to have to pile up the wins while you can...

I would also argue that if you did a redraft thus far Bernard would also go in round 2. The 2022 draft is setting up this current run of success. 2023-2024 draft class development this year is going to likely make or break the success of this season. If Kincaid can continue to have a nice bounce back, Torrence continues to be solid as a rock, and D. Williams plug in when needed on defense that class which also featured two trade downs to acquire more picks in the future will be a nice piece of business. Then in 2024 if Keon continues to develop, Davis plays like a solid role player on offense, Solomon plays like a solid role player on defense, and Cole stabilizes one of the safety spots that's a solid draft too (and you still have Grable and SVPG as depth along the O-line from that class). Stinks that they couldn't get mileage out of Carter or Ulo as even just role players, but every draft is gonna have misses. 2025 early returns aren't terrible. Mad Max being hurt to start the year is a bummer, but the rookie DT's have plugged in when needed and Strong has been a decent piece on defense as well. Plus Hawes has come in on offense and been a role player.

The D-line even without Ed should be able to handle the Fins bad and injured D-line. If this game isn't a similar domination to the Jets game in terms of the defensive line then that is a disappointment

Serious question, Why? I am not aware of any bad blood between Daboll and McD. Coordinators leave to get HC gigs all the time nothing shocking there. Coordinators also fail as head coaches and come back to be coordinators all the time too...

I think the lack of practice has eroded the beginning of the season. I think the first two weeks of the regular season are almost teams shaking off rust and getting into form. Except the games count. Less off-season and camp practices plus one less pre-season game leads to sloppier starts to the season. But by week 3 I think teams with 2 games under their belts are sharp and the impacts of less practice fade. Teams in the 2000's were so beat up by mid-season they basically didn't practice much.

I've maintained that if the NFL is going to do Thursday games they should find a way to do them only when the teams have a bye the week before. Add a second bye week to the schedule (which I think will help with player injuries). The opening week Thursday Game is fine as is because teams get the rest/prep not having the last pre-season game. I would then have the team that plays in Brazil on Friday play one of the teams that played on Thursday. It would be 6 and 7 days between games for both teams with the team that played in Brazil being the home team for the following Thursday game. Afterwards I wouldn't have TNF in weeks 3 and 4. Then you start bye weeks in week 4 and any team that plays a TNF game will have had a bye week before. Given that each team has two bye weeks this would actually lead to higher quality Thursday games while still having an actual full second bye week in the season. Byes go from Week 4 to Week 16. No byes weeks 1-3 and weeks 17-19. No Thursday games weeks 3/4/18/19. Of course the NFL would never do this largely because that would mean they would have to lose 4 Thursday games and actually care about the quality of the product....

This is one of those things where it is likely going to come down to internal information. On paper I just don't see them going with an unproven play caller in what is supposed to be a Super Bowl window. Joe Brady had been an OC for two seasons at the NFL level before taking over for Dorsey and that was a mid-season take over where they couldn't do much else to jumpstart things. Curry has never been a play caller at any level. Whereas let's say Daboll is available and interested in being OC do you go with a guy that's done it with Josh before or do you go with the unproven up and comer?

Ronald Curry, only been here since 2024 and never been a play caller at any level. If Brady leaves in 2026 I would suspect they would want an experienced OC

I can’t speak for everyone else but I was talking about next season if Brady takes a HC gig elsewhere. I would love to see Brady here for a long time he’s made the game so much easier for Josh. But if this offense hums along this year like it already has Brady is likely to get a HC job in 2026 and the Bills will be looking for an OC.

He was asked to be a run stuffer in their 3-4 defense. He was great at it and might have been out of position but as a DE he was better than an NT in that scheme. Dont get me wrong there was a reason they moved on but he was decent there

Seems like from what Vikings fans say he was solid, not spectacular but a consistent and durable starting caliber player.

Respectable blocker doesn’t mean Kincaid is a good blocker but he’s a willing blocker and not bad at it…

I wouldn't say Knox is disposable, what I like about Knox is that he adds physicality to the pass catchers something that the Bills don't have much of (many of the WR's esp Shakir run hard and to contact but Knox is a big strong dude plowing over people when he gets the ball) but Hawes adds a wrinkle to the offense that great teams add each year. Last year the Bills ran the 6th O-line player and it was confusing to teams because teams don't do that often. This year they added a quality blocking TE who can flex around as a FB too. Having 2 TE's in Hawes and Knox that can block well as well as Kincaid who is a respectable blocker and it is a tremendous amount of versatility.