billsfan89

I think the Bills win by two possessions but I don't foresee a 3+ possession blowout. I think the Titans run a soft two deep defense which means the Bills are going to have to dink and dunk up the field and run the ball. Which along with the Titans run heavy offense will limit the amount of possessions in the game and make a blowout a bit harder. But I do think there is a level of "personal" hate in this game for the Bills after last years game where the Titans just completely out muscled the Bills. Similar to KC I think there is a feeling that the Bills want to be the bully in this situation and prove to themselves there is no team that can out physical them. I just don't see the game script leading to a running the score up situation.

Moss is the better back in my opinion but Singletary is not a bad complement. Good to have two young backs on rookie deals. Hard not to think the team is good enough at RB. Elite play at RB is going to cost cap or draft capital that the team needs to spend elsewhere.

Diggs has had 60 or more receiving yards in every single game this season. He also has double digit targets in 3 out of 5 games and in the two games where he didn't get 10 or more targets he got a healthy 8 in one and 5 in the other. Considering the game script has been blowouts most of the time that's a lot of involvement in the offense for Diggs. His pace for the season for just under 1,300 yards and 95 receptions on the season, pretty healthy.

Worry about that once the team is winning titles. This team has not even played in a Super Bowl let alone won one. Windows to win are often short. Just worry about this season. Don't get too ahead of yourself nothing is guaranteed.

It won't mean much in the grand scheme of things beyond the Bills trying to get a first round bye and home field. But it will be fun if the Bills and Tampa are both sitting on top of their conferences and they have a late season meeting.

As we know with the Bills when you are good you have to pony up to keep your own players. The Chargers should still have enough cap space to retain their players and go after a piece or two. They will be a power player in the AFC in the next few years.

The cap has many ways it can be manipulated with bonuses. The Saints always have one or two cuts that free up some space and then they just work the bonuses around. The Bills did similar things this past off-season. They got a lot of cap space by converting salary to bonuses. If Beasley is gone I hope Sanders is brought back and a high draft pick is poured into the position. I know Diggs is still there, Knox is a factor and Davis is young but they need to keep that position well stocked. Either way I don't really care about next season at the moment. Live in the now.

The offense is adjusting and not just running things back and just do the same thing. The league adjusts so adjust your offense before teams figure you out. Knox having a larger role, the running game and Sanders are being implemented into the offense and you kind of get the feeling that by mid-November the offense is going to have it all put together. The offense now has so many different ways it can go besides split them out four wide and have the WR's and Allen play pitch and catch. The team can run the ball more consistently and they have a tight end that can play well in the passing game. They are still playing very good offense but just working out the rough edges.

They also are on Murray's rookie deal for another couple of seasons so you really should try to take advantage of that. Ertz is a nice piece for the Cardinals to replace Maxx Williams who is out for the season. Williams didn't have eye popping numbers (16 catches 193 yards and a TD) but he was in a crowded passing attack still having an impact. Ertz should fit nicely in replacing that. It also comes at a fairly low cost. They gave up their 6th round pick from 2021 a corner and a 2022 5th round pick. Not really all that much for a quality player who fits in to replace an injured TE.

31-21 Buffalo. Titans let the Bills check down all the way using a soft two deep zone. Bills offense moves the ball well and the defense holds the Titans to 21.

That's another aspect I forgot about. Money was an issue but meddling was another factor. I really think that if you conducted a TBD group think tank of how the team should be run from 2005 to 2014 it would have gone better than it did, which is more so a statement on how bad things were run as opposed to saying anything positive about our ability to make decisions for an NFL team. The fans would have at least drafted Ngata and Mangold in 2006.

I like Davis to have an impact but I think the receivers and Knox eat the Titans lunch on check downs. I think getting Beasley and Knox specifically involved in making those 5-12 yard check down completions is going to be critical.

Dawson Knox, I don't think his stat line will be eye popping but he will have a nice line of 7 catches 75 yards and possibly a TD. I think they will be using Knox to wear out the Titans defense which will likely be playing a soft two deep zone like they did in the 2020 matchup. I think the Bills not only turn to a ground game a bit more but also throw designed short throws to Beasley and Knox. Beasley will have a good 6+ catches too but I think Knox being more physical will make it harder to "wear out" the receiving corps. I think that Knox being a complement to the offense as a tight end allows the team to allow him to get beat up a bit since they are less reliant on his talent throughout the game unlike KC who needs Kelce all game and can't go 4 wide consistently.

I hate to echo the "Ralph is cheap" sentiments because without Ralph the NFL would not be the same and the Bills would not be a team. Ralph was a pioneer for the AFL and held the team in Buffalo the rest of his life and helped oversee a lot of success in the late 80's through the late 90's. He deserves respect but by the mid 2000's I think the modern NFL had passed him by. He came from the old school 50's and 60's owners who ran teams like a business where dollars in and dollars out were the drivers of the organization. By the 1980's sports teams started to become wealthy people's vanity projects whose main return on investments came not from year to year profits but from selling the team. By the 2000's it really caught up to Ralph as he wasn't willing to invest in high 6 figure and 7 figure salaries for coaches, management and staff, invest in the practice facilities or pay out heavy bonuses to players to make the most out of the cap. Even OJ (whose word I take with a massive grain of salt) had said Ralph told him he wasn't going to spend big money on the team's talent. From 2005-2014 the salary cap was not an issue in Buffalo. I never recalled a year when the team ever was really up against the cap. Even in years where they got within 20 million of the cap (which is hardly up against it) they had plenty of fat and ways to add more space. But they would never shift over bonuses or spend the remaining space. So that puts the team at a competitive disadvantage. Then you have the disadvantage of low paid staffs and bad facilities (relative to the rest of the league) and bad general decision making by hiring guys like Marv and Jauron to run the team. Any organization facing all of those issues is going to struggle. The Bills needed modern NFL ownership to compete in the modern NFL. The Pegula's to their credit have provided that since they took over. As bad as some of the larger decisions in the Rex era were they still spent big on coaches, to the cap and were beginning to invest in the infrastructure of the team.

The Leap 2.0 was really important to closing out the game. It was only a 2 possession lead and there would have been about 9 minutes left in the game. By getting that first down it kept the close out drive alive instead of punting away with about 9 minutes left. Even if they didn't score on that drive and the leap just helped them chew up some more clock it was a big play.

As much credit as McBeane should get I also think Pegula as an owner for the Bills has facilitated the complete turnaround of not only the on field product but the organization. Pegula has not been afraid to spend to the cap and shell out the bonus money needed to get the most out of the teams cap space even in the Rex era they had a huge 2015 spending spree. The organization also looked to have not gone cheap on coaching staffs and off field infrastructure such as training staffs. They currently have an 18 million dollar practice facility that opened in 2019. Pegula also bought into McD an unproven coach and handed him and his chosen GM the keys to a longer term 3 year rebuilding plan. Ownership has been a huge component of the teams overall turnaround.

Watt has played in all 5 games but not registered a sack. But he has graded out well in advanced metrics so without watching him it is hard to say how much of an impact he is having outside of the stats. The Bills weren’t going to over pay for Watt and I am glad they didn’t.

NFL Slime Time is pretty clever…

When the NHL lost a season due to a lockout in 04/05 a lot of the veteran players who didn’t play overseas said the year of rest and taking care of their bodies helped to extend their careers and improve their performance in the years that followed.

Good and very detailed write up appreciate the effort. I am interested to see how the defense handles the physical receiving corps of Jones (who returned to practice this week) and AJ Brown while also managing to handle Henry on the ground. I am also interested to see if the Titans operate how they did last season defensively and how Josh and Daboll attack that. The Titans played a lot of two deep zone and it seemed to fluster Josh a lot. Hopefully they have a plan to attack that.

The offense in my opinion is benefitting from having Sanders in there as a true WR2. John Brown was great in 2019 but in 2020 he was just so banged up consistently. In the games where Brown was healthy last season the offense really rolled. Brown made big plays, Diggs was all over the place, Beasley carved people up down low and Mac and Davis played their roles. But when Brown was out better defenses had more success against the Bills. Knox's emergence, Spencer Brown on the o-line and kicking D.Williams inside and Zack Moss improvement have all made a positive impact and are all key too but I think Sanders on the field and off has added so much to the offense.

The only trades I can see happening are if there is an injury and the team wants to replace a key player. That's nice insurance to have in the coming few weeks. But I just don't see the Bills unloading talent when they have a roster that is a well oiled machine and runs on depth. I also don't see them going over the top to add talent (when there isn't an injury need) given that they are strapped for cap space and don't really have that one glaring need. The only trade I could maybe see that isn't injury related is if they want some depth at corner. But they seem to like Jackson and Neal so I am not sure if they feel they need to upgrade there. As I have said if there is an injury and they want some depth they might make a small end trade. But they just don't have any glaring need or one key piece missing or even a need for depth at the moment. First time as a fan I can say that, feels good.

I tend to agree with you but I would also argue that the Titans came out with a good defensive game plan last season and it flustered Josh. Hoping to see how the Bills counter that offensively. The Bills are the bar now which feels fantastic but sports can often be about matchups and the Titans present an interesting matchup for the Bills that I am interested to see how it plays out.

Let’s see how this team handles a ground and pound Titans team that has physical receivers. The Titans were a bad matchup last season hoping the defense is up to the task.