billsfan89

All Hawes needs to be is the elite blocker he was drafted to be and a competent passer (just make the easy catches) but that catch he made to set up the TD to get it to 40-38 was a really strong catch. Josh at times has to be Superman but the players around him do make plays it’s not all Josh out there

Last year Josh took that last step up he really needed to take when making pre-snap adjustments and truly controlling the game as a QB. This year he is only refining his game. It's a sight to see...

Funny how McDermott gets no credit for wins but all the credit for losses... You guys really are just haters at this point. There's critiques of McD but when a team keeps battling after being down a lot and getting socked in the mouth often that's a sign that a good coach has kept the team mentally tough...

This is common across the league since 2020. Week 1 has had a lot of funky upsets that by the end of the season we look back on and it makes no sense. Since the Shortened preseason and the lowering of offseason activities teams simply don’t have a lot of reps together by the time week 1 starts. Teams are also very conservative with injuries in camp and preseason (as they should be) so anyone with anything more than a minor injury who misses a week or two in late July or August is missing a high percentage of reps. So you just have a bunch of guys on both teams who are rusty and lacking chemistry. It’s why I don’t put too much stock in week 1 and slightly less stock in week 2 (week 2 some rust still remains). Once you get to week 3 then it’s full tilt. It was also a revenge game for the Ravens they lost here in the playoffs in a game they probably feel like they should have won. The Ravens have an elite offense and they were motivated and were gonna put up at least 28-32 points

Jets are also a physical offensive team. Their offensive line is good, Fields can run the ball, their RB duo is good, and Wilson can make plays on the outside too. Their defense might not be very good but I think their defense is better than they showed against the Steelers. I think it will be a close game late. The Jets in NJ are not an easy out at all.

It's not all on the safeties, the defense as a whole was having issues, they just made the clutch plays when it mattered to give the Bills a chance to win, but this very easily could have been a much worse narrative for the defense (and it is already a bad narrative even with a win) as a whole because bad safety play alone doesn't get you to give up 40 points.

Peppers isn't that good in my opinion for what the Bills need. He's an in the box safety where the Bills probably need someone with more range in coverage. If he was that much of a good safety the Pats wouldn't have let him go (if he was a bad scheme fit they would have found a trade partner that would have at least swapped late round picks to get him his cap number and salary was super tradeable) or he would have been signed once he cleared waivers. Not saying he's bad but the scheme fit and talent may not line up to him being that much of an insurance policy. I think you go trade at or near the deadline if safety play continues to be an issue.

Hamlin is the best internal option and I think if they gotta go with him it means Cole is playing really bad and someone whose just a lower end competent starter is going to be a huge improvement. At that point a trade will make the most sense. Rapp is much more proven, not only was he the Bills starter last year for 14 games but he started 4 games in 2023 for the Bills. He also was a starter for 48 games with the Rams his first 4 years to start his career. He seemed banged up in camp and guys who are banged up in camp and miss a lot of reps often times need a game to shake off the rust. Give Cole another month and see where he is at, not every team is the Ravens in week 1...

I'm personally going to stay the course on safety for a few more weeks. Week 1 is always funky in the new off-season with very little team activities and 3 pre-season games (also even reduced training camp). Now you have a funky week 1 against one of the best offenses in the league super motivated. The results weren't good even on Rapp. But I think Cole needs to get a feel for the game and I'm willing to give him a few more weeks. Spencer Brown was completely awful in 2022 (after a decent but up and down rookie season) and started out 2023 looking rough. But he picked it up and by the end of the year was a top 10 RT in the league. Guys sometimes need a little room to grow. Put some tape out there and fix their mistakes. Now if this is week 6 and the safety play still looks rough then they gotta go make a move likely internal and external via trade. But give Cole a few more weeks see where he is at. Rapp I think will be fine longer term probably more so shaking the rust off.

I thought it was blocked honestly, in the most awkward and awful way to lose, but no Bills win!

It just felt like the Bills were getting punched twice and only punching back once. But they made a series of haymakers to close out the game. This is a big thing for the mentality of the team

One of the games of year most likely and the Bills escaped with a never say die win. What a night, I thought this game was a loss when Josh threw the pick (that got called back on replay) but they were able to pull this out 1-0 baby!

McD in the regular season is usually pretty good at making adjustments when the defense is getting gashed but the Ravens are one of the best offenses in the league so it’s not gonna be easy

The defense got smacked and the offense didn’t respond enough but at the end of the half they made some plays to keep themselves in the game. You just need to give yourself a chance when you are on your heels and they did that

Can’t saw McD wasn’t being aggressive by letting Josh Rip it and get three points for some momentum and cut it to a one score game!

He was pretty good at age 40 last year, he was 6 for 6 and had a 57 yarder. I don't think this is a bad move either.

This is very common for new stadiums. They tend to sell the usual stuff like the chairs, piece of the field, piece of the goal posts, and some other items. I don't think they will sell the troths...

I noticed he got burnt on one deep bomb, other than that I didn't notice him too much, probably would have to have some sort of detailed breakdown to see how he really did. Either way he needed a change of scenery...

I feel like the Bills have actually handled Lamar mostly well. They have played the Ravens 5 times since 2019 (Lamar's first MVP season). In 2019 when Lamar was burning through the league on his MVP year the Bills held the Ravens to a somewhat modest 24 points. Had Josh been in his 2020 and beyond form a win would have been possible but the Bills were only able to score 17 points. 2020 playoffs that game was the insane wind game along with Lamar getting hurt in game. The Ravens only scored 3 points. 2022 a regular season matchup the Bills held the Ravens to 20 points in a 23-20 win. 2024 regular season Bills got ***** up by the Ravens and got 35 points hung on them. 2024 playoffs Ravens hung 25 on the Bills, they moved the ball consistently but they also turned the ball over and missed in key moments. I think 3 out of 5 of those games the Bills have handled Lamar well for the most part.

Simmons is gonna turn 32 this season and he is coming off of a mediocre 2024. Given his age and down trending play from last year I would much rather have Bishop out there and seeing what he can do as opposed to a vet whose possibly only gonna be worse.

One thing that has me as a McD defender (for lack of a better word) is that I am seeing a coach attempting to try different things. What frustrated me very early on in McD's tenure from 2019-2022 was the inability to try and change his approach. He was far too loyal to coordinators, not really drafting a lot on offense, and not being aggressive in play-calling and in game decisions. He also never seemed to stray away from being "tight" in close games and playing conservatively. In the last few years a lot has changed. He's gone off coordinators somewhat quickly (fired Frazer, fired Dorsey in season, moved on from a ST coordinator after a couple of years), he's become a very aggressive in game decision maker (a top 5-7 ranked coach in terms of aggressive calls the past two seasons), his defense has blitzed more esp in 2023 when he was the play caller (although I would still at times like to see it be more aggressive), and he's not been afraid to be more emotional and looser esp after that 2023 article came out. Is McD the right coach to get this team to the Super Bowl? I don't know, but I think he deserves a couple of more seasons at it. If by the end of next season we are looking at more playoff losses in disappointing fashion then I think you might just need a new voice in the locker room. But I think given that this isn't Marty Ball where Marty just did the same things over and over again and expecting different results I think there's been a lot of different attempts to adapt both by McD in how he coaches the team and Beane in how he has built the team.

It's a torn triceps, tough break for the Jets, they are just a very snakebitten franchise similar to the drought era Bills. They actually will be nearing the Bills in terms of playoff drought futility as if they don't make the playoffs by 2027 they will have tied the Bills mark for playoff futility and if they don't make it by 2028 they will have exceeded it. What's even more embarrassing is that the last 5 years the Jets have had a expanded playoff format with an extra 7th seed in the AFC. It's hard to project that much farther out that the Jets won't make it but I think it's a good bet to think they likely won't make it this year and if they go with a rookie QB for 2026 that might push them to a 16 year drought heading into 2027...

Do you own stock in an NFL team or work for YouTube TV? You are on this crusade to prove that all these people illegally streaming an NFL product that the NFL chooses to make cost a lot and fragmented across many services are morally inferior to you and that people streaming NFL games illegally are a symptom of moral decline in society. It really isn't that deep nor symptomatic of anything larger other than this popular product has become much more inaccessible due to the fragmentation of media rights and the NFL's own choosing, so people use technology to pirate games. The argument that the cost of piracy gets passed down to those who pay for the service legally is very much disproven in this case. So you can't also say that this is something that gets passed down to regular consumers much like other instances of shoplifting. For many piracy is simply not because of an unwillingness to pay but rather convenience and simplicity. LeBron James whose own league gives him their version of League Pass for Free (and a man who is a billionaire) was seen during one of his sons high school games using Stream East to watch the end of a game during half time of his son's high school game. So there's clearly an issue with accessibility not only people just wanting a "free ride". It is not a societal issue that people don't really take any sort of moral issue with bootlegging NFL games despite the fact that it is technically stealing. In this case most people feel that it is a victimless crime (not in a literal sense) and that if the NFL cared about the issue enough they would probably have taken more money from ESPN to offer the product cheaper. If the NFL wants to try to take down streamers fine I don't have an issue with the NFL doing so. But don't make it out to be a bigger issue than it is because you are projecting something onto it that isn't there.

I think there's always going to be a percentage of fans that bootleg games. But ESPN supposedly wanted to sell it for $70. I would wager that you probably also had to subscribe to ESPN+ and pay $70. But even at a cost of $12 per month for ESPN+ for 5 months (Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan) at $12 a month that comes out to $60. So at worst it would have been under that model 70-130 dollars. Which would probably get the majority of people streaming illegally to just pay for a higher end stream and call it a day. I think around 150-200 you would still convert a lot of those people. Piracy is a response that the market has to inaccessibility and unaffordability. That doesn't make it right but when companies choose to make their product more expensive and less accessible I don't blame the backlash on that on consumers.

You are being very much purposefully dense. The term victimless crime is often used to describe a crime where a victim either non-existent literally or the victim is a non-sympathetic figure. The NFL in this case is the victim but they aren't really a sympathetic victim of piracy for game streaming. If you want to say wrong is wrong, fine, but I think that argument is going to fall on deaf ears because the crime's victim isn't a sympathetic victim given that those who legally buy the product aren't paying more for it as a result of piracy. If you want to make someone feel bad because they watch a regional Bills game illegally because the poor owners should get more money then go ahead and make that argument...