billsfan89

There’s a lot of football left to play. That being said I’m not panicking just yet. The Falcons were coming off a bye at home the Bills were hurting for a bye. I keep saying this but I don’t think the defense is the major problem. Yes I do think the defense has issues. But there’s PED twins plus just getting a lot of the week to week guys back (and hopefully Mad Max down the line) will make a difference. I also think a competent corner or a piece via trade could make an impact. But there’s something off about the offense. Yes I know Kincaid was out and Palmer got knocked out early but this team needs a WR. The defense gave Josh and the offense a chance to win.

I thought you could do 4 call ups before going to the 53 but I am mistaken. I think they could have Phidarian Mathis or Jordan Phillips as call ups. I think they do have to be reported but it wouldn't shock me if they did report it and some esoteric roster move isn't announced online.

Ed, Daquon and Walker are on the 53 I would imagine Zion gets the call up

The fanbase will want to fire everyone if there's a loss tonight but I don't get the sense the locker room will be all that panicked unless this is a dramatic blowout or massive injuries. The Bills are "hurting for a bye" early with a lot of dings and bruises and week to week injuries. The Bills will also get the PED Twins back after the bye a pair of vet D-line players that should help. In addition the team will likely make an addition at the trade deadline likely on the defense (I don't think there's any difference making WR's out there that the Bills can fit in cap wise) and Mad Max will be hopefully closer to coming back after the bye (maybe his 21 day window is activated after the bye). This is a vet team that had close divisional race against the Pats in 2021 and against the Fins in 2023. They know it is a long season.

I kind of feel like the Bills are going to try to force Penix to throw early in the game and try to stop Bijan early. I think they possibly are willing to give up chunk plays in the air to stop the Falcons from controlling the game. I think they want to test Penix early and hopefully force a turnover or third and long situations. It would be my strategy to have a younger less proven QB beat you rather than let an All-World RB take over the game. Then again McD makes some weird defensive decisions...

The NFL continues to be very odd and whacky year to year. It's been a fun season thus far. There's still so much football left to play too.

I think McD has attempted to adapt his philosophy and approach. From 2017-2022 he was very loyal to coordinators. After 2022 he fired Frazier and in mid-2023 he fired Dorsey and moved onto a new ST coach this year. He was very conservative on in game calls like going for it on 4th down. Now he's a top 10 coach in terms of "aggressive" in game decisions and top 5 in some years. McD even has attempted to loosen up his communication and style of coaching after the 6-6 start in 2023 and the article that came out about his coaching. I am not going to say that he is the right coach to take this team over the top but I do think he's at the very least not trying to do the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

It's far too early to tell on the 2024 draft class. I think you usually get the best sense of how good or bad a draft class is by year 3. Keon flashed his rookie year but then the injury derailed it. Year 2 he's not been bad, certainly up and down but to me the jury is still out on him. Cole is coming around hopefully he can lock it down as a defensive starter and Ray Davis can turn it around as a backup RB as he showed some nice play his rookie year as a good role player. I also think SVPG and Grable are nice later round finds and hoping Solomon can turn it around as he's looking like a JAG. The fortunes of that 2024 class hinge largely on Cole and Keon developing and getting some production from the back end picks. If Keon is a solid outside WR, Cole a good safety, SVPG develops into a starter and Davis and Grable are good role players/backups that's a nice draft class.

If there was some sort of actual significant violation (like he bullied the doctor into clearing Dart) the NFL should suspend Daboll for a period of time. If it was a minor infraction like he just checked in the tent when he wasn't supposed to then pay the fine. But if the NFL cares about player safety there should be stiff fines and punishments in place for when this type of thing happens.

I tend to agree they aren't in panic mode. I meant more so for the bye week I think it is good for a team to sit on a win for two weeks than to sit on a loss.

There's so many "soft tissue" injuries that players can claim they have that will get them put on IR. There's also past or longer term injuries that can have "flare up" too. If you want to find a reason for a guy to be on IR football players have a laundry list of things they need longer term care on.

I think getting a win before the bye and keeping the divisional lead is massive. This team is hurting for an early bye week. If they can go into the bye week 5-1 and get the PED twins back and hopefully some of these injuries more healthy they can then start to pile up some more wins and down the line also get Mad Max and maybe add a piece via trade. I think for this teams mentality and the standings they have to keep pace and get themselves right before getting a rest and some reinforcements.

I am not a cap savant or know too much about why there's more in season trades but I know there was a new CBA in 2020 so maybe new cap rules made trades easier? I know the Bills making those big trades in 2017 slowly opened up the doors on teams making more trades in general outside of the free agency and draft windows.

I also think if you could swap a late 3rd with a bad team's 5th to help you now that's not that much of a draft sacrifice to add a piece to a contending team that could make a difference. The Bills 3rd round pick is likely to be somewhere around picks 88-96. The 10th pick of round 5 is pick is the 145th pick in the draft. That's only dipping 1.5 rounds or so in terms of selections. This Bills regime tends to do OK in terms of finding players in the mid-rounds. So I would gladly take a chance on losing 50-60 slots on a draft pick if it adds a meaningful starting caliber piece.

Who would you have rather drafted than Kincaid? Look at that draft and look at the next 20 picks after Kincaid the best "swap" is either a corner in Joey Porter Jr or another TE in Sam Laporta. I think if you look at the draft in 2023 the Bills simply were drafting too low to get one of the blue chip WR's like Zay Flowers, Addison, JSN, or Q.Johnson (and QJ is only now in year 3 starting to breakout a bit). The Bills were drafting 27th that year. Once Addison got off the board at pick 23 all those WR's were gone. There were from picks 20-23 in that draft a WR taken in 4 straight picks. Hard to say trade up when that's not always easy to do unless you massively overpay to get to pick 18/19 range. I think Kincaid on a smaller trade up was the right move given how that draft fell. Sometimes getting the right pick is about luck.

Hard to say Dart is the real deal. I feel like rookie QB's or QB's with under 20 starts under their belts are now more likely to get off to hot starts in their careers and then cool off than they were in the past. I think DC's really need about a season plus worth of tape to dig into how to disrupt a QB now. So while I like Dart and I think he's going to be a nice player I also think I wouldn't say he's arrived or anything.

The best argument against it is that why is leverage considered dangerous on field goals for the snapper but allowed on the tush push? I think teams will vote against it, it isn't a fun play. The classic QB sneak had a high success rate but it was at least something you could stop.

Bills 31 Falcons 21, up and down game but I think the Bills come out firing open up a 2 possession lead, Falcons score to cut it to 1 score. Bills come back and get it back up to a two score lead and get a turnover late to ice it.

Rasul in 2023 was a big shot in the arm for the defense. I would also argue Cooper was a nice add as despite the low numbers teams respected him on the outside. KB yeah he was rough. But Douglas and Cooper helped. Hines also had those kick return TD’s even if he was underutilized

I would just by my amateur opinion say they probably will activate his 21 day practice window after the bye. That gives him 4.5 more weeks before he would have to come back.

I'm all for trading for Addision, but I think his character concerns are probably too much for the Bills. I wouldn't hate it you sometimes have to have faith in your culture to absorb a bad apple or two.

Tim Settle was not very good when he was here and he was here for 2 seasons if I remember correctly.

I think if the Bills lose the turnover battle 2-1 that game is a Bills up 3 when the Pats have the ball on that final drive which is a much more favorable spot.

This seems like a reach to me. The Bills defense did force a longer field goal and the Bills defense shouldn't have been in that situation had the offense not turned the ball over 3 times.