billsfan89

These memes are always so heavily inflated. For one you don't need YT TV at all. You can get Sunday Ticket by its self early bird for $399 and the rest of what you need YT TV for can be obtained for free via a broadcast TV receiver that will let you watch all the local FOX/ABC/NBC/CBS affiliates. Secondly you also don't need a year of Amazon or ESPN+. 6 months is all you need. The real cost to watch all the games is around $600 for a season which is still vastly too much but also nowhere near 1500 dollars.

It's funny because you can "lawyer" things in so many ways but that sack on Mahomes to force a field goal was about as clutch a play you could get by Phillips. I actually love the idea of Phillips being "on retainer" for a late season vet PS spot because he showed he's still gonna pop in a few "splash" plays over the course of 2-3 games before getting hurt likely doing something stupid haha. If you can get him to come in and have 1-2 splash plays while being a solid back end rotation DT late in season when a fresh body might be needed I think that's a good idea.

That 2022 season was the "Season from hell" for this team. Even beyond the Hamlin situation. They had a lot go wrong off the field and a bad injury situation on the field combined with the Hamlin situation. Overall the fact that they somehow went 13-3 that season and won a playoff game despite all the injuries let alone the bad off field stuff let alone the Hamlin situation tacked on top of all that is a testament to that team not a detraction. 2023 was another odd one, but that was more so boneheaded self inflicted stuff as opposed to 2022 that was largely outside of a handful of roster decisions (lackluster offensive line and WR2) out of their control.

Bishop and Rapp will likely be the starters, Forrest and Hamlin are quality depth both of whom will compete to start and while I'm not sure about Forrest Hamlin plays special teams decently so Hamlin adds value there. Then you have a mid round pick in Hancock added to the mix. Likely it will take an outstanding camp performance and pre-season for Owens to "force" the Bills to make room for him or it will take an injury there to open up an opportunity. Plenty of room to make the PS however...

Offensively I think they want to use screens and gadget plays more while taking shots downfield slightly more while retaining the "ball control" ground and pound offense. I would love to see the data on the screen game the Bills incorporated in 2024 as while it seemed to be there a bit more than in the past it was also still not that much of a staple of the offense. I think Brady will make that more prominent. Defensively I wonder if the system is gonna be stress tested early in the season. See how the new look secondary plays and how good the pass rush is and adjust accordingly. First 4-5 games of the season do they kind of do the more bland disciplined McD zone coverage rush 4 defense to see how good their D-line is and how good the secondary and LB's cover. Then if LB's and secondary are crushing it they can blitz more knowing there's solid coverage back there or will they adjust the philosophy if there's some growing pains there to have more in coverage consistently? What I would like to see from both sides of the ball is to see if they can "reserve" 10% of the playbook for the playoffs. It always seems like KC in particular almost has a small portion of their playbook they leave off film but practice behind closed doors for the playoffs. Like they save their best plays and concepts for big games in particular ones with the Bills. It would be one interesting to see if that's the case and two can the Bills do something similar?

I wouldn't be shocked if he does the old "hold in" where he shows up but claims some sort of ankle sprain to avoid the fines for missing mini-camp but still not be an active participant.

Possible but there were some throws were Dalton was open and Josh either missed him or made it a very difficult catch that it doesn't seem to the casual eye was a misread or bad route. I don't think that accounts for all of the lack of production he had in the 13 games he played either. I think the coaching staff is going to have to work with him to get him involved in the offense and fix his issues. I think health was the primary factor to his dip in production, a few bad throws being better could have bumped up his totals 5-7 catches 50-70 yards which wouldn't have massively moved the needle for him.

It's funny because the Cowboys actually operate in a fairly "boring" manner outside of Jones antics with coaching. They haven't been massive spenders in free agency or made big splashy trades for the most part. Their massive contracts (Dak, Lamb, Diggs, and eventually Parsons) have been all players they drafted and developed by them. Their fans have been on Jerry for not spending much in free agency. The issue with the Cowboys is that despite being a top 10 drafting team in recent years and their owners willingness to spend money they will never attract a good coach as long as Jerry Jones insists on not only running the team but micromanaging it. They also have the Dak issue where he's a good QB getting paid like an elite QB. For me with Jerry the issue that's most in his control is his constant presence and meddling is going to lead to the Cowboys never having a good coach because only 2nd and 3rd tier coaches are going to want to put up with that. The top up and coming coordinators and the best most proven retreads have options where they can take a job that's not gonna feature an owner whose constantly making themselves the center of attention and is also the GM. Jones has actually improved as a GM as shown by the teams drafting and prudence in free agency. But with a not so great QB situation relative to what they are paying him and a owner whose kryptonite to a good coach the Cowboys are likely to be a good team that never gets past the divisional round going forward. The Giants are a easy team to be one of the 2-3 random teams that sneak into the playoffs. No one last year expected the Broncos, Vikings, or Commanders to make the playoffs and that happens every season where you get those 2-3 teams that overachieve. It's what makes the NFL so great for fans because any team can vastly over achieve. Personally I think the Giants are a 7 win team. Nice draft classes the past couple of seasons, decent free agency, but lackluster QB situation and a coach walking a fine line to being fired as well as still having offensive line issues is just screaming 7 maybe 8 wins with some luck. 5-6 wins with some bad luck type team.

Pitts had a lot of good attributes in addition to his size and speed. He ran a full receiving route and was a willing blocker in college. It's not that he's been bad as a pro if he was picked in the 20's instead of 4th overall he would be looked at as a draft "hit" instead of someone whose underperformed. Pitts had 1k as a rookie and after a injury in year two has back to back 600 yard seasons in years 3 and 4. So it isn't like he's unproductive. He's just not really lived up to highest drafted at his position ever billing thus far. He's only 25 and Vernon Davis who was drafted 6th overall at TE got off to a slower start to his career as his first 3 years were underwhelming. And Davis had a break out in 2009 at age 25. So I wouldn't write Pitts off just yet. Is he a fit for the Bills? No, I don't think he makes sense but I think another TE hungry team could come calling and get a good player for a 3rd round pick or so.

There's a good "eye test" case for Kincaid who in 13 games still put up 435 yards (26th best for TE's although if you projected out his production to 17 games he only moves up about 6-7 spots) that he was both hurt and unlucky. There were several times I remember as a casual fan where Josh just missed Kincaid or put Kincaid in a tough catch situation. It seemed like 75% of Josh's bad throws were to Kincaid for some bad reason. Then you throw in the injury and there's a case for a good bounce back season. Would I rank Kincaid in the top 10 going into the season? I would say probably not. Bowers/Kittle/Kelce/La Porta/McBride are firmly ahead then you have a ton of other borderline guys out there. So it would take a very generous take on Kincaid and a very sour one on the rest of the TE's to really put Kincaid top 10.

Solid career in the NFL. 98 starts, a Super Bowl Ring, and 40 million in earnings. Getting out at age 31 also seems positive for your health. Had a very promising start here in Buffalo as a man to man corner. He simply didn't fit the McD zone system so they traded him and it seems to have worked out for both parties.

Last year I thought losing Mitch was gonna hurt not because McGovern wasn't gonna come in and play well at center but that it would leave a hole at guard that I wasn't certain David Edwards would fill. Of course Edwards filled it solidly so there was no loss. The Eagles basically did the same thing. What made the Eagles not miss Kelce as much was that Jergens was a good guard who was a good center and then they plugged in Becton at guard who had a career year. Had they had some issues plugging in that guard spot then yes it would have Losing an All Pro center can hurt especially if you don't have a quality player to plug in. The Lions drafted a cetner/IOL in round 2 they probably feel like they can plug them in there and be fine but rookies can have growing pains.

My guess would be they do the McGovern one. He's 28 this year and that's not old for an offensive linemen esp one that wasn't a full time starter until 2 years ago. A 3-4 year extension would keep him through ages 29-31/32 which keeps him through his last prime seasons as O-linemen tend to play at a high level until age 32/33. The Bills currently sit at 2ish million in space. They need to free up about 8 million more to accommodate the rookie scale guys (about 2-3 million), the PS (about 4 million), and an "in season emergency" fund (3 million or so). Getting McGovern locked down gets you slightly over to half way where you need and locks in 4 out of 5 starters for the offensive line in 2026. As far as the other levers I don't know if I see the Bills liking to go either direction. Knox is overpaid as is and do they want to to make that contract a lot harder to get out of? Dawkins is 31 and as previously mentioned O-linemen play at a high level until about age 32/33 so Dawkins may only have 2 and at best 3 elite high quality seasons left and if they restructure his deal that's gonna make that deal a lot harder to get out of down the line if you push money back. I could see the Bills maybe doing the McGovern extension and then if they feel like they need another 3-4 million do a partial restructure of both Dawkins and Knox. to knock off 2 million on each of their cap numbers to get the Bills to have 10 million in space needed to get their picks and PS signed and have that in season buffer.

Dude isn't even 30, big loss for the Lions dude was an All-Pro center multiple times over and entering an age where you figured he had at least 3-4 more quality high end years left. But these dudes know they have to take care of their health. I hope this is a precautionary measure and not a response to some specific life altering thing.

Mid 00's ATH and PTI as the ESPN "Happy Hour" was a fun watch. I stopped consistently watching ATH and PTI about 10 years ago but I still checked it out now and again. It really did give you a nice taste of the national sporting landscape at the time. ESPN should never have cancelled ATH. ATH along with PTI should have been the ESPN version of "SNL" just always on in that time slot. Both shows can be edited out into bit sized segments for social media (10 years ago Tony Reali himself was editing clips and putting them on Youtube with good success before ESPN took that over from him) so the shows fit somewhat well into the modern landscape. Overall this in my estimate was a big blunder for ESPN and I can honestly see them bringing the show back in 2 years when they proceed to do nothing with the timeslot. ATH also doesn't seem to be that expensive to make so the decision is even more dumbfounding. ATH had a national bias, but they also had reporters from smaller markets on too. If you approached the show as a "National" show and had those expectations in check it was a lot of fun.

He was terrible in coverage. McD did an excellent job in hiding that one of McD's better jobs as a coordinator. He got a little more money from Seattle likely more than the Bills were willing to pay for a backup.

10 healthy games from him is a big win in my opinion. It allows the team to ease in Jackson and Solomon into larger roles as the season progresses while still having Groot and AJE there early on and then eases Hochet into things after his suspension is over. Ideally yeah you want a guy to play all 17 and a full playoff run. But it is a calculated gamble that the team is taking to have Bosa on the team as a one year rental. As long as he can give the team a good stretch of 9-12 games I think he's gonna be a big positive for the reasons stated. Hopefully Jackson/Solomon show out early and the team can just have Bosa in a even more limited rotation role that keeps him healthy.

I wonder how frequently Rapp was targeted? QBR when targeted is not always the best metric because often times if you aren't being targeted that lower volume can lead to high QBR when targeted because while players are getting open against you they are also not being given many opportunities. All in all I think Rapp is a starting caliber safety but I hope he gets displaced into a reduced role by Bishop and Forrest.

Unfortunately social media and Amazon have made individual websites a lot less relevant. Why bother having a unique message board that costs money when there is Reddit and other ways to talk to fans online. Any content you post up on your website also gets posted to social media and YouTube. It's just only really there because teams need some place to post announcements and link to for social media. It's just the way the internet evolved away from individualized blog/websites to social media/aggregate websites. For better or worse (and I think worse) peoples internet viewing habits have changed to be consolidated to just a few websites.

In 2023 I thought he was not the best coverage safety, he hit hard and made some plays but I also thought he was not the greatest in coverage. I thought he was ideally a fantastic backup or a niche role player in the "big nickel" role. But in 2024 having that second year in the system worked wonders for him. He seemed to be a lot better in coverage and just being in the right places. He still had some lapses here or there but I thought he was overall a better than average starting caliber safety.

Man football is so complex at the NFL level because what you are saying is true but it also comes down to players developing, staying healthy, and executing. While coaching has a big hand in how players do those things it also just comes down to the players themselves. It's a lot going on but I am hoping Brady continues to develop as a playcaller and coach as well because it is so vital to how this team operates offensively.

Larry Bird with a busted up back in his mid 30's was able to beat up on Angola in 1992 I think Brady feels that even at 51 with no contact for the QB he can beat up on a bunch of guys who play flag football in Germany.

WR could be an issue, there was a reason Cooper was acquired and why the offense even with Coopers relatively low production still got a lot better by having Coopers presence on the outside. That being said Palmer and Moore swapping out for an older Cooper and Mack Hollins isn't a big up or down move and Samuel should be back healthier and could add some supplemental pop to the offense while Keon was a 21 year old rookie whose coming in off a productive rookie year and will be 22 this year with a full year under his belt. I think the coaching staff also expects more pass catching production from Kincaid as he was hurt in 2024. I would have liked for the Bills to do better than Palmer and Moore at WR but I also see that the Bills really didn't get fortunate when it comes to the draft or free agency. A lot of the WR's that would have been difference makers just didn't hit the market or they were slot WR's. DK was the one I loved but he also came at a steep cap/draft cost that just wasn't something the Bills who desperately needed a defensive talent injection could afford to do short/long term. The Draft was once again not the best draft for non-slot WR's so the Bills at pick 30 and in round 2 had no real good fits. They signed Moore in response to missing out on WR's high up in the draft. There's reason to think that the Bills may have to again make an in-season move to acquire a WR again. But there's also reason to think they won't have to.

As fans we like to see exciting comebacks, but from a competitive standpoint any attempt to get the ball back after scoring because you are down late should be a low percentage play. ?Yes it should be possible but it also shouldn't be anything more than a 5-10% chance. I've supported the idea of allowing teams down in the 4th quarter the opportunity to do a 4th and 20-25 play from the 30 yardline but while I think 4th and 20 or 25 yard play has a similar conversion percentage to the current onside kick (roughly 5-7%) what I don't like is the idea of a tired defense who just gave up a late score being put back on the field I also don't like the idea of a flag on a defensive holding call or a BS roughing the passer awarding a possession. There's already so much in the refs hands, say what you will about onside kicks but the refs enforce them well for the most part. For now I don't see the problem of just keeping it as it is, 50 onside kicks were attempted last season with 3 being recovered, that's a 6% recovery rate which seems like a "fair" conversion percentage low but not impossible.

Looking forward to it, should be fun to see more of the team behind the scenes