billsfan89

I would not put the Steelers as the favorite over the Ravens. The Steelers lost Jason Hargrave in free agency who I think will be a significant loss on defense and there is no guarantee that they will be a top offense with Big Ben. The Steelers offense was struggling with Big Ben. Ju Ju as a number one receiver might not work and Connor as Lev Bell's replacement isn't working as planned. Yes they still won 8 games and were sitting at 8-5 before losing their last 3 games without Big Ben and riding on a great defense. But the defense lost one of its best players and there is no guarantee Big Ben turns around that offense enough or stays healthy. I would give the Steelers a good chance to nab a wildcard spot but not to compete with the Raven's for the division.

If prime Eric Moulds played from 1986 to 1997 I am very confident the Bills would have at least won one Super Bowl in that era.

No fans is unfortunate but as a fan I just want to see the games on TV. Yes it will lack the same energy but it is better than nothing.

Let's see if this coaching staff and organization is as strong as we think they are. Ed is a blue chip talent a possible all pro talent and he is young, young kids with a lot of money can make mistakes. But they can't let this get out of hand like what happened to Dareus. I just hope we look back on this as Ed a one off situation as opposed to a pattern.

Moulds had four 1000 yard seasons and another two 900+ yard seasons. He was 5 yards away from a 10k yards career. Moulds wasn't too far off from a HOF career (certainly not a HOF player but a couple of better seasons added to his resume and he is in that conversation.) Compare that to Lee Evan's who had two 1000 yard seasons in his career and 6k yards total. Moulds didn't exactly play with great QB's either. I think Moulds by far stands as the number 2 best Bill's reciever all time and it's not even close.

I wouldn't rule out Stevie Johnson in that number 3 conversation either. Steve had back to back to back 1000 yard seasons something that had never been done before in Bills history (I think before Stevie the team never had back to back 1000 yard seasons.) Even in his last year in 2013 he was on his way to having a solid season with just under 600 yards with 4 games left to go before suffering that career altering injury. As great as Lee was in 2006 he only had one other 1,000 yard season in his career. I know a lot of the arguments about Lee constantly saw QB play deflated his numbers but Stevie didn't exactly have great QB play either in his career. So I think in that in the context of the modern game Stevie definitely deserves to be in that conversation with Evans.

3k yards on a team that was nursing leads late in many games and even in most losses was still very competitive (which means no obvious passing situations to inflate stats) along with an over 2 to 1 TD to INT ratio all in 15 starts isn't bad even if the completion percentage leaves a bit to be desired.

Seems promising, the key having at the very least empty stadium games is going to be having teams being fully operational by training camp in a little over two months.

I am all for the Rooney Rule as I think it helps expose the league to minority candidates but this is just silly

Not shocked that the Bills would be ranked fairly slow. Outside of Brown and Mackenzie I can't think of too many players that were burners that got significant snaps. Singletary isn't slow but he isn't a fast RB neither was Gore or Yeldon. There wasn't much relative speed at TE and at WR (Beasley more of a slot tech and Zay Jones and Duke Williams are below average speed at their positions, Foster didn't get much play.) I think Diggs certainly adds some solid speed but I don't expect this team to rank highly in terms of speed. Moss is faster than Gore but not a burner at the position. Diggs is faster than Zay and a lot of other players who took snaps at WR last year but that's not going to make a huge difference.

The Browns years were nearly 30 years ago, that's kind of a difference.

I think he makes a moderate improvement in 2020. I can see a 500-600 yard improvement in passing, similar rushing stats (500+ rushing yards and 7+ TD's), 5-6 more passing TD's and a 60% or better completion percentage, and 12 or less turnovers (fumbles and INT's combined.) I think that puts him knocking on the top 10 of QB's in the NFL. That would put him over 4000 yards total, close mid 20's in passing TD's and well over 30 total TD's all with a 60% completion percentage. Those stats aren't gaudy but Josh's passing stats are going to be deflated (hopefully) by nursing leads late in games and a good rushing attack. In context if Josh put up that kind of season on an 11+ win team the conversation around Josh is that he is a legit QB. I think Josh does have a lot he needs to work on, his short passing game and mid passing game and footwork have come a long way but still needs to add a level of polish to it. His long range passing has to improve significantly and how he processes the game has to improve. He also needs to throw with better anticipation. In 2020 I think Josh can improve upon some of these aspects but I don't think he is going to get where he needs to be on all of them. And honestly that's not a bad thing, QB's take time to develop unless you are a once in a generation QB. Some of the top QB's in the league take a long time to hit their strides as top 10-5 QB's for a prolonged period of time. Russell Wilson, Big Ben, Tom Brady, Drew Brees and so many other top QB's of the last decade didn't hit their best years until 4-5 years into their starting careers.

McBeane's attention to detail on this roster is something many other regimes have failed to do. The Special teams last year was decent. Roberts solidified the return game and the coverage unit was average. But McBeane didn't settle for having a "good enough" ST unit. They went out and got Tyler Matakevich and T Jones to solidify the coverage units while also drafting a kicker to compete with Haush and signing a punter to compete with Bojo. Matakevich and Jones should easily improve the coverage units. Hopefully Bass outcompetes Hasuh and give the kicking game increased range (or Haush gets it into gear with some competition.) My only concern in the punting. Bojo is a below average punter and the punter they brought in (Vedvick) to compete is meh. I think between Haush and Bass they will find at least a decent kicker but I don't have the same confidence in the punter situation. I think the one last tweak to the roster I would like to see is them brining in a punter to the mix.

I would say wait, there are just too many unknown variables with Covid.

Sunday Ticket is still the best way to view games at home if you are out of market. I tend to like to go to bars or if I have been spending a little too freely I like to just watch a stream at home. But bars can cost you as much as Sunday ticket if not more and watching a stream at home is not always the best quality and they can cut out often. I would say that you should try and get Sunday ticket included in your direct TV package or heavily discounted. Otherwise it just depends on how much money you are willing to spend to watch 12 Bills games reliably and in good quality at home? I usually play in 1-2 fantasy leagues per-year (doing more than 2 leagues just doesn't work for me) and I can honestly say that fantasy is the only thing that would keep me engaged in football if the Bills lose an early game. The worst is when you lose all of your fantasy games and the Bills lose. That ***** will seriously upset the first 2 days of the work week for me. I lost 2 fantasy games last season (yes it was a good year) and both happened to be on weekend where the Bills lost (Browns and Eagles games.)

Teams trust their doctors more than they trust outsourcing the medical opinions. I also think being unable to do workouts at facilites hurts. Teams want to be able to see a player with that kind of injury in person.

Josh was always a raw prospect and he has looked raw at times. I always thought this team was best suited to sit him for 1-2 seasons before launching him into action. But McD bungled the 2018 QB situation so they forced him in early and all his flaws and positives showed. In 2019 he made a huge step forward but still has a lot of progress he needs to make. Josh played like a mid-level type NFL QB last season factoring in his rushing. He was sloppy with turnovers early but cut that down, he was very good at the short and intermediate range passing but couldn't get the long range accuracy down. Josh needs to tighten up the short and intermediate game some more (just needs to be somewhat more consistent with his footwork and touch), get that long range accuracy down, and process the game quicker in order to throw with anticipation. Can he do all of that? Hard to tell, he made tremendous progress on the short and mid-range passing last season and he seemed to make some progress on his footwork. But he has a lot he needs to work on.

I think Covid 19 has really hurt Cam mainly because teams can't get their doctors to do a physical on him. Teams just don't know how healthy he is. I also think teams view him as unwilling to accept a backup role. Overall I think he is better suited to sit the season out and get fully healthy like Andrew Luck did in 2017. He needs to give his body time to heal and he needs to land in the right situation if he is to revive his career as a starter. Right now I don't see the best landing spot for him as a backup. I thought NE would have been a good fit as he can learn a precision passing system but I don't think he fits the model of QB they want.

Tracking a punt and fielding it is hard to do, esp for a player who hasn't been playing football for long. Roberts was an All-Pro at it and I never have to doubt his ability to field the ball. I would rather a guy not have any muffs and just make solid returns like Roberts over someone who might make more big plays but also is a liability to have a few muffs.

The CBA gives the players a percentage of total Football related revenue. So there has to be some sort of claw back in case revenue shrinks. Just for the Sake of round numbers let's say the total revenues are 10 billion and it goes down to 9 billion. The CBA is set to give the players 50% of revenue, so they would receive 5 billion dollars out of 10. But if revenue goes down the players would only get 4.5 billion. I would imagine there is a claw back clause in the CBA to ensure that and prevent wild scenarios from occurring. There have been examples (most recently in the NHL) where there were clawbacks on contracts where all contracts were reduced by a percentage.

What I like with McD is that they tend to play aggressively until they get up 3 scores late in the game. The defense goes into prevent mode when the game is winding down and there is a comfortable lead only. They mostly stay fairly aggressive and within their initial gameplan until it really becomes a game of grinding down the clock. I would like to see the defense get more consistent pressure and not have any lapses in rushing defense like there was in the middle of last season. Overall I have no reason to believe that the defense can't be as good as it was last season.

PFF is trolling well done.

He clearly didn't have the same successful system in Cleveland that he has had in NE. Since he has been in NE Billy B has a winning record without Brady. I think it lacks context to include the Browns years. Since Brady has been on the Pats when he didn't play the Pats have been above .500.

If you include the Browns years yes. But he did go 10-5 with Matt Cassell in 2008 and 4-0 without Brady when he was suspended for deflate gate.

From 2008 to 2011 when the Jets traded for Farve (a media lightening rod) and they started to win under Rex (back to back AFCG) the Jets got a lot of media coverage. As they deserved. But the Jets haven't had a winning season since 2015 and haven't had a playoff appearance since 2010. The only two things that keep them somewhat relevant is the market they play in and the young QB they have.