billsfan89

Josh is a complete freak at QB. There is no QB that is more physically talented than Josh and Josh also plays at a high level utilizing his tools to be among the best productive QB's in the game. Josh may be the most talented athlete at QB to ever play the game (I would say Cam Newton is in the conversation but Newton never put it together as a passer on the pro-level consistently.)

Punts are designed to be tackled and pinned down. They come with risks as a block or big returns can happen. But Interceptions are more likely to be returned farther as offensive players aren’t expecting a INT and they are in a designed position to tackle and aren’t experienced at making a defensive play. That Int against the Commanders was understandable and anyone can live with it but generally speaking a check down or throw away is better in that situation

I would have genuinely been fine had Torrence been the pick at pick 27. I also would have been find had they traded up in the second to get him. When he was there at pick 59 I thought it was a no brainer. The Rams, Falcons, Bucs, Jets and Giants all picked interior offensive linemen in the second round ahead of Torrence. I think many of those teams would easily take Torrence over the players they picked

Maybe if Jags Josh Allen was having a down year he may be in the Bills price range. But after his 12.5 sack rookie year he struggled the next 3 seasons but is now having a breakout with 6 sacks in 4 games. Assuming he stays healthy and keeps up a decent production pace he will be commanding a big salary that is not in the budget for a cap-strapped Bills.

Josh Allen had a solid offensive line in 2020. Dawkins and D. Williams were a top 5 tackle pairing, Mitch was a top 5 center and the guard play was competent. Josh also had peak Cole Beasley being a reliable WR2. Josh's completion percentage that year was 69.3% and his INT ratio was 1.7%. The Bills in 2021 had offensive line issues most of the season and Cole Beasley regressed. Josh's completion percentage dropped to a good 63.3% but far from his elite 2020 percentage. Josh's INT ratio jumped to 2.3% as well. In 2021 the Bills reshuffled their offensive line, kicking D.Williams inside to guard and inserting Spencer Brown at RT and Bates at LG. They finally inserted Bates at LG in week 16 in 2021 and Josh having a really good offensive line and a solid WR core played 5 games of really good football despite throwing 3 INTs against the Falcons in a weird rainy game had a much better INT percentage at 1.66% in those 5 games and just crushed everyone until the 13 seconds game. 2022 Josh had a terrible O-line, mediocre RB's and a group of pass catchers that outside of Diggs wasn't playing well. His completion percentage flatlined again at 63.3% and his INT rate went up a touch to 2.5%. This year after a rocky week 1 the offensive supporting cast is playing much better. Torrence and McGovern have changed the quality of the offensive line (Dawkins and Brown are playing much better too), the RB's are playing well and the supporting WR's around Diggs are playing their roles. As a result Josh has thrown 8 TD's to 1 INT and has a sub 1% percentage and has an insane completion percentage. TLDR: Josh since 2020 has always been Josh but the play around him makes the difference. Right now the players around Josh are playing well which is allowing Josh to be super human.

Offensive line play being at an all-time low quality-wise has made pass rush dominant. Teams are scheming around that better now but as bad as we think the Bills offensive line was LAST year the Bills probably had a better offensive line than 10-12 other teams.

DVOA has always loved the Bills. They win by 2-4 possessions frequently and only lose regular season games by one possession. Since 2020 the Bills have only lost 3 games by more than one score. 2021 against the Colts 41-15 in November 2021 and 2020 they lost to KC by 9 points and the Titans 42-16. Outside of those three losses their other 10 regular season losses from 2020-2023 have all been by one possession margins or less. They have also had 29 victories by 9 or more points. Just a completely insane run that will make them look great in DVOA.

Early Projections Division Winners AFC Bills, Baltimore, KC and Houston Wild Cards AFC Miami, Chargers and Cleveland Bubble Playoff teams Jacksonville and Cincy (I think the Bengals get it going late but dug themselves too much of a hole as they probably are going to have to sit Joe Burrow for a few weeks and eat more losses they could be sitting at 2-6 or 3-5 after the next 4 weeks and still having to play KC and Baltimore) Division Winners NFC Eagles, Niners, Lions and Bucs NFC Wild Cards Cowboys, Seahawks and Falcons Bubble Playoff teams Packers, Rams and maybe the Commanders I think KC and Philly are on the same level as SF and the Bills. As bad as KC's offense can look at times I think they are doing what the Pats used to do with Brady and using September, October, and early November as a tune-up for some things in the playoffs. They will get their receivers more time and snaps to get rolling by December. They may still have issues but I expect them to be better offensively.

Normally if this game was in Jacksonville I would have my "normal" level of anxiety but the whole London thing (much like Thursday games) just always has me feeling like "funky" things can happen.

The only time I can say Josh had a really good offensive line was briefly in 2021. In 2020 I think Josh also had average to above-average offensive line play (Anchored by great tackle play from Dawkins and D.Williams) and he turned in his best most consistent season. In 2021 the offensive line was a bit up and down as they were reshuffling some things and D.Willaims had a bit of regression. When they moved D.Williams inside, put rookie Spencer Brown at RT, and replaced Mongo with Bates, that offensive line was cooking great (I think Bates was inserted in week 16). Mitch and Dawkins were solid as usual, D.Williams was playing really well at guard, Bates was playing some great football at the other guard spot and Spencer Brown was a mauler in the ground game and decent in pass protection. We all see what Josh did to end the 2021 regular season and in those two playoff games. In that 5 game stretch, the Bills averaged 34.4 points made more impressive by the fact that they played a top 3 defense in the league twice (the Pats) including the game where they scored a TD on every single offensive drive. Josh the past three weeks with good offensive line play has looked like that Josh Allen again. Hopefully they can stay healthy and Brown can round into form some more. Brown is the weak link but he has looked decent at times, certainly far from the liability he was last season.

He looked bad against the Steelers in preseason. Otherwise in the other two preseason games he looked like he did last year (average to above average). Other than one bad preseason performance there was no reason to think he wasn’t going to at least be decent. Thus far he is playing really good. Easily the best he has been since 2019 I genuinely would have been Ok had the Bills drafted him in round 1. He was by far the best guard in the draft. How he fell to pick 59 is crazy. The Bills feasting off of other teams mistakes and getting themselves the best guard in the draft in the late second

Not disagreeing with you but Brown is not a late round guy he was drafted in round 3.

Top 5 offensive line in the league, certainly a top 10 unit right now? Not only are McGovern and Torrence playing well at guard but Dawkins is playing really well and Brown while still not good is at least less of a liability.

The Bills were coming off 13 seconds and Tre’s ACL injury. They wanted to get faster at corner and drafted the best athlete at corner. I think you also may be onto something where they may have also wanted to run more man. But I think generally they saw just how vulnerable not having speed was to them when Tre was out and looked to add more speed.

That play really set the tone for the offense. On paper had Knox gotten tackled it still would have been a nice 6ish yard check down on first down. But Knox not only turned that into 5 or so extra yards but he also set the tone physically for the offense.

The first 2-3 weeks were rough as weeks 1-2 are kind of an extended preseason due to less OTA’s and one less actual preseason games. I think by week 3-4 you see a much better product

The whole landscape can change largely due to injury and players improving as the season goes on. If the Bills meet the Niners in a hypothetical but possible Super Bowl then I like the Bills chances but that’s so hard to project out

Hill he already has a Super Bowl ring so he doesn’t need the “team success” as he could have take a bit less money to stay with Mahomes if he really wanted to win. Instead he got the money and the individual stats in Miami. He probably is thinking more so about Hall of Fame and individual accolades. 2 more “ big seasons” out of Hill after this year and he probably gets the HOF. He has already 8800 career yards so this season he likely passed 10k or gets very close. Another 2 1k receiving seasons puts him close to 13k career and he can get close to 90 TD’s as well. If he cares to compile more he probably can play a few more seasons afterwards. He is only 29 this season so producing at a high level until 2025 is realistic. WR’s even ones who use their speed heavily tend to produce well until about age 32/33. Randy Moss was productive through 2009 when he was 32 for example.

I think “power rankings” are fun but somewhat silly in that they are very arbitrary and subjective in most cases. Tier lists usually give you the same sense of evaluation without having little quibbles over who should be 14 vs 15. I think in two weeks we should really clear up those middle tier’s 3 and 4 as I suspect a lot of the teams who are on life support will have their seasons pulled) and a lot of the teams in the “playoff hopeful” category will be on life support. The key is to “survive” the first 4 weeks and be at least 2-2. But now that the first quarter of the season is over you will start to see some separation between the teams who are going to at least be relevant and this season and the teams just “hanging around”

What’s crazy about the defensive line was that as great as D Jones was Groot and Ed Oliver “caught my eye” just as much and Floyd was also making plays. All 4 of those guys have been menacing and the “rotational” players like AJE, J Phillips, Settle and Shaw Lawson all make plays here and there esp AJE whose probably having the best season from the backups. I think the additions of Torrence and McGovern have completely changed the complexion of the offensive line. Dawkins playing a lot better (he wasn’t bad last season but he has been very good this season) and Brown being much less of a liability (he was downright awful last season this year he is maybe below average to average at times) have also massively contributed to the improved performance of the unit.

They are going to have to see what Elam can give them short term. If there is one truly “plug and play” position on the defense it is CB. As great as Tre is I actually trust McD to get Dane, Benford and Elam to play well on the boundary. As far as longer term getting another body on the roster is going to probably come from the PS. If they need help I suspect they go with a smaller move at CB and not a big splash

If I had to rank the teams into tiers (excluding the Monday night teams) Tier 1 - True Contenders KC, Buffalo, San Fran and Philly Tier 2- Second Level Contenders Miami, Baltimore, Cowboys and Detroit Tier 3 - Playoff hopefuls The AFC South (someone has to win that division), Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Commanders, Browns, Packers, Rams and Chargers. Tier 4 - Season on life support Broncos, Vikings, Steelers, Pats, Jets, Cardinals, Raiders, Saints and Bengals Tier 5 - Pull the plug Bears and Panthers

Torn Achilles is awful hopefully it isn’t a career ender and is a less “serious” tear but they confirmed what we all strongly suspected. Tre is a warrior and he will attempt a comeback but I don’t think he will be with the Bills unless they can work out a pay cut deal.

They are reaching the tipping point of having to draft and develop players in order to maintain a good roster. And their roster is seriously flawed right now. Their defense is not very good despite having some pieces (Howard, Wilkins, Phillips and a few other good players) and they have a bad offensive line. Hill and Waddle are amazing, they appear to have found a very good RB in the draft this year, Mostert is also a good fit to add speed to their system and Tua when healthy executes that system really well. But they will need to get better along the offensive line and get better defensively in order to avoid losing shootouts consistently. They haven't had a strong draft class in several years so it remains to be seen how they can develop long term. I doubt if they add Tua on a sizable 40-50 million dollar contract they will be able to sustain any success beyond being a flashy 9-10 win team that gets bounced early.

I think players can redo their contracts Tim Settle and Hines redid their deals this past off-season. Both had guaranteed money and Hines had 2 years left under contract. So it isn't like Tre having a bonus or two years left makes his deal different. That being said I do not know the specifics of how a big contract like Tre's can be reworked. Could Tre say just give me 5-6 million guaranteed and then 3-4 million in non-guaranteed money and incentives? Tre gets a shot to make the roster (and if he makes it gets about 70% of what he would have made) and gets one last payday while the Bills take less in dead cap? Once again this is my own ill-informed speculation but if there ever was a player to try to "work with" the Bills in a situation like this it would be Tre. Tre not only has made money playing 4 seasons under a big extension (2020-2023) but he seems to really love Buffalo. Long term the Bills could also attempt to suit Tre's needs (one more shot to play and make decent money) and Tre can help the team's cap? https://billswire.usatoday.com/2023/03/12/buffalo-bills-tim-settle-renegotiate-deal-2023-salary-cap/ https://www.si.com/nfl/bills/news/buffalo-bills-free-agency-nyheim-hines-restructure-contract-legal-tampering-period-rumors