billsfan89

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

Not sure about the timeline of the Tre White injury in 2021 but so far no official word on Tre's injury. I am generally hoping for the best and expecting the worst (torn Achilles). I was 100% certain Dane's season was over last year after the collision with Edumonds but he only missed a few weeks. This is not likely the same situation but you gotta hope right? Tre may take a paycut (more money less of a cap hit) to try and make a comeback. The Bills could also designate Tre as a post June cut and spread the dead cap over two seasons and get 11 million in space for 2024. That being said I would hope for a situation where Tre takes a massive paycut that allows him to make a comeback attempt one more time and gives the Bills the needed cap flexibility.

Dorsey has called a good offense the past three weeks (and week 1 may have not been bad) got to give him credit where it is due. The Bills are rolling on offense. Hopefully a trip to London doesn't trip things up.

They could have traded the pick for a vet player, while they might have missed on the Chubb trade they definitely injected a lot of talent to their offense by trading a first for Hill. Just losing the asset for nothing hurts badly.

The Brady one hurts badly. At least Chubb was a solid young player when they acquired him. That move could still be productive. But that Brady one basically cost them a first round pick for nothing.

But then you add Kurt Angle to the mix…

They really were comparing the Fins offense to the Greatest Show on Turf, The Manning Colts, the 2007 Pats and 2013 Broncos. That’s insane. There was a pundit (I think McCourty) on NFL Network who stated that nothing Miami was doing was things that the league hadn’t seen before. The host of the panel stated that she had never seen two players in motion crossing before the snap. McCourty stated that is called Ghost Motion teams esp Shanny offenses run it. Miami is running Shanny concepts slightly modified to take advantage of insanely fast players. That’s smart but that’s not a completely new scheme.

I have not seen anything. I am interested to see if any information has come out.