Ronin

No, it wouldn't be, I'm not sure how they can survive in their roles if Allen doesn't work out. They won't be given another three years and after that Peterman debacle, people would really challenge their ability to even effectively address the QB situation. I can see us logging anywhere from 3 or 4 wins to maybe as many as 7 or 8 given the ease of the schedule and with some fortune in terms of injuries (going both ways) and circumstances otherwise. The Pats have the second easiest schedule in the league, which means that after playing them twice ours is even easier. The NFCE isn't exactly formidable, the AFCN is good, but Denver and Tennessee are not. The thing is that we typically split with the Fins and Jets, over the past four seasons we're a perfect .500 against them, under McD we're 5-3 with the extra win coming at Miami's expense. So figure a split there again in every likelihood, dropping two against the Pats, figuring a split against the NFCE, and I'm thinking 1-3 vs. the AFCN. That's 5-9 with games vs. Tennessee and Denver otherwise. The teams that I'd say are better than us are the Pats, Steelers, Bengals, Browns, Ravens, Dallas, and the Eagles. Teams that I'd say are about where we are or worse are the Jets, Fins, Denver, Titans, Giants, and Skins. Obviously you don't always beat those teams or lose to the former group. We'll see.

It hasn't hurt to have had the GOAT at QB and TE, not to mention, despite not having top-notch skill-position talent otherwise, Belichick realizes that throughout the years as still today it all starts with the lines. I wish our FO built our team like that. It also hasn't hurt to have had 6 gimme games every season, which win or lose, has allowed the Pats to all but coast into the post-season, usually with a 1st-round bye, thereby allowing them to not get nearly as beaten up as most teams that get to the same point.

Or, maybe our roster isn't as upgraded as so many say it is. Talk is cheap. A lot of cognitive dissonance going on here. The perpetual question-du-jour.

I thought that Kyle played pretty well given the circumstances. I don't think that he was much worse than most of our defensive players. Either way, to log 5 sacks, and not all agasint sorry teams and QBs, in his farewell season, that's an accomplishment. Love Edmunds, he will be better but he's still young, remember, he was the youngest player in the league last season. Murphy was a waste of money and a contract. Lorax will be 36 for whatever that means. Oliver's the wild-card in the D this season. There's not a whole lot of reason for hope after him on D.

Interesting perspective. Why would PFF have a bias against the Bills? Keep in mind, that with that same exact offense of practice squad guys and cast offs" Barkley, literally coming to the Bills off of a sofa, posted our best passing game of the season in his only start. How could that possibly be? Pure luck? And yes, the Bills were 2nd in defense in yards, but in scoring we were 18th, in Red Zone D we were 30th. Not sure, but perhaps whomever did the analyses for PFF considered that. What's more relevant, Red Zone defense or overall yardage defense? If they measured the outcome of games by yardage attained, we'd have been 7-8-1. Also, if our defense was so good, then why are the 8 teams we held below 300 yards, again, using yardage at the measure, all but entirely below-average? Four of those games were the horrifically bad Jets and Fins ranked 29th and 31st in yardage offense, 20th ranked Minny, 21st ranked Chicago, 25th ranked Tennessee, and 15th ranked Houston. Of the 6 teams that we played having top-12 yardage offenses we lost all 6 games and allowed an average of 382 yards against them. Those teams averaged 31 ppg against us. Does that sound like a good defense? If you ask me it looks like one that's only "good" against average or worse offenses but equally bad against above-average offenses.

Indeed, and on defense, given that they could have had an LT like Hilliard, they went with Oliver, so they're really counting on Oliver to improve the D too in Kyle's absence. I mean think about it, if Oliver doesn't do that, then there's no way this D is as good as last year's w/o Kyle, with Lorax at 36 and with Hughes aging, whom all pre-dated McBeane. But where will they be if Allen doesn't do that?

If McBeane were doing a good job we would indisputably have at least an average roster going into their 3rd season. It's questionable whether the roster if even better than it was when they inherited the team. The OL is worse, the DL is worse simply due to aging players and the fact that they haven't brought anyone of impact on with Oliver pending, the WRs aren't as good, the TEs about the same. The secondary is better but the LBs are about the same. So even if we bump it to 20th I'm not sure that's a big endorsement of their methodologies. I don't subscribe to ESPN so I don't know the rankings, but there are a whole lot of "pendings" that will determine our season, many include a wealth of injury issue players, some of which are currently playing out unfavorably. Kroft and Morse among them. So until some of those "pendings" start tilting in the favorable direction it's fair that we get ranking in the bottom quartile somewhere. Pendings: Injury concern players: Mose, Brown, Kroft, Knox, Murphy to name a few. All are key players in need areas and the "solutions" as such if we're going to improve this season. Performance: Allen Oliver Singletary Jones Foster Shady Gore Brown Beasley Knox Sure, if everything works out like we've been sold then great, but honestly, what are the odds, particularly with some of those risks taken (Morse, Kroft) already bearing out.

No doubt all the teams tah they ranked from 21st to 32nd besides us all should have been higher too. Obviously PFF with their anti-Bills bias has it all inverted.

It is noteworthy that the article is about fantasy football. Allen's rushing alone renders him above-average in that regard on paper. Unfortunately being an NFL passer, which is what QBs get paid for, is altogether a different matter. I didn't see in the article where it mentioned anything favorable about his passing regimen. Just sayin'. So, in essence he's essentially stating that Allen sucked as a passer, but in terms of fantasy he was excellent because of the highlighted parts above. Tough to argue, but unfortunately it's not fantasy football that we care about. Is that, the bolded part, what is going to lead him to the promised land of being a franchise QB? A lot of people have indicated that that's what's going to get him killed and shorten his career, however long it will be otherwise. I'm also not seeing any analysis as to why he ran so much. It wasn't always because he had no open receivers. Sometimes he just took off, he was quite often impatient in a pocket that he did have. Those are areas where he heavily needs to work on if in fact he's going to actually become a franchise QB.

LMAO My condescending attitude? Did you read your own post that my response was in regard to? LOL And listen, I'm not denigrating anyone, I'm analyzing their methods. And what, you take it personally that I say what I say about their methods? ... and you think I have problems? LOL I made a point based upon a reasonably stated argument. You picked one aspect of it to attack while ignoring the greater argument altogether, almost as if to suggest that there are no worries having a 30th ranked scoring offense and an average or slightly below average D is just fine to get your team where they need to go. I don't see anything at all condescending about my post. Sorry you see it that way. I'm guessing that it's because again, I simply pointed out that you leap-frogged the greater point to nitpick one entirely irrelevant point that was completely out of context otherwise. If that's the way you're going to attempt to make points, I'm not sure what to say.

They have everything to prove. Also, not sure that the TEs are worse, but again, I challenge narratives. Knox hasn't caught a TD in his collegiate career. He's yet another player that this staff has plucked that has serious injury issues. You can't continue to grab guys that are oft hurt and think that for some unbeknownst reason they'll all of a sudden no longer have injury issues here. Makes no sense to think like that, to the contrary in fact. But, if you meant with Kroft now out until the regular season, I'd agree with that. And if Knox for whatever reason doesn't stay healthy and justify their faith in him, I fully agree and they'll be a lot worse in fact. I was just reading another article this morning about how our WRs are finally above average starters. I'm not sure how people come to that conclusion. To start, Brown has started just over half of his 72 games in five seasons, he was really only a full-time starter last season for one or more reasons. Either way, and I've laid this out before, but he's averaged 646 yards and 4.4 TDs/season, which is only slightly below what he got last season starting 15 games. Was that above-average starting WR production? If so, is is something to be so optimistic about? Are those average starting WR stats much less above-average? All I can do is look at the numbers. So if some think that's average I can't say, but technically it's not average for starting WRs, much less above-average. So again, not sure where this narrative comes from. Even worse for Beasley. He's started 22 games out of 103, barely over 20%, so if that's the standard it's not true. He's averaged 469 yards and 3.3 TDs/season, even fewer than Brown. I mean is that average much less above average for a starting WR? I don't see it, and again, even if it is in one or two ways, is that cause for such hope based simply on Brown & Beasley? They'll both have to match their best seasons ever to render it so this season. Needless to say that I agree with you, we're subpart as you said with the WRs, we simply have a few more subpar WRs to choose from. There's hope that Foster breaks out and sheds his injury concerns, but until that happens. And I fully agree with you, they didn't do nearly what they could have at the skills for Allen, or the OL. IMO instead of focusing on the D as they did, Oliver in particular, they should have done more to help Allen.

Funny, I've heard several people say that. Must be why Belichick leans so hard on his great buddy Ernie Adams who's been with Belichick in an analytical role since Belichick's been the coach of NE.

Well, I guess that's one perspective, but if that running comes at the expense of not seeing receivers that can otherwise take the punishment instead of your QB it's a questionable one at the very minimum, eh.

Yaaay, you found one. Really? And your point, what, to show that you found ONE? Follow up on that tho, they didn't go anywhere and the following season with even better rankings they failed to make the playoffs. Seems like that reinforces what my global point was. So let's stay focused, shall we, the point is that teams like that aren't playoff caliber teams. If you think they are, then you might think that McBeane are doing a good job. That's fine, we'll simply have to agree to disagree then. I'd strongly suggest however that you'll be disappointed if they don't budge much from those rankings. I find that people that didn't go thru those years have a completely different perspective and notably lower standard for what a good team actually is. When we were good our offense consistently ranked in the top-10 and our D top half, sometimes top-10 in scoring. That's what we're looking for. Not getting lucky hoping to shatter odds because we're in a weak division w/o any single team in the division finishing even .500 much less with a winning record. I would personally like to seem a team like we had in the '90s, where we'd go to games not hoping to win, but expecting to win, not watching some other game not even involving us hoping for an upset from a lucky play so that we can "make the playoffs." "Making the playoffs" and being a playoff competitive team are two totally different things. The team that you just cited couldn't even score more points than they allowed by nearly a 100, their division rivals won 7, 6, and 5 games. Their division rival 7-9 Rams were just as close to making the playoffs. The difference between the two 7-9 teams was that Seattle beat the 5-11 Cards twice while the Rams only beat them once, which I believe was the tiebreaker. 5 other teams that failed to make the playoffs that season had better records. It's one thing to attempt to disprove someone's position, but you failed to do that. Don't let your emotional disposition get in the way of any overall points you're trying to make.

I'll be absolutely jacked if Allen puts together a nice season. I'll be jacked if he does that and we go only 8-8 and miss the playoffs. As a personality Allen's tops. You couldn't ask for a better team leader. As to positive posts, when there's something that I consider to be positive to such an extent that it warrants keeping this coach or GM I'll be among the first to say so. Just not seeing it at this point. What I"m curious about is how all of the people here that insist that Allen's going to be among the best this year, that Oliver's going to be the next Darnold, that Singletary's going to replace Shady, that our WRs are finally a good batch, that Knox and/or Kroft will not be injured this season, ditto for Morse, etc., are going to react if/when that all turns out to not be the case. Oh wait, I know how that'll look, we see it every three years or so. As you were. Sorry that my takes bother you. Not sure why. It's only discussion. Sounds like a personal problem to me.

Gee, what a wonderfully insightful critically well-thought out response. Nicely done. I look forward to more original deeply inspiring insights from you in the future.

That's good humor, but if you're really serious, then where does consistency fit into your analysis. Good luck with that one.

Indeed, but after three seasons, even two if we include that first one as a buffer season for reorienting contracts and the like, they've had plenty of time to assemble talent via three drafts now and otherwise two full offseasons of free-agency on their own. There has to be at least a significant trend in the positive direction. Keeping a coach that appears headed for mediocrity even if he doesn't crap out doesn't seem like a good biding of time. To me it more seems like a let's just see if he'll accidentally get it right next year kinda thing. I don't think that's worth waiting around for if there's a better coach available following the season. That's one of the problems we've had with QBs and coaches, instead of making decisions in years where one is available we always seem to passover a year where that's the case and then have less-than-optimal ones to choose from. That was the case with Manuel, instead of taking Russell Wilson, whom I was shocked to still see around in the 3rd although I'd have taken him in the 2nd easily, we waited until the following season and then reached for Manuel in a year when there really were no good QB prospects. Even with Allen, we could have realized that Taylor wasn't a starter and taken Mahomes or Watson, either one. They decided that we didn't need a QB and then they felt that their hand was forced in a year with a lot of risky QBs again. As I've said, I'd have used that mass of picks to build the OL and draft Lock this year. Kind of the opposite, but point being that they drafted from a draft wedged in between two better QB drafts again. Part of building a team is getting optimal value and you don't do that by drafting a position in a draft that is weak for that position. You do it by drafting positions that are rich in that position in any draft. I think they've had enough time to at least get to average all-around if it's going to ever happen on a consistent basis. OK Since you didn't realize, apparently, we had the 22nd ranked scoring offense, the 29th ranked yardage offense, the 18th scoring defense and the 26th yardage defense, and we needed another team to upset their opponent in order for us to "make the playoffs" in which we were summarily ousted. I guess we simply have different definitions of overrated, but there are plenty of people in both the fans and media, even some here, that have said the same. Everyone's entitled to their opinion however, but good luck finding another team that made the playoffs with rankings like that, ever.

Well, "breaking the drought" on its own is pretty meaningless other than to avoid embarrassment for Buffalo. Everyone knows we weren't truly a playoff caliber team. And if we were, then how has McD let it deteriorate so quickly. That's overrated. There has to be a trend towards reaching that goal. We'll see how things shake out, but I envision absolutely no scenario whereby Allen doesn't make massive strides and the heat for McD and Beane doesn't begin. If Allen does that then they'll get a stay. That is an outstanding question. Unless someone on my ignore list has answered it I notice that no one else has answered it. I don't see any such skills. Same for Beane, I see nothing indicative that he knows what he's doing either. Not that that should have been unexpected, he's an OJT GM and therefore was a coin-flip at best.

So assuminng for the sake of this part of the discusssion, that Allen doesn't improve much and Oliver also shows bust, we finish 6-10 again. You don't think that the heat would be on to fire McD and/or Beane?

Did he actually graduate? I don't know, just asking. Still, I get your point. It is befuddling. Must suck having to order a salad with your Wings every time just so you can get ranch dressing. Doesn't have the same flavor tho. Texture's comparable.

Those are bold. I won't comment on the Allen one other than to say that I'd bet more money on him rushing for 1,000 yards than passing for 4,000, and I don't think that his chances of rushing for 1,000 are good. 2. Jordan Poyer will be a Pro Bowler I can see that happening. I wouldn't put money on it but I can see it happening. 3. Devin Singletary will out-gain LeSean McCoy I can see Singletary outgaining Jones in receiving. If McCoy bounces back he'll lead the team in rushing. If not, anyone will be capable of logging more rushing yards. 4. Ed Oliver will finish with more sacks than Trent Murphy, Shaq Lawson Phillips will outplay Oliver 5. Zay Jones will be around 1,000 yards receiving by end of season See #3 above. If Jones hits 1,000 and Foster is our leading WR, then all the nonsense about the receivers sucking last year will have been just that, nonsense. Also, what, Beasley and Brown will have how many yards then? 6. Kevin Johnson will lead the Bills in interceptions The same Kevin Johnson who in 4 seasons and 18 starts has exactly 1 INT, 4 seasons ago? 7. Cody Ford will win right tackle job Not sure why this is so bold, neither Nsecke or Dawkins are the modern reincarnation of House Ballard. I suspect that this may be true at some point, but if so, then again, the existing narrative on Nsecke is likely false. 8. The Bills make the playoffs If Allen throws for 4,000 yards and limits his INTs, we'll make the playoffs. Let's hope so. I have difficulty envisioning that or him keeping his INT/TO totals to non-self-destructing totals. I'll be happier than a pig in a pile of ***** tho if he can do it.

4,000 rushing yards

That's the going narrative. I'm just curious tho, I hear this a lot but it seems as if people saying it haven't really looked at the basis for it. When we think of controlling the clock and keeping the defense off the field, two things come to mind, the number of plays run by both the offense and the defense and the associated time-of-possession. Right? Or am I missing something? The implication here is that we ranked near the worst in both. But what's the reality? Offensively the average number of plays run by all 32 teams was 1,007. We ran 1,008, a mere 1 off of average on the season, or 1/16th of a play/game. We ranked 19th in offensive plays run. But the D must've run way more than most of the other teams if they were that tuckered out, right? Defensively we ranked 5th which means that for 27 other teams their D was on the field for more plays than ours. Obviously we must have been on the field time wise more than most other teams. But nope, we ranked purely average with a 30:29 min time-of-possession. We ranked 9th in rushing yards and 6th in rushing attempts or rushing plays. I just ran an analysis of the ratio of offensive plays/team to defensive plays per team and we rank 11th, which is above average. We're one of 19 teams that ran more offensive plays than defensive ones and right in the middle of those 19. I'm still waiting for someone, anyone, to explain to me how and why it is that everyone claims that our D should have been all worn out from having played more than most teams when the data suggests that that is in no way the case. I'm not trying to pick on you and you're hardly the only one that's said that or similar, but seriously, I'm not understanding why anyone believes that because, for example, none of the reasons you gave are valid. I only say that because at the end of the day, for proper and effective analysis one must start with valid premises. I don't think it will matter as many people will continue to say that, but now anyone having read this will know it's not true. So we must then press on for other reasons as to why the issues then.

Goodbye!