BADOLBILZ

Yeah I can't remember where I heard it but I guess Harris and Murray were two of the very best backs in the league at gaining yards inside the 10 yard line last season so I think their signings were probably analytics plays. I am sure it's like that with Harty as well.........he has done something they feel they lack like YAC or getting separation. I'm not anti-analytics by any means but I am dubious of a lot of the data that teams isolate as important.

I think you would be wrong about there being MORE danger in the pocket. Both of Rodgers broken clavicle injuries occurred on pocket escapes. But I agree that the designed runs have to end. Ultimately they just need to get the ball out of Allen's hands quicker on a more frequent basis like KC is doing with Mahomes now. That stuff mutes pass rush and decreases potential for injury across the board. The problem is........if you don't have playmakers to throw the ball too you need to be remarkably accurate/precise to run an offense that way. The Bills have neither the weapons or the precision passing QB to execute that kind of offense right now and they won't get the latter without the former, IMO. Until they put the talent around Allen he's going to just presume he has to run around until someone gets open and we then probably won't see him back perfecting his craft as a passer in the offseasons again like he did early in his career.

Basically, @BullBuchanan is just Doesn't want to consider the truth. The reality is that running the ball in the NFL comes with less protections and a different set of risks. One of those is a particular injury he's suffered twice.......broken clavicle. In the pocket the league has made it less likely that QB's will have the full weight of a defender fall on them...........when you are scrambling/running that protection is lost.

He missed his age 19 season in college with a broken clavicle running the ball in his first career start. That's the only injury that he's missed significant time from in his career (unless you count the other broken clavicle that ended his season in HS). And it happened outside of the pocket. As did his only documented concussion.........on a play where he got blasted. The point is that contrary to your nonsense..........he does not become unlikely to suffer season ending level injuries when he starts running the ball. The only significant time that Aaron Rodgers has missed in his career? Broken clavicle in 2013 and again in 2017..........both happened when scrambling outside of the pocket. One of them was landing on his left shoulder with the ball tucked. I understand why you want to be willfully ignorant on this subject but you are just full of sh!t and I am pointing it out.

Yeah I think they probably have an understanding that he won't make the roster unless someone gets injured..........but will be around on the practice squad all season for certain. At the very least, even if there is an injury and he figured into the immediate plans, I suspect could still be one of those non-waiver eligible veteran guys who would be released to protect a more coveted player while they set up someone to go on IR in week 1. Like they did with Andre Roberts a few years ago. The guarantee given was probably just a way of paying a premium over practice squad money in a manner that sorta' circumvents the cap because they already have veteran minimum contracts on the back end of the 51 that count against the cap. I haven't heard it spoken as such but I suppose one advantage of being cap strapped and loaded with vet contracts is that you can play around with vet minimum type guarantees because you aren't leaning on day 3 rookie contracts to keep you under the cap.

No need to apologize. These are easy facts for anyone with any conviction at all about being truthful/accurate to find.......so it was already understood that your ignorance was by choice. I understand why some fans want to live in denial about the added risks.

I think what you are describing is some fans being weird. Not sports. If you like the actual sports it's a much different experience than you are describing.

Or the less sociopathic version: "Only you can make you happy"

I mean, what they did in a literal sense, was switch out all of last season's proven failures for some veteran journeymen WR's and modest IOL talent in UFA who were coming off seasons that ranged from totally unproductive to modestly effective. They are just hoping that they hit the jackpot with a couple of those guys AT LEAST and that they play much better than they did with their teams in 2022. Which, for reference, is what Indianapolis is hoping for from Isaiah McKenzie too. Because the fact is, they didn't acquire a single player on offense who played up to the level last season that they need them to play at this year in Buffalo to make a difference. There isn't a single one for whom a repeat performance would be a success if they need to play an important role for the Bills offense in 2023. They tried the same thing last year with Jamison Crowder and OJ Howard. Those were even bigger names with more and better NFL seasons in their past.......for whom much was hoped for.......but they never even got off the runway. The moves that they made that are most likely to move the needle for the team are their 1st round TE and 2nd round OG. And that's mainly because they don't have a proven track record of not being able to excel......or missing significant time due to injuries........that the free agents do. I have my fingers crossed that the mixture of additions work out but I'm going to be realistic about what to expect......especially from the rag tag group they added in UFA.

Agree.........if year two of the 2021-2022 JA17 offseason method doesn't yield a Super Bowl win this season.......then we should hope Allen would instead adopt the habits of the QB's who have won 4 of the last 5 SB's instead.

Whether fans or media give him the leeway to put football on the back burner all offseason or not.......once a franchise QB gets that bag they are going to do whatever they want and as an organization you need to adjust to THAT. That was my point with the Roethlisberger reference. The Steelers organization had to work around what Big Ben was willing to do and they won a second SB with Ben and reached a third because they didn't neglect his supporting cast. I do think that our boy has lost that chip on his shoulder though. I think that fell off in the 13 seconds game where he played so great in defeat. He's gone from a football-centric guy striving to become a more efficient passer in the offseasons to a guy with a whole lotta' low level off-field noise. Which is very early 2010's Aaron Rodgers-esque. The Packers did not adjust and they didn't win another SB.

Allen's sophomore year actually. He missed basically entire season as a result of that injury. And no, he was not taken out as a precaution against the Patriots. Link below shows him clearly getting KO'd and lying motionless on the turf. You need to layoff that milk of amnesia. Also had a lot of people citing the huge hit when scrambling against Green Bay as a turning point in his performance last season. The point is the people who insist he just never takes huge hits or gets hurt running the football are simply wrong. Also of note that the past two seasons he's run the ball a lot more...........and subsequently talked up the unique-to-him toll it's taken on him and cited the need to recuperate at the expense of spending the time working on the technical aspects of his game as he had been doing in prior seasons.

Allen injuries just when running: Broken clavicle ( knocked out for season at Wyoming) concussion (knocked out of close game versus Patriots and Barkley was putrid in relief) toe injury (versus Tampa 2021)

@GunnerBill had me at "Bengals miss the playoffs" last year.

That's the AFC South........so they are trading him when they are in first place?

First of all @4merper4mer is wrong about 98% of the time so he is below broken clock level even. Second...........I think another thing we are learning about our QB is that he prefers a mixture of the Ben Roethlisberger offseason regimen of golf and body fat building(sans the sexual assault and motorcycle tricks) along with the Aaron Rodgers "dating semi-hot celebrity women". So expecting him to elevate a bunch of middling talents at WR like he is spending his offseasons in the lab perfecting all the finer points of his game is probably not the safest route. He prefers the less is more approach to the offseasons and your franchise is hitched to him...........so like the Steelers did with Big Ben the Bills probably should start taking the more is more approach to stocking offensive talent around him.

Yeah even Mahomes needs to take less hits and he runs half as much. Lumbering, unathletic types like Brady and Manning had bit of a leg up on longevity because they KNEW they couldn't run so they had to find a way to succeed while getting the ball out quick. If Peyton hadn't hurt his neck falling down the stairs at Big Tree Inn trying to run with Jim Kelly after a game in Buffalo he probably plays until he was 45 too.

I know you are still mad about me calling you out for your antisemitism but what did @Einstein do to you?

Agree. And you know it's the offseason when people are talking about JA17's "touch" as a passer. That's still not a strength of his game. It's a big separator between he and Mahomes. Allen still makes a lot of bad throws on relatively routine plays and his shaky touch is one of the reasons that they haven't been able to get better in the screen game and passing to RB's in general. It was more pronounced after his elbow injury last year but touch has never been a strength. We tend to forget about it because he usually makes up for it the next play and because he can reach areas of the field that most others can't so his receivers have more ways to get "open". But he does not have the ball on a string out there like Brady or Mahomes.

Yeah, rare case where we agree. Missing a season after being injured running isn't nothing @Freddie's Dead He also sustained a turf toe injury running against Tampa in 2021 but played thru it. There should be no question that he is running the ball too much right now............the volume is absurd.

And likewise.........I think New England and TN probably think they can low ball him because there isn't a lot of willing money out there. I mean if Buffalo and KC were only able to offer a fraction of what they were.........then they probably think they shouldn't pay full price either. If he'd been offered $19M per year for multi-year with 50% gtd I think he'd be signed by now. Personally, I think Hopkins best chance to win is with Buff/KC of course but that his best chance at big numbers is probably elsewhere with his boy DeShaun or a middling pocket passer like Mac or Tannehill who is likely more willing to throw the ball up for grabs to Hopkins. Mahomes is going to throw the ball to the open man and JA has never been one for throwing into tight coverage so both of those destinations figure to at least have some growing pains while they get used to throwing into traffic to feed Hopkins.

Yeah, c'mon @Rigotz.........there are always a few fans with no concept of value............but the bulk of the educated discussion about trading for Hopkins was trading a pick in exchange for Arizona eating most of his base salary this season. Like a third rounder in exchange for Arizona eating $14M of his $19M in base salary for 2023. Some teams who aren't tight fisted like Arizona would do that. It's basically what the Brandin Cooks trade from Houston to Dallas was.......draft capital for cap space so they could acquire a player who wasn't in the plans of the team holding his contract. It's the NFL version of a "sign and trade". One thing we've generally understood all along was that Hopkins cap hit for 2023 was going to have to fall in the $5M or less range for Buffalo to swing it.

I was in my vehicle when Murph screamed "Touchdownnnn!" on the pass that Allen one hopped 10 feet in front of McKenzie late in that heat exhaustion game in Miami last year. It was time for a change either way. I know pro sports teams have been slow to replace radio people in recent times because the audience is old and it's easier to just stick with old stand-by's and not upset the few people still listening. Sorta' like the Yankees with their two Octegenarian announcers........talk about a hard listen.

Yeah I surely hope McGovern turns out to be good too. You don't pay an interior OL who has never even been a full time starter the kind of money they did unless you think he's going to be A LOT better than he's ever been before. But his pff grade last year was brutal. To register a 52 score you have put a lot of bad on tape. Clearly the splits were vastly different because his pass blocking was good and his run blocking was not. And as I've said.......there is no such thing as a 3rd down guard........you can't be terrible at one aspect and be a good guard. Saffold was even worse (42) but he was simply terrible snap-in-snap-out all season.

4. Who are the Bills "deep group of good WR"? It's Diggs.......a huge gap..........and THEN a MVS-like WR3 in Gabe Davis(who is a pending UFA)......the another drop-off to a couple 5th rounders and a couple journeymen with 190 yards per season averages. You are subtracting Diggs from the equation but not adding ANY of the 4 or 5 "good" receivers. Maybe Kincaid turns into a WR, but even then, without Diggs, on paper it's Kincaid and the pips without significant investment into the position in the 2024 offseason. Again........you are drawing a broad conclusion based on one single result that you think was the Chiefs filling WR roles with a bunch of rando's(when they in fact, did not)........and then the Chiefs being the first team to win a SB without two very high quality WR's since the 2018 Patriots. My advice is to eliminate any Patriot result when you are looking at SB success. There are not any HC's in the NFL who can hold a candle to Belichick on an even playing field.