BADOLBILZ

You've had worse takes than that......but that one is pretty bad. First of all........he never approached a 2,000 yard season. Only had 2 seasons over 1,000 total yards from scrimmage in his career. And CJ was playing in the "all-22" era and what was abundantly obvious to anyone willing to watch was that he couldn't process the play calls and was just running to what he perceived was daylight on every play. Steve Tasker let the cat out of the bag during a telecast his rookie year when he said CJ wasn't playing because he couldn't process the play calls. Since most Bills fans thought guys like Willis McGahee and Travis Henry were total idiots they didn't really understand just how big the difference that there was in intelligence between Spiller and the average RB. That's also why CJ didn't start at Clemson until his senior year despite backing up a non-NFL RB James Davis. Coaches don't want to live and die by players freestyling. On the plus side, many of his big plays were just total nonsense run choices where the defense followed the blocking, presuming that was where the ball was going, and CJ just ran the wrong way for a big gain. Total idiot move drafting him by Buddy and Chan.......but what Chan Gailey coaxed out of him was a miracle. I still remember TSW talking about how good CJ was going to be in Sean Payton's more complicated offense. Hilarious.

How did you not know that Andy Reid had been to championship games with Philly? Just unbelievable level of ignorance for someone so invested in the topic. By definition.......Dopey = Idiotic = very stupid = lacking intelligence or common sense. Ignorance isn't always the byproduct of being "dopey" but it definitely tracks in your case.

Not having home field and a first round bye in any of these seasons has been very detrimental. Just because they lost at home in 2022........after a brutal year with, once again, no meaningless game and bye week to re-charge at the end..........doesn't mean that the regular seasons just don't matter. In fact, if they had finished with the #1 seed last season they'd have had a bye week......not sustained injuries and been rested........and likely would have been playing the grass-green Jaguars in the divisional round instead of the bad matchup against Cinci. We see teams play far below their standard at points in the playoffs and escape and then get their act together and win the SB. Tampa in 2020 narrowly beating Washington in the wild card round and KC in the championship game versus Cinci this past season. Never having that #1 seed and that first round bye matter. In 6 of their 9 losses the past two seasons they've failed to reach 20 points and a common theme has been the lack of playmakers around Allen on offense. Trying to say it's not an issue because Gabe has had 3 very good playoff games out of the 7 he's played is by no means definitive proof that the Bills don't have a problem receiver 2. It's just box score scouting.

Maybe........but if the alternative is to target Davis 100+ times over 17 games........well, we know that that lead to a lot of interceptions and a very poor passer rating. Again.......we need to keep our fingers crossed that somebody on the roster turns into a better option than Davis.

@HappyDays has thoroughly answered your question marked sentences. But to your last point........ The problem has shown up in the playoffs.........but not only there. It's easy for some to forget that the 21' team failed to earn home field advantage over KC(despite beating them in KC in the regular season) in great part because Beasley fell off greatly and they had also lost the explosiveness they'd had in John Brown during the first half of their 2020 season..........which was the high point for their receiving corps and a place in time where some Bills fans still think they are for some reason. They've had some horrible, inexcusable, damaging regular season losses......Jacksonville in 21' and NYJ in 22' in particular......... where they needed someone other than Diggs to step up and make plays in the passing game........clever defensive gameplans that allowed the far inferior teams defenses to dictate terms to the Bills offense. And in both games they also called on Gabe to catch an important pass late........and he instead spilled those catchable balls on the turf. Gabe has NOT been good enough. The only argument against that is if someone thinks Gabe is going to be much better. I don't know how anyone can have watched him play week-in and week-out and expect that. It's not realistic.

What matters is how they related to their peers. McNabb was considered a top 5 QB and the second most athletic QB(to Mike Vick) of that 5 year period from 2000-2004 while usually playing with a bottom 5 receiving corps that tamped his passing and efficiency stats down. In 2000 he was the runner-up for NFL MVP and in 2004 he was even better. He wasn't some pedestrian QB. I'd like to say Allen is BETTER relative to his peers.........but either way the distance between McNabb being top 5 and however we view the similarly "overall-game-over-passing-efficiency" style of Josh Allen isn't THAT much different. From 2005-2007 McNabb started getting hurt regularly and missed 15 games over that period but he was still one of the best QB's in the league........and with poor receiving talent around him. He got kind of a raw deal in Philly.

The Chiefs have done both for Mahomes. The greatest common thread in Andy Reid's career failures was actually not having enough WR talent around his QB. Easily the greatest criticism of the Eagles organization while he was HC there. And it continued early on with the Chiefs.......so for about the first 18 years of his HC career that was mostly the case..........the one season he had an elite QB with an elite WR at the time was when his Eagles acquired TO, and subsequently, McNabb played like an MVP and they went to the SB. That all changed over the course of 2016-2018 when Kelce emerged, then Hill and then they gave Sammy Watkins that 4 year $64M deal. They stacked the room and won a SB in 2019. Even now they have Kelce and two second round picks from the last 2 drafts and a 1st rounder from 2021 that they acquired in trade in their receiving group. So yes they have more invested in the OL but they still have more invested in terms of capital and draft picks at receiving positions than the Bills have as well.

I think people tend to view Donovan McNabb very differently in hindsight...........he was a lot better in comparison to his peers than people remember. He regularly finished around 8th in the NFL in passer rating despite one of the worst WR groups in the league year after year. His leading receiver in 2003 was Todd Pinkston with 575 yards. Yikes. Josh Allen finished 8th in passer rating with Stef Diggs at his disposal last season......for comparison sake. In 2004 they finally gave McNabb a WR1 in Terrell Owens.........and he finished 4th in passer rating and the Eagles advanced to a SB. TO didn't even play half of the next season and then it was back to WR purgatory for McNabb and the Andy Reid Eagles. And when Reid went to the Chiefs they famously went an entire season without throwing a TD pass to a WR. Reid got too much of a pass for not having SB caliber QB's............and not enough scrutiny for demanding that they put talent around his QB's. The latter part of his career they have valued offensive skill talent much more and that has yielded greater results.

They grew back..........but this time nothing sticks to them

Oh, Dopey........so hopelessly dense you are. Now that he's not a Buffalo Bill I am glad Zay is good at letting things go.........it bothered me when he was doing it as a Bill though......

I don't think McDermott and Allen winning a SB together in the next few years would be a particularly surprising break with history...........that's a threshold just waiting to be crossed. Especially with the depth at the QB position in todays NFL. Now Andy Reid not winning his first SB until his 21st year as a HC.........with all the #1 seedings that he squandered along the way............that is such a crazy anomaly that it will never be matched. 30 years from now when everybody playing currently will be ancient history........that fact will be a real bit of stunning trivia.

Whether dropping passes gets him down or not has nothing to do with what I said. I said he's still dropping them passes. Does he really think that anyone reading that story needs to be told that he's "been" on the "drop a touchdown pass" side of things. 😂 It's spoken like the dropsies are in the past tense for him.........when in fact, he was the worst ball dropper in the National Football League this past season.

I mean.......it's Promo

Yeah we remember that you were always telling us how good we all had it during the drought and that we should be ashamed of expecting any actual success. True story. The drought was your baby now you are calling it ugly. For shame!

Or it could just sound like I am telling it like it is about a Bills draft bust. That bad choice on draft day still resonates with the organization even now because they passed on some much better receivers while also trading up to get him and since then they've had to go the veteran route (or 2 GS by UDFA Robert Foster) to fill every other starting WR role from then until Gabe got his shot(and disappointed) in 2022. Maybe being the worst ball dropping WR in the NFL is a great success story when you are an upstart, low expectations team who snuck into the wildcard round after being terrible for most of the first half of the season. But if he repeats that with Jacksonville eyeing the #1 seed in their soft division this year........I suspect the story will be "we gotta' replace this guy if we want to advance any further".

First of all 10% isn't "a bad drop year". It's as bad as it gets kinda' drop year and he was at 10% in both 2020 and 2022.........so both seasons post "fighting for Jesus" or whatever it was that he said when he was trashed that night. And you're right they should have just left the "horrific night" out entirely. "Inconsistency can't keep Zay Jones down" alone isn't particularly compelling though.

Correct Zay lead all NFL wide receivers in drops and drop %. Gabe was second in drop %. So not 1-2 in total drops but in drop %.

Not at all........it's good that he got over that night but I have plenty of friends that have gotten trashed one night in their lives and done things that could have resulted in their death if things had gone differently. It's ultimately a human interest piece that cuts A LOT of corners.......like buying that he didn't know if he was intoxicated or with what.......or that the game losing drop in Carolina was an outrageous ask(ignoring the fact that the turf monster tackled him causing him to not be where he was supposed to be). That's just some of it. Lotta' excuses made to create a narrative of Jones as a victim of circumstance so that Dunne can prop him up for doing better. He and his family were a weird, awkward presence when he was here in Buffalo. That combined with his play made him a must move and a big draft bust for the regime. Good for him that he is happier but his main issue on the football field remains even as he gets more run. That's MY point.

One thing that hasn't changed.........he's still "Drop-Zone" Jones. Only receiver in the NFL to drop more passes than Gabe last year..........just did it on a lot more targets. Remarkable that the Bills drafted the two worst ball droppers in the league in Zay and Gabe...........claimed McKenzie who was a near historic fumble factory in Denver and had a Gabe-esque drop rate last season........and drafted Knox who has been a work in progress wrt hands..........goes too show you that early in a teams development the finer points of the game can get overlooked. I expect Zay will wear out his welcome fairly quick in Jax if he doesn't fix the dropsies. Expectations and windows of opportunity change the perspective.

I think you should at some point recognize that you tend to take emotional, stubborn, self destructive "I'm sorry but.." stances and try to reverse engineer a reason why you are right. It's not the early 2000's anymore with only a handful of high end QB talents. You aren't finishing with an "elite" offense in the NFL today without a single elite weapon around your QB. You even have "plus picks" in the same sentence as "I'm still expecting this offense to be elite"......like future draft capital will make them lighter on their feet in 2023. That makes as much actual sense as the guy yesterday who mentioned that re-signing Ed Oliver was a way that the Bills had made their defense FASTER.

Well he's a high intensity guy and when he's initially getting along with everyone that can be confused with leadership. But with people of his temperament just plain old familiarity breeds contempt. The discord in Minnesota and subsequent relief being traded to Buffalo never made much sense either. But like Josh Allen says........."none of this works" without Diggs. It just doesn't. Their receiving corps is a joke without him.

You've missed the point. He is what he is. Davis could never-ever catch 77% of his passes running short routes......it would only LESSEN his impact because he will be OPEN less and he struggles in all contested catch situations. The second best option has to be much better than Gabe has proven that he can be. It's so clear........that it really isn't even about Davis. He is a bad-handed HR specialist being asked to do more than he can. You aren't saying anything talking about his depth of target. His targets need to be deep because those are the routes he can get open on. Gabe's 15 YDOT(depth of target) is a lot different than when Diggs had a 15 YDOT in 2019........because Diggs could actually execute the other routes. Gabe can't. And don't even start in about RB's. You can scratch your head all you want.........that has nothing to do with their failure to beat the best teams in the playoffs. Individual RB's don't move the needle in the playoffs and teams that rely heavily on them struggle to get similar results against defense's playing with playoff level intensity. See the Saints getting upset in the playoffs over and over in good part due to their offensive reliance on Alvin Kamara.

Yep, I love Gabe Davis as a clear 3rd option. Like a 60 targets guy. He's like having a power hitter batting 4th. The idea is to load the bases with the top options and then, when there is nowhere to put him, the pitcher has to throw him strikes which raises his batting average 100+ points. That's Gabe........he needs the attention of the defense focused elsewhere so he can get favorable matchups..........and he has the deep ball skills to take advantage of those situations. I think people get confused about his playoff performances and think that indicates that there is something else there that he just isn't showing in the regular season. I don't think that's the case. He is what he is.........inconsistent but a HR threat.

That's why I am weighing bulk production with catch rate. Last year Juju produced more yardage but also caught 77% versus Davis 52%. Juju had 8 more targets than Gabe and just 23 of his 101 total weren't caught. Gabe was a ghastly 48 of 93. He had 45 passes un-caught. That's a crazy disparity in the amount of wasted downs between a teams #2 options. It stands to reason that your offense is going to be less consistent and vulnerable to peaks and valleys when your second option is that guy. Of course Gabe is a different kind of receiver.........and that kind of receiver needs to be WR3 for a SB contender. That's a lesson that Green Bay never learned with a guy like Marquez Valdes-Scantling. They thought he was fine as the HR option opposite the league's top producing WR in Adams. The Chiefs picked MVS up and installed him as the clear 3rd option....along with a deep cast of subsequent options.......and won a SB. I think the people who defend Davis as an excellent option 2 really don't understand the similarity between Davis and MVS and what it should tell them. Green Bay laid out this gameplan for failure for over a decade........an over-emphasis on defense at the expense of receiving weapons when you have an elite QB.