BADOLBILZ

I disagree that 40 seconds is a universal number. Perhaps for other pass heavy teams. But not for a Bills offense that relies heavily on Allen in the run game. And the opponent matters here as well. The Lions are a nickel and dime offense. I'll take my chances with them with 20 seconds left in exchange for having the rush option still in play inside the 30 when Josh Allen has the ball. I thought they played it smarter in the Browns game.

I guess you are responding to the wrong post because I never said anything in this thread even close to "the Bills don't have a shot at the #1" seed. But it's a fact that they no longer control their own destiny for that critical #1 seed and the bye. They've blown that lead..........and I wouldn't frame their schedule as favorable compared to that of the #1 seed Chiefs. Right now there are 8 teams in the AFC with winning records.........the Bills have 5 of their remaining 6 games against them. The Chiefs have 7 games left and 5 are against teams with losing records. And all 8 of those teams think if we take care of our own business we will finish ahead of the Bills in the seeding. That's not where the Bills were projected to be. They've been upset 3 times. Last season, same issue. Upset 5 times on the way to a 7-6 record thru 13 games. And I'll add that you can be enjoying the season and you can be expecting a much better ending than finishing 5th in your conference......... but you can also be of the belief that they have failed to play up to their potential yet again........and that jeopardizes the goals of a team that's gone 0-4 on the road in the playoffs under this coaching staff.

One of my buddies answers to Baler Hayfield so bale jokes are on speed search.

That was exactly the story as you over-shared it here on TSW thru 2020 (when you were lamenting your inability to get playoff tickets for the Baltimore game). Since I bring it up periodically when you go on one of your fan-shaming LAMP-rants now you want to re-frame it? Of course you do.

BWAAAH......hahahahahahaHAhahahahahaha......

Nice LAMP post @eball! Some of the complaints are certainly over the top but they will most likely be the 5th seed in the AFC after 14 weeks when the Dolphins beat the Texans tomorrow. Because they came out flat after the bye......consistent with their annual mid-season slumps that have dashed their home field advantage hopes in each of their prior 3 seasons. Same thing happened in 2017. Coaching is the common denominator. And they did it by blowing big leads twice in the second half to fall out of the #1 seed and first place in the east. That is going to upset fans given SB favorite expectations and the importance the team itself has placed on earning the #1 seed. You know that. It's also a good time to remind you that you quit your (26 year?) season tickets in disgust at the organization when they fired Rex and hired Sean McDermott.

Agree. And it shouldn't be that way with the defense, the reserve safeties and LB's should know their assignments inside and out because they have been here for 2-3 seasons now. The promise of the McDefense was that you could do more with less talent in the secondary because it was more about being assignment sound than matching up individually. But additionally they have been running this D for 6 years now and teams know their tendencies when they put together a game plan.........so the Bills are trying to change things up while also dealing with injuries and limited practice time. On offense it's frustrating but there is also the school of thought that doing less things well is better than trying to fool opponents and doing it to a fault. Daboll was the latter much of last season. "Gotcha'" plays make you look brilliant when they work and stupid when they don't and you keep doing it anyway. I totally buy that Daboll wanted out, just like he wanted out of Alabama. That Wyche/Mularkey style of play calling grates on people like Saban, McDermott and Cowher. The Bills problem now is that simple doesn't work when you don't match up......and after 2 offseasons of neglecting to improve the offensive side of the ball they just don't have the horses to just line up and beat the men across from them the way they did in 2020 and to a lesser extent in 2021. I think they clearly over estimated their personnel coming into the season. Right now, "simple" is actually harder on Josh Allen because he's having to break down defenses with his feet........whether it be holding the ball to get covered receivers free or tucking and running with it.

I didn't miss your point. We have a lot of fans who will always think that other teams aren't as impacted by injuries. Even when the Bills are incredibly healthy like last season. The new one now is "yeah but the Bills injuries are to GOOD players". The Lions had both of their starting guards out.......their #1 CB got ruled out late in the week.......and they also had to elevate a DE from the practice squad and they were a 4-6 team with a 31st ranked defense to start with. But "woe are we" who had to deal with injuries to what is generally regarded as one of, if not the best, rosters in the league. Injuries didn't level the playing field by any means. The better team won. It still would have been an upset if that team with those players and that winning culture would have lost to THAT team.

In the TSW tradition of "But, but didn't you hear?" Not having Tre White cost the team a Super Bowl! The Chiefs version of Tre White....Tyrann Mathieu.......got knocked out a few plays into that game and their secondary was a mess that night but to some Bills fans the Chiefs stole the victory because the Bills were without Tre.

Yeah I was kidding. Edmunds wouldn't even have been in position to see and catch the football. He, unfortunately, has no nose for the football whatsoever. And I'm not kidding about that, unfortunately. He's made significant strides this year but he just doesn't have the processing speed to transition from hit it to get it like guys like Poyer and Milano.

I think it's just a bit of over-adjustment to Daboll's inconsistent (wicky-wacky) play calling tendencies. And McDermott might have something to do with that, I don't think he loved Daboll's work last season. If not for a number of inexcusable Allen turnovers this offense looks MUCH more productive against a much better schedule than they faced last year. At worst they've been more consistent. The Daboll lovers hate to hear that but there hasn't been a 6 point performance against the worst team in the NFL this year now, has there? And I'd also add that the personnel isn't as good on offense this season either. Saffold has been pretty lousy. Beasley and Sanders were replaced by Shakir and Kumerow/Hodgins/Gentry(I guess?). Yikes. I'm not enamored with the work of Dorsey either but I agree that he needs some time to figure it out. Daboll was terrible at many stops before he became a genius overnight.

Favre would actually top that list of 4-5 "others" IMO. He had a knack for firing those long frozen ropes thru traffic at high velocity.

He did his best Edmunds impression on that ball that was thrown right to him though. They finally have reached the season where they miss Edmunds when he is not out there but watching Klein play is a reminder that an instinctive LB can be good enough.

Yeah the week before they managed their time much better at the end of the half. I was surprised that they didn't do the same this week.........should have come up with a TD there against a bad defense with it's #1 CB out but they ran themselves into a short play sheet. The Bills script-flipper/opponent soul crusher as currently constituted is Allen running the ball so like any running team they are more dangerous when they have the time to afford to be able to run the ball. But overall I think McD notably out-managed the Meathead. Which was necessary because the Lions OC was in Frazier's pants for much of the game.

Of course.........if he slides and that kick is 3 yards further back..........the same shaky Bass kick is then wide left. Allen has had to push the envelope because they tried to build a super defense instead of a super offense...........and to this point that approach has failed to yield top seed results. When you have the best football player in the league at QB you should take the shortest distance to greatness, IMO.

The whining about injuries and hyperbole like "I've never seen so many injuries" has been pretty absurd. The Bills have been a remarkably healthy team under McDermott and have still been one of the healthier teams this year. Bottom line: it's harder to maintain consistently excellent defense than it is offense. Once you have a great QB it's hard to hold an offense down. But you can have 7 studs on defense but a couple injuries can lead to assignment errors that undermine everything else. The Bills are experiencing that with a relatively normal attrition rate. Additionally, every season a player or two unexpectedly gets exposed. Most recently it's definitely Dane Jacksons lack of ball skills with his back to the QB. Similar to what teams figured out with Edmunds a couple seasons ago when his passer rating against skyrocketed. If the worst thing that can happen is a ball ending up on the turf that's usually a risk worth taking.

I thought Beane had learned his lesson when he acquired Brown, Beasley and Diggs in back-to-back offseasons and they started calling WR their "fastball".

When you have Josh Allen throwing the football.........you don't just want a pure slot receiver.......you want a two stud WR's who can play inside or out. Then one of them is always in the slot in 3 WR sets and their route tree isn't limited from the slot because they can do it all. This leaves the other boundary spot for a deep ball specialist like Gabe Davis.

The drop % and the inability to win contested catch situations are glaring issues. @dave mcbride correctly pointed out the contested catch situation he won versus Minkah Fitzpatrick.........but generally speaking if the DB is anywhere near the ball he doesn't catch it. I think part of the issue could be him not knowing what he didn't know about himself last offseason. Davis had been getting highly favorable matchups for his first two years so he wasn't really having to catch the ball against tight coverage very often. Maybe his offseason work will be very much about winning despite contact as he seeks that contract. Ultimately, the Bills just figuratively dropped the ball at the WR position the past two offseasons and that's why we've had to watch Davis play a role he isn't suited for at this point.

Nothing anyone says on TSW is inherently "useful". Thinking otherwise is just your cracked perception of reality.

You'll have to be much more specific with your second paragraph. MLB has guaranteed contracts and they still play games with payroll. One team can have a $40M payroll and another can have a $300M payroll. My Yankees, for instance, have had payrolls of around $250M on $900M in revenues in the 2010's. The NFL shares revenue near equally with players and teams are required to spend 90% of their cap over a 3 year period. Guaranteed salaries are a "massive boon" for certain individual players but not for the players as a whole if the dollars aren't there or aren't being spent.

It's not really disputable by the numbers. The NFL only seems *somewhat* random at times because the talent is more evenly distributed than in other sports. Even with the systems in place to create parity there have been multiple seasons in the past 50 years where NFL teams have had entirely undefeated AND winless regular seasons. That's effectively impossible in MLB, NBA and NHL. The inherent competitiveness in their seasons allows those sports to maintain a level of fan interest without the full range of parity inducing measures in place. Trying to qualify and extract "season is too long" only serves to emphasize the point. The NFL can't play long seasons........so they can't operate like those sports. If they did the product would take a massive hit in popularity and LIKELY even have to contract.

This has been speculated a little on TSW with the way IR is now........so I wondered when we were going to see this kinda' news. Coming down the stretch and he knows this is his last best shot at getting a SB ring. Next season the veteran roster pieces will start falling off in larger numbers so it's going to cease being a monumental upset every time they lose a game.