BADOLBILZ

It's not because of his performance at guard. He was solid there after some unexpected struggles early at RT. He also didn't miss a snap all season. He was playing on a big contract last year.........not every player is like Jason Peters and will take a pay cut to keep playing because they love the game. There were people saying that Julio Jones not signing was proof that he was washed and nobody wanted him..........and he actually was coming off a season where he was injured most of the year...........and then he signed a $6M+ 1 year deal in training camp. Just because a player isn't signed doesn't mean teams aren't trying to sign him.

It could come down to who can maroon the great Tavon Austin on their own private island.

Now Tre White is an "island CB"? Tre White is a stud zone CB.......a modern day Rhonde Barber type..........not an "island" man cover CB. And if the best man coverage CB Jalen Ramsey can't strand Mike Evans or the Bengals receivers on an island in the playoffs then I wouldn't hold my breath expecting Tre White to. The Bills play zone defense because that is their style...........not just because they are limited by the physical skills of their CB's.

I would equate this to having a bigger playbook on offense...........sounds good in principle...........more possibilities equals harder to defend. On paper. But it often proves much different in practice. The most important aspect of each play is proper execution..........being able to play some man at a lesser quality than you can play zone is not a win just because you are mixing it up............because they are elite in zone. The proper response was to improve the pass rush.........they did that with Miller joining a cast of highly drafted 2nd-4th year players. Whether it was necessary to spend to the volume of cash and chips on the other aspects of the defense is debatable..............run defense isn't a big priority in the game anymore and the Bills secondary is very deep with capable players for their scheme.

No.........they are at their core a zone pass defense. The zone aspect isn't a sacrifice.........it's their identity. The defense fell apart with 2 minutes left in the divisional game..........exhausted by Mahomes pulling the ball down when receivers were covered and keeping drives alive with his feet due to a pass rush that could not finish. Not due to 60 minutes of poor coverage. Prior to that exhausted finish for the entire Bills back 7..........they had played better in the secondary than they had in the AFCCG the year before WITH Tre White. Benford/McCloud looking good in camp "underlines" what I've said all along............the Bills have never had any trouble finding good CB play under McDermott. They could find a guy in UDFA who runs a 4.6 and if he's smart and instinctive he could beat a guy like Elam out if he doesn't demonstrate those particular abilities consistently. Regardless of his track metrics.

As I said when the Bills drafted Elam.......CB was not nearly the immediate concern/need that some fans thought. And the Bills play a system where they can adjust the amount of exposure that their CB's have as well. Offensively they have no concerns whatsoever about not having enough seats for all the underwhelming OL and WR candidates. But they could easily just go with 5 WR's and keep an extra DB. The 6th and 7th WR options will be practice squad quality anyway.

Has anyone complained about adding Von Miller? Everyone knows that the pass rush unit that Brandon Beane has built here since 2017 has been very disappointing. The question is whether it was really wise to pay 3 OTHER free agent DL starting quality money.......mostly run D first guys.........and then draft a CB in round 1 and a cover LB in round 3 when they had arguably the best secondary and back 7 coverage until in the NFL already? They did A LOT more than address the pass rush on defense this offseason. Of offense they signed a veteran in Saffold who missed 5 games worth of snaps with a chronic shoulder injury last season to replace Daryl Williams(who had played every snap of the season). Every other veteran addition by the Bills on offense was just an injury flyer discount.

We must have been at different games..........the weather at the one in Orchard Park wasn't 11-26 passing for 120 yards 0 TD's and 3 interceptions bad. The Bills had an easy schedule and they just played down to competition and had flat performances far too often............MOSTLY on offense. When they had bad days on defense there was a reason.........a strong offensive opponent..........their bad days on offense were pretty random........the worst being the 6 point debacle in Jacksonville against the worst team in the sport.

Agree........but that's not the discussion point. The offense wasn't good that day............Allen just played RB1 rushing the ball 15 times because the OL couldn't pass block and Allen and the receivers couldn't move the ball. Similar struggle versus Carolina but versus Atlanta Allen didn't stay in the pocket and get sacked 4x. Jets game finale was no dandy either. That's the game where Gabe Davis authored his 3 catches on 14 targets masterpiece. The offense was focused and sharp in the second half versus Tampa and the second NE game...........but like too much of the season they didn't bring their A game consistently on offense down the stretch. They were much more consistent on defense during the season.

Yeah...........the offense almost cost Buffalo a W that day. Josh Allen had one of the worst days of his career passing the ball........... 11-26 for 120 yards 0 TD's and 3 interceptions. There is a misconception that the offense was great after the first half in Tampa............the Carolina and Atlanta games were actually offensive struggles despite the score.

Well no.......you are omitting one of the more high scoring offenses in the NFL. The Patriots offense was better than both TN and Indy. The Bills played and dominated NE defensively 3 times on their way to being the only team in the NFL to give up less than 300 points on the season. If you had said before the season that the Bills would go 1-2 on the road versus KC, TN and Tampa.........nobody would have been surprised............the Indy game was a disaster but the offense and ST's were atrocious that day as well. What really hurt was losing to two of the worst offenses in the NFL..........Pittsburgh and Jacksonville.........despite dominating them defensively. 6 points against winless, league worst Jacksonville was one of the worst offensive showings and most inexcusable losses in Bills history. Defense didn't allow a TD that day.

The defensive line isn't why they were on the road in the playoffs last year. The Bills defense was #1 in the NFL. And no team has invested more in the DL since 2018 than the Bills.........the myriad of free agents haven't panned out so far and the 4 first and second round picks haven't made a lot of impact plays yet. Love the Von Miller signing but Star, Murphy, Butler, Jefferson, Addison........that's about $100M prioritized on mediocrity. For all of that investment in the DL they haven't had a double digit sacker in McD's 5 seasons here.........the longest such streak for the Bills since sacks became an official stat.

Picked up a solid #2 starter in Frankie Montas. Gave up some nice young prospect pitchers but when you are unnecessarily cheap in the offseason that's what you gotta' do(Carlos Rodon would have been nice). Injurino back in his comfort zone on the 60 day IL now. He won't be back until mid-September at earliest.

Maybe offenses might attack the Bills a bit differently without Edmunds but the mistake people make is thinking that such a thing would make their defense the lesser. Prior to the Dareus trade the Bills 2017 defense was playing tremendous football with journeyman quality Preston Brown at MLB. Brown went on the lead the entire NFL in tackles that season. The system is conducive to making an instinctive MLB......which isn't hard to find.......look good. That's why it was troubling when Edmunds didn't make much(any, really) progress after his rookie season. Every season we wonder if the switch is going to come on for him. Maybe it does. But what he's been doing really wouldn't be that difficult to replace.

1) So you are saying Edmunds has the impact of a franchise QB........but on the defensive side of the ball? That would be very false. He's a signal caller not a QB..........don't use outdated phraseology that makes no sense in the current NFL. MLB's have traditionally mirrored RB's in terms of importance and that really hasn't changed nearly as much as the value of the QB position in the past 20 years. You can't win without a top QB now...........you can win without a top RB or MLB. Proof? Who was the Rams MLB in the SB last January? 2) The Bills were around 18th in the NFL in defense in 2020............so, in fact, they've not been a consistent top 5 defense with Edmunds.

The "Sanders took snaps away from Davis" talk is misguided.........Davis played a lot more snaps in 2020 than 2021 because he was healthy..........in fact as a rookie he played 119 more snaps than Cole Beasley did in 2020. Davis was limited by a foot injury for the first 10-11 games of the season in 2021 and then he missed the NE game entirely because he wasn't vaccinated..........that's why he wasn't getting snaps. Had he been healthy he would have gotten his 800 snaps again.

I don't think he's "full of it"..........but as I've said he managed to get ill with Covid twice in a 5 month span last season..........the first time was quite critical. Covid isn't gone.........I know people who are very ill with it right now including a family member of mine.......so assuming the concern of a re-occurance is all behind Dion now is very presumptuous considering the impact it had on him. And yet the Bills have nobody in the OL room who can be expected to play ANY snaps at LT. Their choice of a swing tackle was a run-block only RT in Quessenberry who lead all tackles in sacks allowed in 2021 (as a RT). Jason Peters is out there........he should be IN Buffalo.

My one interaction with Ed was a phone call I made to him to ask him to address anything he had heard about the Bills compensation for losing Will Wolford to the Colts on air. As I told him, I thought the silence on that front.......after the other picks had already been doled out by the league......... was a sign that the league was planning to f*ck the Bills. They had given Philly a mid-1st round comp pick for losing Reggie White to GB.........and even Arizona got a 1st round comp pick for merely losing safety Tim McDonald in UFA........whereas the Bills had lost LT Wolford in UFA only because of a loophole(escalator clause) that the league had to rule on and immediately closed........which should have netted the Bills MORE than those other instances.........certainly no less than losing a f*cking safety they just chose not to pay. Ed said he wouldn't even mention it on air until the league announced it and that nobody cared about draft picks. The league quietly issued the Bills a second round pick late in the process. Total miscarriage of pick justice. But at the time the Bills owned the AFC and there was a decided "break up the Bills" vibe with teams like LA Raiders and Miami on the committee handing out the picks. Nowadays, the prospect of being handed a mid-first round pick by the league would be huge news and the source of daily speculation if the decision was late coming. A lot has changed.

Last season he came back at 9 months post operation and his knee reportedly felt very bad. He wasn't right until half way thru the season. Maybe his last surgery was just botched and this one went much better...........but I would have expected him to wait a bit longer to come back this time. I'm not sure it makes much sense for him to even come back this season...........if he does then you know the dude really wants to play and win because it's no better than a 50/50 decision whether it's smarter to rehab and workout for teams in March before free agency or to play a few late season and playoff games. Probably more like 20/80 or less in favor of it being wiser to sit the whole year out and have a longer, healthier career to earn money. Then again...........maybe he knows he probably won't come back in 2022 and just doesn't want to say anything because he likes the attention...........or maybe he can find some team to pay him to re-hab like Buffalo did with Shawne Merriman.

I agree but it's worth noting that Cinci put themselves into a position where they could dictate their playoff opponent...........people forget they were the #3 seed going into the finale........not Buffalo........but they intentionally tanked and rested their starters to get the easier matchup against Vegas and align themselves as the #4 seed to play the one-dimensional Titans in the divisional round. By virtue of their poor AFC record the Bills did not have any control over their opponent destiny.........they were forced to prepare to win their finale to avoid ending up on the road in the WC if NE won and they lost. The Bills actually got funneled into KC by Cinci playing the card the Bengals had earned in the regular season by winning more than Buffalo in the conference. Cinci felt better about going to Buffalo in the AFCCG than having to play both KC AND Buffalo in the same playoffs. Which proved wise because KC beat Buffalo but that game after 4 seasons of going deep into the playoffs every year seemed to leave KC flat in the AFCCG. Still.........I would have LOVED Buffalo's chances at home against Cinci in the AFCCG...........it would have been an entirely different dynamic than it was for Cinci going to KC........who was hosting their 4th straight AFCCG.

Personal disappointment with the team is totally irrelevant to the discussion of "the reality of what occurred". THREE BIG UPSET LOSSES........one to the worst team in football.........cost them home field advantage. They are 0-4 on the road in the playoffs........in real life.......under Sean McDermott and each loss has been chock full of "wtf" moments that were totally uncharacteristic for the team in those seasons. Those are examples of reality. Presuming Tre White somehow ensures a victory in KC in the divisional game is just a fact-free opinion. See AFCCG 2021 for the closest example of proof of how he would have performed behind another limp playoff pass rush. Because don't tell me about the 2021 regular season road matchup..........the SB era Bills were undefeated against the NFC in ALL meaningful games in those 4 regular seasons.......14-2 with the only 2 losses being season finales with home field advantage already clinched and the starters on bench. Included in those regular season wins was an early season win in Dallas sandwiched between 2 SB blowouts vs that team in a 12 month period between January 93' and January 94'.........and a win against the Giants in NY late in the season where they lost to the Giants in the SB.........and wins against outstanding teams in San Francisco(no punts game) and a then 11-4 New Orleans team on the road. And I would have taken my chances against Cinci at home in any round. I think the Bills would have hung 50 on the Bengals D at home.

As shallow as they are at WR they could literally run with 5 WR's(Diggs, Davis, Shakir, McKenzie and Crowder). Maybe even 4 if Crowder doesn't get right. Unless they have amazing camps or preseasons Austin, Hodgins and Stevenson would all probably have to take practice squad jobs anywhere else in the NFL so they'd be there to provide playbook familiarity if nothing else.

A huge 3T is the ideal for this style of defense. That clip illustrates why........it's a pass rushers position but having to hold back a charging 340 pound DT all day is going to take a toll on an OG. But to think.........most scouts thought he was going to be a run stuffing NT entering the NFL. Tall guys with relatively skinny legs don't make great anchors. Interested to see if Jordan Davis breaks that trend but I doubt it.

Meh......SB champions often do so despite key injuries. And people forget the Chiefs lost their own 3x All Pro and leader of their defense in Tyrann Mathieu on the first series of that divisional game so it was certainly a fair fight between secondaries playing without their best players. Being a VERY disappointing 7-4 at the time that Tre White was hurt.........dooming them to the road in the playoffs where they've not only never won under McDermott.......but never even played a composed 60 minutes without frantic, uncharacteristic mistakes........is clearly what cost the Bills a Super Bowl. People sometimes just overlook the overwhelmingly obvious to point a finger at fate.

I knew of the Black Yankees but that was literally the first time I've ever seen any gear. They were historically not very good. Kinda' like the Mets.