BADOLBILZ

Because he allowed 11 sacks........most in the league by a tackle?

Fortunately he wasn't their biggest investment in a new pass catcher this offseason. Oh, wait............he was.

Context. Early in the season teams like the Bills were playing off coverage with extra coverage players against the Chiefs, daring them to take short throws and run the football. KC wasn't taking the small stuff and was instead turning the ball over and getting beaten. What the Bills did seemed significant until you watched KC continue to refuse to take the small gains early in the season. The Titans annihilated them. They were bad on offense and terrible on defense when the Bills first played them. Same defensive game plan didn't work in January though. The Chiefs adjusted at midseason and were being much more patient and methodical and playing great football in the process. Mahomes killed the Bills in that divisional game with his feet and by taking shorter throws.........which later in the game turned into big plays because the rope-a-dope Bills defensive approach left the Bills totally exhausted on that side of the ball.

The primary issues with the offense last season were terrible pass blocking and a lack of a receiver who could take a short pass and make a big play. Not having the John Brown type, who could hit a HR on a short pass because his deep speed opened up space for him, was the literal difference in the Jax and NE games. The little screen pass for a long TD run to Brown was a play they had used to change the tenor of games where they had faltered......like late in the Seattle game in 2020 or against Baltimore in 2019. Teams did not respect the YAC ability of the Bills receivers in 2021..........and with good reason.........they were the worst in the league at YAC. They have passively attempted to address that problem with flyers on Crowder and Tavon Austin. Crowder used to be an excellent YAC guy.......he once hung an 80 yard TD on Tremaine Edmunds. But he's been injured A LOT.......and his YAC was terrible last season. Same story with Austin........he was never a good receiver but he AT LEAST used to be able to get some YAC. Last year he was garbage in that regard......an abysmal, washed-the-f*ck-up 2.5 yards per. That's why the Jags said no thanks. He's tiny and injury prone.......so if he's juiceless he's useless. And before anyone mentions McKenzie........forget about it. He is not a downfield threat. Teams know they can squat on his game and he's not instinctive enough to excel against zone coverage. His ypr numbers look like a RB's. James Cook is also an attempt to have that guy.........but make no mistake.........Cook is not a substitute for an ACTUAL receiver in the passing game. The best receiving RB's still produce less in the pass game than a good slot receiver. And in the process of passively attempting to improve their YAC/explosiveness in the short passing game they've also neglected to replace the depth they lost outside when Sanders contract expired. Could it work out? Sure. I'm watching the Yankees having an epic season despite the bottom of their lineup predictably being disgustingly bad at the plate. The team stepped up in other areas. If the Bills play historically great on defense or IF Crowder bounces back and Diggs and Davis stay healthy it might not matter at all. But what started this branch of the discussion was the declaration of people like @Logic that the Bills made similar investments in improving their offensive personnel as they did their defensive personnel this offseason. And that is not the truth at all.

It wasn't just ONE game........they lost 3 games in a 5 game stretch where they simply couldn't score. That is why they lost the opener to Pittsburgh as well. The reality is.........the 2020 team with the middling ranking defensively was more successful. Yeah, the 2021 Bills eventually became dominant on offense again after they started running Allen upwards of 10x per game. 170 QB carries is not a sustainable plan offensively. They need to be a better offense without resorting to that. They haven't made that easier by adding dynamic personnel the way they have made playing defense easier. All due respect to the lauded Tavon Austin signing, of course.

Yeah I don't think @HappyDays watched that AFC championship game. The Bengals zone coverage in the second half was really superior. Where Patrick Mahomes had Tremaine Edmunds on a string..........Logan Wilson repeatedly frustrated him with instinctive adjustments. The Bengals do have a better 4 man rush but it still took A LOT of unforced errors and poor play for the Chiefs for KC to blow that game. If the Chiefs had played THAT game against the Bills then the Bills would have won. It was a different day. That element is lost on some people. The Bills/Chiefs game was the first time that two teams met coming off scoring 40 points in their prior playoff game. Improving pass rush personnel was a big want........but it was the Bills inability to consistently execute offensively without using Josh Allen like a RB that ultimately sent them tumbling to 7-6 and wasted a golden opportunity at home field advantage.

3-0 at home in playoffs. 0-4 on the road in playoffs.......including 2 OT losses. That's what you need to know about the Bills playing against top teams. The 2021 Bills were on the road in the divisional round because they didn't take care of business on offense in a 5 game stretch where they lost 3 times scoring just 6 points, 10 points and 15 points. You think losing on the road in Arrowhead tells you something? What about failing to score a TD in Jacksonville against the worst team in football? If the Bills play that Chiefs game at home........they probably win by multiple scores. But having the #1 defense in the NFL didn't get them home field advantage, did it?

The strange thing about their compulsion to spend/invest relentlessly on defense...........that side of the ball is where so much of what they do is about AVOIDING matchup football. Matching up is expensive. Being effective in zone defense is a way to stay cheaper on defense. They just can't be sated on that side of the ball though. And since defense is the more difficult side of the ball to both predict and remain consistent at.......try as a team might(see 2020 Bills).........it can become a money pit(see the Legion of Boom Seahawks).

Nah, you're wrong........Crowder had been FED as a slot receiver prior to last year when his production fell off. He and Beasley have both been roughly 7 target per game guys. Crowder just hasn't been able to stay healthy for large portions of 3 of the past 4 seasons. Wrap your head around that fact before you give me sh*t about how HE simply would have put up Beasley's numbers. And back in 2019 Crowder had 27 f*cking targets in two games against the Bills! Do you guys really think he wasn't given his opportunities to put up numbers or that I somehow missed what he was doing? He was their entire passing game working from the slot. I think Crowder was at one time the more talented player than Beasley. He was a 4th round pick, after all. Is he still? I don't know, he sucked last year......he had bad bulk numbers, his per games were down, he missed 5 full games and snaps in others, and had bad underlying numbers(like YAC). I love the cheap flyer on him but I'm not just expecting him to be better than Beasley(who was frankly disappointing himself in 2021). Ultimately, you are what your record says you are in the NFL. Before you try to tell me what I should know.......be honest with yourself........do you credit every 900 yard receiver who doesn't have a great QB throwing to him as a producer equal of 1200 yard Stefon Diggs? Of course you don't. You can't have it both ways.

Big win against MLB's best LHP and major league strikeout leader......Shane McClanahan.......to take the series from the Rays. Putting up 4 on him is no small accomplishment. 13 straight wins at Yankee stadium........longest streak since 1973. Now 30 games over .500. Gotta' be impossible for anyone to maintain in modern baseball.......but the team is currently on pace for the 3rd highest run differential in MLB history. (They, of course, own the other top 2.......1939 and 1927 Yankees.) Also leading MLB in both home runs hit and fewest home runs allowed.............and also have the best record in baseball in games where they DON'T hit a HR.

There are A TON of photo graphs of Von Miller.......almost always a good thing........this is both one of the funnier and most prescient one's ever. Who says PFF doesn't have a clue?

Talking about decency........minding your own business and not banging on this thread for updates is the actual decent thing to do if you actually value the privacy of the family so much. Some people are just nosy busy-bodies who can't help themselves........but we also have our usual "injury prone" thin-skins who just want to stay on top of who is being inappropriate in their opinion.......... so that they can lament those shameful people and in doing so, promote how decent THEY are. Not calling you out in particular JoeF but you know I'm right. When the family wants Bills fans to know there will be an announcement and the title will change. That's when YOU decent folks need to know.

He's fully invested in doze nuts

And wait til Kumerow rounds into form, bro-heim...........he had the greatest training camp in Bills history last year. Pads and live game action are overrated.

I agree with much of what you said.........but "ok pass blocking"?? No. The Bills OL was the worst pass blocking unit in the NFL in terms of pressures and sacks allowed. That's why they had to turn him into Mike Alstott 2.0 down the stretch to get into the playoffs.

How are we to enjoy this team when Bill Polian already made it clear when he left that we'd never see a team in Buffalo as good as the one he built?

On the plus side he probably saved a touchdown by holding onto the ball all the way to the 14 yard line.

I hear the BBMB is taking a "let's not discuss the team" approach to message boarding........perhaps you should sign up over there. And btw, speak when you are spoken to, broo. It looks idiotic and weak to refuse to support your position......as you chose........ but go then jump in to complain further later in the thread. Go away. Never hearda ya'.

If he beats out McKenzie it's because McDermott can't suffer another season of Lil' Dirty's unfocused antics.

No, I guess you will have explain to me how Beasley has not been more productive than Crowder in 3 of the last 4 seasons? He's literally had more catches and yards receiving than Crowder in 3 of the last 4 seasons. And obviously the last two. Just how far back do you want to go back to give the oft-injured Crowder credit for still being the same player he was? 1 season was fair. 2 seasons was decisive. I mean if you go all the way back to 2016 he and Tavon Austin put up over 1300 combined yards! Time in a bottle, baby! Yep.......Tavon Austin, Duke Johnson and Greg Mancz to the Jets for Breece Hall and a 3rd..........who says, no? Amirite @IronMaidenBills? Or are we afraid to face Tavon twice per year?

I'd settle for a 3rd. The reality is that the Bills outside WR options are: 1200 yard Diggs 550 yard Davis 28 yard Kumerow 578 yards is one of the lowest returning production 2+3 option combo's in the league. The Bills have a very distinct set of outside and slot receivers........on an increasing amount of teams there is a 3rd or 4th option who has the size and speed traits to succeed outside but also with the quickness to have potential in the slot. This is what the Bills clearly lack. When you weigh that with the reality that Davis has not yet proven he can get it done for 17 games without someone picking up half the slack or more.........this is why the Bills don't have an elite WR corps any longer. They are, on paper, clearly lesser than they were at this point last season. By about 700 yards of production on the outside.

Ok.......well Crowder has also missed 4 games per season on average due to injuries in those last 4 years. He's not been durable. Beasley, on the other hand, has missed just 2 games to injury and (like Gabe Davis) he missed one simply because he wasn't vaxed so he wasn't eligible to play(get your facts straight on that). It's a lot like the Rodger Saffold situation.........they traded availability risk to save money.........which they then mostly invested in giving 4 DL starting caliber contracts(Miller, Jones, Settle, Phillips). If you think Sanders was meh...........ok.........but his "meh" regular season was more receiving yardage than any other receiver currently on the roster had in 2021 other than Diggs. That's the point. They did not replace production. Sanders actually produced more than Davis in the regular season. Davis battled a foot injury in the first half so it turned out to be very fortuitous that they had that kind of production available. Jake Kumerow isn't that kind of option......you are just being willfully ignorant if you can't acknowledge that. I'm not missing the Kromer variable at all. Big Kromer fan. Hoping for the best. But the flip side is that there has been a lot of turnover in the offensive coaching staff in general. New OL coach, new QB coach, new OC. I hope for the best but anyone who doesn't think they were better positioned to repeat their success with the continuity of the staff that lead their dynamic 2020 offense is living in denial. There is an uncertainty there that didn't exist going into 2021. I'm not a fan in general of giving a new staff a lesser investment in offense. Which is most certainly the direction they've gone.

Yeah I think the lazy evaluation is to just assume that everything will fall into place and all ceiling reached because the Bills have Josh Allen. That's what you are going to get from national talking heads, IMO. What I see is a back 3-4 group that hasn't shown the ceiling to provide relief in the event of an injury to the top 2-3. If you know the significance of the numbers, there isn't a guy who you think, "this guy could put up a 700 yard season" if Davis or Diggs goes down for extended periods. It's a matchup league and that's what people forget in the offseason. Can guys like Kumerow get open against starting NFL CB's? On an individual basis this is a low ceiling group of reserves. Now one player could change that........but right now they are very thin on the outside, in particular.

Beasley has been more productive than Crowder in 3 of the last 4 seasons..........in the NFL it's about what you've done lately. Crowder got a cheap deal because he's declined the last 2 seasons. They didn't replace Sanders..........Davis was already there..........the question is can Davis stay healthy for a season, he has been limited for stretches by foot injuries his first two seasons.........and he also is an anti-vaxer and missed the Bills biggest regular season game last season due to Covid.........Covid will still sideline players this season. Last season at this time Daryl Williams was coming off a tremendous season where he was a top 5 starting RT in the NFL. He shut down TJ Watt in their matchup in 2020. Feliciano was seen as a solid starter/tone setter and Boettger had been good as a reserve in 2020. Bates was their cherished backup at center. Ford hadn't totally fallen off of a cliff like he did in 2021. On paper they looked pretty good, it's not a notably better OL in that regard than the one that ended up as the league worst in combined sacks and pressures allowed in 2021. They could end up being a lot better but signing a swing tackle who gave up the most sacks in the league(Quessenberry, 11) didn't really change that dynamic much.