BADOLBILZ

Edmunds is a significant limiting factor for sure..........but the OL was truly awful for much of last season and their depth situation is(on paper) worse now.......so that has to be the biggest weakness, IMO. 125 combined pressures and sacks in 2021 was horrendous. But the biggest potential improvement the defense could make would be the light coming on for Edmunds. There are a ton of plays to be made in the middle in this defense. It's what is lost on a lot of the people that defend Edmunds. It's not just disappointing results wrt the routine. He should be an NFLDPOY candidate in this defense with his physical tools. I believe it is very unlikely that he elevates his game significantly after 4-5 seasons.............but that did happen with Demario Davis........who took 6 years for it to click and then he's been at or near All Pro level since.

So you are suggesting maybe they should have hired their new GM when they hired McDermott? Like every other team does every other time when they want to change both positions? Yeah it was stupid to wait to fire Whaley when they knew he was out from the get-go. Agreed. And here's a helpful hint..........when you are using a ridiculous line of logic like that don't list the people that are still in the organization......let alone the top ranking officials in the organization...... ownership(#1) and McDermott(#2).

Yep, the reproduction explanation. You and GB are in lock step on this. He is driven by his desire to reproduce, if nothing else. Or maybe humans just have the capacity for a broad variety of potential "wants" in their DNA........which allow the species to adapt in many more ways than just reproduction?

You would be well served to learn that it often "can be both". The Bills screwed themselves by both trading the opportunity to pick Mahomes as well as trading him to a rival. The Chiefs required a measure of good fortune to be able to get Mahomes where they did..........but what they did was bold as hell.......they were a 12-4 team and had been the #2 seed in the AFC. To trade up for a young QB when they had one in his prime was a power move for sure. The Bills, by contrast, desperately needed a young QB and were in perfect position to re-set their QB position in 2017............but were timid..........and have been punished for it repeatedly since...........as fortune does. They f*cked around and it cost them(and has haunted them still as recently as about 13 seconds ago)..........but they have bounced back and have made the best of the situation. They required a lot more luck than KC because punting on a HOF talent QB almost never results in another shot at one in the near future. But it is better to be lucky than good sometimes.

Yeah I mentioned this in another thread a few days ago. The Bills are the favorites, but the favorite doesn't win that often. The Patriots of 2018 were I believe given a 28% chance to win the SB by Vegas. The Chiefs were given an 18% chance to win the SB last year as the favorite. The Bills are the favorite but I've seen them as low as 7% as the favorite. The general consensus in the gaming industry is that the competition is more fierce than ever this year but there are a lot of folks on TSW who think that this is all just about the Bills "not blowing it". The way I look at it..........they need to get the #1 seed...........they have a pretty easy path to get it but last year it was much easier and they blew it. After they get the #1 they just gotta' win 3 games. The divisional round, the championship and the SB were all going to be tough opponents one way or another so while their odds of actually winning will probably be the lowest of any favorite ever..........their path remains quite favorable. And they owe extra effort/focus/intensity for those 20 games to both themselves and the fan base for choking during the regular season last year when it had all laid out so easily for them. Last year was the prime opportunity...........this year will be more of a grind.......but also more rewarding if they accomplish it.

Yeah they were great in that. The 6 minute continuous shot in episode 4........

I love Bar-Bill wings........they are generally on the medium/small side though.........so not terribly surprising for a 250# athlete.

No and yes. ALL of the SB teams were better than this team. They were absolutely loaded. And the 1999 team was more talented too, relative to the style of football played then, than this one. That one had a wide open path to winning a SB that year......without question the best Bills defense post merger..........and they screwed the pooch not getting home field and got HR throwbacked on the road( a lot like the 2021 Bills, really). Post free agency a lot of things have happened that have gradually distributed talent around the league MUCH more evenly. It took a while because rookie deals used to be longer(1st rounders got 7 year deals in the 90's) and there were more ways to restrict movement with tags and teams didn't know how to manage the salary cap and were afraid to use guarantees etc.. And then the rules changes in 2010 to protect QB's and bolster the passing game have gradually changed the league from being dominated by a handful of elite QB's to one where A LOT of teams have franchise QB's capable of winning a SB. Which is how the competition is now better than it's ever been........at least in the AFC.

Oh man, you sure you aren't a christian? You really need to stick to football takes.

Well either way really.........Vegas ranks the Chargers as the #3 team in the AFC behind Buffalo and KC so they like their odds regardless of whether they've proven anything or not. But if what "nobody thought" made any difference then the preseason favorites wouldn't mean much. It's generally proven to be about a 15% chance that the preseason SB favorite cashes that ticket since the last repeat champion. The Bills are the consensus "favorite" this year but in some places they are given as little as a 7% chance. For comparison sake........the Chiefs were given a 19% chance at the same gaming company last year. One of the late 2010's NE teams was a heavy favorite........given a 28% chance in preseason..........so if what people think is your barometer then I wouldn't get too carried away with the Bills favorite status. The competition is seen as fierce.

You mean 2018 is the best draft of your fandom. Allen alone is more valuable than the entire 2017 draft........and he and Wyatt Teller are both All Pro's from that Bills class. Edmunds, Phillips, Taron Johnson all productive players and Neal is in his 5th year with team as well. 2017 yielded 3 very good players though. Those two drafts are proof positive that having a lot of needs makes it easier to draft well...........because inevitably most teams will reach around a better player to fill a need.......Beane is no exception. 1985 is probably the best of my Bills fandom.........Bruce and Andre both HOF'ers. Derrick Burroughs was an outstanding young player who they lost too soon. Chris Burkett was a really good WR for a few years and of course Frank Reich was a really good backup QB.

The Bengals won 4 games in 2020 and won the AFC in 2021. So no, a team doesn't have to show they can make the playoffs before they make a SB run.

Of all of the Buffalo sports franchises the Braves probably had the most personnel luck. To have an All Star like Randy Smith and HOF'ers McAdoo, Dantley and even Moses Malone all pass thru the organization early in their careers.........oh what coulda' been. And after they became the Clippers they couldn't so anything right with regard to personnel. Maybe the best thing about the Braves leaving is we didn't have to live thru Benoit Benjamin playing in Buffalo. He was the Leodis McKelvin of NBA big men.

MLB best 28-9 record after a third straight W in Baltimore, 3-2 behind Cole and Holmes, while resting both LeMahieu and Stanton. Dow note though, looks like Luis Gil is headed for Tommy John surgery so he probably won't be back in the mix until 2024 now. But sounds like Domingo German might be back after the all-star break, maybe sooner.

Good. They have a road game at Indy on November 20 that I'd like to see them win. Gotta' water down the records in that AFC south division so we don't end up with TN or Indy somehow stealing home field.

Yeah you're right I think. I'm hoping they feel that they can part ways. Really want to see another boundary WR brought in.

The 11 games played in the 12 months going back to that Baltimore playoff game where the Ravens couldn't even get shotgun and long snaps off without the wind altering the trajectory have been the worst stretch of wind, rain and cold I can remember. It's often lost on TV, but the weather was just miserable. Opening day against Pittsburgh was somehow already November quality swirling wind conditions on the field and that was a harbinger of what was to come. Allen's passing performance in that Monday night game against the Patriots was one of the most impressive performances I've ever seen. The opposing QB was having a really good year and wasn't even allowed to throw.

I don't think cutting Matakevich will save anything. I believe his agent re-structured it to make it so. He has a $750K dead cap hit on a $1.65M base salary. If it saves anything it would be the difference between $915K and the non-vet minimum..........and normally vet min is about $1M but only counts around $600K against the cap. Not sure how it works on salaries that low that are so little above the minimum.

Yeah it's the weather, IMO. Most of the poor weather conditions that the Bills face are at home. 2020 was milder than most seasons and 2021 was the worst weather season the Bills have had to deal with since at least 1997. But this has been going on forever..........not uncommon to see bad passing offense at Highmark and then for the Bills to go on the road to Miami or somewhere else without wind and look like a totally different team. It's also of note though, IMO, that the field at Highmark is crowned noticeably more than other fields I've been to. When you sit at field level it's very noticeable and I've always felt it's made accuracy on sideline throws a bit more difficult because the QB is basically throwing downhill outside the numbers rather than on a flat plane.

Last season the only thing I didn't like about the Bills chances was the prevailing attitude that the season was all about avenging the loss to the Chiefs. It permeated from the front office.......who chose to run it back........down to the fans.......who felt the season was just an annoying formality on their way back to the AFCCG. And it showed with the players..........they had problems with focusing on opponents.........got pumped up to play KC, which carried over to the game in TN.........and then from there until halftime of the Tampa game they seemed often disinterested. Fortunately they had as many weaklings on their schedule as they did.......teams whose first priority was evaluating their own roster, trying to win was a secondary consideration. It took a string of terrible losses and then Tom Brady kicking sand in their faces again for two quarters for them to realize that they needed to start playing up to the hype or miss the playoffs entirely. It was only fitting that the opportunities that they wasted lead to them getting beaten........yet again.......in KC. Hopefully the players (and fans for that matter) learned something from wasting what was probably their clearest path to a SB title since the early 90's. I expect this season that this team will be focused from day one and that the goal will be home field advantage and that attitude will not fluctuate based on how KC is playing(which appeared to be the case at times last season).

You use the word anomaly as if there is something unusual about unexpected results in the NFL. Every game the 2021 Bills lost on their way to 7-6 thru 13 games they had been favored to win. The unexpected is normal in the NFL. If you don't want to be disagreed with then don't make utterly illogical statements.

Yeah, that's the thing.........there were a lot of good players from that era that get overlooked that had better careers than Freddie. Ben Williams is another DL who had a better prime than Freddie. As an aside........McDole and my grandfather were business partners during his Redskins years. I had one of those 1970's foam trucker hats with an iron-on patch with some terrible logo with a football on it that they had made up.

Claiming that a company's apparent goal is to be the best at what they do.............as if that is a possible indication that they are unscrupulous.........is grasping for straws. And that is how you were attempting to frame it. Because you don't think the grades they give are "fair". But it might ease yours and the other PFF "despiser's" minds if you remembered that all individual player stats are flawed in team sports. Not sure how this got lost on some of you..........but every play in a football game has an immense amount of potential outcomes depending on how each of the 22 players on the field does their job. But........in general........if a QB throws 35 TD passes he played well.........even if 5 of them had been gimmes on blown coverages on the first read......5 of them had been bad reads thrown into tight coverage that worked out anyway.........and 2 of them were tipped by a defender and landed in the hands of a receiver who wasn't even the target. But all hard stats look the same in the box score. It's not necessarily different with grading the play of offensive lineman.........maybe some of the plays are taken out of context like Wood and Incognito yucked it up about..........but when you are being graded on hundreds to over 1,000 snaps played in a season........ the data probably is likely to be fairly representative. If you follow other sports where analytics are a couple steps ahead of the NFL at this point........this concept is probably easier to understand.

The odds of missing the playoffs are "almost impossible"? This is the kind of offseason hyperbolic jibberish that makes May-August a difficult read here on TSW. The Bills had a much easier schedule in 2021 and yet they were just 7-6 and on the outside of the playoff picture looking in due to a bad AFC record after 13 games. They had lost to literally the worst team in the league........scoring only 6 points. The AFC is much deeper this year.........Russell Wilson, Matt Ryan and possibly DeShaun Watson have been added to talented rosters........the Chargers loaded up in UFA.......the AFC champs totally revamped their terrible OL........the Dolphins finished last year winning 8 of 9 and improved their roster.........the Jets roster is now more talented than the Jaguars team that the seemingly stacked 2021 Bills lost to......... There are a lot of ways to miss the playoffs in the AFC in 2022. Have you been under a rock? It's not "almost impossible". How do people so quickly forget how the NFL actually works?

Being a front runner of the most ridiculous sort.........rooting for your former chief rival.........gives you some comfort? I have family in Boston and spent a lot of time in the area visiting as a kid..........but being a Buffalo pro sports fan and rooting for Boston pro sports teams is to be lower than a snake's belly.