BADOLBILZ

So that's 12 straight losses. Still 6 away from the NHL record. I mean, they ALREADY hold that particularly dubious record with 18 straight in 2020-2021......so it would be a bit of a hat on a hat, I suppose........but what say you all about @Mike in Horseheads idea that the one constant isn't to blame for 14 years of losing?

Because having a true WR1 changes how a defense has to deploy its players. Think of the defense the Bills used to stymie Lamar Jackson from 2020-2022. A key component of that was challenging Lamar to throw outside the numbers and downfield and cheating personnel to the middle of the field to take away his favorite throws. That was because it was presumed Jackson wouldn't make many of those throws outside and deep. When Hollins and MVS were the boundary options that's exactly what defense's learned was the vulnerability with Josh Allen in 2024. When Cooper came the windows opened up for the guys who run the majority of their route yardage over the middle of the field. And despite the windows getting tighter outside.......now the plays outside the numbers are being made when they are attempted instead of falling incomplete to Hollins or MVS and people debating whose fault it was. As for Cooper only playing 47% of the snaps.........he doesn't need to play a set % of the snaps to make the offense good enough to stay on the field and keep moving the ball. If you are better on 1 play every 3 or 4 downs that can be the difference between a long TD drive or a 3 and out punt. That's why they call players like Cooper "difference makers".

Might be the most ridiculous, nonsensical string of sentences written on TSW in 2024. No, it shouldn't be said in that context. Not even to a lesser extent. Samuel made some plays when Coleman was out and he got more opportunity. But he was part of the redundancy that plagued the Bills group of weapons to start the season. All of the better players needed space in the middle of the field to succeed. But there was nobody on the outside to open up the field for them.

The key addition doesn't have to be the "only reason". Quality at premium positions = difference makers. If you throw Myles Garrett or Dexter Lawrence onto the Bills DL the synergy created would have TSW'ers wringing their hands about not having AJ Epenesa and Daquan Jones signed for a longer term. Go back and look at posts from the offseason and you will see that it was assumed that any offense with a prime Josh Allen was going to be a top 10 offense. The goal here was never to be "top 10". It's to be #1. Especially for those of us who don't trust a Bills defense in the playoffs. If the Bills had Amari Cooper from day 1 they would probably be the #1 seed right now. And might be challenging for the highest points per game scored in a season. It's always been my contention that it could and should happen during Josh Allen's prime. A 38 ppg season.

DC's aren't spending time figuring out how to shut down any more than a couple players on offense. Realistically, more like just 1. Think of Belichick's defensive approach.......he took away the best player and challenged the opponent to succeed anyway. For the Bills, that guy is now Amari Cooper. If you are willing to attempt deep throws to Ty Johnson defense's will concede that matchup and hope the passes fall incomplete. Just like they let MVS and Hollins run free outside the numbers prior to the Cooper trade.

I don't think it's any concern. This has been going on for years but we forget because these late season releases rarely make much of a difference. I remember the Bills picked up WR Kenny Stills at the end of the 2021 season this way. Ended up not getting elevated. The criteria to be one of these releases includes having zero projected comp pick formula value. It's a pretty narrow group of players.

Hoo-ray for Hollywood!

Your anger is hilarious.😂 Thinking Oklahoma State was going to beat some #1 ranked SEC champion in a national title game? Was never going to happen. But yeah, use TCU as an example when they beat a Michigan team that didn't deserve to be there either. How did that TCU season end? 65-7 loss in the final to Georgia. Like I said, the best OK State teams stood zero chance in a national championship final under the pre-NIL NCAA. There were usually 2-3 championship quality teams between a group of Alabama, Georgia, Clemson and Ohio State............and everyone else was miles behind them regardless their final ranking or if they were fed to the wolves with the 3rd or 4th seed.

Will Beane try it again with Khalil Mack in free agency this offseason? It's going to be a storyline here on TSW.

Well Cooper missed the Colts game and they only scored 23 points on offense. That definitely lines up. Were there other contributing factors to the offense being truly atrocious in Baltimore and Houston? Sure. But what we are seeing now wasn't happening without the trade for WR1. People are just questioning it because some weeks they aren't throwing the ball at Cooper. And just in the context of this thread title, now 14 games into this season the WR corps as a whole hasn't matched last year's per game production despite the uptick since Cooper arrived. It's a non-argument, IMO......... but I am glad I can say that because it means what they have NOW is working.

Did you just downplay the Houston game as Allen's "worst game in awhile". He was the first NFL QB to throw 30 passes in a game and complete 30% or less since 1992! (Stan Gelbaugh) It was a historically atrocious passing performance for the Bills. The blueprint was laid out for the entire league to see. Challenge the Bills to throw deep and take away the middle of the field. We knew this at the time of the Cooper trade. Even the "everybody eats" crowd had to admit it. But now they are trying to reverse engineer the solution. The threat of RB's getting open deep isn't keeping defense's honest, dude.😂

Just to clarify that you aren't just arguing for the sake of not admitting you were wrong from the outset: What you are saying is that this WR corps would have been better than last year's without the Cooper trade but that the Cooper trade has denied you a truth? Even though they've been greatly improved by Cooper's presence for 2 months and still aren't as statistically productive of a unit as last year? There just isn't a lot of support for the contention that it was going to work before Beane went and made it better. Refresher:

Solomon has been uselesss against the run. Miller has actually been pretty good against the run. That is why. But hopefully Solomon is improving and it would be great if he can make an impact down the stretch or in the playoffs. He brings a speed element they do not have.

This one. The Death Star set was another great one from that late 70's era but I chose this Sears exclusive because it was all about the great Cantina figures you couldn't get in stores and the Cantina scenes were probably the coolest part of the movie to us as kids.

The WR's and TE's they took into the season have performed about as could reasonably be expected. But Hollins modest 295 yards have been more than offset by the flops of Samuel and MVS. Subsequently passing yardage is down by about 10 yards per game and passing to WR/TE is actually down closer to 20 ypg over last season. That's significant and a lot of that poorer production preceded the acquisition of Cooper. We will call that the "nobody eats" period. Things are trending upward though since said acquisition. It was a CERTAINTY that Beane would be desperately in search of a WR1 in October. I promised you all that IN THIS THREAD. And it happened just as I said. Coleman broke out simultaneously.......and that combination spread out opposing defense's and created better matchups simultaneously. And that's where we are. Everybody eats as long as the WR1 is out there and if both he and Coleman are available even Ty Johnson can have a 100 yard receiving game. Everybody eats doesn't work when everybody is no more than a WR2/3/4. You were dead wrong thinking it would. Speaking of which, the unit that has benefitted the most are the RB's in the passing game. Rushing-wise they are about the same as 2023 but they are already at last year's receiving yardage total with 3 games left. * Also, I never saw it said anywhere that this was the worst WR corps the Bills had in 40 years. I referenced 40 years but don't intentionally conflate two points. What I said was that they had nobody in their WR corps who had even put up 900 yards in an NFL season for the first time since the mid-80's. Meaning nobody who defense's had to account for individually. As Cooper has proven..........that is imperative to have.

That may be his preference but there will probably be other playoff teams that have a shot before Baltimore. Just about everybody could use him. I remember when Terrell Suggs got himself released in December 2019 hoping to end back up with the #1 seed Ravens..........but the Chiefs had priority and claimed him instead. Initially he wasn't happy. The Chiefs basically just claimed him to block him from the Ravens. But he ended up on that first Mahomes SB team. I can't imagine he'd make it thru waivers to the Bills but I'd love to get Campbell next season. Always wanted him to be a Bill. Heard some suggest he didn't ever want to come to Buffalo but nothing substantive. Good article about it in The Athletic last week. Says he feels great and just might keep playing "until the wheels fall off".

@chongli is wearing a cup!

The more interesting question to me is what QB's from Kelly's era would have been great today. There were so many glass-Joe Burrow types back in the 80's and 90's that are totally forgotten. Guys like Chris Miller or Chris Chandler. I mean, Justin Herbert IS Rob Johnson. When Goodell changed the rules in 2010 to protect concussion prone young QB's Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger it changed the type of QB that is able to succeed.

So he's tracking toward like 30 grabs and *maybe* 400 yards. He's going to be 32 next season. How much do you think that pays? Age and modest production aside......the saying in pro sports is that the more things you do........the less you get paid. I could see him back for a very similar contract. No more than 1 or 2 years. He may be more valued by certain coaches but their GM isn't going to pay him good money to block, play ST's and be good at scramble drill offense for a type of QB they don't even have. And again, not at that age.

We thought it would decrease the quality of play. I've been pleasantly surprised that, in general, that has not been the case. It probably is for the elite programs like Georgia and Alabama because their monopoly on talent has been compromised a bit. But better distributed talent is making the quality of play appear better beyond that. When a team is just a position or 2 away from being really good.......they can shop for them in the portal and plug them right in. That's a good thing. I think that a lot of players basically becoming professional at the HS level is leading to more mature players entering college. Look at Williams for Alabama. 17 year old superstar. At the pro level we have seen more young players hit the ground running than we did a generation ago. They play football year round growing up and seem more ready for big stages early. When they were just broke kids getting exploited I think the maturation and discipline were things that were more on the coach to achieve. Transfers used to be a sign that a player didn't like or respect the coach. Now it's about $ and opportunity. Players deserve that. And I don't really think kid's being uncoachable or undisciplined are why Saban quit. IMO he just knew the days of being able to monopolize talent were over and he didn't want to experience occasional seasons like Alabama did this year. I think that if he had stayed in the NFL and had a HoF coaching career there he might do what Belichick did and gladly go back to college and try to build something. But going from winning championships every year or 2 to being just another really good team was a backslide for him. He set the bar too high. I don't blame him. He already owns the records. It's all relative and less success in the future if he stayed in CFB was basically a given.

Happy trails to the wolf in sheep clothing. I will always have nightmares about being caught dead wearing that sweater.

But it's likely that nothing important will come of it. Some shlub interim HC isn't going to be a substantive change. Trading B talent for C talent for the sake of shaking up the roster won't do that either, IMO. It's not a typical NHL franchise that's easy to re-direct. Terry has really outdone himself with this iteration of the rebuild.

I will say this about Groot.......if the question is who has been the best Bills player the last 2 years who is not Josh Allen, the answer is Groot. He's really, really good. The standard for a DE for the franchise with the NFL's all-time sack leader is pretty high though.

Probably not, IMO. Because there is at least still a statistically legitimate argument to be made that they are too young to be "expected" to be a playoff team. By stacking young players instead of building a team properly they've created an abundance of young, dumb players and they seem to be at a point where they don't know what it takes and don't yet care enough about their legacies/careers to work hard enough to overcome their lack of know how. To me the most memorable aspect of the Bills "drought" was watching one GM after the next drafting another 20 year old underclassmen onto their rudderless ship and wondering why nothing ever changed despite some of those guys being great talents. When they finally made the playoffs it was with one of the oldest teams in the league. At some point you probably need a bunch of very good veteran leaders if you are going to break a losing culture.

I chose Benford. Rousseau next. Premium positions and both rank in the top 15. Spencer Brown is having a good year but is underrated because analytics don't take into account what having a bully like that does to help an offense. He could be a surprise All Pro. Brown is more likely than Rousseau or Benford where there are more generally accepted statistical measures. Dawkins would be next, IMO. Aside from Allen, Shakir has been their best offensive skill player, IMO. He's been as expected, IMO. There isn't a complete surprise breakout star like Bernard was last year when he had a splash play season for the ages.