BADOLBILZ

I think they've lost juice at 4 of the 5 OL positions and Beasley in the slot. That's regression from nearly half of the personnel on offense. Sanders has had a good year but I think they are a little less explosive there as well so the y and z haven't been drawing enough attention for the x (Diggs). To me........this year was a prime window for the heavily invested defense. For the most part they've held up and been the more effective unit.......but when needed to step up against TN and Indy they played their worst. And I hate the spread. There are still plenty of opportunities to dink and dunk from under center and using play action.

Rule of thumb with Star........expect the worst. If he comes back at ANY POINT this season and returns to his very brief peak form.......after getting covid without being vaxed........then I will be pleasantly suprised. I've heard of people coming out of a bad flu and feeling better than ever in a few weeks...........but all the people I know who got unvaxed covid with symptoms have reported feeling off even months later.

I agree that is probably how McDermott sees it. But the reality is that more draft capital and $ has been invested into the defense under McBeane. A lot of people think this is some outrageously talented offense........it is not. Josh Allen and Stef Diggs are pro bowl players. Beasley and Sanders are vets who are well on the backside of their careers athletically. Davis is a player with decent potential but a lot of teams have that guy who may never really pan out due to injuries(bad ankles have hindered him both years) or inconsistency(has stretches of inexplicable drops). Knox is the best we've had in a while but he's not an elite TE and it remains to be seen if he ever will.........TE's like him come and go with other teams........we just aren't used to having one with talent.......and their depth at TE is maybe the worst in the NFL. Obviously, the OL has been hindered by the dropoffs from Dawkins and Williams and we knew coming in that the interior OL was going to be mediocre. Running backs are plenty good........it's not an important position to have great talent at........but they are ordinary. They aren't a naturally explosive offense.........they are an ordinary unit with a dynamic QB. What has happened is that it's turned into the Josh Allen show this season.........he's trying to carry the team to the heights they were at last season but a lot of players have regressed and he didn't have a roster full of #1 picks at his disposal on offense to begin with. He's the only one on the entire offense who was a first round draft pick. On defense.......a lot more athletic pedigree.......6 first round draft picks. The defense is basically designed to protect leads now but the offensive talent is overrated.

I've said this many times before but Daboll's OC work reminds me of Sam Wyche and Mike Mularkey. Wyche famously ran a no-huddle to a near SB win in SB XXIII. Mularkey had some very highly rated offenses in Pittsburgh. So they could have really good seasons......but both also had entire seasons where they just couldn't get out of their own way with bad game plans and play calling. NFL people would call Wyche's play calling "wicky wacky".........at times it seemed like nonsense to all but him and he wouldn't change things that weren't working. Mularkey got that rep in his last season in Buffalo as well.........that 2005 seasons was one of the more frustrating seasons of play calling in Bills memory. Cowher and the Steelers were really in a similar rock and hard place position with Mularkey when Donahoe came in and swept Mike Meathead off his feet that the Bills may be in with Daboll at the end of the season.

The standing in the lower bowl is pretty stupid.........but I knew about it before I moved down there so it is what it is. I could understand the rationale for it more though if the people standing were rabid fans cheering hard to create noise to distract the opposing offense............but yesterday from early in the game fans were just standing and not making any noise. There was a palpable "this season was supposed to be a pleasure cruise to the Super Bowl......wtf is this bullshi*t" vibe from the crowd yesterday. I think it's a product of years of losing and watching the Patriots just win every year. Fans have ignorantly assumed this was going to be easy. We don't have the best and cheating-est coached organization in the sport.........fan support in the form of noise matters for this organization.

The reason McD mentioned the Addison call was because that's a no-brain-stupid gotdamn play. PI is often a random call. But yeah.........this team is not playing "process" football..........and there has been a lot of chaos caused by decisions not to be vaxxed.

They just aren't playing good, complementary team football. That's technically on McDermott but it's possible that the roster composition..........perhaps a tendency to select players with backgrounds and personalities that looked ideal for blind process following two years ago........NOW aren't responding well to a league with two different standards for handling Covid protocol. They aren't playing like a team that trusts each other out on the field. Undisciplined and selfish. Not sure how McD is going to flip the switch..........but if I am playing this team my goal is to pull out all the stops early and watch them implode.

The difference may be that the Bills reportedly have one of the lowest vax rates in the league. If only 60-70% are vaxxed.........that's a lot of unvaccinated players. And what we are seeing is a Bills team that does not play disciplined, complementary football. The game today turned, IMO, on a ridiculously selfish play by Mario Addison where he decided to fake that he was pushed into Carson Wentz so he could take a pointless cheap shot at him. Instead of the Bills receiving a punt down by 7 points after just scoring a TD on the prior drive...........the defense stays on the field and then makes several more assignment mistakes(including another big mistake by Addison).......and gives up a score........and then McKenzie carelessly forgets to protect the ball on his return and in a flash the score reaches a point where the crowd is now out of the game and the Colts will never have to abandon the run while the Bills are in chase mode on offense. McDermott made sure to to mention the Addison play.......and clarify that he wasn't talking about the "call" by the ref.......but the play by Addison. As for the notion that they need a better game plan versus rushing teams..........run defense is not about scheme........it's about technique and want-to. Two things they have been quick to lose.....along with composure........when punched in the mouth. A lack of heart, focus on assignments and then a lot of bad personal decisions aren't what we expect from a team supposedly bonded together by the loving team environment supposedly created by the process. And then there is Josh Allen...........he's not playing complementary football.........he's trying to take games into his own hands because, IMO, he doesn't trust his teammates.

We were discussing after the game the question of if there is something in the locker room undermining the team this year. They aren't consistently playing better than sum of their parts like last season.......and that's a problem when you are "culture" based. They obviously have issues with such a disparity between vaxxed and un-vaxxed players and anyone who doesn't think either side takes any issue with the other is kidding themselves. You all gotta' be pulling the same direction and a wedge like that might be enough to contribute to a lack of focus and heart in some of these games. In his postgame interview McD was asked about Brown and Lotulelei and instead of saying he was concerned for their health and hoping they felt better........he said he "supported their decisions". Like, they got sick and missed time simply because of their decisions. Ouch. Not good.

Good gouge, Hapless. @YoloinOhio did you even watch the game??

Fall has been very good for the past 20+ years. This fall is the rainiest I can remember. The 1997 season we seemed to have rain every game day but it was mostly just raining around game day itself. This fall, seemed like every other morning when I woke up there was another 4 tenths in the rain gauge..........then we had several 4+ inch down pours. I live on a small lake and the water level has been above the highest watermark on the walls everywhere. And it's almost TG and we haven't had a real hard frost in the low 20's yet........about a month late for that. Been very unusual.

https://www.buffalochipsrestaurant.tv

Hopefully the switch is actually on now and they go on a run. There aren't 3 understandable losses left on the schedule.

I'd suggest you stay out of the investigative journalist field. As I've said.........I don't dig up my work to prove something to a random reader of my post.........there are literally thousands of people reading this forum every day. Pretty sure you just floated to the surface here when the toilet got flushed at BuffaloBills.com message board..........if you were wrong enough to be there instead of here THEN.......well you have a tendency to be really wrong, IMO. So you went half-assed looking hoping to find nothing..........and instead very quickly came away with circumstantial evidence that suggests you were wrong about my approval of White..........so you've decided you were....... right?? Mmkay. Keep in mind......... @Logic declared that I have been a critic of Tre White........anyone who reads my stuff regularly.........and now you after seeing the post declaring the pick a success..........knows that is not correct. Did you see me demanding that he provide evidence? I simply refuted it because I know he's wrong. So your problem is the perception that I didn't "bang the table" for Tre White? I rarely do that for anyone. For instance the only player I really advocated for PRIOR to the 2014 draft was Aaron Donald. I started a thread, gave my reasons. Left it at that. A lot of people thought he was more of a mid-late first rounder.....some even felt he didn't belong in round 1. Probably the least responded too thread started in my entire time on TSW. He ended up being what I said he would........an instant smash success.......and now he's easily been the best player from that draft........maybe the best defensive player picked at all since then. But I didn't bang the table 100 times then either so I guess it doesn't count. A high volume of speculation about acquiring players doesn't will it into existence. If we are going to get into repetitive discussion I prefer discussing things that are more within team control.

Well you are sorta' straw-manning here. You quote that I'm wrong about the CB draft...........but then you go on about DB's in general. Two different arguments. That 2017 draft didn't have a true superstar at the top nor a bunch of CB's with both good overall track records but also running sub 4.4's............there were a lot of question marks. Tre White wasn't a workout warrior but he was everything else. That's what I liked about him. In hindsight Lattimore and Humphrey got put in great situations and have done well(Humphrey less-so without the normal fierce Ravens pass rush support this year). But yeah.......White IS the best of the bunch.........though none of the successes have been Jalen Ramsey or Stephon Gilmore level good. Even at the time Lattimore was basically at best Gilmore but with A LOT of injury concerns........so NOT a dynamic looking group. But again........part of me watching the CB's in season was also considering who would fit well on a Bills roster desperate for safety help. As you know.........I would almost never pick any safety in round 1.........so White was intriguing to me because I thought he could do both at a high level. The Bills were loaded at CB at the time with Gilmore(franchise option) and Darby under team control.......but you can never have enough if you end up playing a lot of man. When the scheme changed and they inexplicably let Gilmore walk for nothing.......that elevated White to an asset of much greater value to the Bills. Also keep in mind........this was still around the time when you had takes like "Shaq Lawson is the 9th overall player on my board in the entire draft"...........

You used the Urban Dictionary version of the word "gouge"? You really think that the majority of people on this board know that the word gouge in ghetto slang means "insight"? Most people think it means "to take a chunk out of something". As for the rest..........you painted a picture that just wasn't accurate. Why did it matter that the Eagles had made the playoffs "3 straight years" when McD was fired? They'd been to 5 NFC Championship games under Reid in the decade prior.........all before McDermott was his DC.......and they were unceremoniously knocked out of the playoffs in the WC round in the two seasons he was the DC. Nobody takes being pointed out to be wrong worse than you on this board. Instant red head. Now I know why you want to be a mod.

Belichick has taken A TON of heat in the Boston media the two years prior for his personnel decisions. At least the idiots could wait until the team actually stopped being competitive. One fall off to 7-9 after a couple decades of dominating the division and he could do no right in their eyes. Bills fans think the Buffalo media is critical.

Henry has the frame of a defensive end. Financially, IMO he got bad advice staying at RB. Despite being as good of a RB as anyone could have ever dreamed.......he is quite possibly on the backside of his earnings potential and has "only" earned $30M. Doesn't take long to earn that if you can rush the passer a little. Jerry Hughes is a player the casual NFL fan barely knows.......he was a virtual bust for his first team and hasn't had a double digit sack season since 2014 and he has earned $80M. Not saying Hughes is not good..........but Henry is a really special athlete who might end up in the HOF even if he flames out soon because a RB producing 2,000 rushing yards NOW is maybe impossible for someone except him. Just not how the league works anymore.

No, you're saying I'm wrong............and not acknowledging context etc.. So your brief research hasn't yielded what you think to be proof............what benefit is it to me to only say how much I liked White after the draft when he hasn't even put the pads on? If I didn't think it was the right pick I would have said so. At the time I was being EXCORIATED by people on here for being critical of many of the offseason decisions. People were still sore at me for saying that Shaq was an underwhelming choice and that Reggie Ragnuts was a garbage pick. I don't change my takes for anyone's approval. When you find that post you're looking for..........be sure to start an apology thread..........because this is important.😘

That article is from 2015. They don't mass produce the RB's like those discussed in that article anymore. It's the rare one that's still at his peak past age 26 now. Nowadays you gotta' count the college touches as well............the starting RB's of today are mostly the athletes that used to back up the starting RB's of yesterday.........and those dudes weren't good for 1800 carries. The athletes that used to dominate the RB position now play money positions like receiver..........or moreso as defenders in the pass game. Patrick Peterson is a good example of what I'm talking about...........he wanted to play RB in college...........his old man said no way.........you are going to play CB and get PAID.

Keep digging. I like it. And yes, White was my favorite CB in college football.........that's why I brought him up out of the blue in that December post. But keep in mind..........there was trepidation about his fit as a man coverage CB........he wasn't a first round prospect for everyone. And with talented man coverage CB's Gilmore and Darby on the roster.........why would anyone think that December that the Bills CB's would be playing mostly the type of zone coverage that McDermott would later bring with him. That's why I was willing to think about him as a safety even though I thought he could be a "terrific" corner. Remember........very poor safety play was a big problem for that 2016 defense.........it was a crying need. (I was also on the sign Micah Hyde train later that offseason......also a lonely 1 car vessel on TSW). The transition to McDermott's defense heightened White's value to the Bills. In this defense his elite intelligence and awareness and run support were able to be accentuated.

Yeah that sounds about right for December prior to that draft. It wasn't a draft full of dynamic CB talent. As we got thru the draft process he stood out as the best of the bunch, IMO. He played a premium position where you want that 5th year option and fit the new system extremely well. Did I think he would be Jalen Ramsey? No. And he hasn't been. Speed was always the question with him. Can I see him being a 30 year old safety in this system?........yep. Hope he is a Bill for life. So thanks for the refresher. Hope you weren't disappointed to see me doing as I said.........talking up a player who was mostly invisible to Bills fans during the draft process.

If you want to stress yourself out worrying about homefield with 2 months of season yet to play...........knock yourself out. Not my first time following a Bills team that was in hot pursuit of homefield advantage in November. Happened a lot from 1988-1993.