BADOLBILZ

Unfortunately the lack of playmaking at the receiver position made that hard to sustain. I truly believe that Beane is getting better at his job but the current lack of playmaking ability at WR is on him.

We can hope this season the SB winner is an aberration........like Josh and the defense putting the team on their back in the playoffs like the out-of-his-mind Joe Flacco SB Ravens or something........but they don't have all of the elements of any recent SB participant. Their playmakers don't stack up.

Yeah there is no arguing that not having a salary cap keeps good big market teams competitive every year..........that's real. But the only real current threat to changing the current course that's producing new champs year after year is Steve Cohen. And Cohen seems to be trying to build more gradually/responsibly himself. Guys like Friedman with LA and Hal Steinbrenner are in it to make money first and foremost. The Dodgers have essentially added at most $31M in real payroll expense to their roster next year with Shohei and Yamamoto. It's not crazy money by any means. The Yanks will pay that to Soto and that cost them players to acquire. The Yanks will pivot and spend money elsewhere but it won't largely change the balance of the league and the de facto salary cap called the luxury tax will continue to give Hal the excuse to keep his payroll in the 25%-35% of revenue range.........as opposed to NFL teams who pay out over 50%........and as opposed to pre-tax era when George Steinbrenner at times had as much as 80% of revenue tied up in player salaries. The luxury tax isn't exactly a salary cap but because greed naturally expands and rich endeavor to avoid taxes......it serves the same purpose.

Memories are incredibly short with football fans. Josh not running was the biggest complaint all season. Fans expected Dorsey's offense to be productive and consistent anyway. Joe Brady takes over with a clear directive to cut Josh loose as a runner and the narrative is that Joe Brady is some kind of revelation as the OC. I think he's fine and being his second job as an NFL play caller I think that experience and then time to step back and re-evaluate maybe gives him a little edge over Dorsey when working against veteran DC's........though Spagnolo got in his pants in that second half in KC. But that experience matters. First year OC's never win a SB so it's no surprise Dorsey got Anarumo'ed in the playoffs after being on a 9 game heater.

No parity? There hasn't been a repeat WS champion since the luxury tax was instituted. Baseball is basically back in the collusion era of the 1980's. Tax the rich for spending.......and they spend less. That's a universal law. 2 free agents sign and someone brings up parity.........meanwhile about 800 others are looking for work and most will get paid a fraction of what you'd expect. This is the kind of free agency Charlie Finley wanted and Marvin Miller was trying to prevent. Yeah the big market teams are still going to usually win a lot of regular games most years and bad small market teams like the Pirates will stay bad...........but the current system still makes stories like the ingenious Tampa Bay Rays and the usually incompetently run Baltimore Orioles(current) a real possibility. Well run teams of all market sizes can be very good and the playoff system is such that upsets are always possible.

Yeah, Miami and Arizona dumped him because he tried too hard. Yep that's been his rep. Dude is second only to Aaron Maybin among 21st century Bills at fake hustling and eye wash. When the going is tough and it hurts to play with leverage, tie up blockers and get off blocks he plays like he's 250# instead of #350. When the other team has one foot on the bus, playing on their heels in garbage time he chases the easy stats/big plays with wreckless abandon. Same thing last year when he stupidly hurt his shoulder flopping wildly at Mac Jones at the end of a blowout. He connects with fans for his cheerleading but the reality is that he is one of the worst rated DT's in the entire league again this year.

Hines? $5.5M for a 28 year old scatback with a blown knee to be the 3rd RB? Nah. That would be gross mismanagement by Beane. Find next years version of Ty Johnson to be the 3rd back.

The dramatic change was Allen being encouraged(and schemed) to attack defense's with his full range of skills again. Until they lost that Denver game they were still playing to keep Allen healthy for the stretch drive. The very next game against the Jets Allen was running the ball again and taking hits, fighting for extra yards and getting dragged down awkwardly........but he's been extending drives and opening up the run game for the RB's in the process. I like some of the non-Allen-running adjustments that Brady has made but they are subtle......NOT "dramatic". You were probably one of the people complaining about running Cook out of shotgun under Dorsey, right? "Everybody knows what's coming!" Well, now that they are having to account for Allen possibly pulling the ball and running.........those plays are starting to look a little more effective, aren't they? The passing game is still not looking good at all. One of the underrated aspects of the Bills "bad" losses and/or poor offensive showings this season was that, aside from the familiarity matchup against Daboll, they came to defense's that have played well in general this season. I had no problem changing Dorsey out but let's not pretend he could NOT change or adapt at all. He drew up very unexpected gameplans against the Rams in the opener last season, in the Tampa game this year and he adjusted the offense to Allen's UCL injury last year to great effect. He was a raw rookie in 2022 and replaceable either way but he wasn't single handedly handicapping the Bills offense. That was a team effort. Hopefully they find something in the passing game this week against a Chargers defense that is in shambles......like the way they did with the Cowboys terrible run defense without Hankins......but if they had lost that low scoring nail biter in KC the narrative about Brady isn't how good he's been. Nope. It's how Stefon Diggs disappeared under his watch and whether Brady even deserves a chance at returning since the Bills season would have been all but over at that point.

Important to note that I think Simms has meant "step up" in conjunction with Diggs. The Bills can't get the ball to Diggs. It's kind of been either/or.

Yeah that was a good one. Judon was tearing it up and it was particularly satisfying because Allen had played against him in his first career game being routed in the opener against Baltimore and Judon was literally trying to injure him with cheap shots. Aaron Donald in the opener last season was a good one too. They devised a great quick passing game that day and neutralized him despite the atrocious Rodger Saffold being at one of the guard spots. That was probably the best player they've rendered unimpactful in this Josh Allen era.

Agree with the first 2. Rest.......I'd say nah. - Cook is a fine player but putting up volume numbers in great part due to the lack of other receiving weapons, teams overplaying Diggs because of that, and the dual threat QB next to him. He's still just a RB though. He's not McCaffrey(especially not in the catch efficiency department) but even with CMC Deebo is BY FAR the most important weapon for that 49ers team. They routinely pumped out huge RB per play production in SF before CMC arrived. But they lose games when Deebo is not on the field because he gets 12 yards per touch versus McCaffrey who gets just 6 yards per touch. - Kincaid could become one of the best TE's in the NFL but he definitely hasn't been that this season. James Cook might have been closer to being one of the best RB's in the NFL last year than Kincaid is among TE's. Cook averaged 5.7 yards per carry in 2022. Kincaid is 15th in receiving yards but his 8.1 yards per reception is horrible and now he's got a sprained thumb and dropped both of his targets last game. Allen does not have a good skill unit around him this season.

I was never worried about Parsons coming into this game. It's one thing they have consistently done offensively..........limit the impact of that one "game wrecker". Josh Allen + gameplan does that. You can go back to rookie Cody Ford stoning Von Miller when everyone thought Miller would have a field day.

I guess you can't read then. He literally highlighted his attempted points and I addressed them.........but his take was that the problem for the last year has been an incompetent OC. Like I said..........it's not been the same team since then. At mid-year last season Josh Allen sprained his elbow and they adapted the offense because he was struggling to throw the ball short and intermediate with touch. The Bills proceeded to AVERAGE 30 points per game in the 9 games after the UCL injury and prior to the Cinci playoff loss. The narrative that the Dorsey was killing them down the stretch culminating in the Cinci playoff loss is just asinine. Totally different situation this year, very different roster and overall health. They were a physically and emotionally hobbled unit at the end of last year and there were limitations in Allen's game due to health and Cinci was able to take advantage of the changes the Bills were forced to make. This year the Bills started out with a gameplan of avoiding Allen getting hurt and compromising their offense later in the season. I mean, how short of a memory do some of you have? I mean it was only a month ago roughly that every pundit was complaining about how Allen was being used. It was an organizational choice not just Dorsey being clueless. As I've been saying for a couple years, the WR position has been steadily degrading and you can't ask Allen to immitate Joe Burrow when he has no playmaking ability at WR beyond Diggs. Combine that with opposing defense's being in default "stop big plays" mode this season and it was a recipe for mediocrity. And those of you that think all those offensive problems from 2 months ago are fixed now clearly don't see all the passes falling incomplete. They aren't a well-oiled machine now they have just opened up their options. I like Joe Brady. Agreed it was time for a change because the team was in a malaise and it was an easy replacement to make to give them a jolt and letting Brady take over when they were already going to have to take the reigns off of Allen was ideal timing for him to make a good first impression. But Brady hasn't yet gotten this team running on all cylinders offensively either. And he might not be able to because the receiving talent just isn't there.

Did anyone not expect the offense to improve later in the season whether they changed play callers or not? Dorsey began the season with a directive to not get Josh Allen beaten up. They were playing "not to lose Josh" and just get thru these easy opponents offensively for the last month before Dorsey got canned. And the reality is they do not have the talent at WR to just make their QB stay in the pocket with the way defense's are attacking big play offense's this season. Dorsey's exit coincided with the team letting Josh be Josh. The threat of Allen using every skill at his disposal opens up the run game. The passing game is still out of sync and very punchless but now that every option is on the table they can look more like they have when they've played with desperation in the past. This season is not just an extension of last season.......so much has changed beyond just the offensive play caller.

Your hindsight is 50/50.......congrats. The team on the field now is not the same as the one at the end of last season..........the talent on offense is significantly better.......guys like Torrence/McGovern/Kincaid weren't with the team..........and the development of Spencer Brown and James Cook among others has been significant they weren't nearly the players they are now. And they've been healthier. On defense they aren't just relying on Tim Settle and Ed Oliver to rotate as the 1 tech like they were in that Cinci game........Leonard Floyd and Rasul Douglas are big upgrades at key starting positions.........with the pass rush and LOS play improved the back 7 in general is more effective even though last years back 7 had Milano and Edmunds. There is no doubt they were emotionally sapped at the end of last season and they also didn't have the horse's to overcome it against a strong Cinci team(unfortunately even with the Bengals OL banged up) like they did versus Miami the week before.

I guess it's a good thing that you weren't alive when non-sellouts by Thursday of that week were blacked out in Buffalo/Rochester both.........or when the only way to get out of market games was to pay DirecTV hundreds of dollars per year. You and the rest of the "can't believe we gotta' pay to watch a game what's next?!" crowd would have really been tripping then. 😉

I'm always not shocked when Lil' Dummy does Lil' Dummy things.

Purdy-est Player?

I agree.....it's been the year of the playmaker.......not the QB. Defense's are making it hard for QB's to make the plays and the teams that are killing it this year are doing so because they have multiple play makers and defense's simply can't bracket them all. We tend to look at the Bills struggles under a microscope and thus can blame things like injuries and end-of-game coaching but in the scope of the entire league it's much easier to explain. If they had a guy opposite Diggs who could make plays those close losses wouldn't even have been close games. It's not a coincidence that guys like McCaffrey and Tyreek also have 1B options at playmaker.........and it's not a coincidence that the Bills look much better now that Cook has emerged as someone that defense's have to pay if they don't account for him.

So you own a sports bar that presumably profits you personally in part because of the presence of a local NFL team but you think that your taxes pay for your right to watch the team for free? You must think people who pay out of pocket to watch the team AND pay taxes are real suckers.

Coming back and finishing strong could mean an entirely different contract for him in free agency. If he missed the rest of the year he might have been looking at as little as one of those $1.7M one year deals due to not finishing either of the last two seasons.........but if he were to come back and continue the level of play he showed early in the season he might get a multi-year deal with 8 figures in guarantees. For a guy who played most of his career for $600K-$4M per season(only getting a bump in Buffalo for 2 years) that would be a big finish for him.

Those also don't work because those are still personally earned results. Winning titles for sports fans is bestowed luck.......nothing more, nothing less.

And I'm not big on bad analogies like that. Unless you are stealing money from said bank it's presumed that you put in the work to earn that money and deserve it. That's not how sports fandom works. Nothing is promised. And you don't earn or create that result. I prefer the classics

And this was the real reason you started this thread..........to p!ss on what you loathe most..........fellow Bills fans. Because you knew that some would still be critical of their underachieving season and the negativity around things like McDermott's stewardship and the handling of Von Miller situation etc.. Opportunity knocked. You disappear when the team is rolling for long stretches and only re-emerge when you see the opportunity to trash the fan base for having expectations. Haven't been a lot of opportunities in the past few years so you have been focused on the chronically disgruntled(err, ungrateful) Sabres fans instead.

Or you could stop making assumptions about the distant future and how rewarding that time might be and ACTUALLY live in the moment. If Josh Allen fails to live up to your presumptions(I will remind you that you once presumed CJ Spiller a future HOF'er 🤣)...........and if Allen's versions of the team never reach or win a Super Bowl...........the point should be that the journey is the reward.