BADOLBILZ

No, it's not revisionist history to suggest that had Anthony Lynn been retained the Bills would have been drafting a QB in round 1. It was a bit of a surprise that McD even retained Tyrod considering that the organization had benched him to end the 2016 season. And it was very surprising that a first year HC passed on the chance to draft a talented QB in round 1 when there was talent on the board. The excuse the Bills used........about needing more time to assess college QB's.........is one I've never heard a new regime make. It was a very unorthodox approach and they've paid for it in the short term at least.......the two guys they passed on have ousted them from the playoffs the past two seasons. And if Watson ends up in Miami......... I've been a fan of every player that the Bills have selected in round 1 since McDermott got here. That's a much higher approval rating from me than Polian or Butler even so I'm not a hater of their personnel work. But they were very lucky to get a chance at Josh Allen after passing on Mahomes and Watson. The amount of chances McD had at a superstar QB in round one of the draft in his first two seasons is unbelievable. I'm thankful they got Josh, he was the right pick there, but it hasn't worked out perfectly yet either.

When I am talking about addressing the offense early.........I mean difference makers.........not runnin' bax. I don't disagree with you about the trade down idea......it depends on who is there where they pick but they do need to re-stock positions to help them deal with having so many highly paid players on the roster. Foremost among them.........they need some young WR talent. It's very possible only Diggs and Gabe Davis return to the Bills WR unit next season. And though Davis had a very good rookie season as the 3rd-4th option......... he's not a premium athlete at the position.........he will likely need matchups against lesser coverage players. Their WR corps does not have a 1B option..........it's Diggs and some 2's and 3's........and with the influx of WR talent into the league the past 2 seasons, that's not the case everywhere around the league.......there are a number of teams who go 2-3 deep at WR who can be relied on to physically challenge an opponents #1 CB.

I predicted McD was taking a 10 win team to training camp in 2017 so I wasn't exactly a hater but the assessment above that the defense would improve and they might lose their running game was dead on. Also, if Anthony Lynn is retained and he ends up with Patrick Mahomes and a good defense..........he'd still be the HC here. They had playoff talent and a mature roster and Mahomes is a transcendent talent. Mahomes could make Rich Kotite look like a good HC. The Bills went in a different direction...........it's working out "well" but the Chiefs were at a crossroads that offseason and trading them Mahomes turned them into a pseudo-dynasty that looms as a major obstacle to the Bills success for the foreseeable future.

They've used some draft picks on offense but you listed a bust second rounder and 3 third rounders and a 4th. Since 2018 they've drafted a MLB and a DT in round 1.........not big dollar positions..........but no offensive skill players. It's not yet gotten absurd like what has gone on in Green Bay..........but it's concerning because it's the easy way to remain "competitive" drafting defenders when you have a dynamic QB who can elevate the performance of those around him. But it's also proven to be a good way to come up short over and over and diminish the career of a great QB. It is fair to say that the tops of the Bills drafts have been defense-centric. Even if you count Diggs as a #1 that's 4 of 6 #1's on defense. And the only player in their back 7 on defense that isn't on a multi-year deal averaging $8M per year now is Edmunds and his cap figure for next year is around $12M. They also had the highest amount of cap dedicated to the DL in the league last year. They have thrown a disproportionate amount of their assets at the defensive side of the ball..........which is a questionable decision in a league where defensive success has proven difficult to sustain from year to year and the rules are set up to promote offense. If you go back and look at the 13 defensive #1's that GB has taken in the past 16 years it doesn't scream "success".

I trashed this "crap" take of yours earlier........pointing out how being 1,000 miles from where "the majority" of the fanbase was in 1990 essentially disqualified you from telling me how it was in WNY at the time. While you were waiting on your copy of Shout! magazine to find out what was going on, I was here living it every day. And it' doesn't take "the majority" of Bills fans to make the fanbase look ingracious. As a "worldly" man myself I spent a good deal of time as a kid visiting my relatives in the Boston area and going to Red Sox and Bruins games and I can tell you that "the majority" of Boston sports fans are actually very nice people. Humbled by not winning the thing they wanted most......a World Series....... for about 100 years. Superstitious and fatalistic like a lot of Bills fans. If anyone can relate to domination like the Pats against the Bills in the 2000's...... it's a long time Red Sox fan after a 100 years of domination by the Yankees. But to bitter Bills fans on TSW........Boston fans are all spoiled and ingracious in victory and denial in defeat. In reality, it's just enough of a % to notice. But of course, the "Bills Mafia" would never be like that. The minute someone in the media has a negative take on the team they try to cancel that person. Thinking they will be more gracious in victory is ridiculous.

It's nice that they are trying to keep good players, but as I've said before............I don't want to see this team spend/invest lopsidedly on defense and then just tell Josh Allen to be like Aaron Rodgers has for the past 15 years. Every year GB drafts defense in round 1. When they spend in free agency, it's usually been on defense. That's ultimately what pissed Rodgers off. The Packers have asked their QB to shoulder the load with less talent investment on the offensive side of the ball.......and as good as Josh Allen is.......this isn't 2015 anymore........there are more good QB's in the league than there were then so the VAST separation Rodgers had against other QB's may not be happening for Allen with guys like Mahomes, Herbert, Lamar, Burrow, Lawrence etc.. all in the AFC. Pro Bowl Tyrod Taylor wouldn't be making a pro bowl in the 2020's.

You totally neglect the fact that both starting LB's were injured very early in the 2020 season and weren't back to health until the second half. That was the biggest issue they had in run defense last season. Their front 4 is definitely looking *better* at getting into the backfield in 2021 and they are making more stops in the run game than the 2020 DL........but the story on defense this season has been the play of the LB corps. Milano playing at an All Pro level and Edmunds just had a great game.....and every time Klein comes into games he makes plays. In the second half of last year the schedule softened up, Milano and Edmunds got healthy and the defense started playing at a similarly high level and raking in turnovers. Very similar to their start against 4 badly QB'd teams this year. They are definitely improved but how much they are improved we will find out based on how they hold up against some good offenses. They aren't suddenly the legion of boom out there........they still miss a sh*tload of tackles and have had issues getting to the QB rushing just 4. Tomorrow is the first real test.

I'm just responding to the people wondering if Bills fans will be gracious, in general. They will not. There will be much gloating and wearing of gaudy championship gear etc.. They will be trolling opposing teams social media looking for respect/admiration/hate.............especially when the realization hits them that your team winning a championship doesn't tangibly impact much in your life........so there will be a lot of them out on the lookout for satisfaction.

People communicated amongst each other before social media. For real. "We're back, deal with it America!" And any pent up energy not used during the week came out at the games. People would be floored today by the poor treatment Bills fans used to give the opposition during those winning years. That would be followed up by call in shows and letters to the editor and nightly news reports. I've cited the Peter King story about the employees at Foxboro referring to Bills fans as "huns". As wildly insecure as our fanbase is it would be foolish to think that winning SB's would be handled graciously.

No, he hasn't made nearly enough plays for the talent he has or the investment they made in him. He had a very good playoff game versus Houston a couple years ago.......one of the best games of his career. Unfortunately, the AFCCG was one of his worst. The Chiefs intentionally moved Kelce away from Milano and forced Edmunds to play him in the Bills zone defense. They directly attacked and shredded him. The idea that he has been silently excellent in coverage despite not making plays is wrong. He's been especially vulnerable since teams have taken the tact of forcing him to cover and not just hover. What he needs to do to stop that is make plays on the football like he did with that interception last week. I've consistently said he's one of the 10-12 best ILB/MLB in the NFL............but the difference between that and being elite is making big plays.

Rest assured, the Bills fan arrogance was out of control in the early 90's. Which only made the whimpering and complaining after SB losses more satisfying to the opposition and definitely contributed to the rest of the country getting really sick of the Bills making it to SB's.

Tough enough schedule that they could go on a losing streak.......and then may be time for Seattle to trade DK Metcalf and get a package of picks and/or young players to help facilitate a quick re-build. Because they appear to be ill-equipped to win in that division in 2021 and 2022. Reload for 2023 when Rams, Arizona and SF cycle back toward them.

I wouldn't go that far. He had a nice drive. Then he was just annoying. They were playing from behind and he was running down the play clock with the team playing from behind........and then after surveying the defense and trying to draw them Offside for 30 seconds at the LOS.....being quickly befuddled post-snap and throwing the ball away.

I'd agree with that and the other two competitors for his best games, IMO, were the last two games of his rookie season(NE and Miami)..........he finished his rookie season looking like a future All Pro. It just didn't materialize over the next two seasons or the beginning of this one. Hopefully this flash turns into illumination. Normally the position is manned by instinctive players so they hit the ground running..........but we just saw last year Roquan Smith from Edmunds' class go from disappointing to difference maker. It's not a lack of physical tools.........it's been between the ears. Whether that's processing speed or killer instinct/focus or even just confidence something has been holding him back. One of the more interesting aspects of this season to me was that the Bills won 13 regular season games last year despite having a number of highly invested-in young players that still had A LOT of room for improvement. Edmunds, Ed Oliver, Dawson Knox, Cody Ford............and tbh, in the preseason it looked like "none of the above" were going to take that step. If 2-3 of the 4 become real difference makers at their positions that's a lot of ground gained for the quality of the roster.

Actually I said the opposite.........that hit was concerning that he couldn't make big plays against the bad QB's they've been facing. If not then..........when? Fortunately he came thru with what I'd call the game of his career to this point..........be it against a rookie QB in his first road start in the pouring rain. It's not easy for even an elite MLB to impact a game against a good QB though. That job generally falls on the higher paid positions.......like pass rushers and cover corners. See the woeful performance by Edmunds in the AFCCG last year for just how ugly it can get.

I know you are really out of touch with the role of christianity in football......we've had these discussions before......but Urban Meyer has leveraged piety/righteousness to gain fame and fortune and power. Despite all the crooked sh*t he's done............this episode is really the first time that he's done something that really offends that christian fan base. It shouldn't be surprising that there are some people on this board that are offended by infidelity. Faith and football is a thing. But those of us who are more offended by his abandoning his team than his intoxicated bar behavior are definitely going to point out what a hypocrite that jagasss is and how stupid the people who were in denial about him were.

Like she wasn't fully aware that he was manipulative, lying and self-absorbed by this point in their marriage. If she's mad she's just mad that he put her and the family on the spot by doing it in public. She does a good job deflecting the blame onto the whole of social media though.......that's what Urb would do.

Yolo was in complete denial about what Urban was up to in that last season at Ohio State........he was talking about Shelley like he and her were yenta's from way back and how Honest Urb would never get back into coaching. As soon as Urban got caught lying about his assistant coach I said on TSW that he was going to fake another health scare so he could make people feel bad about calling him on it. And so it was.....it was....

Meyer is a convincing liar and con artist. He's been feeding players, administrations and fan bases a line of BS for his whole career...........with great success because suckers are born every minute. His luck just started running out at Ohio State when he got caught red-handed in real-time. This whole episode pales in comparison to that d-bag feigning yet another health crisis to punish the administrative in-grates at Ohio State who tried to hold him accountable for his cover up of a coach with a history of DV. I do think he could have the USC job if he wants it by the end of this season. People line up to forgive this guy and AD's gladly accept the risk of one of his scandals because he has a history of winning big in NCAAF.

In 2017 they were implementing a new defense............everyone was new to the system..........now they have a very experienced defense and the back 7 are basically in their 4th season together......that's an eternity for defense in the NFL.....they are at the point where they really should be able to start getting very creative on defense including playing a lot more man coverage(if they were to add such a player). Moot point now.

I can't really imagine the factors coming together where Gilmore would join the Bills............but he certainly would give them a piece in the secondary that would allow them to play the best passing offenses much differently. You might actually be able to take away both Kelce and Hill in a playoff matchup and still have some bodies left to address the rest if you had both White and Gilmore in combination with those safeties. I wasn't very enthused about the *decent* UFA Steven Nelson when he was available because he really doesn't move the needle in matchups against star receiving threats........but a player the caliber of Gilmore is a different story.

Correct. He wasn't playing impactful football early in the season and then he played a tremendous game Sunday. It shouldn't have taken PFF grades for anyone to determine that. Eyeballs would suffice. Hopefully this game was a turning point for him. He's had some(few) games in the past where he flashed like this and then didn't maintain though.

Game changing plays.........high PFF grade...........who knew those were reflective of the kind of excellent play that earns one accolades? Nice to not have to witness people reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeach for examples of plays where he was a difference maker.

Yeah Lotulelei's 2 game pace of play making would project to obliterate the best season of his long career............he's not the same player. Different body composition and different style of playing 1 tech. Attacking the pocket and being disruptive in the backfield is the only way 1 tech should be played, IMO. If you want a space eating DT to hover at the LOS then align him at 0 as a NT where at least he can put the center on skates while drawing the double. That's not pass defense centric 4 DL football, but if you aren't going to shoot gaps then that is the way. Allowing the center and guard to comfortably bracket off your DT gains you so little in run defense that it's not worth it. Despite good defensive numbers overall in 2018-2019, the Bills were never any better than average in ypc allowed in the two years that Lotulelei was playing traffic cone.

Because there is a belief, based on the thrashing in the AFCCG, that the Bills can't defend the Chiefs with zone and that they need to be able to play man vs KC. Tre White can't run well enough to provide any challenge to Tyreek Hill in man.........we saw that mismatch in the AFCCG........White looked like he was running in sand against him. You could argue, however that he might be able to really neutralize Kelce with his combination of coverage, physicality and ball skills. For proof......he has done a good job when isolated on Gronk in the past. We've even seen Antoine Winfield deployed and shut down Tony Gonzalez years ago. This matchup is do-able. That would have left the man coverage "specialist" Nelson on Tyreek Hill. Which, as I said, would still be a massive mismatch anyway.