BADOLBILZ

No, what happened was under Dorsey and Brady the available passing game talent around Allen declined significantly. The Bills have essentially gone from not having short and intermediate talent in 2021-2022 to only having short and intermediate talent in 2024-2025. And when you lean into TE and slot WR talent like they have with Shakir and Kincaid being their best pass game weapons........you are leaning into the area of the field where players get hurt more often. Not a coincidence that Shakir and Kincaid are banged up all the time. Consistent, durable TE's are a rarity and slot WR's get used up and thrown away like RB's. The axiom about building inside out does not apply to passing game weapons.

You didn't answer the question. And you won't because you don't have any answers. Even Brady's biggest detractors don't. How do you get traditionally middling to bad NFL WR's to perform like WR1 and WR2? I think what confuses you is this idea that the passing offense has to be ever changing to avoid patterns. The design has to be repeatable to avoid mistakes. That is why teams value talent on the outside. With rare exception the Josh's and Joe's beat the X's and O's. Daboll's offense didn't decline in 2021 because he got figured out, it declined because they lost the threat of a short pass being turned into a big play. It allowed defense's to play off and that played into Allen's tendencies to push the ball downfield regardless of the amount of traffic. John Brown was incredibly important prior to that. He could beat you over the top or take a WR screen to the house in 2019-2020. In replacing him with Sanders instead of someone electric they had left themselves with no WR speed and no RB threat from the backfield. Lil' Dummy was basically left wide open for two years and when Daboll and Dorsey tried to lean into that the result was volatility. Not having the proper talent in place in the passing game has been a recurring issue with the Bills WR corps since that 2020 season.

Ehhh........the injury of note came before the extension. We can't just write it off as "since". It looked like a car-accident level concussion event he suffered. I don't remember the last time I saw a player look like that being taken off after a concussion and we knew it was the second one in 2 weeks. You definitely can't extend a small man position with a year left on his deal sight-unseen after that, IMO. And while he played very well at times prior to that series of events....... IMO I am not sure that it was as high of a level as some think. He gave up 8 TD passes in 2023-2024. It's not like you are getting into the redzone and he was going to smother a Jamar Chase or Tee Higgins with his athleticism. And you could also make the argument that we'd seen very high level play from Rousseau with his tremendous run defense and excellent pressure rates or when Bernard had the most splash plays in a season by an NFL LB since Brian Urlacher 20 seasons prior. Truth is, none of them should have been extended IMO. Just Beane doing his best Art Modell impersonation trying to make everyone like him at the eventual expense of the team as a whole and it's fan base.

I'm not sure what stat you are referencing but if it's a bulk stat he typically plays about 25% less of his teams snaps than Myles Garrett does( 60% v 80% over career). And even so Rousseau tied for the NFL lead in run stops by a DL as a rookie with 32. He's legit ELITE against the run. Let's not try to downplay it as "10 best sure". One of the funnier attempts to discredit Rousseau I saw was that his poor play meant Joey Bosa had to play more snaps. Do they not play two DE's simultaneously anymore? I must have missed that.😂

He's the best edge run defender in the NFL. I don't think he needs to bulk up. I'd like to see more wider alignments in the Bills front. I think we've seen that their tighter spacing hurts their individual sack numbers. For Rousseau it doesn't allow him to use that huge first stride and find open lanes to make plays horizontally. But when you have a couple limited, undersized LB's you can't really roll wide 9. Regardless, he needs an edge bender opposite him. Instead the Bills have drafted guys like Boogie, Epenesa and Landon Jackson who lack that ability.

Yeah I think you and @HappyDays are kinda' holding onto your opinion from when they signed him. I was against the extension after the horrific concussion in the AFCCG. The juice wasn't worth the squeeze. The reality is that he is playing like a guy who was going to get low-balled in free agency this winter and would be signing a one year deal after the compensation formula period in May. Zero picks, Zero passes defensed and a 110 passer rating when targeted is not getting you paid.

Well we will see what Rousseau looks like when his extension and those $20M hits actually begin next year. With the cap around $300M this offseason and very few producing DE's available I bet he would still have gotten at least the same deal in UFA. Benford coming off this season might be looking at a one year prove it deal and if Strong and Hairston finished well the Bills might have let him walk. Rousseau's career so far is very comparable to Calais Campbell.........who didn't start his run of All Pro years until age 28........and is IMO a future HoF'er.

Fortunately all concussions aren't the same. Benfords concussion in the AFCCG was one of the most concerning I've ever seen in an NFL game. Extending him a month after seeing THAT was just Beane being Beane. He is far too concerned about his perception. He's got some Art Modell in him that way. He wants everyone to love him and eventually that does a lot more harm than good.

Yeah I was thinking he might be an NFLDPOY candidate after that opener. But then he gets mysteriously injured in the next practice on a play nobody associated with the team seems to be able to remember.

I think the disconnect here is your opinion is about your "feels" about whether they should have extended him. That's irrelevant at this point. I was OK with extending him too and loved the timing because I knew he had already prepared his body for a contract run. But he was a big disappointment last year. He got pushed around and was one of the worst starting DT's against the run in the entire NFL in 2024. Hence the criticism. This year he looked like he had responded to that bad first year of his extension........but ultimately he's probably only going to play around 8% of the Bills defensive snaps this season. So, thus far his extension consists of a bad year and a lost year. Thus far it has objectively NOT been a good contract.

I haven't re-watched the debacle but Coleman did appear to be in Adam Henry's ear on the sideline after one of many failed attempts to feed Shakir. Henry appeared less than pleased with his input. Shakir ended up piling up some yards but he's been a net negative the last couple weeks.

That could be but he's been simply awful overall. Like I said, the way he is playing and Strong was trending Strong might have been playing instead by now. He's not played like a starting NFL CB this year let alone a good one. In some ways it was like the Tre extension because neither had a lot of room for physical decline before it was going to knock them far down the list.

Benford played excellent when healthy the past couple seasons. But that double concussion situation should have ended any extension talk. He literally has not defended a single pass all season. He's been the worst of any of them by A LOT.

I don't know if I'd call him "great" this year. But PFF would.........he is their 9th rated DE/edge in the NFL this season. There are still so many people on TSW who are utterly clueless about football. Benford, on the other hand, has been shite. The light is out in his eyes. He looks like he is just trying to survive the headache. That play where Bishop had to shoe-string tackle Collins last night.......2024 Benford helps tackle that guy. He doesn't want it and when he has to make a tackle he gets up looking like he's just seen a ghost. Scairt.

I'd flip the NE and Cinci results. Otherwise looks about like I see it unfolding. The wins won't come easy with this tired, fragile roster but they should get to 10 wins.

Why run at Rousseau when you can bulldoze Jordan Phillips out of the way or toy with Venus de Bosa? Even before the wrist injury they were gashing the Bills on Bosa's side. Hard to get those TFL's when they are running left or center. Last year Rousseau was 9th in the NFL in TFL's. The line aside from Rousseau is just getting blown up on the regular. Kelsy was actually terrible against the run his entire career. The board was much stupider then so there were a lot of people who thought he was a "base DE". He was a high motor pass rusher and not a good one.

The common thread is that they all signed their deals in summer after preparing all offseason like this was their walk year. The hay was in the barn. The following year when the extension began Oliver's play dropped off dramatically and he will barely play at all this season. So far his extension has been a large financial failure. I suspect the Cook extension won't end well either. It begins next season. People act like this year was the beginning. 'Twas not. Spencer has been the good extension. Hopefully he can return soon after this shoulder setback.

Benford has been among the worst CB's in the NFL this year.............Beane extending him after those two concussions was malpractice so absolutely NOT worth it at signing. They needed to let that play out. As they should have with all 4, to be honest. Rousseau will likely be the only one to play out his deal and provide value throughout. The way Benford is playing Dorian Strong might have started to take snaps from HIM by the end of this season if not for the career threatening neck injury. Oh, the lights are out. He's just a husk of what he was pre-extension.

Well, that's the market for 8 sack guys who do little else. Rousseau isn't that. He's been the best run defending edge in the NFL since he arrived in the league and finished top 10 in the league in TFL last year. They just gotta' put something competitive on the other side. They haven't been able to do that. His $20M won't limit that.

And yet, with that contract he's still their second most valuable asset behind Allen. He's a top 30 player at a premium position and a guy one could easily see playing another 10 years in the league. The bar is high because Allen has continued to will them into contention the past few seasons and contenders typically have a number of elite talents. The Bills just have the one. Rousseau isn't a $40M-$50M edge but he is in a much different category than Bernard.

You want Batman with the 30th pick in the draft or later? Then you've got to be willing go to dark places that McBeane do not want to go. The Chiefs found guys like Tyreek and Chris Jones because they were willing to take character risks. Rousseau was anything but that. His floor was high and that's all they've been able to get because they haven't been able to put enough other talent on the DL.

Yeah Shakir has been a liability the last two weeks though........which is new. I'm not sure it's the injuries as much as maybe his head being in the wrong place with the ill-timed pregnancy but imagining finding an upgrade over Shakir has been REAL easy the past two weeks.

The manner in which he collected sacks was basically about GPS......he is great at locating the QB and if that QB steps up into the pocket he is quick to disengage and a sure tackler. That's what those sacks were like at Miami. And he absolutely will be a 10 sack guy opposite a bendy pass rusher on the other side. The Bills have just never had that for any sustained period with Rousseau here. I mean, even a later-Bills-career Jerry Hughes who couldn't finish a sack to save his life would be enough opposite Rousseau to trigger a flurry of stats. When Bosa and Epenesa were playing better during that NE to KC stretch Rousseau was more impactful but now that Joey is Venus de Bosa out there and Epenesa is playing like he's a afraid of contact the side opposite of Rousseau is a sieve and teams are attacking it.

For reference, the cap is expected to be between $295-$300M. Not great, Beane.

Oh the window isn't closed on Josh Allen. But the easiest years of his career to win are absolutely gone. Literally. Last year they were still sorta' in it with the weak division etc.. But this year they are officially past that. Unless they find the rare difference making HC and GM combo to help overcome their talent deficiencies and/or find some elite talent to help offset the impending $50M cap hits for their QB........ they are probably going to have to get lucky and clank one in from the rough from here on out.