BADOLBILZ

No the value of an All Pro is absolutely position dependent. Centers have help on both sides and often spend the most important downs blocking air. And physically at least, Tate Ratledge is an upgrade on Ragnow. When you pick an interior offensive lineman in round 2 like that you are thinking he is going to be a stud. It's not like they have Colin Brown taking over at center. Maybe you thought the Eagles would miss Kelce too but they didn't. Jergens was just fine. I know the outside opinion was that losing Mitch Morse last offseason was huge but he was easily upgraded upon.

Maybe but they have a more favorable schedule this season. It's set up for them to get to the SB in much the same way the Bills schedule is. Their division is tougher but the Lions schedule has the greatest rest advantage in the league. It comes down to whether Campbell got the coordinator hires right and if they can stay healthier. Losing a center is no big deal. Just gotta' find a different body to block air on 3rd and long.

Yeah the Yankees are not in the Dodgers class. If NYY can get by the Tigers and win the AL they need to hope that San Diego or some other team who the Dodgers can't get erect for knocks them out in a 5 game series. The Yanks bring out the best in the Dodgers because LA is obscenely talented and deep but only beating the most storied franchise on the planet can get them focused enough to play to their talent. The Yanks aren't on that level because Hal Steinbrenner and Cashman use the "it works for the AL Central" model of just doing enough to get to the playoffs. This maximizes profit because the stadium is virtually sold out regardless now(unlike in the George era when fans would stay away if the team wasn't great). Their payroll is high relative to the rest of the league that aren't the Dodgers........but so much of that is sunk costs like DP LePew, Junkelbows Stanton, Aaron Hicks etc.. 1970's and 1990's-2000's George wouldn't accept being just good enough to win if he was this close. He wouldn't knowingly go into the season with one guy in the starting lineup with .500 OPS level talent like they have so often at positions like 3B or LF over the last decade. If they had 9 good starters they'd add Daryl Strawberry and Tim Raines to the bench. In the 1970's they did exactly what the Dodgers are doing now. George had a 4 man rotation with 8 highly paid starting pitchers under contract so that when 4 of them were injured they still had starting pitching for days. George would sign good starters from the Reds, Dodger and Red Sox in hopes of getting performance but also to weaken their competition. Sparky Lyle just won the Cy Young award? Go out and sign the next best, younger reliever in Rich Gossage and make him the closer. 1980's George got caught up in the collusion era and took the kind of half measures his son Hal is now......but for different reasons.........and that's why they couldn't win a WS. We may look back in hindsight on these Dodgers teams and not remember just how much talent they've acquired because guys like Snell and Glasnow may never be healthy but they've really stacked the deck and the Yankees should be doing the same thing. They don't have an excuse not to. They generate more revenue, they are a far bigger global brand etc..

It's not 1996 anymore though. Back then the CBA allowed for 6 year rookie contracts. Cole Bishop is under contract for only 3 more seasons. If your first and second round picks aren't starting by year 2 of their 4 year rookie deals it's a greater concern than it was in the 1990's because your entire roster is turning over faster than it did then.

At the time of the McDavid lottery the Oilers were a much worse organization than Buffalo. Buffalo had picked in the top 10 just the prior two years. The Oilers had already had the #1 overall pick 3 times in the previous 6 years. They were the bottom of the barrel. It took work for McDavid to supersede their massive culture issues but he did it because players of that magnitude don't lose for long. And can you imagine the Bills if Allen had been a bust? McBeane get fired and Pegula never gives up full control of football operations again. Those Bills and the current Sabres would have been on parallel paths.

For not being sure that it was a cheap shot in your first sentence you literally described it as absolutely a cheap shot in your second. Poyer had the option of pushing him out of bounds or trying to knock the ball out legally. It was a garden variety cheap shot, but dirty nonetheless.

You made the mistake of getting into a real-world conversation with @MJS. Water is wet and NFL players need PED's to stay on the field. People do not want to see what the NFL looks like without them.

Picking a safety in the second round is generally a bad idea. It's a one contract position. Jairus Byrd was simultaneously an All Pro quality player for a couple of seasons and a bad second round pick. There are not many safeties in the NFL that end up being worth bypassing the annual chance to select a potential difference maker at a premium position. More day 1 and 2 picks fail than succeed but it's still the best place to find difference makers.

Yeah I've always rooted for McDavid. He really wanted to be in Buffalo and IMO he would have been to the Sabres organization what Josh Allen is to the Bills. Would have saved Terry Pegula from unfortunately and painfully embarrassing himself as a sports owner the way he has with the Sabres. That lottery announcement was one of the top 5 sports tragedies in Buffalo sports history IMO and THE worst moment for the Sabres.

The table turned completely during the Kelly era. Bills destroyed them in the AFC playoffs in 1991 and 1993. The Chiefs weren't really a road block again until Reid got there.

Yeah that was probably the worst of the bunch. Manny Lawson lost contain on that Charles TD. Those losses all stung though. They were quintessential "culture" losses and really hurt the Bills for AFC record tie-breakers. There wasn't a big difference talent-wise between the Bills and Chiefs teams. The Bills might have had deeper rosters in all of those losses. But the Chiefs won THOSE game and they've always been a step ahead ever since because the Bills tore it down to re-set the culture and KC hasn't done the volume of stupid things that NE did to allow the Bills to catch up to them.

It's been like this since Marrone and Rex era's. The key losses every year that were derailing the latter day drought Bills out of the playoffs started being those against fellow AFC fringe playoff contending Chiefs. Those Bills/Chiefs matchups were fairly even talent-wise but the Bills were just out COACHED time and again and they went the playoffs and the Bills did not. Manny Lawson missing tackles, Tuel's pick 6, the game where Sammy put up like 200 yards receiving in the first half in KC and they blew the lead in the second half......... We had a few years(2017-2019) where they weren't impeding McDermott's teams but once 2020 hit they got right back to derailing the Bills seasons, it was just later than sooner. A lot of Bills fans weren't feeling the rivalry aspect heading into their 2020 AFCCG matchup but those of us who realized how big those 2014-2016 drought season losses the Chiefs handed the Bills were did feel it.

Rehabbin' ain't easy

Yeah the Bills safeties aren't very good but the bar to get to average talent at WR is higher. Safeties are devalued. There were close to 30 starting safeties from 2023 on the subsequent 2024 free agent market. You'd never see anything like that at a premium position. So more teams have patched together safety rooms that look like the Bills than WR rooms that do.

I wonder if it's that or if it's because he was an interception magnet and Brady just didn't want him back because of that. They've already rolled the dice with Elijah Moore who was the target on 8 INT's last year they don't need another high risk target.

It would probably serve him best to wait for the inevitable WR injuries to accrue in camp and find a place where he's needed despite his bad hands and limited route tree. His 2025 salary being fully guaranteed by Jax already actually complicates things as I am sure a number of teams would like to give him a contract that is basically a de facto zero-risk camp invite for them. He needs to get actual playing time to get his career back on track.

It's hard to heal calf injuries. You can go easy on a hamstring but it's hard to walk at all without aggrivating a calf injury. They are so often the precursor to a torn achilles. It's happened so often to so many big name players now that it's odd when people try to brush it off like you are doing. The Bills have good depth a DE. That's the saving grace. Not the insignificance of the injury for a brittle old pass rusher.

I posted it somewhere else before but the average SB winner's offensive and defensive ranking over the last decade or so was surprisingly low. I think it was an average of 9th for both. So there isn't really a direct correlation between very high regular season rankings and postseason success. But over the past decade the quality of your second receiving option has been as big of an indicator that you will reach the SB as any. That was true again for the winner this year as Devonta Smith averaged 64 yards receiving per game as option #2 for Philly. AJ Brown averaged 83. Those are big numbers that project over 1,000 in a 17 game season. The bulk totals for Hurts/Brown/Smith were down this year due to games missed to injuries but they easily have the most talented 1-2 WR pair in the NFC. Bills fans often cite the Chiefs as an exception. Like they haven't had high end receiving talent. But 2024 was the only season since 2015 that the Chiefs haven't had two of the top 32 receiving yardage producers in the NFL. The Bills haven't had a top 32 ranked 1-2 punch since Diggs/Beasley in 2020. Basically, the Bills are trying to be a significant outlier. At least the 2023 Chiefs went into camp thinking they had still fringe superstar Kelce and a rising star in Rice.......who was on a 1400+ yard pace prior to his injury. Unless the Bills make an unexpected move this will be the second consecutive year they have entered the season without a receiver who has put up at least 900 yards at some point in their NFL career. For perspective, before that it had been almost 40 years since they started a season without someone who'd at least put up 1,000 in a season. "Everyone eats" or not they are accepting a pretty low standard.

I think we already touched on this topic earlier in the thread but he Bills were not 9th in passing yardage. They were 17th. The figures you are referencing are "net" passing yards..........which subtracts sack yardage. If you are historically great/lucky at not turning the ball over and your QB never gets sacked that's going to greatly benefit your "net" numbers. But if you are judging the quality of talent in the passing game........remember this........the league DOES NOT subtract sack yardage from QB's individual passing yardage(or the WR's, naturally). @Paup 1995MVP's reaction to your post reflects how misleading including sack data is. By no means was the Bills 2024 passing game an aerial circus.

It's back. Kinda'. https://slicesoda.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=paid+ad&utm_campaign=slice-soda-brand&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22117546269&gbraid=0AAAAAq2m6Bs3qvcAYrPO444Y3Oy_D_U8W&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2OXCqsy9jQMV4F5HAR0ugCqnEAAYASAAEgKcIPD_BwE

Yeah people don't realize how much they've missed the unnecessary, drive stalling calls that you get when you use a 250-270# TE to run block instead of a real 320# offensive lineman. The mind blown "imagine if the Bills could use a TE instead of an extra OL" takes after the draft were precious. Nobody needs a Lee Smith. If he's going to be out there he better catch the ball and make plays in the passing game too. The good news is that he seems to be getting good reviews in that regard.

If we are going to speculate on why Coleman struggled when he came back I'd say it's more likely that he had mentally checked out on the season during his recovery. Coleman is not a guy who was used to playing football in December and January to begin with. It's hard to be any good in the NFL unless you are all-in mentally and physically. I'm not directly equating the situations but Chase Claypool is the extreme example of how far you can fall in the NFL when you lose your competitive edge. I think Coleman's lapse was likely temporary but now that is part of his history that people will be watching for.

What Allen CAN do consistently that the Bills can't take advantage of with this WR corps is throw 30+ yard passes on a line. He doesn't have great touch on throws that require air under them but he can throw to areas of the field on a rope that others have to throw with arc/anticipation. Throws that are normally way out of a QB's range to make and where DB's are very vulnerable . Allen's range as a passer of low trajectory throws actually opened up the field quite a bit for Gabe Davis, who had the size to do work downfield but little else. Hopefully Coleman can become a much better version of Gabe, at least. But unless Allen can maintain his strong arm until the end, eventually he will have to find more consistency on touch/timing passes over the top to stay among the very best in the league as he ages.

9 years ago the idea that there would become bandwagon Bills fans was a bit far-fetched. For years on TSW two things I often talked about that needed to happen: 1) The fanbase had to become their own separate entity from the team in the way that even longer-suffering Chicago Cubs fans had under similarly difficult circumstances. Prior generations of Bills fans would vote for or against Ralph with their wallets and that was a recipe for losing your team and all the fun and entertainment we enjoyed around the 48 hours of sh!t football we were subjected to annually. 2) That they should pick a QB with their first pick EVERY year until they got one that could get a stadium built. Both goals were achieved, even if not in the way you'd draw it up. I am grateful that Josh Allen and the energy of Bills Mafia can bring us new fans. I can remember going to local bars with friends to watch Bills pre-season games during the Rex era and even if the place was packed nobody else even knew the Bills were playing. The Bills territory was contracting and you didn't have to venture far outside of Buffalo to reach where the team was becoming irrelevant. The brand was that tarnished by the likes of Ralph, Jauron, Levy and Brandon. In general, the fans that this Josh Allen era creates will be the people sustaining the franchise 10-15 years from now the same way that the kids of the Kelly/Bruce/Thomas/Reed era Bills sustained the organization thru the 2000-2017 drought years.

He, his dad and uncle are an enigmatic bunch. There are people that swear they are fantastic human beings and at the same time you have self-destructive issues with the law and coachability problems. Kaiir's self destructiveness is just a bit more 1st world than the prior generation who grew up with less. It's great that he is so kind/compassionate/caring for those less fortunate than he. You find people like that at all socio-economic levels. From the upstanding to the most criminal. That's just one aspect of their humanity. What's applicable here is that Kaiir just didn't make the effort for his employer, his teammates or the fans in Buffalo. It's one thing to struggle to win a starting job it's another to then not even feel compelled to contribute on special teams. That caused a spiral here because they couldn't activate a backup DB who wouldn't play ST's. He alienated himself because he refused to do the dirty work and earn those opportunities to cover receivers every week. He was already financially set from that first contract and he knew he'd get another shot elsewhere because he was a first round pick so he didn't feel compelled to lower himself to the level of a guy like Ja' Marcus Ingram. Now he's basically a 6th round pick for the Cowboys so I expect him to re-adjust his expectations of himself.