BADOLBILZ

You don't play to give Tyler Bass a 44 yard field goal attempt there because he's been wildly inconsistent to that point. Just like you don't lean on a defense that has been getting speedboated backward all day(an outrageous 7.7 yards per play versus the 5.3 typically allowed by Buffalo). Those units were weaknesses........and they had a pretty clear path to not needing much, if any, help from them to win the game. You must try to cover for them there.......not let them decide the game for you. Obviously. This has been touched on before, as have most of these stats.........but the average time for an NFL QB to throw this year was 2.78 seconds. Allen released that ball at 2.85 seconds. That ball has to come out sooner than that on an OBVIOUS passing down. It was by no means the extraordinary play by KC's front that it was made out to be.

If you don't like the stat, choose your statistical field and represent your argument. Instead of utterly ridiculous, unsupported "opinions" like "they make that every time" or that it was the smart play call with 2 minutes left on 2nd and 9. 20+ air yards is simply a COMMON point of demarcation. The LOS was the 26 and the ball needed to arrive at least 7-8 yards deep into the end zone. So it was over 30 and closer to 35. Let me refresh your memory:

Oh now Shakir is Jerry Rice in his prime. If the play design was for 2023 Tyreek Hill it was still both a bad situational play call with a low likelihood of completion. Incomplete........you find yourself in 3rd and 9 with a struggling kicker waiting in the wings. Complete.........the Chiefs get the ball back with like 1:50 on the clock knowing that they are playing 4 down football when they'd been gouging the Bills defense all day. Remind me how far they got in just 12 seconds in a similar situation in the 2021 divisional playoff?

1) It's just a statistical fact that 20+ air yard attempts are low completion percentage throws. 2) We've already established that 20+ air yard throws are all low % throws. Nobody completes those in volume half the time, let alone the near 60% league completion average. And every range of passes attempted includes "throw aways and drops". In fact, there are A LOT more of both of those within 20 air yards of the LOS than beyond that. Think sack-avoids, screen dirts etc.. 3) So when Josh attempted 72 throws of 20+ air yards on the season and 70% of them fell incomplete are you claiming that he was "stepped on" on those 70% incompletions? You are the one grossly exaggerating. Never at any point from the play being called thru the ball landing way off target was it anything close to a given that the throw would be successful. You are just up in your emotions about it and can't be rational.

Factually not "techically". I am correct that the Bills completed less than 1/3 of the 20+ air yards throws they attempted in the 2023 season (which is about 10th best in the NFL). Therefore making it a play call with a statistically low probability of succeeding to begin with. Yet I have been told in no uncertain terms by @Alphadawg7 (among others) that they apparently complete that throw 100% of the time....if not for.........pressure??? Because who would EVER have expected to see pressure on an obvious passing down? The arguments that people try to make to excuse the stupidity of that play call are absurd. I understand why though..........because to criticize the play is to also criticize Josh Allen for running it and also dirting the throw in the end zone when he had a safer throw underneath and plenty of time to work with. And ultimately, some fans won't attribute even a fraction of a percent of the blame for the team not winning a game on Allen.

Josh Allen completed 30% of his 20+ air yards throws in the 2023 season.

He is also that dude that might still trade Mack then anyway, too.

At age 28, entering his 8th year in the NFL.......I highly doubt it. These guys get pretty beat up in pro football and men peak physically around 25-26. That's why Marquise Goodwin kept faking injury with the Bills when he was trying to stay in track shape for Olympic trials. The NFL doesn't produce many TV "duds" but one of the biggest was the NFL "veteran combine". They had all these veteran free agents working out and they were putting up hilariously bad track numbers. Felix Jones was a 4.47 at 21 and 4.85 at age 27. https://deadspin.com/the-nfl-veteran-combine-is-the-saddest-1693107996/#:~:text=Former Cowboys running back Felix,You know%2C Rich Eisen time. And that was the end of combine testing vets....

The money lines......which are the projections that matter as much as any "projection" can.........they are NOT on those projections you are making up.

Yeah needing help to separate is why he needs to be in the slot or at least in motion where he can't be jammed. On the boundary.......Jam em' up........ride em' out........game over before it even starts for receivers with T-Rex arms.

It always comes back to cap space

Terrible takes highlighted. The Bills leading returning receiver was 56th in the NFL in yardage in 2023 so noting that the Bills just don't have a "top 10" receiver is minimizing the issue for effect. Like when McDermott's response to having the worst NFL scoring offense in the SB era halfway thru the 2018 season was "would we like to score 50 every game? Sure." There were 5 NFL teams with TWO players in the top 32 in receiving yardage in 2023 and it's been that way for quite a few years now. One of them has continually been the Chiefs. Having two very high quality receiving targets has been a key characteristic of SB contenders for over a decade now. And no, the Bills haven't proven that they have a "wide spread of talented players" by any measure. Four in the top 100 does not "spread larger than most teams". Receiving yardage 2023 Kincaid 56th Samuel 65th Shakir 66th Cook 99th MVS 140th Hollins 161st Knox 206th

Said it elsewhere but the pass rush move(for some contender) will probably be to trade for Khalil Mack at the deadline. His base salary is near league minimum so the acquiring team would basically need almost no cap room to add him.........so he would be a hot commodity if the Chargers aren't in contention.

Yeah like I said, that 2018 Bills WR corps helped produce the fewest points thru 8 games of any NFL team in the SB era. In hindsight, that might be the absolute lowest point in the history of the Bills with regard to combined WR/TE/RB talent. But remember that at this time of the offseason in 2018: 1) Kelvin Benjamin was still expected to play like a 60 ypg backend WR1 in the NFL 2) It was presumed 2nd round pick Zay Jones would make big strides in an expanded role 3) Charles Clay had averaged 600 yards per season over the previous 5 seasons(558 in 2017) 4) LeSean McCoy was coming off a 1,000 yard season Every homer on TSW expected as good or better production each of them in 2018 and was glad to tell me so when I laughed at the unimpressive cast of playmakers they'd "assembled". There was even talk about McCoy using the TB12 method to avoid hitting the RB wall (I sh!t you not). -Benjamin put up a 37% catch rate and an impossible 22.6 pass rating when targeted and 7 INT when targeted -Zay Jones was terrible as well........76.9 passer rating when targeted with 5 INT attributed -Clay produced just 184 yards and 60.4 pass rating when targeted -McCoy was pathetic with 514 yards on 3.2 ypc

No he is T-Rex armed. Alligator armed suggests cowardice. It makes no sense, true, but it's how it's interpreted.

Don't put words in my mouth. My "initial metric" has been 900 since I brought the point up weeks ago. It's not a "now" thing........when I looked it up there were just a few outlier seasons with guys like Matthews and Williams who barely fell under 1,000. Claypool and MVS have been added since and still not cleared that very low bar. Did I need to make the bar 996 yards? No, because nobody they have has even got to 900. OBVIOUSLY with guys like Reed, Lofton, Brooks, Early, Moulds, Price, Evans, Stevie Johnson, Watkins, Benjamin, Brown, Diggs and Sanders they have almost always started a season with someone with over 1,000 since the league went to 16 games. More often than not, TWO. You understand that, right? As for your 2018 question........who cares? Is that brutal offense supposed to be some sort of bar? That squad was going nowhere with a rookie QB and ultimately scored the fewest amount of points any NFL team thru the first 8 games of an NFL season since the merger. (Which when brought up by the media McDermott said "would we like to score 50 points every game? Sure. ) What matters now is that the Bills WR corps stacks up as a bottom 1/3 of the league in a year where they are a SB contender. Why is that? Because of what they lack up top. Which is part and parcel to my point.

When the Bills traded for Kelvin Benjamin during the 2017 season he was producing almost identically to the 2016 season. A 900-1,000 yard pace. Which made him a back end WR1 producer in the NFL at that time. The narrative was that the change of scenery had slowed him and Beane was confident he would be back to his prior excellence. 2014 Mike Williams ( 27 and just one injury plagued season removed from 996 yards and 9 TD's in Tampa). 2017 Jordan Matthews (coming off 1800 receiving yards in the prior 2 seasons). Benjamin, Williams and Matthews career highs were 1,008, 996 and 997 respectively..........so we aren't splitting hairs at 900. You see how soon we forget that 900 yard seasons are a pretty pedestrian achievement? And yet in an era when there has never been more WR talent in the league the Bills now don't even have a player with even ONE of them. It's gross.

Yeah..........as I said all last offseason.........I never had much concern about MLB because everyone who came before Edmunds and filled in for him had success. Preston Brown lead the NFL in tackles in 2017. Julian Stanford, Dodson and Klein all played effectively in relief of Edmunds. I always made note of this to the Edmund's apologists who swore that Edmunds impact couldn't be measured in big plays. That narrative had very deep roots with the shills and their pet homers and yet was essentially abandoned ENTIRELY just a couple games into 2023. And 3rd round off-ball LB's and RB's are like first round WR's.........they should become starters early in their career or the pick is a bust.........and the Bills had expended their last two third round picks on off-ball LB's. This WR situation has been a lingering issue for years that just keeps getting a bit worse each offseason.

The Diggs trade worked out but it was the culmination of 3 prior offseasons of failure at addressing WR1. They had to trade for a vet at the worst possible time(a WR deep draft) because there was no longer any margin for error. He's just refused to get out of front of the problem. I know we are in agreement on the issue. The likelihood is that priority #1 going into next offseason will again likely be finding a WR1 so not addressing it now if they have the opportunity makes no sense. Everyone feels brave about what they have on their roster until the pads come on and it becomes clear that you need to win matchups. Kincaid was a dink-and-dunk option last season and could just as easily turn into Jimmy Graham with Seattle if he has a CB on him every play instead of those favorable S/LB matchups. Curtis Samuel isn't going to have much success against the high pedigree CB1's in this division. All it takes is not having somebody to soak up the "Sauce" to create bad matchups for the rest of the group.

The reason I don't think Beane will trade for a top WR is because he's consistently dropped the ball with adding pass catchers. After the AFCCG loss in 2020 he cited the Bills lack of speed at the position as a key reason why.............then subsequently signed the slow Manny Sanders as his only WR move. Each offseason since has just been another compromise at the position as they've gotten consistently worse there.

The Bills haven't started a season without a WR that had accumulated at least 900 yards(a low bar) in any NFL season since 1987. Right now, that's the case unless they trade for someone who's proven they can be a WR1 or a good WR2. It's just another unnecessary leap of faith at the position.........same as the past 2 offseasons(which ultimately failed the team) but a considerably larger leap this time.

If it were a "re-tool" year then Douglas, Jones and Von Miller wouldn't still be here. And Milano probably gets cut too. Those guys are all one-and-done most likely so keeping them around would be pointless if they weren't trying to win a SB. The "re-tool" year concept is just a coping mechanism created by a few homer's to help them deal with losing their beloved Tre White, Poyer, Hyde and Mitch Morse. The reality is those guys were just washed or equally viable, younger and cheaper alternatives to what they had left were readily available or within reach. The Bills aren't sacrificing this year anymore than the Chiefs were sacrificing 2022. It may inadvertently turn into a failure of a season but it's not by design. Clowney signed a 2 year deal with Carolina earlier in free agency. The pass rush move to look out for is a trade deadline deal for Khalil Mack. He is a pending UFA and has one of those league-minimum type cap hits designed to make him valuable at the deadline if things go south for the Chargers. I suspect one of the contenders is going to get Mack for the stretch run.

They are moving from X's and O's because podcasters can't keep subscribers or generate any revenue by being honest with the team's fans. The name of the game is to stroke the subscribers until the revenue comes out. If you want to be in that line of "work" and be honest or ever have a pessimistic view you need to have an audience that includes all team's fans...........not just the homer's of 1 team.

They "started the offseason" with a WR1 who had just produced 1183 yards on 107 catches and 8 TD's. Samuel, MVS and Claypool didn't even come close to producing those numbers combined. The strategy the Bills have taken is to hope for unlikely results. They did it to a lesser extent with Harty and Sherfield last offseason. And predictably failed. You are welcome to be satisfied with a stick in the eye or a kick in the nuts.......whatever floats you.........but don't try to tell us that p!ss is rain.........just admit you enjoy it because it's sterile and you like the taste.

Stefon Diggs was a quasi-legit starter? Man the homer's have no shame.