BADOLBILZ

It makes the SEC very top heavy. Alabama and Georgia beat any ACC team 9 out of 10 times. Michigan and Ohio State also dominate any ACC team this season. The best teams matter GREATLY when assessing a conference. I do think that broader SEC dominance is changing as the bottom teams in the SEC are losing some of their past ability to draw recruits.........but they still have that massive TV contract and the ACC is almost completely reliant on boosters and NIL because their contract is pathetic by comparison. Fortunately the ACC teams have that booster/NIL in abundance. The worst part of this season for the ACC was the finish........the games in general got worse as the season went on and the championship game was a complete joke. People are all over this "FSU defense" but if you watch the game Plummer was just awful for Louisville. He was inconsistent like that during the season but the title game was a new low. The moment was just much too big for him and he just wouldn't take the short throws and holding the ball made the FSU front look a lot better than it was.

What do you mean by "if nothing else"? The problem with the complaints about Spencer Brown is that people don't have specific players that he should be replaced with. There are literally MORE good QB's in the league now than good RT's........because there are less good RT's than good players at any other offensive position in the league..........but some people think you can just throw a high pick at the position and it's solved. Agree about Shakir. He's a tweener. That's filling a notable role this season because the Bills WR corps is so weak after Diggs..........but if they get a legit second outside option and Kincaid essentially becomes an every-snap slot receiver in 2024 then it's easy to envision Shakir NOT continuing to trend up.

Purdy is an outstanding QB until Deebo Samuel goes down. Then he loses 3 straight and looks like JAG. And yes, all QB's need weapons around them but he also has a WR1 in Aiyuk, the most dynamic RB in the league in McCaffrey and a stud TE in Kittle.........with Deebo its the most dynamic group of playmakers around any QB in the league. When he starts winning with a cast like Brady so often did then we can start making comparisons like that.

The ACC was trash this season and the championship game was a debacle.

What are you even talking about? The "kid" was a 4 star, elite 11 QB not some walk-on. He wasn't up to the task. It happens. The committee shouldn't risk the kind of performance they might get from he or Orvile Rodemaker and leave us watching a got-dam azz whipping in one of those semi-final games. They won a game at home versus Miami(barely) last month with an even lesser true freshman QB starting against them. FSU did not finish the season like a top 4 team and ultimately they stood no chance of winning in the playoff.

The majority of the worst calls now are so subjective that I don't see review making it any less controversial. It's gone down like this: 1) League drastically changed the interpretation of rules in 2010 to protect QB's and WR..........specifically Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger.......who were supposed to become the faces of the league but were getting concussed left and right. 2) The first year 7 QB's had top 25 all-time passing yardage seasons. Rising tide raised all ships but really didn't alter the power any because it only made the teams with the BETTER QB's that much more dangerous. 3) About 7-8 years later the league started getting a noticeable influx of physically gifted QB's and WR's whose families had steered them toward the game because it had gotten so much safer for those positions and the earnings potential was rapidly expanding. 4) So to keep it from become a speedboat race out there the league has gradually allowed more and more contact in the secondary to level the playing field for disadvantaged defense's..........to the point where it's anyone's guess if something is going to be called a defensive holding or a PI. There has never been more contact down the field before the ball arrives than there is now. It's frustrating not knowing what is going to be called or not called...........if you let it be(you can just accept it like the weather and hope your team plays well enough to avoid a call or two getting them beaten)............but I don't see those calls getting reversed often(if at all) because they really are so subjective and those are what are driving people crazy and impacting scores late in the game. Frankly I'd rather see the boat races, less drama and better teams win.........but I don't think that sells as well to the masses as the product they've created.

My vote would be McGovern.......with Torrence a close second after some sloppier play as the season has gone on. But I'd say it's definitely been an inside blocker. But they've all been at least solid and their play as a unit has been better than the sum of the parts. But as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, with regard to RT........there are less good RT's in the league than any other offensive position. So when your RT isn't very good you really need to keep that in perspective. The Bills biggest problem on offense coming into the season was clearly an insufficient amount of playmakers in the passing game for a SB contender. Specifically the lack of a dynamic second option. And it's manifested itself in the inability to consistently execute offensively. Drops, fumbles, inability to win contested catch situations, miscommunications........even in the Eagles game those were STILL killing them.

First of all......... if you gotta' ask "if there is" a prospect, when there is only one Lane Johnson in the NFL and then the rest of the RT's in the NFL need help, then you are almost expecting a miracle to be a given. Second........if you think it's even wise to use early picks on RT's you REALLY don't even follow how NFL draft picks pan out..........unless they are premium LT prospects they are almost always projects and are usually terrible for 2-3 years. And the progress isn't linear. Like with Cody Ford and Spencer Brown sometimes the rookie year is actually a false semi-positive and year 2 gets worse once there is tape on their weaknesses. RT is a terrible use of an early pick. Either way you gotta' figure on several years of development, wherever you draft them. Third........you clearly don't understand what you get for $17M in the veteran RT market. You get ADEQUATE play. Which IS what Brown is giving them at RT........as is McGlinchey giving Denver. Every team uses TE's and primarily to the right side so wanting a RT who never needs TE help is nice to want but not particularly important. Guys like Andrew Wylie are plenty good enough to win a SB with and he has been mostly bad in his career. They WILL likely have to replace Brown after next season because, like the Chiefs and Niners this past offseason, it's hard to justify paying RT's like Wylie and McGlinchey open market value when you are a contender with a big QB contract. I would hope the Bills win out and somehow make the playoffs but the odds are that they won't and won't...........and if the last game or 2 is meaningless hopefully they rest guys like Allen and Diggs and the team gets an in-season look at young OL like Gouraige and Van DeMark at the tackle positions and Anderson at C. They all look like nice developmental prospects and Gouraige in year 3 may end up having to be the solution at RT in 2025, even if they draft one.

And yet he was good enough to win SB's with at RT. But that is why he got a lot less than McGlinchey in UFA.

Good luck with that. There is one of those........Lane Johnson........and in truth he could start at LT for most teams. Spencer Brown is playing like Mike McGlinchey this year and McGlinchey is making $17M aav for the next 5 years. Any other one-of-a-kind players you think the Bills should have replaced their starter with by now?

Well the mod said that he was the biggest problem on the team..........not just the offense. I'd say that the biggest problem on the team has been the defense.......particularly the late game defense. I don't think that's even debatable. Runner-up being offensive execution during their bad stretch before Dorsey was fired.........but offensive line execution was the least of the offense's issues during that stretch. The blocking for Allen and the RB's has been the most consistent unit on the offense all season. Point being: Some of you are just afraid to admit that you were wrong about Brown and didn't think he could improve. He's been far from the biggest problem.

Where the comparison to wrestling comes in is that wrestling promoters/script writers have always known that perceived "unfair" officiating enrages and engages fans so they write comically bad officiating in. But the NFL doesn't have to script bad officiating.........they just make it(or leave it) difficult to officiate and they get the same effect. MLB is on the verge of making the sport virtually free of officiating drama........and I guarantee you they are worried about taking that last real element of uncertainty out of the game.

Eh........we'll see. Very early in this season we had a mod start/title a thread declaring Spencer Brown the biggest problem on the team.........echoing the sentiments of A LOT of other parrots who seemed to have zero perspective on the expected learning curve for an NFL RT from a small school with little actual college game experience. Had he struggled? Yeah but it was a big adjustment for him coming to the pro's and unlike the CB position the Bills didn't have access to a better option so they had to let Brown play thru his struggles. Perhaps for Elam the complicated zone-heavy defense has just proven a struggle to learn like the pro game did early on for the less talented Rasul Douglas. Elam is a very talented player...........I'd be far less than surprised if he emerged as a good starter next season.

Has it been mentioned any time recently that the Bills WR corps isn't very good? 🤔 But yeah, they particularly lack any truly dynamic athleticism at the position. But to be fair, when the Bills had Eric Moulds and Peerless Price those two guys were very good but did not have the ability to make incredible diving catches like guys like Terry Glenn or Shawn Jefferson("just give it to em') with the Patriots. Sometimes you can have a very productive WR corps but not have that kind of acrobatic type talents.

First of all, there is no proof that officiating isn't broadly "fair". It may be very often incorrect but it doesn't appear to tilt the overall results in the favor of just a few teams, so it is therefore "fair". What you are actually asking for is "better" officiating. Not sure how you've determined that you or anyone involved "deserve" better. If you are paying to watch the NFL for all these years then you have been voting for this level of officiating all along with your wallet. So you are getting what you deserve. If you only watch it for free, you aren't paying for it so you don't deserve anything.

Yeah, that's the way it could be changed. By unifying for change. But it isn't going to happen because each fan base is pitted against the other and bad officiating only deepens those bonds to individual teams. That's almost impossible to change at this point. Maybe if some team won like 5-6 straight SB's and benefitted from some horrible officiating calls then the rest of the league's fan bases would unite in revolt against the product..........but as it stands the NFL is the most competitive major pro sport and the only one where every team has a realistic chance to win every week as well as the same chance at long stretches of success and SB wins if managed well. If something really threatened to kill the golden goose the NFL would do something about it...........sorta' like how the Bills organization interjected themselves into the then growingly team-separate "Bills Mafia" culture. The last thing the NFL wants are fan bases(or the collective) becoming self aware of their influence and dictating policy to the league or its teams.

If you want to see how that kind of system works.........follow the NBA. The players run that league and they lobbied hard to have power over officiating by being able to review just about everything. It's slowed the game down and that power has turned the players into outright intolerable assh*les to the officials all game.........which in turn then leads to technical fouls and ejections..........which creates drama and alters scores/outcomes........which ultimately has the same effect as bad officiating.

"For reasons that aren't clear"? Go back to page 1........... @Dancing Fool clearly explains it. The NFL is "sports entertainment". Complicated rules, relentlessly cheating players and part time officials make officiating difficult..........bad officiating creates drama and unpredictability.........those things sell the sport to the masses. The NFL is a customer driven business not a player driven business........when the customer changes(stops responding to drama with increased interest) then the league will change. And that's not likely to EVER happen because I am sure that controversy has always driven demand for any kind of successful pro sport. My advice is learn to accept it as it is.

Preparation creates clutch performance.......therefore it prevents un-clutch performance. When the Patriots beat the Seahawks in XLIX, remarkably the last play they practiced that Friday was the exact play where Butler jumped the route and got the interception in the end zone. Now that was "next level" prep. You don't need that level to beat some douchebag like Nick Sirianni in a big game..........but I am quite certain that the Bills lack of a "clutch" gene is a direct result of them being accepting of a lower standard of preparation. That was the biggest issue for the 1990's SB Bills teams.........they started with modest expectations........got REALLY good but were always sloppy and the conference set a low bar........then when what they were doing didn't quite yield championship results they still remained confident that what they were doing was enough. It wasn't. There is an aspect of that with these Bills. Their GM thinks he's good enough at WR positions.........their QB thinks 6 months away from football is fine........their HC thinks he can be the DC as well even though he wasn't great at late game decisions when he was just the HC. They either don't know what they don't know or they just don't want to pay the price.

Yeah it's a shame that they are this far into their career together and this deep into the season and aren't on the same page. Gabe makes a bunch of inexcusable mistakes because he's just not very good........but every time you see stuff like this you also gotta' wonder about Allen's offseasons. Where Mahomes built a compound in Texas where he meets with his receivers to work on their routes/timing periodically in the offseason.........Allen is all about rest and relaxation. This season has been an inexplicable cluster*ck of bad execution despite it being the same system since 2018.

It's not a cringe term.........it's just being used incorrectly. "Billsy" arose from the drought and is about organizational disfunction.......their almost uniquely bad ownership and the decisions and subsequent results of those actions or inaction.........things far more damning than being a pretty good team and losing some important games in painful ways. By the definition that some fans are trying to mold it to the Andy Reid Chiefs astonishingly blowing a 28 point lead in the playoffs to Indy in 2014 or a 21-3 halftime lead in the AFCCG to Cinci a couple years ago was "Billsy". I mean, they didn't reach a SB for almost 50 years. They blew home field advantage in the playoffs many times. That's just football and that aspect can change with the players/coaches on the field changing. See the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs as examples. The Bills haven't been "Billsy" in quite some time. Same thing happened with the term "Battered Bills Fan Syndrome(BBFS)"...........I also concocted that for our resident idiots who made illogical excuses for the Billsy behavior of the Bills organization..........like a battered spouse so often does for the spouse that beats them. But instead they turned it around to justify their own sad-sack ways "I'm a battered Bills fan, I have BBFS 😭". I get that once something is said and repeated it gradually becomes whatever the masses want it to be but the re-interpretations of those terms really don't make sense to me and frankly they are just a bunch of people using them as a way to wallow in self-pity.

1) The quality of a teams second receiving target has been a remarkable indicator of which teams reach the SB for the past 15 years or so but especially the last 6 SB's.........where the second options on those SB participants all were basically WR1B's or put up WR1 numbers. People express "hate" about Beane stranding Allen with Gabe as his #2 because he's so clearly not in that category.............so you are reading that entirely the wrong way. The Bills lack depth at WR but Gabe isn't a good second option and it's a lot easier to envision Shakir or Sherfield(even) replacing Gabe's wildly inconsistent play than it would be anyone on the Eagles replacing Brown or Smith. 2) The flip side is that Hurts took the better roster........including better blocking, receiving and running game.........and got beat by a QB playing on a high ankle sprain. When Hurts handed the Chiefs those 7 points by setting the ball on the ground and fumbling it to KC for 7 points that totally changed the momentum of the game so I have never felt that he "outplayed" Mahomes.

Yeah the similarities are notable. Putting big time play making talent around quarterbacks with the traits to throw the deep ball and run for yardage works. Athletically, Hurts is a load to bring down but he is less dynamic 2015 Tyrod........who had a higher yards per attempt(8 to 7.5) AND yards per rush(5.5 to 3.6) than Hurts has this season. I'm not going run Hurts down too much because I think he is a very smart, well prepared QB even if he lacks great arm talent.........but it would be interesting to find out what he'd look like if AJ Brown or DeVonta Smith went down for about 8 weeks or so. As you and I know, the quality of that second option is hugely important.

He had 9 sacks and 59 tackles for a team with few pass rushing opportunities last year and had to settle for less than $10M on a 1 year deal($7M to play with Bills)........but you think he will be one of the hottest names in FA going into his age 32 season? Seems doubtful. He might get a 1-2 year deal averaging $10M or so but he's not going to be in the category of one of "the hottest names". That is going to be reserved for deals worth $80M or more.

Hurts has worked hard to make himself into a massive thighed, tough to tackle player who can execute easy throws with accuracy and touch.........a big upgrade over the non-passer he was at Alabama..........but I am quite certain if forced to make the kind of tight window throws that Mahomes, Allen and Burrow so often have to make he would not be held in much esteem as a QB. Teams just can't force that against this stacked Eagles roster.