BADOLBILZ

Knowing that his back is hurting him might incline certain tacklers to risk penalty to body slam him to the turf in hopes of knocking him out of the game. Simple as that. Everyone is playing hurt.....generous of you to acknowledge that after denying the possibility prior..........but that doesn't account for to what degree it is impacting their ability to perform.

It was noted that he had a back issue about the time that his production started to drop off. It's not something he can't practice and play thru obviously so they likely don't see the value in reporting it........but it could be significantly impacting his game. Pretty common for us to find out AFTER the season about these things. No advantage whatsoever to divulge unusual discomfort that might be slowing him down.

I believe the games usually had to be sold out at some point on Thursdays to prevent a blackout. That was especially difficult with short notice determined wild card games like that one.........but especially since the Bills just got destroyed and battered with injuries in the finale against the same Houston team the week before. Back then you had to call or line up at the ticket office to buy the tickets. If you called you had a lot less control over where you'd sit. Blacked out games were often near full capacity because there were always thousands who wouldn't buy tickets if they could watch from home. I think they extended the blackout date to Friday for this game but still didn't sell out. After Houston jumped out to that lead they had outscored Buffalo 62-6 over 6 quarters of football.

Josh Allen doesn't have "elite playmakers".........has he been "nothing" this season? It hasn't been pretty and it's taken a toll on his body........but he's still willed himself to be a fringe MVP candidate and leads the NFL in TD's.

Ok so you are saying Tua is as good as Patrick Mahomes? Your ignorance is duly noted.

I hope they pay him. But I wouldn't. He's nothing without elite playmakers. If I were with Miami I'd let him play out the 5th year option. Draft his replacement in this draft. He's meek, he won't make any waves thru the process.

Because he's not even on an NFL 53 man roster? If he makes your top 6 out of camp next year either something went very wrong or he had a huge career shift. There are always "futures" contract signings.........but the likes of Andy Isabella, Tyrell Shavers and Bryan Thompson chances of making the 53 and sticking........let alone making any notable impact.........should be considered very small. Reality is that they could end up with only Diggs and Shakir as WR under contract heading into March who have played regularly in the NFL.

So you are saying that you realize Diggs is probably just playing thru an injury that he can rehab from in the offseason.........but think Beane is going to ask him to take a paycut after another 100+ catch 1100+ yard season?

Oh they will have to sign some vets in UFA. They only have 4 WR under contract for next season........and one of those is Shorter who has never played an NFL down.........and that number will drop to 3 when they dump Harty prior to his $500K roster bonus coming due 5 days into the beginning of UFA.

The offense has sucked the past two weeks. If they play as poorly as they have in those games this Sunday night they will likely lose..........and then the season could well be over. I don't think they will........I expect them to play up to the competition enough to get a W.......so there is your next game talk. But because their pass game has been so bad and gotten progressively worse thru 16/17th's of an NFL season.......... it's not too early to discuss how it's going to be addressed in the coming months. There isn't much runway left.......we know what they are at WR at this point. Sharty and Sherfield aren't changing their narrative. Davis isn't going to fool anyone with a big game or two any longer.

Yeah I agree. And if they f#ck around with scrub types like Harty and Sherfield in UFA again then hopefully they come away with 3 out of this draft. Problem is that the teams that have 3 excellent WR's are displaying just how valuable those assets are. Which is why there are going to be 6-9 WR's in round 1. That's going to really thin out round 2 and beyond. There are still going to be some good receivers then but it's not going to be shooting fish in a barrel like when guys like AJ Brown and DK Metcalf dropped in the draft because teams were scared off by some bad receiver drafts following the strong 2014 class. They may not be able to get a second high profile WR prospect in round 2 because of the demand..........but they need to keep the WR position just as valued in later rounds at it is earlier rounds. Doing that with CB allowed them to get Christian Benford.

Yeah I think he hurt it after a play trying to push Leonard Williams in the back of the end zone in that scrap where Williams blindsided Spencer Brown and knocked him to the ground.

Then he set the terms of his release. It's standard for veteran contracts to become fully guaranteed if the player is on the roster in week 1. So it doesn't materially change the dynamic of the situation. Not permitting a player to play elsewhere when there is runway left in the regular season isn't something the NFLPA is going to agree to. If only because one game auditions can result in major career and financial gains for a player. Rob Johnson cost the Bills a 1st round pick to acquire largely off of a 1 game audition in 1997 where he threw for 344 yards and 2 TD's.

His salary for the season was guaranteed when he was on the roster in week 1. NFLPA wants players to have the opportunity to prove themselves.........would make no sense for them to agree to force players to not play after they are cut. The only players getting cut this late are ones that hold no value to the team.........offseason-tradeable or pending free agents who might be expected to count in the equation are held onto. So it's a washed up or nearly washed up players market only.

How did you come up with that number for Von? He has almost $11M of his $17M base salary already guaranteed for next season in addition to his unamortized bonuses and restructure payments. Even with a June 1 designation I don't see them saving any money against the cap in 2024. I pretty much assume he's a Bill in 2024 unless some legal scenario emerges that allows them to get out of his deal cheaper.

Yeah they are an example of scouting/development/scheme working beautifully together. Their downfall is always those injuries. Because they don't have an elite QB to push them thru those.

Those numbers aren't correct, but yes Bernard has been the far superior producer. I'd buy into Edmunds improvement more if the improvement was across the board. The fact that he still isn't producing any negative play numbers around the LOS like one would expect from a massive LB tells me that modest upticks elsewhere might just be circumstantial. I still believe that he will underwhelm compared to his contract and not play it out........the Bears will cut him in a year or 2 when his cap hit blows up. But I also hold out some hope that the switch comes on for him in his late 20's like it did for DeMario Davis. The thing Edmunds has going for him is his huge frame and athleticism. He's built to play a LONG time. By contrast a smaller, instinctive guy like Bernard may have a career more like Shaq Leonard........a handful of great seasons followed by physical decline.

To @HappyDays point though, they really nailed the Kittle, Samuel and Aiyuk picks..........2 All Pro's and another likely top 15 WR with draft capital that's about equal to one late first round pick. They've gotten 4 years of the best LT in football for a 3rd and 5th round pick. Everyone thinks McCaffrey was a steal but he's the most replaceable of the bunch. They may not have invested a lot on the surface in these players but they've stacked elite talent on their offense. Even after wasting those picks on Lance they are money ahead.

Yeah I just don't know if that's the case with regard to this season. Before Allen was running the only consistent option they had was Diggs. Once Allen started running it's opened up something every week. Just look at the draw plays to Cook out of shotgun. Now it works. Their base 11 aren't as good with Diggs playing below expectation........but it's basically 11 on 11 now instead of 10 on 11 like it was thru the Denver game. It's moving the chains and putting points on the board for Brady. They might be a 10 point per game less team if they were playing with the "don't run Josh" mandate that Dorsey was........hard to say because they aren't throwing the ball as much. They'd become the best red zone TD scoring team in the league under Brady.......perhaps until this past game I haven't seen the updated stats. I'm not defending Dorsey, we are on the same page as you know, this is ultimately about not putting receiving talent around Allen. It's an apples to oranges comparison because of variables like Diggs decline, running Allen, perhaps the OL gelling more in the run game etc.. But I'm not especially impressed with Brady to this point either. They are just succeeding enough by taking the low hanging fruit that they didn't earlier in the season.

Brady hasn't had a WR1 in his brief tenure but he's getting to use and abuse Josh Allen, which wasn't the case for Dorsey this season. That isn't getting media coverage either. The reigns on Allen running really didn't come off until after Dorsey got fired. In the last 5 games Allen has had 8 rushing TD's........that's a 29 TD season pace. To put that in perspective he had 31 rushing TD's in his first 4 seasons total. There is some tush push stuff in there of course but when Allen is running it opens up things.........but the toll may also be harming him as a passer. His mechanics have turned to sh!t with Brady as OC instead of QBC and his accuracy the past two weeks in particular has been woeful.

As @HappyDays noted...........when modern defense's want to take away a RB it's not that difficult. That's what happened to Cook...........the Bills don't have enough weapons to keep defense's from paying attention to Cook. It gets tougher in the playoffs too because run defense is just about effort and technique.........and the intensity of defense's rises in the playoffs............you don't need a DL full of 300# guys to stifle a running game.

His draft slot is relevant to the discussion because the reason he went in the 5th round is that he was viewed as a slot-only receiver. Slot-only is a much less valuable result than being a boundary WR or position versatile. I don't think many, if any, teams that passed on him are surprised by 500 yards of production for him in year 2. Slot WR are like RB's........easy to find and well supplied.......they are expected to produce quickly and ideally be able to return punts and/or kicks. See Demario Douglas with NE yesterday. He has 548 yards receiving and was a 2023 6th round pick. As for offering more on the boundary than Beasley........maybe?........but that's not saying much.

In fairness.........he had a few gift-wrapped tips come hurtling to him when he was with the Bills.........he just reacted like the ball coming to him was an impossibility and got hit with the ball prior to it falling to the turf.

The Bills offense finished 2022 averaging 30 points per game over the last 9 games prior to the Bengals playoff loss. But the fan narrative all offseason was that Dorsey sucked. I've said it before, I don't think Dorsey was some special offensive mind and I didn't have any problem firing him to light a fire under the offense with the season spinning out of control...............but Dorsey was plenty capable and contrary to popular belief he had proven a number of times that he could adapt game plans for opponents. Brady hasn't proven to be as good on the whole.........the only improvement that's been consistently effective for him has been using Allen like a RB to extend drives. Again. Like they have every year since 2020 as the regular season has wound down and they chased home field and/or mere playoff qualification. Dorsey could have and would have been using Allen in the same way.........but Dorsey had closed 2022 a lot better than Brady has 2023. Basically, it hasn't been a particularly auspicious debut for Joe Brady as Bills OC.