Livinginthepast

Its always been a weak moral victory for me. Yes its an achievement to do it 4 years in a row but the fact that I watched them lose 4 in a row is still a deep wound in my soul. Its not just that should have won at least 1 or 2 of them, its the bad luck we encountered in each game and the pure karmic unfairness of it all that a team that great never winning it. That being said, for me finally winning the SB hopefully washes that all away.

Wow some great memories of both Gabe and an offense that worked and was entertaining in the process. Looking at this now its almost like the Bills offense was a dog that got neutered. Sure the dog is calmer and doesnt hump you anymore but isnt as much fun!

Ed Oliver and a crate of brittle champagne glasses for Thomas! Get er done Beane!

Judging by others who have had the same injury as Gabe had, the speed reduction is immense. It would be improbable that he would be able to get open and create space. Then again Diggs did it against us albeit due to McD's soft zone coverage.

If you are getting a defensive replacement for Oliver it still may have an impact but I fear that any weapon we might get on offense is going to be neutralized by Brady's inability to use him. The person in question would have to be elite and develop quick chemistry with Josh. Such a player seems to be unavailable and we cant afford unless Beane trades high picks.

As a fan going back to the 1979 season, I can tell you that the only time I felt that the SB was a lock was right after they beat the Raiders 51-3 in the 1990 AFC championship. And then wide right just ruined everything. Since then we have gotten teased with a SB but never ever had everything go our way. This year my expectations were pretty middling. I certainly didnt count on the Pats emerging so fast. Denver also scares me a bit more than I thought and the Colts leading the AFC? Just WTF? in the end I think this current squad could win it all but so many things have to be right. I still say that we do win an SB it will be because of Allen's heroics and not with anything our coaches are going to do.

Sadly I think from what I have seen so far with Allen being a bit off this year, Maye has been better in more than just deep passes than Allen. Nothing more outrageous than the Pats returning to prominence so fast. They really need another decade at least in NFL irrelevance. That would be karma.

A much better effort from the defense yesterday and it definitely gives us some hope going forward. In many ways it was a flashback to a few years ago when the McD defense was actually strong. The new guys basically showed what we have been missing when our previous crew (Poyer, Hyde, Milano, White started to age out). But the Oliver injury is a big tragedy.

I know this game is over but I would have liked our Dbs to maybe take some chances and jump a route on the pass defense on that drive. We have that luxury. It also might be nice for Babich to test out some coverages that we dont have real game experience with.

Um he clearly has missed games before this year as you can clearly see when you look at the link. He also suffered injuries in 2024 (from other sites) So you are obviously wrong. Not even debatable. He has missed at least 8 or 9 full games since 2022. Hence the reason for my point. Oliver looks like a guy who should be unbreakable and when healthy is a great asset but has the bad luck of picking up injuries with regularity.

Really?? Reality doesnt seem to agree with you: https://www.draftsharks.com/fantasy/injury-history/ed-oliver/10234

Ive watched football for a long time and I have never seen a beast of player like Oliver get injured so often. QBs or RBS you expect injuries but Oliver just cant stay healthy.

Bills get let off the hook again.

The bills best pass defense strategy is a bad throw by the QB. And no Im not kidding.

Taron burned again.

Epenesa!!!

I was thinking the same thing.

Another game of letting an inferior team hang with us.

Really badly off.

PAT question. Why was the ball placed on the Bills far left of the hash marks on that PAT try? why not the middle?

Bills D looking just as much of a sieve as previous games. Bailed out by a fumble and now a hold.

Another illegal formation penalty? What is that 4 times this season?

I thought about this a lot since the start of the season. It seems to me impossible that Pro players do not know how to tackle, yet with this defense we see it a lot. It also seems weird that some of these players missing the tackles are young, fast guys in their physical prime. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that the defensive scheme (soft zone often) puts them so far from the players they have to tackle, that their angles are bad which makes it much more difficult to get good initial contact on the offensive player. The older guys? they know how to tackle but are athletically washed and slowed down by time and injuries and sadly also out of position.

Very true and it worked best when Dabol was the OC with Allen. Since then its been Allen on his own doing it with one hand behind his back because of his amateur hour OCs. Is it still possible for the offense to get out to a big lead? Yes but far less likely with sputtering schemes of Brady. As soon as a team hangs with us because we cant do anything on offense and our defense gets tired from being on the field, the game becomes much more difficult.

This is the huge elephant in the room that most Bills fans seem to think is verboten to talk about. McD is responsible for the poor defense because they didnt bring in the best people to interview (Hell did they bring in anybody to interview? Dont remember?). Why? because either Beane or McD felt too threatened by losing control if that person had a different philosophy. So they sacrificed the team success for ego. Which is pure selfish idiocy. As soon as a HC does this, the team is toast. Whats even worse?? They did practically the same thing on Offense, first with Dorsey (a terrible internal hire) and then with the junior intern Brady. Daboll pushed Josh to be the best and I think a competent DC would do the same for our defense by abandoning schemes that repeatedly dont work and holding players to account.