pocoboy

The Hamlin incident preyed upon the biggest weakness of this team: they are emotionally immature, at least in my opinion. If 13 Seconds doesn't happen, I think this team might be celebrating two in a row. But they still haven't fully recovered from that. Actually, the KC win mid-season may have served to hinder the recovery from that - regardless of what we make of the GB game that followed the bye, it's tough not to look at that Chiefs victory and wonder if they climaxed at that point. And perhaps they get everything back if the litany of disasters doesn't afflict the team - the elbow injury, the blizzard, Von's injury, Hamlin's event...and surely the Topps shooting and Kim's situation were all mixed in there too. But for f***'s sake, I'm sick of being a town that has to drag out adversity after adversity (or perhaps excuse after excuse) why my teams have s*** the bed. Is the difference between a winner and a loser that the winner doesn't need to scribble down the events that kept them from the title? All my defensemen were injured...Hull's skate in the crease...Dickerson's big mouth...the helmet...Norwood... At some point I want my team to say F*** it and do it. Just do it. I don't really want to discount the severity of things from last season, but if we're sitting here in February of 2024 talking about the distraction of the stadium project or someone getting injured or they played too many games in too few days or the London trip, I'm not going to be very patient with it. This team isn't new to this anymore. They've got to solve it. And that probably means the most daunting expectations on our QB that could be expected, and I just hope he's got it in him.

My only observation about McDermott & the team at this stage is about development and learning from mistakes. The thing with Dungy (mentioned by another commenter), he won it all when he ended up with a bonafide HOF QB. To me, McDermott has the tools to win it all if either (or both) a) he learns from the tactical mistakes of previous years, or b) Josh Allen finds his way into that elite company. Is JA17 ever going to be Peyton? That's highly unlikely. But at this stage he's not HOF ready. The best way would be finishing it off in style, leading the team to the ring. Longevity is also an option. At this point, we're left saying "he did everything he could save for 13 seconds" which discounts the Bengals' and Rams' stature. McDermott definitely deserves love, but these contracts are going to make it a bear if they don't come together and get it done soon. ADDENDUM - I think when we mention Dungy, you could toss Reid into this discussion too. With a legitimate HOF QB he overcame those tactical mistakes that dogged him in Philly.

It was mildly sardonic, but there comes a point where someone must "play the hand they've been dealt" (or dealt themselves, in this case). I think I'd characterize JA17's 2022-23 season as volatile - there were some intense highs and lows, plenty of good stuff, but a few too many times like the fumble vs Minnesota. I think it's fair to say that Josh's performance year over year is the biggest contributor to their success or failure. I guess Beane will be hoping that settling Oliver's mind about the next several years will have the opposite effect of, say, Albert Haynesworth.

This seems a continuation of the Knox extension to me. The thing is, with Knox, you feel like there must be some clubhouse leadership that he helps foster. I've never really heard anything like that about Oliver. If I were a pessimist (and I probably am), I'd probably wonder if Beane sees the writing on the wall and is leaving a big mess for the next guy. Allen's gotta come back and look like pre-elbow Allen to help offset some of the silly money they've thrown at guys who seem to have low impact on your win total. And here's hoping I'm wrong, and Oliver becomes a near DPOY candidate for years to come.

No, the following game was in the Meadowlands.

The 2nd half of Green Bay was instructive to Salah. That laid the blueprint for the Jets game, and ultimately Allen's elbow. I tend to believe that they would have come through all of that better had Daboll still been the OC. It's also a strong likelihood that our offensive line was ill-equipped to cope with the kind of aggressive techniques needed to be a heavier run offense.

It would have been interesting to see a Bills @ Bengals matchup if the originally-scheduled game had gone the way it was angling before Hamlin's episode. In 2021 they had the Colts home game where they just entered in a fog and never emerged. The away Bengals game may have been that shakeup they needed. But with everything that transpired I don't feel they ever really got into the meat of the situation - they weren't ready.

Yeah I largely like it, especially (for now) they have unlimited DVR so you can keep shows for a looong time and not have to delete because you've filled your disk. I feel like DirecTV had a model which allowed them great latitude to reward long-time subscribers so that Sunday Ticket was almost baked into your rates and they'd all but give it to you for free if you seemed dissatisfied with paying the steep price. It sure seems likely that this particular system will not transfer to YouTubeTV. And now that Buffalo seems to get nearly half of their games on Network TV, I'm balking at paying for the Ticket and instead take my money to a Backers Bar for the games that end up regional.

Florio says whatever he believes will give the Patriots an advantage.

Well I mean, I guess we should just trade Allen then and go draft a new QB. Because trends never ever get broken. Just start it all over, go get the 6th best QB and finish 4-13 or something. Makes sense.

Awesome, real progress, forget about worthless discussions like mic'ing up the Ref-to-Sky Judge comms line or helping everyone know what a catch is.

Fans after Playoff turd: "Maybe McDermott needs to make average defenders better and quit wasting top resources on the defense." Fans after the Combine: "GAWD WE MUST OVERDRAFT MLB OR ELSE!!!1!"

This has a lot of truth. He tends to abandon his progressions pretty early once he gets chased a couple of times. It's like he just converts to sling it downfield into whatever window he can find, and try to make hero plays.

I think the Bills and Bengals come out kind of equal when on a level playing field. But the Bills seemed to put it into coast after "avenging" 13 Seconds. Then Von's injury, then Josh's injury, and finally Damar's emergency. I feel that the anguish from the cardiac event had little to do with what actually happened in that playoff loss. The same crap that bogged them down in that game had bogged them down in those first minutes in Cincy. They were not prepared mentally for either game against the Bengals - or at least got rocked on the first drive with Taron getting trucked and the Bengals marching the field unmolested, and then never had the chance to rally together to overcome it. I think the Bills needed that first Bengals game to finish & set the tone for the final weeks. But everything with Damar understandably became more important. Is it likely they never did a full analysis of what was going wrong? Too fresh in memory, too hard to cope watching that footage? I'd say it's likely. And so instead of getting a hard lesson, they got a lesson in life's fragility. A combo of coming to grips with death + not truly accepting their deficiencies in that first game could explain the deer in the headlights. But there were other glaring issues - footing on the D-Line especially.

***** and the draft was yesterday. Damned.

Frankly, I think our view of the best GM's gets skewed by how absolutely crucial it is to have a top QB. If you have that, your GM is going to look awesome because a) a top QB learns how to win close games, and b) a top QB lures in talent that wants to win. So your top QB rises all boats - a top one will make average offensive talent look awesome and such. Beane deserves some criticism in my book, if only for not planning for necessary departures. This is all a plan that should form your draft strategy in 2021 and 2022. And maybe it did. But in some ways it looks like he just ceded to McDermott whatever he wanted, and viewed the picks as a luxury - i.e. we're all set everywhere, let's just try to hit on something that might take us from A+ to A++. Yeah I think you ought to be trying to draft a long term LT this year, and see if he can overcome Brown at RT this season and round into form. Dawkins isn't going to be here forever, and if you can really hit on a great LT that way, you could always push Dawkins to the vision side and maybe it could extend his usefulness/take the pressure off him.

Honestly, maybe the best thing the Bills have going for them this year is the microscope being off from them on the national stage. Sure, there will be a few who pick them to do it. But it's not going to be this overwhelming wave of the highest expectation possible. It'll be interesting to see if Edmunds ever eclipses the last year or so here in Buffalo. I definitely don't believe he's the top MLB, and to have to pay him that way would put this team in a bind. Yes, paying Milano who may be the best pass-focused LB out there makes sense. To me it seems that Edmunds' best qualities are more common amongst MLB's, and you could potentially find a guy who's value hasn't been enhanced by getting to play on Josh Allen-generated national TV. Beane definitely has to get this draft right. Too many needs to be jerking around taking CB's whose stock has fallen.

He tried to embrace all this love you've given him, but he dropped it.

I think they talk about gambling so much because...well...$$$....

And see, I feel that's a mistake. Slide Joe to the late morning if you want to reward him. Sal's enough of a "man of the people" to balance it out on the morning show.

Congratulations & well wishes to Howard. I think his pairing with JW worked extremely well, I wasn't a loyal listener to their show by any stretch, but when I would listen, I thought the juxtaposition of Howard vs. the stat-driven, Gen-X JW helped to moderate both styles. I feel like Sal should move into that role. The question is whether he would relish that over giving up the beat/sideline gig. But he's done the late morning stuff for awhile, and so maybe he's getting closer to wanting a larger studio role vs what he does now.

Officials mics are always broadcast live, and New York review process as well. Transparency.

Maybe, I will say the disappearance of the Super Bowl blow-out is awfully suspicious from a statistical standpoint. Remember when that Bills/Giants Super Bowl was the closest Super Bowl in ages? Now every single one seems to be one score.

Well he was local but cops to being a Stiller fan. So for sure his sideline character holds true with the type of guy who had to root for the Pittsburgh team.

Getting everything perfect isn't priority number 1. But that defensive holding call was egregiously terrible. But I suppose if anyone should really ride the Blame Train today? Nick Sirianni should be standing in front of his players, the GM, and the Owner explaining why it was worth spending a timeout to make a 38 yard field goal into a 33 yard field goal. How'd you like to be that guy, after getting lauded for your forward-thinking strategy, only to cost your team 40 seconds at the end of the game where they could have answered?