Kirby Jackson

You know what’s one of the most annoying things about this place? When people “object” to something but don’t offer a solution as to why they object. We are going to disagree on here a lot. We will disagree on just about every subject. If you have strong feelings contrary to someone else’s strong feelings, give reasoning as to why you feel that way. It’s even better when supported by data. This should, in theory be a really good thread. There are lots of reasons that you could feel one way or another. But alas, “we have a lot of, I disagree” but little of, “I see it differently and here is why ____.” These conversations need significantly more nuance… If you’re looking for an example of what good looks like, look at @Sammy Watkins' Rib last post. While I don’t agree 100% it is a point supported by data and a plan.

Who is talking about a “long ball?” They don’t have guys that run the 5-9 routes. That is missing. When you don’t have that, you are too easy to defend… I’m not sure that you are following the conversation. I’ll talk slower. The Bills current playmakers, all do their best work within 10 yards of the LOS. Some of them are good once they get the ball in their hands but we will be looking at crowded boxes and not much space. We need the outs and corner routes as much or more than the fly (which we also need). If you disagree, please explain to me, your plan to avoid the safeties at the LOS? I’m curious to know how you’re finding space…

For Samuel I see the Bills using him more like Deebo and less like a traditional WR. That’s why they haven’t cared so much about adding another back. They’re planning on him 3 or 4 carries a game (that’s over 55). He will be used to catch those screens that Diggs struggled so much with. He isn’t a boundary WR. I also think you’re low on the passing attempts. Last year at 579 is the outlier imo. The previous 3 years (when looking at 17 games) would have been: 608, 646 (the best Bills team in a generation) and 602. If the Bills plan on a possession passing game (which their current talent CLEARLY forces) the number will be higher. It’ll be screens, curls, etc… unless/until they get some boundary WRs to run the routes deeper down the field. Nope, not nearly good enough. The Bills have allocated the overwhelming majority of their assets to defense. They’ve been as good with guys out is with guys in. It’s the SCHEME that fails (or succeeds in the regular season). It isn’t the talent. The Bills avoid giving up big plays. It’s great during the regular season but Mahomes will take what you give him (as will Burrow). You need a philosophical change to stop those teams in the playoffs. Allen has CARRIED that offense because the guys around him (Diggs excluded) have been mid round picks and average vets. Kincaid was a start but they are nowhere close to done. You’ll win BECAUSE of Josh Allen not BECAUSE of rotational defensive linemen. Give him elite playmakers and watch his game reach new heights. When you have Steph Curry, you surround him with Klay Thompson to make your strength stronger. You don’t say, “let's get some low post guys to offset our 3 point shooting.” You say, “let’s be the best 3 point shooting team ever and make teams keep up with us.” That’s a championship strategy…

I think that they “concerned about” part is “concerned about compared to different teams.” Obviously, if you’re playing the Bills you gameplan for the guys that you’re playing against. You’d prepare for Samuel and Shakir. That just doesn’t scare you like if you were preparing for Tyreek Hill and Waddle. I think that’s the point. That’s how I read it and to that I 100% agree. The desperate need for elite talent is why I have supported the big trade up. I don’t care about an extra guy in the 20’s and 30’s in 2025. The Bills are great at finding “good” football players. They haven’t been good at finding elite ones. They’ve allocated significantly more “prime” assets on defense than offense. Maybe that’s a part of the problem? Either way, they NEED to find elite playmakers besides for Josh.

I agree with @Pine Barrens Mafia. The Bills have some guys that’ll make plays. Kincaid is the only one that might be elite for his position. Cook is very good but has a defined skill set that can be controlled if defending him is the focus. Josh Allen is the only guy that haunts DCs. He is THE single hardest player to defend in the NFL. Josh is so good that he makes everyone else better than they are. The Bills have relied on Josh elevating guys for too long. With the exception of Diggs, they gave Josh a bunch of guys and hoped that he would make them better. He did. Now they need to get some other guys with elite skill sets that people need to account for to go alongside Josh. Giving Josh a bunch of mid round talents and mediocre vets and asking him to carry them hasn’t worked. He made them better but they couldn’t get over the hump. That’s why they let 4 of their top 5 WRs go. They weren’t good enough there. Give Josh talent that can help him. That’s where the Bills currently sit.

2 of my favorite Bills targets.

I agree 100% on Pearsall and McConkey. I should have clarified that I only like them alongside of a big, physical X. I think that they can each give you a lot of the positives that Diggs did. They are good route runners that can eat targets while “X” grows into an alpha role. Legette for me at 28 but I’m all for trading up.

Not sure what ANYTHING that I said has to do with Diggs other than he accounted for 160 targets last year? That’s not an opinion. That’s what happened. As an Ohio State fan, I’ve seen hundreds of Curtis Samuel’s snaps. I’ve probably seen as much of him as just about anyone on this message board (excluding @Willyville Guy & @YoloinOhio) . He is a converted running back. He’s a strong playmaker. He’s a guy that will get carries, catch screens and run some routes. They added Samuel because he’s better with the ball in his hands than the guys that had or currently have. He’s a weapon. He’s not, and never has been, a boundary WR. He will line up there some but that’s not the player that they signed. He’s the guy that’s going to catch screen/slants and get carries. He will run some vertical routes as well. He could be quite impactful with the new kickoff rules. I love the guy as a player. If you think that he’s different than what I described it’s because one of us doesn’t know him very well. You just named 3 guys that are best within 10 yards of the LOS. That’s the reason that WR is such a high priority!! They are WAY too easy to defend at the moment because they’re missing 1/2 of the route tree and multiple skill sets. I have the Bills needing 620 targets this year. I’ve tweaked this a few times since Diggs left. Here’s how I have it breaking down: WR1 - 130 wr2 (2nd guy drafted) - 80 kincaid - 110 Shakir - 90 Samuel - 75 (another 55 carries) Cook - 50 Knox - 40 Hollins - 30 everyone else - 15 This varies a little depending on the names up top. If the top guy is one of the top 3 or McConkey I feel this is about right. If it’s anyone else it goes down a little with the majority of those targets shifting to the 2nd WR drafted and also Cook (WR2 holds especially true if that’s someone like Pearsall). You were pretty fired up with my thoughts on the WR position. Clearly you don’t think that it’s that big of a need. How do you see the targets being divided? Please be specific. List all of the ones that you have worse? Even if you have the Chargers and/or Giants they each may have a new number 1, WAY better than anyone on the Bills roster, by about 9:00 Thursday. The Bills are a bottom 3 WR room.

As of today, the Bills have a bottom 3 WR room in the NFL. We have an ascending TE (with a good TE behind him) and a top 15 RB with no one behind him. Josh Allen has covered a lot of flaws on this team. What happens when every single guy is best within 10 yards of the LOS? They have no one that threatens down the field. They have no one that runs those deep out routes. The whole game right now will be played within 1 yards of the LOS. The goal is to find space. Diggs and Davis created space for themselves but also for everyone else. That’s gone. Poyer and Hyde were still smart but largely done by last year. That’s why Hyde is yet to be signed (if he plays) and Poyer got $2M. The defense has choked in big moments in the playoffs for the same reason that it has been good in the regular season. They will give you those 7-10 yard plays and stop the big play. The elite offenses in the playoffs will just take that all day long. That’s why Travis Kelce kills the Bills. That’s a scheme issue, the reason it works depending on how you view it. That’s not changing because a few guys in their last few years aren’t here any longer. I guess my point is that defensive depth is so much less important right now than offensive explosion. The Bills need to add, at minimum, 2 boundary WRs capable of combining for 200 targets. Based on all of the mock drafts we have seen, they can’t wait until 60 for the 1st. That’s not possible. You might be looking at Roman Wilson or Ricky Pearsall (who I like a lot) as your number 1. You need to go up for one of the big 3 or try to get 2 before 60 (unless you trade for Aiyuk/Higgins).

The only thing that we know definitively is that they sold out of the $50K PSLs. There were 450 of them. I think that they were calling it the Legend’s Club. Everything else is speculation.

I saw them. They looked pretty sweet. Food and Pepsi products are included so that’s a nice bonus. You can’t see the field from inside of the club which is different from the other 2 club areas but still looks like a great area. The team (not sure if it’s one or both) come out from the locker room right in front of the club. That’s a nice touch too. It’s like that in Vegas (I think) too.

Fair enough I guess, any of those guys (along with Newton) would be playing no more than 40-50% of the snaps. On the edge Von, Rousseau and Epenesa will play a lot. Jonathan and Toohill will play some too. On the interior, Ed O, Daquan, Austin Johnson and Deshawn Williams will all play. Obviously, a 1st will play quite a bit but the point being, they’ll be fine either way. Could they be better? Sure. On the boundary, they are lacking 2 starters and 200 targets. Those guys are going to play, at minimum, 80% of the snaps. They’re going to have the ball thrown to them, A LOT. When Allen is the reason that you win or lose, you need to support him so that he doesn’t have to keep doing it all by himself.

So we are prioritizing a rotational DL above a #1 (and #2 for that matter) WR? The Bills still have about 200 targets unaccounted for and no boundary WRs (except Hollins & Shorter). Sorry, I don’t see it. As far as needs right now, I see it as: WR1 WR2 everything else

None with you either 🍻🍻. We all want the same thing.

He’s not complaining about anyone. He’s saying, “that’s the nature of the league.” Bills fans have had the best value in the league for generations. Now, they are going to be more in line with everyone else. We all should enjoy what we pay now because in 2 short seasons it’ll be double. That’s the market rate for NFL tickets. Bills fans pay those prices already when they’re on the road taking over opponents stadiums. Whining that we are now going to pay market rate is what he objected to.

The guy has almost 34,000 posts on a team message board. Are we now questioning the dedication of @eball because he is okay with the pricing getting more in line with the rest of the league? 😂😂 That makes him less of a fan??

I find this baffling. Help me understand. The Bills have plugged in a variety of guys over the McDermott era and have been more or less the same. They’ve played extended periods without Poyer, Milano, Tre, Von, Hyde, etc… The scheme has had them more or less the same defense regardless of who is out there. They play a conservative zone where they try to avoid big plays and keep the game close. Why do we think, with most of the same guys (minus Poyer, Floyd & Hyde plus Milano) that they will be significantly different? Sean McDermott’s defenses are always about the same. Explain why I should be scared? If the answer is “pass rush” they may need to generate more with the blitz but outside of Floyd (who disappeared late in the year) what’s changed? The offense has to replace their number 1 and number 2 WRs from last year (not to mention their 4th & 5th). Those 2 guys account for like 250 targets. They added a special teamer and a gadget guy. Why are we comfortable that it’ll work with no boundary WRs on the roster except Shorter and Hollins? The Bills still need 200ish targets from guys not on the roster. It’ll be so easy to defend them right now with no outside threats. There is a Grand Canyon-sized chasm between the need for offense vs. the need for defense right now. Help me understand how you’re comfortable with the offense but not the defense?

The Bills currently have the 4th lowest odds to win the Super Bowl. As long as Josh Allen is with the Bills they are in Super Bowl contention. How they address WR determines if they become “more likely” or “less likely” as the season approaches. That’s the only thing left that’s a needle mover one way or the other.

Not to mention why should anyone tell other people what to support or not support?

Appreciate the advice as to what we should do with our money.

He averaged 2 catches and 20 yards more per game than me last year. The good news is that we caught the same amount of TDs on the season. Is this a serious question? That guy sucks. He’s done. Of course he isn’t worth a roster spot.

For sure!! The memory is a little fuzzy but I think that the company heated the pitches in England. They had never done seats before. They tried to bring the technology to the seats. It worked for a little while but they started to break. Fixing them was costly. Then the company when bankrupt and parts were gone. Disaster

That’s 100% true. They hadn’t done it before. They tried to fix them for a few years but it didn’t work. The company went out of business and they went to the radiant heat. There were a couple of years of neither actually (maybe around 2005).

Just found the “in seat heating” to be vague. Maybe you meant that the heaters within the seats didn’t work. On that, we agree. It’s been over 20 years since the Bills sold that as a benefit and like 18 years since they last tried to service them. Not sure why that’s a talking point? It was replaced with radiant heat, maybe 15 years ago and that works great. “In seat heating” encompasses both. One works fine (radiant heat). One was a disaster (heated chair backs) that ended 2 decades ago. Just clarifying for those trying to understand the whole picture without any sort of agenda being injected.

Um, no it’s not. The seat heaters were a disaster. They hired a company out of Europe that hadn’t done it before. They broke at alarming rates. Over the last 15ish years, the radiant heat has been above the seats. It works well. I sit directly under it.