LA Grant

Terry does not need to be that involved. He is wise to "know what he doesn't know." His best move is to hire people he trusts, and let them do their job. That's what we're seeing with Beane and McDermott. It takes time to turn a ship around.

Couldn't disagree more. Team fully believes in Tyrod, imo; the players are not shy in voicing that. It's the other way around, as BADOL pointed out -- if Tyrod were in Houston or Denver or anywhere they knew how to use him, he would be a star player.

Sullivan thrives after brutal losses. Misery is his canvas. This was a good one. The 6-4 thing is interesting -- because beating the Chargers is one of two "should win" games left, the other being the Colts. And the Chargers have 0 fans, so they will be playing a home game, although it is a west coast trip so who knows. They could be flat and just done. I hope not, I'm going to the damn game. If the offense gets points early, then they could ruin the Chargers because Rivers will give you picks.

Kelsay comparison is interesting. I hadn't thought of that but I see it for sure. Throughout Kelsay's entire career I was never sure what he brought to the table exactly. It was always just like oh yeah, there's Kelsay. Every once in awhile he'd have a game with 3 sacks. But otherwise just constantly getting run over. Yeah I can see that being Shaq Lawson. Yeah with Dareus, I don't think... I mean obviously he wasn't much of a factor in the first half of the year when we were 5-2. I don't think he would be making much of a difference now. If players on defense are giving up because they're tired of seeing turnovers become 3-and-out on the next drive, with a sack or holding penalty taking you out of FG range, it's not like Marcell Dareus is going to be the one that rallies the guys with the inspiring half time speech. He'd be the first one out the door, like hey guys gotta take off early, got a thing, schedule conflict thing. BUT at the same time, that trade still bugs me. Was his presence in the locker room so bad that waiting until the offseason wasn't the better option? I think that, and he's dogging it, and he's too expensive, so he's gone. But the Bills don't look like they are swimming with run-stopping talent on the D Line.

Exactly. Right. And for me, Gaines/Darby is a wash. Both played well, both had injuries. So that's a win. But I think a healthy Sammy Watkins for one year > injured Jordan Matthews for one year. Of course the season we swap them, Sammy stays healthy and Matthews gets hurt. Of course. They made the move for locker room reasons as much as anything, and while that's a success, Watkins would have been a difference maker this year, finally with a full year with Tyrod. Plus Benjamin. Even if we just say goodbye to Watkins afterward, I mean you don't get the second round draft pick, but this year it's not like your roster is better without elite talent, even underperforming and with issues. Your locker room is better but not your roster, not for this year.

This was irritating to me, but I was more upset with the play design -- it shouldn't even be possible for Tyrod to throw to Tolbert in that position on that play. Ha, damn... while that's painfully true, I don't think the players have quit on McDermott. I do think they quit on themselves, I think they are tired and demoralized because they are seeing the truth -- they were on fumes before, winning on smoke and mirrors, buying into their specialness, and now they're seeing how overmatched they are physically. The team just does not have enough young talent on the roster. Especially on defense. Tre'Davious White. That's it. McDermott and Beane have a vision and they are executing it and they've seen success, more than they anticipated -- Beane and McDermott have both said that. I think this team this year would be much better if it still had Watkins and Dareus, regardless of how underperforming they are, particularly when you could have still had KB and EJ Gaines and even Jordan Matthews if you really wanted. But they wouldn't be as good as they want to be next year without them gone this year, so. It's a value judgment. But they have a clear vision and that's an improvement from the last X amount of years. I think you're probably right. In another thread I was wondering why the tackling has fallen into the trash when it seemed so solid early on, and I think you hit on the answer. They're tired, and tired of it. Tired of creating turnovers that turn into 3-and-outs. It's frustrating just to watch! I can only imagine how frustrating it is to play, as you're exhausted and getting pummeled because you're physically overmatched.

I agree. Yeah, both lines are in the worst shape. The LBs are second weakest of the three defensive groups, although I agree re: Preston, and I liked what we've seen from Matt Milano. Lorenzo, Kyle Williams, and Eric Wood all need upgrades and hopefully won't be starting next year if they are even on the team. Shaq hasn't done anything but he's young enough I think he could still figure it out.

No. Keep Tyrod. Keep Tolbert. Yes, give Banyard a shot. Yes, need new DTs. I think schematically it's more than just the OL, it's everything on offense.

Our 17+ year punting dynasty remains intact. ?

Okay, any fears about this being 2011 part II are pretty valid at this point. That was the old gang: Buddy, Chan, Fitz, CJ Spiller, Dareus's rookie year. Team started 5-2, lost to the Jets, ended 6-10. That doesn't seem like even an implausible end point for the Bills after today. It's hard to imagine the 2017 team going on a run of wins when they're going up against Chiefs in KC, Pats twice, Chargers in LA, Colts, Dolphins twice. I don't love our odds in any of those after today. What's wrong with this team? 1. We can't stop the run 2. We can't pressure the QB 3. We can't establish the run 4. We can't establish the pass Oh, good, is that all? If you walked into the season blind to everything before Week 8 and you watched the Bills the last two weeks there's no way you'd guess this team would somehow have a winning record. 5-2 looks like smoke and mirrors now. We were getting a huge amount of opportunities with turnovers and shorter fields. The offense had enough moments to put up points, but was never consistent in either the run or the pass. But the defense was getting turnovers, and even when they weren't, they were keeping teams to 3 points at most with an effective bend-but-dont-break zone scheme. The defense in the last several weeks has been exposed, I think. They are also tacking noticeably worse, and I'm not sure why or what happened. I haven't gone back to rewatch or anything but my perception was that the tackling in the first few weeks was CONSIDERABLY more improved from sloppy Rex defenses. But the last few weeks have looked as sloppy or worse than last year and the year before. There are too many different explanations for how or why the tackling has tanked, but either way, it's as bad as we've seen in years past. It's just so Billsy at this point. I'm glad we don't have Jay Ajayi twice in December, but you still are going to have to sit through Kareem Hunt slice this defense to shreds. Mike Gillislee is going to have a monster month if the Bills keep playing like they did today. Oh and watch Gilmore have the best game of his life just in time to eliminate us from the playoffs. Ugh. All of the great potential gut-punches you could've imagined and then new fresh hells you could have never thought of -- they're coming in the last couple months here, it feels like. The Bills are exceptionally talented at giving you juuuuuust enough hope to get you hooked before s#itting themselves at the dinner table. If the Browns are the Factory of Sadness, then Buffalo is the Gastropub of Heartbreak (not so many factories, downtown is nice tho). Oh and just think of all the ways for it to still get worse. Marcell Dareus turns it on, Jags and Saint Doug make wild card. Our 6th round pick gets suspended, doesn't make the team. Sammy Watkins and Robert Woods both catch TDs and win a playoff game Gilly and Gilmore go to the Super Bowl; Chris Hogan is able to show them around The picks we received from the Chiefs and Rams are now both at the bottom of the round. SAME OLD BILLS How can it be fixed? 1. The team needs more young talent -- this is an old roster and woefully thin in several areas 2. The scheme and the players need to be a good fit 3. They need to play better The third thing is obvious, and the first thing isn't possible until April, so let's focus on the second aspect. Once again, the Buffalo Bills have a coaching scheme that does not match the players skillset. We're good on defense -- we're thin on youthful talent up front, but schematically, it's a fit for the skillsets. On offense, we have insisted on no identity despite the player skillets being glaringly obvious. Tyrod and McCoy and now Benjamin, maybe Clay -- these are your playmakers. Feature them. Target them. Find ways to get them into space. The Bills have made that seem like the hardest thing in the world to do, but it doesn't need to be. This is becoming a refrain and I've said this a thousand times, but it bears repeating -- the Bills should be running the Texans/Chiefs style of offense. The fact that we're calling plays where Tyrod even can checkdown to a back behind the line of scrimmage -- that shouldn't even be in the playbook, much less the script for the opening drive. Read option. A moving pocket as soon as the ball is snapped. Tyrod is a threat to run on every single play. McCoy or Clay in middle distance for checkdown -- but ahead of the line of scrimmage for goodness sake. Benjamin and Thompson and Zay are deep. Why not? Why couldn't this be the college style offense that has worked so well for Alex Smith and Deshaun Watson? Why can't they be running out of shotgun 90% of the time? Shady has always been excellent at running out of the shotgun. He excels in open space. Why is it so hard? Why instead are we seeing so much Mike Tolbert? Why is Tyrod standing in the pocket more than rolling out? Why are we not emphasizing Tyrod's two best attributes -- his run, and his deep throws? Spread the field, for gods sake! This seems like a team that should have a small playbook, each play has some option element built into it, and they run it fast and no-huddle. What's Chan Gailey up to these days? This seems like a glaringly obvious way to spread defenses out, but in the 3 offensive coordinators that Tyrod has had, all 3 have emphasized a run-first offense and a conservative west coast passing game. There's only so much you can do to your playbook when you're midway through the season, so even if they were to fire Dennison tomorrow (I wouldn't mind), I don't know how much you can expect to change in that sense, but you could change the mindset and philosophy in some ways. As for the Draft -- I think it'd be foolish to try to trade up for a QB, and that's with how awful Tyrod looked today. I think they should still draft a QB, but I don't want them to sell the farm and say "this is the guy." Continue to develop Tyrod and Peterman and whoever you draft. Tyrod had a horrible game and he has his limitations. But so does every other QB in the "second tier" middle class of the NFL. On offense, I think our main weaknesses are: —Pass blocking interior linemen —Pass blocking outside linemen —RB —Speed WR If we'd held onto Gillislee and Watkins, we'd only need linemen who can pass block. If the Bills were to hit on a RB in the draft and get a Leonard Fournette or Kareem Hunt, paired with McCoy, the Bills are a much more dangerous team. If Tyrod has a deep threat speedster like Marquise Goodwin (but healthy), he's a much more dangerous passer. Both D-Line and O-Line desperately need interior guys. They're relatively better on the outside linemen, both sides of the ball, but still lack a true elite talent at DE or LT/RT. tl;dr The Bills are hopeless until they aren't.

Yeah, how dare TBN charge 3 whole dollars per month for unlimited access to their work. Where do they get the nerve.

It's hard to say who the wildcards will be. It's one of the best reasons the Bills have a good shot at it -- at the top, there's the Patriots, Chiefs, and Steelers, as always, but then there's just everybody else. The Ravens are among a bunch of teams who are in the mediocre range where they could land anywhere between 6 and 9 wins. In the south, who wins that division? It's either the Jags or Titans taking it now that the Colts and Texans are definitely done, but I don't think both teams make it. But maybe they could because, who knows? In the west, behind the Chiefs, it could be any one of those teams with 9 wins. Broncos, Raiders, and Chargers all have major problems but are still capable of putting wins together. Jets are a bit like the Chargers as we saw on Thursday -- they still have talent. I think in the worst case scenario where the Bills utterly collapse, the Jets would be the other possible WC from the East -- Dolphins are done without Ajayi. The Bills are just ahead of most of these teams, in my eyes. Add in KB and Clay and there's potential for the Bills to be a solid 10-6 team that "should" have gone 11-5 or 12-4

Echoing what's already been said but... Wade is still a great coach, everyone agrees defensively, but his record as a HC is good too -- consistently brought his teams to playoffs but Bills and Cowboys both canned him the first season that he didn't, and both times it was probably the wrong move. Had the Bills kept Wade as HC, I'm not saying he would STILL be HC, but there's no way we would have gone through a 17 year carousel of incompetent madness.

I think you're right. I can easily see all of that happening. Not sure when or what the tipping point will be, but you're right, it will happen in some form. Someone better make sure to bump this thread when it does

Optimistic take - Bills rebound and play well. Defense gets pressure, forces turnovers. Offense is effective, the pass game sets up the run and we sustain drives. Bills win. 6-3. Confidence is back, and maybe with KB and a healthy Clay plus Thompson and an emerging Zay, they can be significantly better throwing the ball. Pessimistic take - Bills rebound and play well. But they turn the ball over and get holding penalties at the worst time, killing drives. They fight hard but lose a close game. Now 5-4, the Bills do their usual stumble into a collapse for the second half of the season.

I'm also glad to have him, and Kelvin seems like a great kid, but man, what an awkward video. It felt like Thurman arranged this just so he could... say hi and be involved?

NFL Football is a game designed for television, but the difference is that now there's too many other things. There's a ton of great TV, not to mention every other screen and entertainment option. I think it's entirely possible to fix a few things and revamp the show a bit, basically, the question is will they even recognize the product is deteriorating while they're still making money hand over fist? Probably not, but you never know. Games needs to be faster, look better, and there should be a reason to care about who wins. Easy way to get faster = eliminate replay challenges. Officials call the play as they see it and that's it. People are always going to disagree with calls, and even with IR, they're still getting it wrong or calling things inconsistently, so the only thing it does in practice is delay games and ruin momentum. Easy way to look better = The pylon cam is great, why did they stop there? you can have cameras anywhere on the field, so go nuts. cameras all along the bench. small smartphone/go pro sized cameras built into the uniforms/helmets or the tip of the ball so you could see the POV perspectives on replays. Imagine seeing a one-handed TD grab from the ball's perspective. This isn't anything insanely futuristic with the tech, but it would make for a very different feeling product of television. Since you've eliminated instant replay reviews, the only replays you're showing are of the exciting plays - and between those cameras, one of them probably has a great shot of it. Easy way to make people care = You need star players, and they can't keep getting injured. Adding and emphasizing TD celebrations was a good move, it's one of the few things that's not a mess. Find better ways to spotlight players like this. There's a lot to like about the young, emerging stars. Wentz, Goff. Deshaun Watson, his injury sucks. Kareem Hunt. JuJu Smith-Schuster is a good player and he's probably the best at the celebration stuff since he's like 20 years old, he's just an excited kid. I can't wait for the Rivers, Ben R., Eli, Dalton, Flacco types -- that second tier level of QBs who are all past their prime -- to move on. Honestly, if the Bills make the playoffs, Tyrod Taylor has a chance to be a "face" of the league. His highlight plays are all exciting and dynamic. He's pretty even-keeled but thoughtful, kind of shy in an only child way, but he's not a weird dork like Russell Wilson. Good fashion sense without being ridiculous like Cam. And Tyrod would never have gotten into that whole thing with a female reporter, that's just not in his character. I also think the London games are a bad idea but they're going to expand there anyway, and TNF is a bad joke, (even though some of the games have been good actually this year, and Romo is genuinely good), it's so stupidly callous with the players schedules that you either need to drop it, or like I suggested earlier, add more bye weeks.

Yeah, that's a good solution, too.

I think an easy solution would be to add one or two more Bye weeks for teams. Everyone in the NFL agrees the current schedule, especially with TNF, is far too grueling for players. Giving players more time to recover = fewer injuries = more star players = better games. The length of the regular NFL season would be longer, but more palatable for players, and a longer season means more ratings for the TV carriers. Adding 1-2 more Bye weeks is an easy, moderate solution, but I think you could go even further and have teams only play every other week, meaning they get a week off between each game. Split the NFL schedule in half, basically -- every game that week gets more attention then. For scheduling purposes, sometimes teams would need to play two weeks in a row, but somehow you could make it work so every team has an equal number of weeks off. Obviously this would double the length of the season, so you'd need to start earlier and end later, and there's less time in the offseason, but I think this makes sense for everyone too -- easier for players to stay in shape, and fewer injuries related to poor conditioning.

Yes. I feel like I have been saying this for weeks. Our personnel on offense is PERFECT for more option plays. Greg Roman, Anthony Lynn, and Rick Dennison have all constructed "ground & pound; don't turn the ball over" conservative offense schemes during Tyrod's time as a starter. Imagine Tyrod in an offense built for his strengths.

I'd certainly feel more optimistic if I were a Saints fan. They're playing like one of the best teams in the league, and the Bills just got soundly destroyed against the Jets and potentially exposed. But. If both our O-Line and D-Line bounce back from their worst game of the season with their best game of the season, the Bills can take it.

I definitely think Tyrod has the ability to take over games, even though he hasn't done it yet, I think he's shown it at times. It's not like Buffalo has been doing a great job of developing him. The lack of consistency on offense -- receivers especially. In his 3rd year here, he's had 3 different head coaches (counting Lynn), 3 different offensive coordinators. None of whom have implemented, in my opinion, the best offense to suit his abilities. Both of Rex's OCs were following his "ground and pound" philosophy -- win on defense, long drives, don't turn the ball over. Tyrod filled that role perfectly. They asked for Trent Dilfer, and Tyrod delivered that with flashes of greatness, moves and throws that make a Dilfer comparison preposterous. Dennison wants to do a version of the west coast offense, which focuses the least on Tyrod's strengths (deep throws, option plays, rollouts, bootlegs with deep routes and checkdowns) and most on his weaknesses (the short game, timing throws). Trading Sammy was good in a number of ways, but the person that suffers the most for it is Tyrod. Just as they start developing a rapport throughout all of Sammy's missed times with injuries, they trade their speedy deep threat. This year, I want to see Tyrod get Benjamin, Clay, Zay, Thompson, and Matthews all out there with him, and a healthy Shady. That alone would be nice to see, just to see if they improve as a group in the way Tyrod himself has been developing even without good help. Probably won't happen this year but I would love to see what Tyrod and this offense could do in an offense that actually suits them -- more like the Chiefs or Texans offense with more screens, options, and creativity. More run n gun. Simpler plays with more options. Why not a K Gun approach with a true 50/50 balance of run/pass? Tyrod and Shady are smart guys that know how they work best -- Jim Kelly wasn't a brain surgeon but he had confidence and knew his strengths and his teammates, he knew who he was going to be on the field with for more than two weeks, and he ran a brilliant no huddle. Tyrod is only in his third year of starting. His age is irrelevant because there's no hard rules about development. All of the best QBs in the league are over 30. Despite the Bills organizational incompetence with Rex/Whaley, he's managed to improve each year, has absurd talent, good awareness/intelligence... he's not perfect, but he's a franchise QB.

I can see Jordan Matthews being the odd man out now that they traded for Kelvin Benjamin. I wouldn't be surprised to see Matthews and Holmes gone after this year. Benjamin, Zay, and Thompson are a pretty good combo in terms of skillset.

Very well said. Still more to prove, he has to continue to be effective the rest of the season, and our schedule isn't easy. But with the new toy in Kelvin for him, Clay back, Jordan getting more time with TT an healthy along with Zay looking like hes got his confidence back and turning a corner, there is reason to be optimistic Taylor's play is gonna improve further. But he still needs to continue to show it on the field to close out the season. Exactly this. Tyrod has improved each year. All of the things people said he couldn't do last year (throw over the middle; step up in the pocket), he's been doing much better this year. They didn't do it after the first play blew up in their face against the Jets, but I think they should do more roll-outs, options, and otherwise moving the pocket and getting Tyrod into space as quickly as possible -- even besides the O-Line's horrid performance on Thursday, they aren't very good at pass blocking on a good day; their strength is clearly run blocking. I think there's reason to be optimistic. Adding in Kelvin Benjamin and Charles Clay will be big.

It's been 1988 since 2000. This is the longest decade ever.