HappyDays

I have a response half thought out but instead let's agree to disagree. Honestly I've been less active in these discussions this offseason because it feels pointless. We're a couple months away from getting new information so we can finally stop having the same old arguments. My contention has been that if Allen is given an average playoff defense, the notion of him as someone that can't get his team to the finish line will quickly evaporate. And then all the nitpicking of a play here and there will seem really silly in hindsight. We'll find out soon I think. If it all works out in year one, his legacy will be written in stone as an all time great QB who was temporarily held back by his coach. If it doesn't work out in year one, we'll revisit the conversation next offseason with a lot of new info. What else can really be said at this point?

This is my point though. We're hyper focusing on one game, or one play in other games. If you want to say Allen was more responsible for the Denver loss than other playoff losses over the years, yeah that is more than fair. But I'm talking about his career. Every single great QB has had playoff performances below their standard. Sometimes they even win those games! We've seen Allen play perfect and lose, we've seen him play extremely well and lose. So now we are going to take one game (which was not even horrible, more a series of supreme highs and supreme lows) over a storied playoff career and say that means he now bears responsibility for the team's failures over the years? I just don't buy that.

I think that's giving too much credit to the defense. We successfully played ball control offense in the 2nd half, limiting the Jags to just four drives. Their first three drives ended FG, TD, TD. Their last drive they got the ball back with 0:59 left on the clock down 3 with zero timeouts. A defensive stop there was the expectation. I don't consider that a clutch defensive performance (although I appreciate Tre White making an individual play that stopped what many of us believed to be an inevitable tragic ending). I consider that as the defense forcing the offense to play perfect in the 4th quarter, and the offense delivered for them. I was if anything worried that the offense scored too quickly at the end.

I do absolve Josh of all wrongdoing. That isn't to say he hasn't made mistakes in these games. But "make zero mistakes" isn't the standard. Every QB in every game makes mistakes. It's in fact unprecedented for a QB to have anywhere close to Allen's career playoff stats and not make the Super Bowl. We focus so much on a play here and there only because the final result has been historically underwhelming relative to the performance. I'm not going to bother listing the myriad of failures by his teammates and coaches in these losses, they've been done to death at this point. I will however emphatically reject anyone who disagrees with the statement that Allen has done enough to get his team to a Super Bowl, and multiple times at that. So to me that statement is the same as absolving him of all wrongdoing.

It is worth noting that he didn't give a canned answer. He could have said "my job is to be the best QB I can be, not to make coaching decisions, I loved Coach McDermott but I'm excited for Joe Brady to lead this team." Instead he said "a switch like this was necessary." Allen is ever the perfect diplomat so I put a lot of weight into his word choice here. It makes me more confident that he had somewhat of an active role in the decision. Not that he stormed into Pegula's office and demanded a change, but I suspect he willingly signed off on it.

I'd take him if the corresponding move was trading Palmer. Cook's skill set is more valuable to the room than Palmer's right now IMO. If we can't find a trade partner for Palmer though, I don't see it. Our top 5 is set and if we roster a 6th WR it will be for special teams.

My take on Brady is that if I was a fan of some random team, I would be underwhelmed by the hire. Nothing about him screams "head coach material" on the surface. For the Bills though I understood the hire. We didn't need to blow everything up and start over. We have been quite literally inches away from getting over the hump on multiple occasions. So Brady represented the safe option. His ceiling isn't as high as some of the less known candidates and his floor isn't as low. We pretty much know exactly what he gives the offense, and Allen signed off on him which is more important than anything else in this discussion. The DC choice is the most important decision he had to make. Personally I think he nailed it with Leonhard but it remains to be seen. We don't need Brady to be Sean McVay or Kyle Shanahan. We need him to keep the offense at the level it's been at in the playoffs, while taking the defense from historically bad to like below average. That is our formula for winning a Super Bowl while Allen is still in his prime.

Hmm I'm a big fan of the Moore trade but I'm not sure I'd bet on those numbers. I think Moore will flirt with 1,000. He is the clear #1 but he is not a true alpha #1 that you feed targets to. I also still expect us to be a pretty run heavy team. Moore's presence on the field alone will be a huge boon to the offense though because defenses won't be able to cheat inside like they did when our #1 outside WR was Keon Coleman. There will also be times where we need some pass catcher to make a big play in a big moment and Moore is easily our best option there. So I don't need him to rack up those gaudy stats for the trade to be considered a success.

To be fair did any Bills defensive player under McDermott ever rise to the occasion in the playoffs? You had Taron's pick six, Hyde's ridiculous INT of Mac Jones... is that the end of the list? This year we're going to begin to find out how much of that was scheme/play calling related. A few of the core defensive players have talked about how much they like the freedom they have in the new scheme. Maybe it is just offseason fluff but I find it hard to believe the defensive drop off from regular season to the playoffs was due to every single defensive player magically regressing in January.

I'm excited to see Groot in this new defense. He seems to think it suits him better and will lead to more pass rush production.

The problem with these what if games is you're only changing things that favor us. What if a Denver WR didn't drop a TD and then a 3rd down conversion on their opening two drives of the game? What if Mahomes didn't inexplicably drop the ball on one of their 1st half drives leading to an unforced turnover? What if Mecole Hardman didn't fumble the ball going into the endzone? Change any one of these events and we might not even have a chance at the ends of their respective games. The result is the result.

Bills and Chiefs have identical regular season success, in fact we come out slightly ahead. Switch the coaching staffs and we'd be known as one of the best teams in NFL history because the playoff success would have flipped. Which is the point. We helped build the Chiefs legacy. Also there's no reason to think we would have done better against some of the NFC powerhouses over the years. They haven't had a consistent villain like KC has been in the AFC but they've had at least one equally dangerous team every year. McDermott has lost to the Texans, Bengals, and finally the Broncos. Why would we expect him to get past the Lions or the Rams or the 49ers when they were at their best? It's all just fantasy. In reality he didn't get it done given plenty of chances.

The counterargument is that the defense in the regular season has been much better than in the playoffs. Especially against the Chiefs. That tells you the talent is there, not to be elite by any means but also not to be historically bad. I like how Joe Marino has phrased it - "can the defense in the playoffs just be normal bad?" None of us are asking Leonhard to turn the defense into the Texans. But also nobody seriously thinks the defensive talent is so bad that in the playoffs it should be giving up more points per drive than the 2007 Patriots scored (a stat I'm also stealing from Joe Marino). The ceiling will be limited by a lack of elite defensive talent but the floor can very easily be raised.

Things I've heard. Also Jeremy White put out a tweet yesterday that Beane had been in contact with Diggs' agent. So there is some smoke out there. My whole thing with Diggs is if Allen signs off on it, I'm good with it. Their relationship had fallen apart by the end. If they've kissed and made up, I'm never against adding talent to make the WR room better. I don't like Diggs the person, I think he's an abrasive personality who holds others accountable but not himself. I think he acts like he's bigger than the team. But more than anything I want to win a championship. Stefon Diggs >> Josh Palmer which is reason enough for me to want him here as long it won't cause issues with Allen. That being said for anybody that wants no part of him in Buffalo I totally get it. I'm not too far away from holding that view. I just want to win a Super Bowl. Short of domestic abusers, I'll accept anyone on the team that gets us closer to that goal.

I am fascinated to see what happens with that room. It's hard to gauge much from OTAs, but from the little snippets we've gotten it seems that Hairston and IGB are both getting roughly an equal share of 1st team reps. But maybe what you're saying is in fact happening and the beat reporters aren't being clear. To me this is the #1 story of training camp - what is the plan for the 3 primary CBs on the roster behind Benford? I think we're so used to the static roles McDermott put his CBs into, that it is hard to project what a more versatile scheme might look like. I don't mean that to be derogatory towards McDermott, but it was Taron Johnson as your full time starting nickel and your two outside CBs and that was that. I'm expecting Leonhard to move his guys around a lot more and switch between Hairston/IGB/Alford situationally. But I'm not confident at all in projecting exactly what that will look like.