HappyDays

I think the correct explanation is that this is the time of year when teams are adjusting what they do and are finding holes to attack on their opponents' film. Our coaching staff apparently does neither of those things which would explain why we always lose a couple games at the same time of year. You can copy and paste that explanation for our annual playoff failures too. As recently as last year my take on McDermott was that he was a good coach but not great enough to elevate the team to a championship. I'm starting to question that. I'm starting to wonder if he's flat out a bad coach in all respects other than establishing team chemistry.

And I can even live with banking on a young safety to take a step, I get that you can't be strong everywhere on the roster. But banking on the sophomore WR with a lot to work on to be our X receiver was just a moronic plan. That isn't a position you can paper over. Look at what KC did - they drafted Josh Simmons but they also signed Jaylon Moore to at least give them a baseline LT option if Simmons didn't develop right away. You can't give yourself no backup options at the most important positions on the team. It's week 7 of what's supposed to be our Super Bowl year and we don't have a freaking X receiver. It's horrible and entirely predictable roster mismanagement.

I am extremely patient with young players. One thing I will always push back on is people calling rookies or even 2nd year players busts. But there has to be some sort of arc of progress to keep the hope alive and there just isn't anything there right now. I'm at a point where I'd make him a big slot the rest of the season because without the refined technique that's the only spot where his natural athletic abilities are going to work. Of course we don't have anybody that can reasonably take the X role from him so that complicates things. But him being forced into that role is the #1 problem with the passing offense right now IMO.

Poor speed can be overcome. But it takes a high level of nuance and attention to detail. Coleman in that respect has not progressed at all since last year to my eyes. I really think he could be capable of it even with his 40 time if he developed his technique. He is still a very good athlete and plenty of WRs use their strength and technique and understanding of leverage to get open more than their speed. But whatever training he's done and whatever coaching he's received is not showing up on the field.

Trust me he worked very hard this offseason. Did a lot of private WR coaching, had 1 on 1 sessions with Allen before camp, etc. Unfortunately he just doesn't seem to have it. I'll always bet on athletic traits combined with a strong work ethic but some players never apply the training to the field. After all that work he hasn't progressed at all, he's making the same mistakes he was making last year. With his skill set he needs to have the nuances of the position down pat, and he just doesn't look even close right now. So I'm pretty close to giving up on him at this point. He can maybe salvage his career if he switches to big slot, I'd at least be interested to see what that looks like.

Cole Beasley said it too: That is the subtle benefit of having a legit #1 WR that nobody ever brings up. It creates a snowball effect on the rest of the offense. Everybody below the #1 on the depth chart now gets better matchups which allows their skill sets to shine.

It's been long enough that I can put this out there now - There was a period right before the draft where the Bills gave Cook and his agent permission to seek a trade. It wasn't a coincidence he put his house up for sale in April, he thought he was gone. No trade partner ever came through and that's the only reason he's still on the team. The Bills were ready to let him go and I can't even imagine how awful our offense would look if that had happened. For whatever reason Beane just doesn't believe skill players are important. He rested his laurels on last year's offensive efficiency and seemed to think that as long as he has Allen the offense will be elite. Well, we're learning the hard way that that isn't automatically true.

I won't lie part of me was happy New England beat the Saints. That franchise is perennially looking for any reason to stay the course and never take an intentional step back. If they got a two game winning streak I think the Olave/Shaheed option would be off the table. I am a huge Bears fan this weekend. We need hopelessness to settle in there so they start looking to the future.

Yeah I'd like to know why we have a couple games a year where exotic blitzes confound our offensive line and the whole offense falls into a rut, while our blitzes are seemingly always easily picked up and any decent offense has its way with us. Our one and only "wrinkle" is we put 6-7 guys on the line, but ooh we don't always send them all. Yeah that will fool 'em. Meanwhile every Atlanta blitz looked completely different from the rest. And it's not like Atlanta's defense is uber talented. Don't get me wrong they have some good players. But for example their #2 CB is Mike Hughes who famously got his lunch taken by Gabe Davis in the 13 seconds game. They don't have any superstars on the DL. You know what they have? Jeff Ullbrich, the same DC that confounded our offense when he was with the Jets and had a top performing defense every year with them. Even top offenses can be forced into bad games by great defensive minds. Why can't we ever, even once, make a top offense look like that? I mean we can't even make Atlanta's mediocre offense look like that so I guess I should lower my ask, but man it's frustrating.

The telling quote in this BN article is at one point he is talking about the failed flip pass to Ty Johnson. He writes "Allen had no choice but to run to his left to avoid the unaccounted for defender." A couple sentences later he writes "This was another Allen mistake... He could have easily turned and thrown Johnson the football." What a luxury it is to say that after your QB gets out of an automatic sack because of an unaccounted defender and no quick read, that the result of the play is because of his own mistake.

Do you think Allen led Shakir out of bounds on that 3rd down throw? I have two legit criticisms for Allen from this game: 1) There were at least two hot routes he missed, one where he held the ball and one where he didn't read a telegraphed blitz. 2) He needs to stop forcing throws to Coleman. This criticism extends to last week too. I don't care if he's 1v1, it just isn't working and he seemingly hasn't progressed at all. We need a legit X receiver and that falls on Beane. Until then stop trying to make X receiver Keon Coleman a thing. Any other option in the progression is better. No I don't think Allen played like crap. The MNF loss to the Zach Wilson Jets, that game he played like crap. This game he played below his MVP standard and made a few uncharacteristic errors.

@GoBills808 time to bring back Allen for Purdy and three 1st round picks

You very well could be right but the read isn't clean there. Hughes does a good job keeping his body leveraged to potentially drive forward (in part because he is given no reason to really respect the vertical threat), his eyes are on Allen the whole time, and his position on the field in relation to Shakir gives him a clean path to where the ball will be delivered. It might have still been completed but the risk/reward is a pick six versus a 5 yard completion. Allen used to throw a bunch of INTs like that where a DB nearby breaks off his assignment to pick off the ball, especially when Dorsey was OC. Since Brady took over I've noticed Allen has been very intentional about avoiding those picks. Anyways I'm not trying to convince anyone this pass would definitely be intercepted. I'm just saying there's a legitimate reason Allen turned down the throw and Moore's crap effort directly led to that decision.

I don't feel the need to defend Brady, his limitations are obvious and his inexperience shows up against well coached defenses. But the Bills knew that when they hired him, or at least they should have. There was no evidence that he was some prodigy just waiting to get his chance. So it is just bad team building. You can't hire the inexperienced OC with a simple scheme and also give him crap to work with. I'm not totally satisfied with Brady but I don't blame him either. To me that's like blaming Shakir for not getting both feet inbounds on the tight sideline catch. When you ask players and coaches to do more than their abilities allow, you can't blame them when they fall short. I blame the people that put them in those positions.

I think they are just trying to pick up 6 yards on 1st down. With Shakir's YAC abilities he even has a good chance of getting 10 yards. I don't mind the philosophy, with this offense as currently constructed we kind of have to make getting into manageable 2nd and 3rd downs the goal of every series. Brady is not a schematic genius by any stretch of the imagination but he needs better WRs from the top of the depth chart to the bottom. I'll hate if Moore is still on the team after the bye week. That sends a message that this kind of crap is acceptable.

I'd cut Moore after his performance in that game. Two plays stuck out. The first I can't find a video on, but it was that late 3rd and 10 where Moore ran straight into vertical leverage instead of running a comeback into open space like Allen expected. Awful mental error that cost us our last real drive. And then there's this 1st and 10 play where you'll watch it once and won't think Moore has anything to do with it, but I'll explain: This is one of those plays Joe Marino counted as Allen not throwing to a WR with separation. Shakir looks clearly open on his quick out and Allen is looking in his direction. But look at the outside CB Mike Hughes on that side. Hughes has his eyes on Allen and is peeking Shakir's route. He's able to keep his body leveraged in a way that if Allen throws that ball with anticipation he could abandon Moore in coverage and potentially jump the pass for a pick six. Coming back to Moore's fault on this play - he is supposed to run a clear out route and he absolutely dogs it. Really a shocking lack of effort from a bottom of the depth chart WR that should be fighting for his NFL career. The only reason Hughes is able to stay leveraged to potentially jump the route to Shakir is because Moore presents him with no real vertical threat. Moore's job was to take him out of the play and he didn't. Allen could have thrown that ball but the reward was a 4 yard gain and the risk was a pick six that effectively ends the game. These are unacceptable mental and effort errors from Moore on critical end of game drives, and for that I would cut him.

What's really refreshing about Walker is he's the first Bills rookie in seemingly forever where we aren't desperately searching for small flashes or telling ourselves to stay patient with his development. He showed up day one making splash plays and before the bye week already looks like a future cornerstone. When's the last time a Bills rookie did that? Tre White maybe?

I won't lie I've felt my mind drifting in that direction the past couple days. Like even if we could trade for AJ Brown would that be enough to cover up for all the roster and coaching deficiences? But ultimately I am not in favor of throwing away a year of Josh Allen's career. I would still rather go down swinging if nothing else. Also you get the benefit of not watching Allen slowly lose his mind over the course of the season as this inept WR room continues to let him down. For me it's Olave, then Shaheed, then Meyers. Meyers would feel deflating given the other options available, at this point in his career I'm not sure he's meaningfully better than Josh Palmer. But they have to do something. Palmer is likely going to miss at least a couple games including the all important KC matchup and Coleman cannot continue to be a high volume target.

Yeah the Chiefs offense is like watching a different sport. The likes of Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan have earned their flowers but Andy Reid is still the very best in the business. Every play they run looks completely different from the rest. Every play design puts at least one defender in conflict. I hate the Chiefs but I'm too much of a pure football fan not to appreciate what I'm watching there.

No, Josh Allen has not developed into a perfect QB that is incapable of having an off day. That doesn't describe any player in NFL history. Or any human being in history for that matter. I think it was @GunnerBill who compared it to Brady's last year in New England. I've used the same comparison. Even the GOAT struggled when surrounded with crap. Fans declared that his career was over. Well it's no coincidence that he chose to transfer to the team that at the time had the best offensive supporting cast in the NFL, and promptly won another Super Bowl with them.

In one sense he's correct. If the QB and the scheme are perfect, you can overcome bad WRs. The problem is that asking the QB and the scheme to be perfect on every single play is too much to ask. Sometimes you just need an easy button play call and read, and the downfall of not having a legit #1 WR is that those easy button plays are nowhere to be found. So I don't agree with Joe's premise that "there's plenty of blame to go around." That is unduly shifting the blame. Allen and Brady both had their faults in this game, but the poor WR room is a much more fundamental problem which compounds every mistake made by the QB and the OC.

I don't agree with that. Moore and Samuel are short field gadget players who occasionally run routes. Shaheed is a legit vertical threat. I want a bigger fish than him if we can get one, but of the secondary options I've seen he is easily the best choice. Just having him as a threat could make a world of difference in how defenses choose to play us. He's not a nuanced route runner but his speed gives him a natural ability to separate that just doesn't exist on the roster right now.

I listened to that podcast and watched the all-22 video he sends out to subscribers. I think he oversold his point a bit. He basically finds like 4 plays where it looks like Allen could have found somebody open. He uses this to disparage the narrative that "nobody can separate." Alright Joe but you didn't show any of the plays where it simply was the case that nobody could separate. And that problem does pop up repeatedly on tape. Also it's one thing if somebody separates, but if it takes them 4 seconds after the snap to separate then it doesn't help if the defense blitzes and got home. And that was Atlanta's gameplan. Blitz the hell out of us and bet that none of our pass catchers could get quick separation. That was a good bet on their part. Allen statistically was elite against the blitz when Diggs was here in his prime. That's not a coincidence. He had a guy he could trust on any given down to throw an anticipation throw downfield, and more often than not Diggs made the play. It's pretty clear watching the tape he doesn't trust Keon Coleman for example to make those plays, and why should he?

Every off game that Allen has, we lose. I mean we've even managed to lose some of his all-time best games, but his off games are guaranteed losses. And I mean off for him, relative to the rest of the league even his off games are still good. Atlanta was the first game this year which I thought was legitimately an off game for him and that capped us at two good drives for the entire game. Allen in some sense is the victim of his own success. Because he occasionally goes nuclear the fanbase has come to expect it. So whenever he is anything less than exceptional and we lose, you start seeing the posts about how "he's as responsible for the loss as anybody." I've really gotten sick of it. QBs can have an off game and their team can still win. But in Buffalo we have nobody on offense or defense that ever steps up to take the pressure off him and make the superstar play that wins the game. We don't have a coach that can adjust the offense on the fly and get them back in sync after they hit a rut. Feels like the whole team is just always waiting for Allen to put on the Superman cape.

Oh I can't wait for that. We'll be fighting for our playoff lives down the stretch which means we'll have to go all out in every game wearing down the team. Then in the wildcard round we'll inevitably lose two key defensive players. Two weeks later people on here will excuse McDermott's defense falling apart because of "bad injury luck." Then in the offseason we'll have to invest more in the defense because "they were the problem." Round and around we go. We had a chance at the easiest possible path to the Super Bowl and we blew it. If they can't get the #1 seed with this schedule and this mess of a conference, they never will.