HappyDays

Ah yes, renowned NFL insider Dick Johnson.

Yes. The mistake they made is they decided the goal is to have 8 possessions and score TDs on 50% of them. The league average is less than 25% of drives turn into TDs so we intentionally set the margin for error impossibly low. With the best player in the league at QB, the proper goal should be score 40 PPG and screw the down to down efficiency. The Tampa Bay win may not have been "efficient" or "complementary" QB play but you look up and all of a sudden Allen has 6 TDs. That should be the game script that you build the team around. The offense doesn't need to complement anything, it needs to run up the score and make the other two phases practically irrelevant. Especially under current management when you can never rely on the other two phases to lead the way in big games. McDermott made the mistake of betting on his process instead of betting on his unicorn, and he unfortunately dragged Beane down the same path.

Yeah this is the point right here. We're in Josh Allen's prime and debating if Gabe Davis or Josh Palmer are our best WR.

What teams have Josh Palmer as the best outside WR on their roster? We aren't comparable to other teams Alpha. If the plan is "everybody eats" then everybody from the top of the room to the bottom needs to be capable of maximizing their opportunities. Moore clearly wasn't capable of that and there was never any reason to think that he would be. I'm not saying it had to be a big contract or a high pick but the WR5 for this team as constructed needed to be better than a former draft bust still available to be signed in late April.

When you have a roster full of WR3s, WR5 absolutely IS an important role because they're going to get opportunities. I made this point in the offseason too. If you have Chase and Higgins you barely need to worry about even your WR3. But the less talent you have at the top, the more important it is that the talent at the bottom can make plays. Moore ended up getting significant snaps at the X spot this year and was a total void in that spot when we really needed him to step up and make a few plays for us. I never expected Moore to be able to do that though and it's criminal that Beane did.

Imagine if next year we trade Keon Coleman for a fruit basket and the next team he goes to barely utilizes him at all. Halfway through the season their fans are asking "Why can't our OC use Keon Coleman? He racked up 556 yards in his rookie year and that was while missing 4 games." That's basically what we're doing with Elijah Moore.

Elijah Moore has a career passer rating of 65.7 when targeted. His last year in Cleveland was 44.5, with us it was 49.1. That is about as bad as it gets. As a point of reference Mack Hollins who is the definition of a JAG has a career passer rating of 95.6 when targeted. I'm surprised by how many Elijah Moore truthers still exist on this board. He simply isn't a good player. I don't know if people are still holding onto their draft opinion of him or what. He had a couple years where his draft status earned him forced targets that artificially raised his production. Over time players like that always see their production regress to what their skill set actually deserves. It's not so different from Keon Coleman in his first year and a half here, and we saw how quickly that fell off once it became apparent that he couldn't be trusted.

What is there to know? He was the 34th pick in the draft and cut by his original team after two seasons. The Browns have a bad WR group and they also let him go after two seasons. His career is just about done at this point. He'll bounce around training camps and maybe practice squads for another couple of seasons and then the calls will stop coming. He's a small WR with a low catch radius and never developed the nuance necessary for a physically limited player to be successful.

My thought is you don't rely on guys that are still available to be signed after the draft to play important roles for your team. Especially at premium positions. The narrative that he just needed good QB play to turn his career around was always ridiculous. The tape was out there and NFL pro personnel departments aren't stupid.

I think if one them gets fired both of them do and vice versa. They're a package deal IMO. I tend to lean in your direction though that they're both here to stay but there will be some splash moves made to create some excitement. This is ultimately an entertainment business after all and for all of Pegula's public facing family friendly One Buffalo persona, he is still a ruthless oil tycoon billionaire at heart, the kind that once told his employees flat out that sustaining his billionaire lifestyle is a key aim of their job. I too see something like Mike McDaniel or maybe Kevin Stefanski and some new DC. I don't think McDermott will like having a former head coach breathing down his neck but I expect it to be forced on him. Not sure if someone with a history of established success like Jim Schwartz will want to work under McDermott to be honest, but I'll be surprised if Babich is back. On Beane's front I expect him to go all in on finding a true WR1 through the trade market or FA. In retrospect the WGR rant was good for the long term interests of the team. It increased the pressure on the awful job he's done with that room and now he has no choice if he wants to save his job. Open the new stadium not by making sweeping top to bottom changes which create natural uncertainty for the conservative billionaire owner, but by appeasing the fans by giving them exactly what they want and creating a fresh albeit hollow excitement in WNY. McDermott will get in front of the media and talk about how excited he is to have an experienced head coach to lead with him, even while the sweat pools at the base of his neck. Beane will call into Jeremy White and crack jokes about his last appearance and talk about how he's never afraid to admit his mistakes. That's the direction I expect the billionaire and his team of marketing consultants to go.

That depends. What can the coupon be exchanged for?

Wow. He's only 303 mesh routes away from 10,000.

It would be the ultimate troll job to have 8 WRs on the active roster. Everybody eats!

Well, it's something. In his prime he was a very good vertical WR which is a need for us but I have no clue if he has anything left in the tank.

Same as it ever was. Critical coaching failures on both sides of the ball lead to a close loss. Yeah the players are going to make mistakes, they have the tougher job by far. The coaches can't be the reason you lose when the margins get thin. Because to win a Super Bowl you need to win four consecutive games where the margins are thin. I have zero confidence our coaching staff on either side of the ball can perform at the necessary level with the necessary consistency in those games to go all the way.

I made the same mistake once.

An average Allen game from this year and KC blows out Indy in that game. No kidding. Mahomes was awful for most of that game. Mistake after mistake after mistake and his team kept them afloat until he could find his groove. Here on the other hand you have fans pointing to a freeze frame where Shakir is maybe open for a 2 yard gain on 2nd and 10 and saying we can't possibly win with Allen missing that throw. The performance standard is on a different planet.

I'd be interested to see what he looks like with different defensive coaching. To me it looks like he isn't allowed to really go for sacks the way Bosa is for example. He's a full time contain player which makes it very hard to rack up numbers. He deserves better chances to utilize his skill set IMO. So what if the QB escapes left a couple times a game. This defense badly needs more negative plays and Rousseau can't create them when his job is to be a stump on every down.

I don't think the roster is that far off. We need a WR1 first and foremost, followed by a WR2. Depending on who our coach is we might be okay with Palmer as our WR2 along with a draft pick. We need to replace Bosa and DQ, and even with that I might be okay just bringing Bosa back which replaces his $12M void year cap hit. Torrence's replacement might already exist on the roster in Anderson or Grable. McGovern I would extend if possible, I don't think he'll be too expensive after somewhat of an average year. Other needs on the roster are just cosmetic fixes, we're not overhauling any other position groups besides WR. Just need the right coaching staff to put it all together and we're in business.

Oh god I'm turning into Mike Tomlin. Give me a one week suspension please I need a break from this team.

If not the expectation it was the standard. It was known coming into the season that we had an easier than usual schedule and a weak conference to compete against. Imagine if before the season you knew we would beat Baltimore, KC would start below .500, and Burrow and Lamar would each suffer multi-game injuries. You really wouldn't believe that the #1 seed was very attainable? I personally hated the entire direction of the offseason but the standard was the standard. If this regime can't turn such favorable circumstances into a #1 seed, they never will. It's absolutely crazy that the conversation has gone from #1 seed, to competing for the division, to grinding it out for a wildcard spot. Even the most pessimistic fans on here didn't anticipate such a stark fall off.

Yeah I've just about gotten there myself. I mean I'm still hoping they win every game, you'll never catch me rooting against the Bills. But if we lose enough games to miss the playoffs it's not gonna bother me as long as it forces the necessary changes. Mentally I have already written off this year.

It's a reasonable thought, however even though I like Addison I think he's capped out as a WR2. I'm looking for a true WR1. Of course I recognize that's easier said than done. With Miami probably making sweeping changes I'd circle back on Waddle and see if that's a viable option. Maybe check on Olave again if he and New Orleans can't come together on a deal. Or how about the wildest dreams ideas of AJ Brown or Justin Jefferson? Brown and Philly look headed for an inevitable separation. Minnesota might realize Jefferson is no help to them until they get a legit QB which a blockbuster deal could help them acquire. Some other name will be available that no one is talking about. Nobody thought Davante Adams or DK Metcalf would become trade candidates last year. There will be options.

My perception is that a lot of Bills fans just don't watch too much of other teams. That's where you get people saying things like Shakir is a top tier slot WR, or Allen missing a couple reads over the course of a game means he is responsible for the loss. They don't realize how much higher the margin of error is for other offenses because they are stacked with talent and/or offensive coaching. Beane of course should know better. It's shocking that a multimillionaire paid to build an NFL franchise could mismanage such an important position this badly.

Yup I was arguing with people on here that having two legit WRs is a key component to being a Super Bowl team. Eventually we regressed as a fanbase and I was trying to convince people that having ONE was important. I don't really understand what happened there but at least we've woken up from that collective fever dream.