BullBuchanan

I'm talking 2009 when they bid farewell to most of their core that was part of the initial dynasty. Seymour, Vrabel, Bruschi, Harrison all departed in addition to losing Pioli and McDaniels. Despite still having a lot of talent on the team including Brady, Welker and Moss and despite still winning the division, they were a flawed team that wasn't a real super bowl contender. Now, we don't even have the benefit of having a Welker, Moss, Brady or Belichick and we were never champions to begin with, but it's still a comp for how elite teams need to take a step back sometimes even with an elite QB and other elite talent. There were plenty of years with the Ben-led Steelers or Rodgers led packers that they were pretenders due to roster gaps, even though they would put up a good showing in the regular season.

Agreed. Maybe they still will later on. If I were GM, I'd try to see if I could eat all the bad deals this year including Knox's contract and if Milano can come back to form, I'd look at trading him in season for draft capital to next year - even though he's my favorite player. I'd look to see how we could get younger and cheaper so that by 2026 we have a team that's really humming and has a shot at being the best in the league.

You've never seen a team with an elite quarterback lose a lot of players in an offseason and then perform poorly the following year or two while their replacements get acclimated? best case scenario we're looking at a Pats 2009 type scenario where we bounce back after a year off.

Again, I'm realistic. They are going into the draft with 5 massive holes, and I don't see a realistic scenario where they get more than 3 starting caliber players. There's no chance that they aren't starting someone who doesn't belong as a starter on even a terrible team, let alone one that says they hope to win. They'll never admit to it being a rebuild year, but it absolutely is.

Thank you for creating this thread.

I'm not pessimistic - I'm realistic. If we had Roquan Smith, TJ Watt, Minkah Fitzpatrick and AJ Brown, I'd have us penciled in as favorites. Unfortunately we don't have a receiver that's ever hit 1k yards, don't have a pass rushers that's ever hit double digit sacks (besides the empty husk of Von miller), and we easily have the worst safety duo in the league right now. History has been on my side every year for 3 straight. Let's re-check the tally at the end of this season and see how far blind optimism gets you.

We'll be fortunate to be in playoff contention as the roster currently stands, imo. We would need a series of miracles to get into the super bowl conversation that involves season ending injuries to Mahomes and Burrow, drafting OROY and DROYs like Houston did, staying healthy and having all of our top players play great, and then having probably 2 current players on the roster take monumental leaps up to all-pro status (Kincaid, Epenesa?) At the end of all that, would it be enough to top the best of the NFC? Doubt it.

The difference between the bills and chiefs has been small but significant the last few years. While Allen and Diggs were a top pairing in the league. Mahomes and Kelce are a top all-time pairing. Kelce should retire as the unanimous greatest TE of all time and Mahomes has a better than not shot of doing the same at QB. In addition, KC has a far more opportunistic defense. The combination of Jones, Snead, Karlaftis, and a strong linebacking group put them significantly ahead of the Bills there. We'll see how losing Snead impacts them. I expect it to be a significant adjustment for them, but they're such a well coached team, that I'll be surprised if they don't adjust by getting more production out of the next group of players or simply pivot back to more of a high flying offense if they can get the right playmakers. They do seem more vulnerable on paper than they have at any other point in Mahomes tenure though. Unfortunately, I think the Bills will also be fielding their weakest roster since at least 2016. Take Allen away, and I think it's for sure a bottom 5 squad as it stands right now.

A lot of college QBs made more than Brock Purdy this year.

I think it's pretty important that they get as many top 100 picks as possible. We aren't 1 player away, so if a trade down helps us turn some of our later picks into more top 100s and Beane can still get star players, I'm all for it. That said, our last build was too light on top end talent. When I look at KC, SF, PHI, BAL, CIN, and even DET they all have way more more top end talent than we did before our purge. As of right now, I feel like we only have 2 legitimate superstars on the team in Allen and Milano. I'd be shocked if we could make a real SB run without at least 4 more. Maybe Kincaid becomes one, Maybe Douglas becomes one.

I already answered it above. I honestly didn't think it needed explaining that he's yet to top his statistical performance of any stat since 2020. Unrelated to his PFR stats: Did it need explaining that he's never been in a championship game since? Did it need explaining that he's never gotten closer to beating KC in the playoffs? Did it needed reminding that in 2022 he mostly regressed after week 6? Did it need explaining that he's only drifted further from an MVP, OPOY, and All Pro? Are we really considering it a hot take that after his monumental breakout in 2020 that he's plateaued?

Again, because you don't want to talk facts, it comes back to attacks on my character and being some sort of double agent ignoring the fact I've had the same account on here and BBMB before it for over 20 years. I could only possibly be considered a "heel" in a place where groupthink is so out of control that supporting a (very common perspective outside these boards) that our team needs significant improvement, has gotten worse this offseason, and that our QB is not christ risen - is somehow a controversial statement. Do you guys seriously not engage with football news or commentary outside these boards? The fact that Allen has poor judgement is literally a meme. It's not some invention of mine designed to get a rise out of you. It's not enough for me to say he's one of the top QBs in football, he has to be #1, all the time, best there is best there was best the ever will be despite the facts or i'm some troll/hater/pats fan. for what it's worth, I've never even heard of you guys.

Lamar won an MVP and 1st team all pro and a playoff game since then. Mahomes has won an MVP and a 1st team all pro, gone to 5 straight AFC Championships, nabbed a 1st team all pro, 4 Super Bowls and nabbed 3 rings since then. Happy to help.

Would I be open to having the greatest coach of all time? Yes.

Why should I waste any more of my time? For years I've given you nothing but well researched and well thought out replies that result in little more than you throwing "nuh-uh" into ChatGPT and posting the responses. You come into threads with your mind firmly locked into place and no amount of reason or evidence could ever sway you to move from it and you certainly won't meet me anywhere near halfway when it comes to the effort you put into the conversation. There's no value in trying to debate a person like that. It's intellectual dishonesty.

Well, as long as they keep winning 10+ games a year when it doesn't matter, that isn't going to happen. McBeane is here for the forseeable future, and Josh will just keep getting older. When Josh retires in 5-10 years with zero rings (maybe even zero appearances), we can all bemoan how it was too bad he didn't have an elite defense that could stop Mahomes. JA is the one player on the whole team that could make the difference himself. If he doesn't want to, that's fine, but he's actively choosing not to.

Maybe that's part of the problem. I'd prefer "trust" not be a part of his decision making at all. If Shakir was so open that no one was 20 yards around his, it was still the wrong play assuming that there was an underneath target available that would have allowed us to run out the clock. This is the kind of stuff that greats like Brady understood, and Mahomes knows it too. If you score a touchdown to go up by 4 and then give Mahomes the ball with 2 minutes and 2 timeouts - then what we're looking at is a bunch of complaints that Allen left the field with the lead yet again and his defense couldn't get the job done. The same thing happens if Bass makes his kick. If I'm not mistaken, Mahomes still has the highest rate of game winning drives in that scenario in NFL history - surpassing Brady as of a couple years ago. I need my QB to know that. This isn't 1994. Going up with 2 minutes to go isn't good enough when you have a chance to never give your opponent the ball back. Yes, we've already beat this topic to death, but these errors in judgment aren't limited to one pass in a game where Allen was otherwise our best player. They happen consistently, and if they didn't Allen has at least one ring by now. We can bemoan the other reasons like lack of weapons, or defensive letdowns all we want, but this one thing is completely within his control and is fixable if he wants to do so. I just don't think he does - at least not if it cuts into his golfing time or chasing hollywood starlets.

Projection perhaps? I'm not sure why I'd watch well over 500 Bills games if I hated them so much. To want your team to improve is the ultimate sign of fandom. The Bills would have easily gone to OT if Allen was smart enough not to go for broke on a touchdown pass that even if he connected would have left KC with plenty of time to march down the field and win in regulation. Tactically, it was a terrible decision. The right play was the underneath throw to Diggs that would have picked up the first down and would have given us the chance to run out the clock with a walk off td. Why do we need to compare him to other players? What good does that do? I'm just judging him against himself. I want him to get smarter, develop better judgement, and develop better and more consistent touch on the ball so that in critical situations we have the best chance to win.

It's "cherry picked to say he had a worse TD-int ratio, less yards, less YPG, less passing TDs, More INTs worse passer rating, worse QBR in every season since 2020? I think they call that picking the whole tree my man. I'm not saying he's bad, by any stretch. He's still an elite top 2-4 QB. I'm just saying there's extremely little to show that he's actively getting better each year.

You can try to attack my character, but that just makes it clear you've run out of arguments. The difference between me and people like you is that I back up my arguments. Do you even watch the Bills? Josh peaked in 2020 if you've been watching the games, and the stats back it up.

Josh hasn't meaningfully improved in the last 4 years. You think he's all of a sudden going to start getting better now? This is just a load of nonsense. We're hating Diggs now because he doesn't engage with the media? lol. ok.

I LOVE that diggs got in Josh's face. Someone had to. He was the only guy on this team that wanted to win and seemed to actually put the work in. Josh is far more concerned with chasing Hollywood tail and golfing. I love how hard Josh plays, but he just doesn't put the mental work in and it's the reason he doesn't have a ring yet, and perhaps never will. They've never had less accountability or more excuses to fall short than they will in 2024, and that's what I fully expect to happen. "A lot of new faces" "It took us a while to gel" "We ran out of steam" "emotionally exhausted" etc. Is a loser culture in that locker room full of soft personalities and a weak coach. Diggs didn't fit that and that's not a him problem, it's a Bills problem. Looking forward to Dawkins showing up out of shape as per usual too.

Do you mean when he was in heavy contact? Yes, he should have caught the ball, but it's not like he was wide open.

based on credibility alone? Probably me since I don't have a financial interest in making headlines to stay relevant. Given that Diggs was wide open by about 10 yards and he has the highest career catch percentage of any buffalo bill with more than 500 receptions, yea, I think a target put anywhere near his vicinity would have been as close to a guaranteed win as a team gets in this league.

I explicitly called this out, so yea. I don't even agree that he fell off at all, he simply wasn't a big part of Brady's scheme for whatever reason. Players don't go from elite to washed mid-season without injury. People are blaming Diggs for a gameplan outside of his control. Of course, there's no excusing his drop in the KC game. That said, If Allen targets him instead of Shakir at the end of the game, we win.