Shaw66

I came , to this thread prepared to argue that 2019 was the best and I think I still will, but the OP makes some solid points. In particular, 2004 had an impressive roster, even if some past their prime (like Spikes and Bledsoe). I don't remember plays and games like some of you do, but I can remember how I felt about that team. I felt they were overachievers. I didn't believe they were a good team that deserved to be in the playoffs; I thought they were a flawed team that went on a run and was in position to make the playoffs. I thought 2019 was a good team that wasn't yet complete but nevertheless deserved to be in the playoffs. It isn't the entire explanation, but my feeling in 2004 was that the Bills had a loser at quarterback who sometimes won, and I'm my feeling in 2019 was that they had a winner at quarterback who sometime lost. And I think part of the explanation was coaching. In 2004, Mularkey was a rookie coach, and he didn't get his team to win the game it needed to make the playoffs. He never got to the playoffs in five seasons as a head coach. In 2017, McDermott was a rookie coach, and he did get his team to the playoffs, and he's been to the playoffs in two of his first three seasons. I think 2019 was the best of the era.

Thurm, this is excellent. There's so much hate for the Pats and Belichick around here, and few people give him the credit he deserves. You're absolutely correct that he wouldn't have rehired Lombardi is Lombardi wasn't really good at what Belichick needed him to do. And you're absolutely correct about what he says about his upcoming opponents. It isn't just that he knows that if he starts believing his team is better than the opponent, he'll fall into the trap of preparing less well (although I'm sure he understands that). He has respect for his opponents because he knows that they deserve it. I realized a few years ago that Belichick lives at the very core of football. He spends his time thinking about how 11 men, working together, can push 11 other men across the goal line they are defending, and how his 11 men, working together, can stop the other 11 from doing the same. He is constantly aware of the one-on-one battles and how they can be combined to push the ball the right way. When you view the game from that perspective, it becomes easy to have genuine respect for your opponent. Your opponent is putting 11 of the biggest, best trained, most athletic men in the world on the field. These guys are beasts with Ph.Ds in football, all across the league. If you don't respect all that they can do, they will beat you. Belichick knows that, he lives in it, and that's why in his Wednesday press conferences he always shows respect for his opponent.

I agree. A QB who is regularly in the top 12 is a legitimate starter. May fall out once in a while, but generally in to the top 12 and occasionally in the top 5, that's a legit starter. Might never win a Super Bowl. If Allen is one of those and Mahomes goes to the Hall of Fame, yeah, some people might remember that, but if Allen's been a legit starter, nobody will bet all that excited about it. I'm sure there are some Falcons fans who cherry pick drafts and talk about what the Falcons might have done if they hadn't taken Ryan. Stafford in Detroit. If Allen turns out like that, I'm happy. I'm expecting more, both because I want more and because I think actually is a HOF candidate, but legit starter I'm not going to be complaining about. Whoops. Actually I meant Mahomes and Jackson, but Watson is the third to go on the list. If any of those guys can have ten years like they've started, those are HOF players. All of them make it Allen turns into an average, then the Bills did some bad QB drafting. But pull those guys down a rung and move Allen up a little. Say one makes the HOF and the others are solid guys, I'm not whining that the Bills missed the HOF guy.

I think you are prejudging the situation you create. You seem to be giving Mahomes and Allen HOF status right now, and they both are very far from the HOF right now. Let's see how they progress. All three may have very nice careers, similar stats, win a Super Bowl or even two. If that happens, people might complain that the Bills took the wrong guy, but no one will be listening.

Let's Wait and See really means "I'm not willing to offer an opinion." It's a yes or no question. Do you think he'll make it as legitimate starter in the NFL? Yes or No.

Well, I don't know about all of that, but if Lombardi was responsible for choosing Jamarcus Russell, I'm less inclined to put much stock in his experience.

I've never paid attention to who Lombardi is, but apparently he's worked in player development and player assessment in the NFL for a long time. That doesn't necessarily make him right, but for me it at least makes me stop and listen. If he learned anything in those 30 years, he probably sees and understands plenty of things that I don't. So, maybe he's seen enough in 30 years to know that Allen just isn't going to make it, that Allen's just an athlete playing quarterback and he'll never throw well enough to be a real success in the league. That's certainly possible. That's not what I see. I see a guy who's learning to make decisions in a complicated offense in a complicated league. I don't think any quarterback can count on earning a living in the NFL by being a great runner, and that's part of the reason that I'm not on the Lamar Jackson bandwagon. I think if you're going to have a solid, 15-year career in the NFL, you have to do it by being a good quarterback - being smart, efficient, a good decision maker and a good thrower. I think Jackson is no better thrower than Allen - actually, I think he's worse, so I think his long-term prospects are no better than Allen's. I'm not saying Jackson will be a long-term failure, but I don't see any reason why his chances of being a long-term success are better than Allen's. I think Lombardi is seeing Allen wrong. The image of an athlete playing quarterback is a guy who's not a naturally great thrower, he's just an all-round athlete type of guy who has an ordinary throwing motion. There's nothing ordinary about how Allen throws the ball. And I will continue to say that the "accuracy" argument is overblown. Guys with big arms who have failed in the NFL in the past have failed because they didn't master the mental aspects of the game, not because they had accuracy problems. I think Allen has the same problem Darnold has, the same problem Jackson has, the same problem Mayfield and Murray have: they have to master the mental aspects of the game. Mental mastery is the one thing all the great quarterbacks have in common, not arm strength even accuracy. Heck, look at Kelly, who isn't in the discussion of all time greats but who was definitely a franchise quarterback. He didn't make it with accuracy or arm-strength. He was the classic good athlete playing quarterback. He made it because of how he developed mentally, how he was able to control a game.

Just because it's fun to talk about, I'll keep going. I'll admit, I don't know much of anything about how professional bettors operate, but in my limited experience, professional bettors ber like professional investors invest - they make a portfolio of investments and count on their ability to get a higher than average return on the collection. Win some and lose, but if you can win marginally more than you lose, you'll do okay. The odds, however, change the equation. The odds are established to make the house a profit on the house's portfolio, so the only way you can win is to be smarter about the odds than the house. You can't bet the favorite every time and beat the house - the net return on betting the favorite every time will be negative, just like the net return on betting longshots every time also will be negative. That suggests to me that the smart bettor is looking for the bet where the actual chances of a win is better than the house's odds suggest. Actually, the Bills offer a good example of that. The betting market is a national market, and the perception of the national market (until 2020) was that the Bills were horrible. The national press didn't talk about the Bills, and most fans thought the Bills sucked. That meant the betting market was disinclined to bet on the Bills. That meant for the most of the past two decades the bookies offered longer odds, better odds, on the Bills to try to get some of the market to move toward betting on the Bills. There was a period for several years, particularly with Jauron at the helm, when the Bills were a smart bet, because they regularly got more points than they should have. You didn't win every time taking the Bills and the points, but over the season you usually won more than you lost. Running into last season, there was a thread here that went on for some time about people who betting the over-under on the Bills' win-loss record. I think the bet was 6.5 games. Who knows whether it was true, but people here reported making big bets on the over. It seemed pretty obvious. The Bill had won 6 the season before, people who followed the Bills knew Allen was better than the national press was reporting, they'd added Brown and Beasley, they'retooled the offensive line, and they had Gore and McCoy. If just some of the good things that could flow from all of those changes actually happened, the Bills should be better than 6 wins. In fact, three of four of those things happened (Allen WAS better, Brown and Beasley WERE who we thought they were, and the o-line DID improve), and they caught a break at running back, too. The over looked like a smart bet, and it was. As I understood it, you can bet just not the straight over-under, you can bet the over or the under at any number of wins, with different returns. People were betting the over, as they should have, at 7 and 8 games, because it was pretty clear what was happening in Buffalo. You make money betting by having a portfolio of bets where you think the potential return is better than how the market values the bet. Investors do the same thing. They could buy conservative, blue chip stocks and nothing else, but they know that their return is enhanced by making smart bets on some mid- and small-cap stocks. Those bets are higher risk, but they're also higher return. If you're smarter than the market about buying them, you can make money.

Sorry. I didn't see your post that references smart bettors. But you're wrong. Smart bettors bet when the odds being offered are much better than what the smart bettor knows what the odds should be. So, for example, a smart better will bet what he knows to be a 20 to 1 longshot if the bookie is offering 50 to 1. 20 of those at a dollar each costs 20 dollars and returns 50. That's a good investment.

Fair enough. I like your argument. But you have the Eagles, Broncos, Panthers, Falcons and Ravens who either got to the Super Bowl or won it in recent years without having been deep playoff regulars. So while I'd agree with that getting to the game and winning it usually is done by a team with a lot of playoff experience, there are enough exceptions that I still would be comfortable calling the Bills a Super Bowl contender. Now, that may be true, but the folks in this conversation aren't pros. Long shots are designed for people like us.

Bills are currently 28 to 1 to win the Super Bowl, 13 to 1 to get there. I'd say 20 to 1 and 12 to 1. So from my point of view, the bet to win the Super Bowl is pretty good, the bet to get there is just okay. Currently, the odds favor the Steelers, the Patriots and the Colts over the Bills to win the Super Bowl. I don't see that.

I agree with this take, except that the collective point of view of the country may change before we have a vaccine. I think we're going to see a lot more people with the disease having minor symptoms, and we're going to see death rates decline.

You see, this is classic rear-view-mirror analysis: "Until they've done it, I won't believe they can do it." You wouldn't look at a young woman and say "until she has a child, I won't believe she's a contender to be a mother." A contender is not someone who has done it before. A contender is someone who has the ingredients, the potential, to do it. So, I can have a conversation with people who tell me that the Bills are not a Super Bowl contender because they don't believe Allen will mature into a top-10 quarterback. I don't share their lack of belief in Allen, but if they are correct about Allen then, yes, I can agree with them that the Bills aren't a Super Bowl contender. Before the Catch, before Bill Walsh and Joe Montana, you probably were saying the 49ers weren't a Super Bowl contender. If you have the right coach and the right quarterback, you're a contender. I believe the Bills have both.

I agree with you. "Super Bowl contender" is an interesting phrase. As I noted above, I think you're a Super Bowl contender every season you have a winner for a head coach and a winner for a quarterback. Fans of Wilson, Brees, Roethlisberger, Brady and Rogers can justifiably believe their team can contend for the Super Bowl - it's just a question of how the pieces pull together that season. Now, it's true that McDermott and Allen haven't shown yet that they deserve to be considered a Super Bowl contender year after year, and that will be true until they at least make a deep run into the playoffs. But it isn't very difficult to see how the Bills could be a contender in the upcoming season: Allen has a breakout season, with perhaps two 1000-yard receivers. Moss works out at running back, so there's a good running back tandem. The defense is at least as good as last season - with the moves they've made, it could be better than last season, but even last season was good enough to get them to the playoffs. With a good offense and the same defense, it's a tough team to beat. With a good offense and a top 3 defense, they could win the Super Bowl. There are a lot of things that might happen to keep that from happening, but right now, if you're going to pick, say, ten teams that have the best shot at winning the Super Bowl, the Bills are probably one of them.

I really think the "window" is nonsense. The Bills are trying to be what the Colts were, what the Patriots have been, what the Packers and the Saints are. When you have the right coach and the right quarterback, the "window" is ten years. It's not a window, it's a garage door. If you're a Saints fan, you know going into any season that Sean Payton and Drew Brees might pull things together to make a serious Super Bowl run. If you're a Patriots fan, you felt the same way with Belichick and Brady. Colts fans felt that way. Packer fans. Seahawks fans - every year is a year that Wilson and Carroll might make a run. That's what the Bills are trying to be. When people talk about the 49ers having a window, it's because they don't believe Garoppolo is a franchise QB. We're not looking at a window. We're looking at an era.

Other people have responded to this post. It's an interesting thought. It seems the typical trajectory for kickers is that they don't make it as the regular kicker as a rookie. There are a few every year, but often as not they get cut and replaced because they're too inconsistent and the team isn't winning. So they fall into the pool of free agent kickers hanging around, staying in shape and waiting to get called up to some team. Somehow they learn and mature in that experience, and eventually they get called up to a team and stick. I suspect that's the typical trajectory because coaches are very reluctant to go into the season with a kicker whose reliability is unknown. Plus, Hauschka is a good deal better than Norwood, unless Hauschka has lost the ability to kick the long FG, the ability Norwood never had. Plus, will Bass need a couple of years of seasoning before he can be the kicker Christie was? Christie wasn't a rookie when he came to Buffalo. Still, I'm on board with you. The prospect of a solid young kicker for the next several years, one who may grow into something better than Hauschka, is tantalizing. Maybe better length, maybe better kickoffs. There's a lot to like in Bass. It's just hard to know if he has what it takes, mentally, to succeed in the league. It's a risk to go forward with him, and McDermott will have to decide if he's willing to take it.

I looked it up. You're correct, Hauschka was on the roster for Beane's first season, but Beane didn't sign him. He signed in March, and Beane joined the team in May.

Last time the Bills drafted a kicker, it was Dustin Hopkins. As a rookie, he couldn't beat out the incumbent, was cut and went to Washington eventually. Hopkins had been hyped, too. This is a tough year to try to take Hauschka's job. Big gamble for McD to take him. McD doesn't want to be in the middle of the season and discover the kid can't hack it. On the other hand, McBeane like their guys, not inherited guys. Fun contest.

The fact that you cant get away from basketball means you don't really understand rational, statistical analysis. Scores are much more important in football, and that cuts both ways. Sure you'd love to score at the end if the half, but it can be a killer if you give up a score. The risk reward is much different in hoops. There's no risk in the two for one. The choice is either you get one chance to score and they get one, or you get two and they get one. There's no downside to that decision. Two is better than one. The risk of throwing the football in your end of the field with 40 seconds left is completely different. You dont seem to be able to see that. Whoops. Just saw someone else already explained this.

I'm one of those people that defends it, often but not always. Without actually knowing, I am absolutely sure that McDermott has very well defined rules that he follows in making that decision. He has, in effect, made the decision during the off-season. His decision is based on a lot of things, including data. The rules include: 1. Field position 2. Time remaining in the half 3. Score of the game 4. Whether he thinks big half-time adjustments are necessary 5. Historic probabilities of scoring 6. Historic probabilities of giving up a score I may disagree with the decision he makes, and you may disagree with the decision, but I guarantee you that he has a more rational basis for the decision than you or I. Guarantee it. , I believe, again without actually knowing, that unless he's way behind, his general philosophy is that there's a lot of football left to be played and 1:12 left on his own 35 is not the best opportunity he's going to get to score over the rest of the game. Now, you can argue with that if you want, but there's a lot of logic behind that thinking. Having said that, I think coaches that are aggressive at the end of the half are coaches who have good offenses. That's true for two reasons: (1) with a good offense, the odds go up that they will make something positive happen, and (2) with a good offense, if they make a mistake and give up points at the end of the half, they are better able to overcome the problem in the second half. I think we will see McDermott's aggressiveness increase as his offense improves. As they should. If the offense struggles in 2020, the most likely reason is Daboll or Allen. The fact that McDermott has the wrong OC or the wrong QB is not a reason, in and of itself, to do anything about McDermott. I mean, if Daboll isn't the guy, then McDermott has to figure that out and act on it, but if in 2020 the offense stumbles, I'm not replacing McDermott, whereas I could be replacing one of the other two.

I like this. I think if the Bills struggle offensively in 2020, it will be time to begin asking some serious questions about about one or more of three people: McDermott, Daboll, Allen. We'll know which ones of the three after this season.

This is wrong. Plain and simple. It's wrong that the HC is the power in the organization, but we'll leave that for another day. It's wrong to say that McDermott invested more in the defense than the offense over his first three seasons. I listed all of it. New quarterback, new running back, new offensive line, new receivers, new tight ends, new offensive coordinator. All the evidence demonstrates that McDermott invested appropriately in the offense.

I'll pile on. Okay, let's scrutinize it. Years 1-3 for Beane are 2018, 2019 and 2020. But let's forget that and suppose you mean 2017, 2018 and 2019, which is three years for McDermott but only two for Beane. In those years, the Bills drafted their starting quarterback for the future, drafted their starting running back, revamped the entire offensive line, acquired two starting wideouts (Benjamin and Matthews) who didn't work out and two who did (Brown and Beasley), drafted one tight end and signed a free agent tight end. They also made a change at offensive coordinator when the first choice didn't work out. It simply is incorrect to imply, as you clearly do, that the Bills did not focus on the offense. If you give Beane the benefit of his third year, the Bills also acquired a true #1 receiver and a potential starting-caliber running back, as well as additional offensive linemen.

I agree with this. McDermott studies everything, I clouding the strategies that will maximize winning in different circumstances. That study is what informs his decision making. When he has a lead in the third quarter and gets conservative it's because his study indicates being conservative is the right move. His team hasn't executed. I also agree that it's too conservative for my taste, but McD knows a lot more about it than I do.

One other point I want to make about this, and it explains why I think too much is being made of Allen's mechanics. How many of Allen's incomplete pass last season were caused by bad mechanics? I am certain no one here knows the answer to that question. Many of his incompletions were throwaways, some were drops, some were passes that were well defended. How many were caused by bad reads, by pressures, by deflections? Some were bad throws, but every bad throw is not evidence of bad mechanics. Bad throws are primarily evidence that the thrower isn't perfect. Pitchers don't throw strikes on every pitch. Allen had 190 incompletions last season. As I suggested in my first post, I'd be surprised if more than 30 of them (2 per game) were the result of bad mechanics. So even if his mechanics could be corrected so that he was perfect, he'd have two more completions per game, which would raise him only to about 12th or 15th in passer rating in the league. A nice improvement, but only borderline franchise QB territory. I would be really hard pressed to believe that he has 5 incompletions per game caused by bad mechanics - he just isn't making that many bad throws, game after game. More importantly, what was the league average for incompletions caused by bad mechanics? How far above or below the league average was Allen? If he was 15 worse than the league average, getting to average is going to be only a marginal improvement - maybe a completion a game. How many bad-mechanics related incompletions did Rodgers have? Brady? Brees? They aren't perfect, so some of their throws exhibit bad mechanics, too. Frankly, I think mechanics is a topic that's fun to talk about and a topic where detailed discussion, like the one from CoverOne, are available, so fans focus on it. I don't believe that mechanics has very much to do with Allen's mediocre (at best) quarterbacking over the past two seasons.