Shaw66

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.

AaaaThanks Logic. Maybe I can help refine the point a bit. Looking at the Dolphins throw, it's almost mystifying that he misses so badly. Mystifying because we've seen him make throws like that many times. That's not a hard throw. The fact that he makes that throw most of the time and misses it badly here is evidence of inconsistency. His mechanics were bad on that throw, but that doesn't mean that he is a mechanically bad throw. It just means his mechanics were bad on that throw. The problem on the Dolphins throw is that for one reason or another he didn't get himself ready. Now, he knows how to get himself ready, because we've seen him do it often. In other words, on that throw, his mechanics weren't good, because he did something else wrong. Decided too late, didn't move his feet like he usually does, something. That's not a flaw in his throwing motion, which is what I think about as mechanics. His throwing motion is fine; his consistency isn't. That problem is trying to get him do every time what he already does most of the time. That is not a problem that involves changing the angle at which he normally throws, or getting proper weight shift, or whatever. It's semantics, to some extent. Certainly developing the right habits is working on mechanics; it just isn't correcting flaws. As I said, go watch Aaron Rodgers highlights from college, and you'll wonder how he ever made in the pros. He couldn't make half the throws he needed to make in the pros; Allen was obviously a natural. A bad thrower needs to work on mechanics. Allen is a good thrower. He needs to work on whatever makes him inconsistent. That may or may not be mechanics.

Yeah, we disagree. I think Allen will always be working on his mechanics, just like more or less every QB in the league is working on his mechanics. I just don't think that mechanics are going to make him a great quarterback. I think the mental processing skills are what will make him great. That's an interesting quote about Rodgers. But I'd point out to you that although he says Rodgers' mechanics were bad, most of the quote is about Rodgers needing to learn leadership and team management. As for mechanics, take a look at video of Rodgers throwing in college, and look again at Allen. Allen was a much better college thrower than Rodgers. Rodgers looked like he's a demonstration video for how his peewee coach told him to throw. Very mechanical. Allen is a natural thrower. I agree mechanics are important, and they always need work. I just think 80% of Allen's improvement will come from improving mental processing, and 20% will come from mechanics. Fixing his mechanics is not going to make Allen a Hall of Fame quarterback. Fixing his mental processing and tinkering with his mechanics will.

LOL funny! That's great. That post was such a total head scratcher, I didn't know how to respond. Glad you found a way.

Wow. Another nice story.

Shaughnessy is Jerry Sullivan, but better at it. He keeps his job by writing what sells newspapers. Intellectual honesty is not part of the equation.

If by "between the ears" you mean attitude, I agree completely. Josh has the right attitude. If by "between the ears" you mean brains, I agree completely. Josh has the brains. But a junior high schooler with attitude and brains still isn't an astrophysicist. The brains and attitude have to be applied to fill his head with calculus and the theory of relativity and lot of other stuff before he becomes what attitude and brains can help him become. Josh is working on becoming an astrophysicist, and that growth is what is going to make him great, not getting his left elbow under control.

Yes there is a reason, and that reason is between their ears.

Gotta be Hughes. As a measure of pure talent, Shady for Alonso was a steal. Shady's a near-Hall-of-Famer and Alonso is just another backer. So in talent differential, Shady's deal wins. But in terms of value to the team, the Hughes deal gave up very little and fixed the DE spot for a lot of years. Heck, Jerry could have three more solid years in him. He isn't going to the Hall of Fame, but he is a fixture on the line and one of the keys to McDermott's defense. Gotta go with Jerry, even though I love Shady.

I hate to be the party pooper here, but I think this article is a lot of wind that doesn't add up to much at all. Bottom line, I think Josh Allen's future is all about his ability to read and understand defenses and make decisions. If his mechanics never improve at all, he's still going to be one of the best throwers in the league, and if his understanding and decision making improve, as they should, he will have a great career. First of all, this guy does not have a coherent theory of what Allen has to do to "correct" his mechanics. The article is all over the place. At one point it quotes one expert who says mechanics start with the feet and work through the thighs, hips and body to the arm. At another point he quotes an expert who says it's all about the head down. Well, which is it? At various points in the article it says his stance is too wide, his feet aren't lined up correctly, his footwork isn't right, his left arm isn't tucked. It goes on and on. Have you ever watched the guy throw? He's a great thrower. Great. Right now he throws better than most QBs in the league. The article makes it sound like every aspect of his throwing motion needs to be rebuilt. It's nonsense. Now, I understand that at this level, coaches work with QBs on little aspects of their mechanics. I get it. I have no doubt they work with Allen on one thing or another, but Josh Allen is not some kind of rebuilding project. Now's when someone chimes in and says, "well, if he fixed his footwork, he'd be more accurate, and if he's more accurate he'd get more yards after catch" or my personal favorite "he'd throw more receivers open." Please. Just give him time to develop into a better decision maker. Look at the stats. He had an 85 passer rating. If he completed two passes a game more for 6.7 yards per pass (that was his average last season, he'd have a 93 passer rating and he'd be 12th in league, with Matt Ryan, Carson Wentz and Aaron Rodgers and on the heels of DeShaun Watson. He can complete two more passes a game just by understanding that checking down is the right throw. He might complete two more passes a game just by having Stephon Diggs on the field. When he's really learned to read defenses and made decisions, he's going to complete five more passes a game, his passer rating will be 104 and he's solidly in the top 10 in the league. Sure, Palmer and others are working with him on mechanics, just as someone pointed out they still work with Rodgers. And they work with Brady. They always work on mechanics, with every quarterback. But that work doesn't make big changes in a QB. That work results in a better throw once in a while. Allen came into the league a better thrower than Rodgers or Brady. The mechanical improvements Allen will make pale in comparison to what football maturity is going to do for his game.