SoTier

The team with the most talent frequently doesn't win the Super Bowl -- or even get to the Super Bowl. Injuries derailed the Lions last season in the divisional round in the NFC. Turnovers in the divisional round and a dropped 2 point conversion by an All Pro TE put the Ravens on the sidelines for the AFC Championship.

It seems to be found in significantly higher frequency among NFL WRs than in the general population of NFL football players. 😁

NOTHING about winning a Super Bowl is ever guaranteed (ie, 100%), and almost every SB win has some element of "catching lightning in a bottle". The undefeated Patriots rolled into Super Bowl XLII against the Giants and were leading 14-10 with less than 2 minutes to play. David Tyree, a career JAG, caught an Eli Manning pass off his helmet to set up the winning score, AND the old Dolphin vets were able to pop the cork on their champagne. The Atlanta Falcons were up 28-3 in the middle of the third quarter of Super Bowl LI and lost the game 34-28 as the Pats got their act together and made a furious comeback to get the game to OT.

The Bills didn't lack the "offensive firepower to overwhelm the Chiefs". They lacked the defensive talent to stop the Chiefs. The Chiefs scored more points in the 2024 AFC Championship than they scored in any other game in 2024 because the Bills defense wasn't good enough to stop a team that averaged 22.6 points per game from scoring 29 points. As for creating "a Josh-centered team", what could be more "Josh-centered" than providing him with a strong offensive line plus an excellent running game. He's not running for his life and he can play "hero ball" strategically rather than out of necessity?

I have a Ryobi 20 inch battery operated mower that I bought last year to replace my 10/15 year old behemoth self propelled gas mower. Love the new little mower. I have a large lot but I use a rider on most of it. The walk behind mower is to do the front tree lawn (grassy area between the street and sidewalk), the grassy paths through the front and side yard flower beds, and to do clean up around the raised beds in the veggie garden. I can do it all on a single charge.

It was a move worthy of the Bills ex-GM/evil genius Russ Brandon, made to put butts in the seats and the suites with little regard of its impact on the team on the field. Hunter is a great talent, but the draft capital the Jags gave up to get him should only be spent on a franchise QB prospect, not a WR or a WR/part-time CB prospect.

I think it's part of their psyches. It's why some very fast young football players become WRs while other just as fast young football players become DBs. And it seems like the more talented a WR is, the more likely he is to have be a self-absorbed, spoiled diva.

This thread is supposed to be about how bad the Bills WRs are as a group. The last time I looked, Bowers isn't a WR, so he doesn't count. I want to see Mahomes/Lamar/Burrow and any other QB the Bills play on their way to a Lombardi sacked, hurried, and running for his life because his receivers struggle to beat our secondary, enabling our pass rushers to get home. If the Bills defense had held the Chiefs to their average points per game in the 2024 AFCCG (22.6), there would have been no need for any final drive heroics by the Bills offense. The pass rushers couldn't get to Mahomes because his receivers were beating our DBs almost from the get-go.

The allegations stem from incidents that occurred when Tucker was a young player, 10 plus years ago IIRC, years before Deshaun Watson entered the NFL.

I don't disagree that the Bills should draft WRs going forward, but I don't think that they should necessarily a) invest in superstar WRs via FA or trade b) prioritize WRs in the draft to the point that they use too many resources to move up (as I think the Jags did in trading to draft Hunter in this past draft) or pass on a much more likely to succeed prospect also at a position of need. The 2025 draft was not one for the Bills to grab another WR after they took one last season in the 2nd round, especially given that the Bills need to improve their defense coincided with a great draft for defensive players.

I think that you see the relationship between Beane and McDermott as much more adversarial than it probably is. Beane and McDermott are friends and their friendship goes back to their early days together at Carolina. I also think their philosophies on team building are very similar, too. I think that the use of "McBeane" by some posters isn't far off the mark in describing how the Bills select talent. They collaborate not compete.

Every QB, whether he's a unicorn or not, requires protection and targets. However, that protection and those targets don't necessarily have to be just OL and just WRs. Bills TEs and RBs block well, and both were integral parts of Brady's offense last season, and a big reason that the Bills were successful on offense in 2024. Cook breaking a long run is the equivalent of a WR catching a long pass. The same with Kincaid or Knox making crucial catches ... and frequently WRs, especially the all-world types that some are pining for ... are notoriously poor blockers. It's obvious that you are going to die on this hill of "we're doomed to lose in the playoffs because we don't have great WRs". That's your choice. I happen to believe that "defense wins championships" is a much higher hill, and it's always better to have the higher ground.

This is what I thought, too. It's way things usually go. Some of the views of the best and worst FA signings were interesting.

Your premise that poor WR play led to the Ravens and Texans losses is simply incorrect. In the Ravens game, while the offense was ineffective, the defense was also guilty of playing crappy. Henry ran 88 yards on the Ravens' first play from scrimmage for a TD, and that essentially set the tone for the rest of the game. Both sides of the ball sucked. In the Houston game, the Bills defense gave up 26 yards and a TD on 2 rushes by Cam Akers and then a 67 yard TD pass to Nico Collins in the first quarter. After that the Bills defense tightened up and gave up only 3 FGs of 47, 50, and 59 yards the rest of the way with the 59 yarder being the game winner with 2 seconds left. The defense was missing Rapp (replaced by rookie Cole Bishop) and Shakir was out on the offense. Allen had one of his worse days as a pro (9/30/131,1,0), but he didn't just miss WRs, and he did hit Coleman for a 49-yard TD pass. The Houston game could hardly be called an indictment of the Bills WRs since their most productive WR was out and their rookie caught a bomb for a TD.

A "big competition" can take place even if the competitors aren't very good.