SoTier

It's time for Allen to start demonstrating that he's a franchise QB. He does that by making good decisions ... by making the correct reads quickly as well as finding open receivers ... by not making stupid plays ... by connecting on a downfield play or two.

If you recover a fumble behind the LOS -- which is the usual case with fumbles by QBs trying to pass -- it most certainly has an impact, sir. It's a negative play that makes it harder for the team to keep the chains moving.

Agreed. I will add that even when QB fumbles aren't lost, they mostly result in lost yardage. Add to that sacks and then the too frequent penalties on the offense, especially the presnap ones and holding calls, and the offense has a lot of plays where they're behind the yard markers. That's hard for any team to overcome, but for a team that has no game breakers to make chunk plays, it's a prescription for offensive failure.

Since the Bills had the same problems stopping the run last season that the Eagles exposed last Sunday, I'm not optimistic about them suddenly fixing that problem. In the next 4 games, if Mayfield and the rest of that crew can get their collective act together, they could easily beat the Bills. They have a game-breaking RB in Chubb, they have the passing offense to score TDs from anywhere, and their defense is good enough to hold the Bills anemic offense to 1 TD and 2 or 3 FGs, so they would be my "most likely" candidate. I think that Miami is the only other team in the next four that might challenge the Bills. A divisional game in the rival's home stadium is always dangerous, and past crappy Carp teams have taken down bigger fish than the Bills late in the season. As for the rest of the season, I just don't see the Bills beating the Cowboys, Ravens, Steelers or Pats. All of those teams have stout defenses, and the first three have good/great running games as well. NE has Belichick and Brady, so 'nuff said about them in Foxborough. If the Bills don't win the next four games, they'll likely end up 9-7 or worse.

There is no "bizarre reason" for believing that Russ Brandon linked Ralph Wilson and Terry Pegula except that Russ Brandon ran the Bills from 2006 until 2013 when they were sold to Pegula, and Pegula not only retained Brandon but then promoted him to run the Sabres. Brandon was only fired in 2018 because he sexually harassed the wrong Sabres employee, not because Pegula became disillusioned with his performance. Beane was Brandon's top assistant, hired on his watch. What is "bizarre" is expecting Beane to NOT share Brandon's philosophy toward running the Bills. McDermott and Beane are setting up the

Totally agree.

He drafted him and then let him sink without a bonafide QB coach and non-NFL caliber OL and receivers. What's the point of drafting a QB if you're going to do that??? It's either because you're too stupid to know better or you don't care because you drafted a first round QB to placate fans not to win football games. The handling of the QB situation last season was totally and inexcusably incompetent -- or grossly self-serving. Three of the young backup QBs who have taken over for starters this season -- Gardner Minshew, Kyle Allen, and Mason Rudolph -- are playing better than Allen right now. Do they have more talent? No, but they've sure had better coaching than Josh Allen has had. PS -- DON'T even try to whine about how they salary cap hampered them in getting talent last season. First of all, the salary cap problems were of their -- McDermott and Beane's -- own making in their single-minded purging of the top players from the previous regime. Secondly, coaches aren't subject to a salary cap. I don't think so. If Allen doesn't improve, they'll make more excuses for him and claim he needs "more time" because he's "raw". If Allen is a bust, Beane and McDermott are probably gone sooner than later. I will believe that the Bills will keep Tre White when he actually re-signs a new contract with the Bills. The Bills have never re-signed a top DB that they've developed. They've only re-signed the mediocre ones like Leodis McKelvin.

I disagree. Rudolph started out the last game poorly which enabled the Phins to keep the game close but once he got himself turned around and started throwing well, he was throwing dimes. James Conner is a beast -- and unlike the Bills, the Steelers use their running game a lot to take the pressure off their newbie QB. The defense is solid this season, especially with the additions of Minkah Fitzpatrick and rookie Devin Bush.

Their "philosophy" is to maintain their job security, pacify the fans, and make as much profit as possible. By getting rid of all of the talented (and expensive) players from the previous regime with bogus claims that they "weren't good fits" or "didn't want to be here" or "were mistakes" and claiming to want to "build through the draft", they've given themselves years of cover for their lack of progress in replacing the talent they inherited. That -- and creating a huge amount of dead cap space in 2018 -- also gives them the excuse to not pursue first tier players who might be on the trade block or available as FAs. If the Bills under Pegula/Brandon/Beane/McDermott were truly interested in building a winning team, Stephon Gilmore, Robert Woods, Sammy Watkins, Cordy Glenn, Shady McCoy and several other lesser players wouldn't now be playing for other teams. If the Bills "brain trust" was truly interested in building a winning team, McDermott would have hired a bonafide QB coach from the start of his tenure not wait until his third year to replace his pal Culley who last coached QBs thirty plus years ago! This team isn't building anything "the right way". They're muddling through and hoping that somehow Josh Allen, despite his flaws as a passer and the serious lack of talent around him and the non-existent to mediocre coaching he's received, can somehow become a true franchise QB and give them cred as "geniuses" for recognizing him as a "diamond in the rough".

Yepper. Blame the lack of talent on the current roster on the previous regime after three years of McDermott and Beane shaping the roster to their own specs.

The bolded statement is simply untrue. Belichick has beaten the Bills by 20, 21, and 19 points in 5 games with McDermott as HC. If not for a garbage time TD in the 2nd 2018 loss, that would have been an 18 point drubbing instead of just a 12 point loss. - In 2017, the Bills lost to NE 3-23 and 16-37. - In 2018, the Bills lost to NE 6-25 and 12-24. - Their 2019 10-16 loss this season is the only close game.

Statistical analysis is statistical analysis whether it's applied to astronomy or to football. The specific algorithms and variables are different but the fundamental principles are the same.

Yes they did in 2010 in Pete Carroll's first season as HC. They were the division champs. Tim Tebow led the 8-8 Broncos to the 2011 AFCW title and actually won their WC game on an 80 TD pass to Demaryus Thomas in OT. They got their clocks cleaned the next week by NE, 45-10.

^^^ ^^^ You guys are missing the point here. Gilmore left because the Bills wouldn't pay him and has had remarkable success, but that's not really on the Bills. The Bills FO/HCs don't make mistakes like letting great players go; their hands are forced because they couldn't "afford" to pay top notch players or those players "really didn't want to be here" or "weren't all that good here". Exhibit A: Exhibit B: These same lies were spread about two other future All Pros that were sent packing while Russ Brandon was in charge: LT Jason Peters and RB Marshawn Lynch. Absolutely true!!! It's the worse decision Pegula made. What good did it do to get rid of the supposed "dead wood" from the Wilson era when they left the head honcho, Russ Brandon, stay on. If you truly want to change a corporate culture, you have to start at the top, not at the bottom, of an organization.

I don't think it's about the Bills failing to be "proactive". I think that it was a corporate policy under Wilson's ownership and even into Pegula's tenure when Russ Brandon was running the ball. From the late 1990s through 2017, the Bills frequently drafted DBs in the first or second rounds, traded/let the best ones walk in FA, and replaced them with more first or second rounders. They also drafted and then disposed of RBs similarly (Travis Henry (2002), Willis McGahee (2003), Marshawn Lynch (2007), and CJ Spiller (2010)).

There have been 11 win teams that have missed the playoffs. In 2008, the 11-5 Pats lost the division to Miami and the final WC to the Ravens on tie-breakers.

That "possible connection" is the HC sharing the same fundamental football philosophy as in 2008 with a defensive minded HC who values JAGs who totally buy into his system over more talented players who may not. That describes both Jauron and McDermott. Jauron considered offense a necessary evil, but McDermott isn't as radical. Unfortunately, the league emphasizes offense much more now that it did a decade ago, so the Bills offense remains very poor compared to the rest of the league. Because both teams had easy early schedules, they appeared to be much better teams than they actually were/are. I think that the 2019 Bills are at least significantly better on defense than the 2008 squad, and McDermott is a better coach than Jauron. The 2008 Bills started 5-2 and went 2-7 the rest of the way. The 2019 Bills should be better than that, but I think that they have to improve significantly on offense to get to 10 wins. They could easily lose all of the late season gauntlet of Dallas, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and NE.

Fans are divided on what needs to be done about the offense, but they recognize that the offense needs some kind of change because it's ineffective at best and sometimes worse. Do the Bills FO/CS even acknowledge that? I'm not sure that they do. Many fans are calling for more running plays because it's widely accepted that a strong running game is a big help to any QB but especially a young one. It takes a lot of pressure off him. It also expands the play book to include play action passing which is very effective in slowing down the pass rush. Gore hasn't had that many carries before or since. Most good RBs tend to run better as they get more carries because they get into a rhythm -- as does their OL. A team can't have a good running game if their RBs frequently rush the ball 20 or fewer times a game and/or fail to rack up considerably more than 100+ yards with regularity. Part of it is on the OL but part of it is simply not running enough. Even without Allen's yards, the RBs' average per carry is decent. That says that the coaches aren't calling enough run plays rather than the RBs aren't moving the ball.

LOL. See above. I'll stand by what I wrote. The Bills didn't even run for 100 yards (actually 98) total against the Eagles. They piled up all of 102 rushing yards against the Titans (a good defensive team). If not for Allen's rushing production, the Bills wouldn't be ranked anywhere near the top ten in rushing.

No, the Bills ran for 135 yards and 1 TD in 22 attempts against the Pats, 26 of those yards and the TD coming from 5 Allen runs. That means that the RBs -- ie, Frank Gore -- ran for 109 yards in 17 attempts. Even a blind squirrel can find a nut now and again. Gore hasn't come close to that production before or since the Pats game.

Whoopty-doo. The Bills run game is good against bottom feeders, but it's not all that good against respectable, middle of the pack teams like the Eagles, and lousy against serious defenses. The Bills didn't lose by a FG to a great team. They got drubbed and exposed by a decent Eagles team, not a Super Bowl contending Eagles team, losing by 18 points.

I whole heartedly agree it's a matter of philosophy. They are trying to turn a gunslinger QB prospect into a game manager because they play not to lose on offense. It's depressingly reminiscent of the Jauron era where the Bills took another first round gunslinger propspect with ball security issues, JP Losman, and tried to turn him into a game manager.

The lack of 300 games isn't on Allen as much as it's on the coaching staff and the front office. Except for Allen, most of the resources have gone to the defense, and the crows are coming home to roost. If you want a good offense, you have to have good/great skill players to execute it. You have to have imaginative play design. You have to have a philosophy that expects a TD on every drive. Most of the players around Allen aren't good enough. The offensive coaching isn't good enough. The philosophy of playing offense not to lose isn't good enough. How much better would Allen be if he could depend upon Robert Woods, Marquise Goodwin, and Sammy Watkins to get open and catch anything he threw in their vicinity? TBH, the Bills offense looks much like it has in the past under previous regimes -- just not good enough.

McDermott being a defensive coach is not an excuse for the team's poor offensive performance three years into his coaching tenure. A head coach is responsible for all three phases of the game: defense, offense, and special teams. Sean McVay and Matt LaFleur, both young offensive coaches, recognized that their defensive limitations upon being hired. McVay went out and hired the venerable defensive genius Wade Phillips and LaFleur retained Mike Pettine from Mike McCarthy's staff. The Rams D has been great, and with the addition of some serious defensive talent, the Packers D under Pettine looks ready to take on anybody. McDermott's on his second generation of coaches at most of the offensive and ST coaching positions, and the improvement in performance has been modest at best. While McDermott's choices for offensive coordinators and position coaches have been poor to mediocre, his failure to bring in an experienced QB coach for Josh Allen last season is probably his most egregious mishandling of the offense to date. Now, to be fair, if McDermott actually wanted to bring in a QB coach last season and that was nixed by Beane or someone higher up the corporate food chain at OBD, then it's not on McDermott. It's entirely possible that part of McDermott's problems with hiring offensive coaches is simply money: that the amount of money that the Bills have budgeted for coaches is simply too small to enable the HC to bring in top assistants. In previous regimes, especially when Russ Brandon ruled the roost, the Bills were notoriously cheap when it came to paying coaches. Under Brandon, the Bills HCs were Jauron, Gailey, and Marrone, none of them top rate, and their assistants were nothing special. I do believe that Perry Fewell was the only one who went on to bigger and better, winning a SB with the Giants as their DC. Pegula obviously changed that with the hiring of Ryan and his entourage, but Ryan's failure opened the door for Brandon to assert his "money ball" tactics. Since Beane was hired on Brandon's watch, he could very well be of the same mind as his former boss. I don't know because I'm not privy to anything that goes on at OBD, but usually execs hire top assistants who share their business philosophies. Unfortunately, whether it's his inability/disinterest in the offense or front office policies that limit his options, the poor offensive performances are going to land on McDermott sooner or later. It's plausible that the Bills go 4-5 down the stretch, wind up 9-7, and miss the playoffs since they have to play Dallas, Baltimore, and New England plus they face two teams with strong running attacks, Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

Other teams didn't trade up to take Zay Jones though. Passing on a prospect is one thing. Trading up to take a lesser prospect at the same position is another but continue to make excuses.