SoTier

This bothers me, too. I also see how many teams regularly make chunk plays that enable them to cover 70 or 80 yards in 5 or 6 plays not 10 or 12 as well as how many teams can go entire games without a single pre-snap offensive penalty. The Bills just don't look like they can truly compete with the Cowboys, Ravens, or Steelers. They probably can compete with the Pats if they don't commit turn overs like they did in their first meeting, but that's because the Pats offense isn't that good this season -- and maybe their defense isn't as good as advertised, either. I think the Bills will likely make the playoffs baring a sudden surge from a team like Oakland, Tennessee, Carolina or Pittsburgh but If they have to play "the big boys" like KC, Indy or Houston in the WC, they look like they might be one and done. Again.

Given how many posters on TSW defend every questionable and even stupid move made by McDermott and Beane, and how ignorant so many posters are of what goes on in the NFL, someone posting that Oliver was playing well after he was benched is certainly plausible.

Daboll was McDermott's choice at OC. His first OC was lousy, too. In fact, he's on his second coach at most of the offensive and special teams positions in three seasons. If he can't hire decent assistants, he's not a very good HC.

Seriously? You are aware that Oliver was benched in the Washington game, right? DK Metcalf OTOH has caught 29 passes for 525 yards (18.1 y/r) and 5 TDs.

Is there enough population outside the metro to support a team? I'm not familiar with Oregon specifically but I know that pretty much when you get out beyond the suburbs of major western cities outside of California, all you've got is farm and/or ranch land, forest or desert dotted with small towns of a few hundred people. A major population center in these areas would have about 5000-10000 people. The eastern parts of both Washington and Oregon are primarily sparsely populated mountains and high desert. Even Northern Cal is much more rural and sparsely populated than further south around the Bay Area.

Good life for a stray cat compared to life out on the streets.

Agreed. LA couldn't support 2 teams the first time around, so I'm not sure why the NFL suits thought it would work again except that stadium boosters/developers sold owners a bill of goods. I don't think that the cities you mentioned are viable options because they aren't big enough metros, population wise, to support an NFL franchise in this era. I think that San Diego and St Louis are both viable, and probably Oakland as well. Those cities didn't lose their franchises because the fans didn't support their teams but because the owners couldn't strong arm the local governments into building them new stadiums.

I would do so in a heartbeat if I could grab a Nick Bosa or Minkah Fitzpatrick. Aim higher, dude. Several years? Try twenty years. Two decades. That this team is "MUCH MUCH better" than previous editions doesn't mean much when those teams sucked. What I want to see is this team at least be competitive with the good teams in the NFL today, and I don't think they are, especially on offense.

McDermott is better than Jauron but the philosophical basis for how they coach (or in Jauron's case, attempt to coach) are very similar. It was a philosophy that had some validity -- and success -- a few decades ago but not in 2019.

McDermott wins against bad teams. Not so much against good ones. He's a significantly better coach and evaluator of talent than Jauron. His assistants, however poor or mediocre they are, are better than Jauron's. The problem with Jauron ball -- which is sometimes called "small ball" in other places where they haven't had the misfortune to have Jauron coach their NFL team -- is that the conservative philosophy which emphasizes defense and low risk offense limits what a team can do. In today's NFL, teams have to be able to score 3 or 4 TDs against most opponents if they want to be competitive with the big dogs in the league. Moreover, they can't let up if they get up by 2 TDs because most quality teams have at least one -- and often several -- receivers (WRs and TEs) capable of scoring from any point on the field at any time. Nothing says Jauron ball more than how conservative the play calling becomes after the Bills build up a lead.

That's how I see it, too.

It's Jauron ball, and it's been McDermott's style since he became HC. Play not to lose. Don't take many chances and especially not big chances. Daboll either shares McDermott's philosophy or has adapted to it.

Why shouldn't that be the standard for the Bills???? I'm sure that Belichick and Co have that standard for the Pats. I'm sure that that's what Andy Reid, John Harbaugh, Sean McVay, Frank Reich, and Doug Pedersen expect from their offenses? Why do the Bills FO/HCs accept mediocrity as "good enough" -- and so many of their fans applaud them for it?

I absolutely agree. Most of the Bills wins have been against teams without a whole lot of talent. The Browns have the talent to do to the Bills what Philly did. As I said in the thread about the next four games, if they get their act together, they are fully capable of smacking the Bills upside the head. BTW, the 7-1 Packers visited the 3-5 Chargers, another team which has underperformed its talent, and got embarrassed, so for the Browns to trip up the Bills is entirely possible.

Playing not to lose by too much.

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.