ColdFront_USAF

Yeah that's exactly how I feel. Of course I'm disappointed when we lose, and it's hard to separate my hopes and dreams for this team from the reality that rebuilding tends to suck. I hope Allen progresses this season, learns from the mistakes he will inevitably make, and comes in ready to roll next year with a handful of new lineman and some shiny new weapons for him to play with.

That's a fair assessment. For me personally, I'm just reserving judgement for next year. I expect them to put together a competitive roster with all the cap space and draft picks available to them next year. If they can't do that, we'll get to enjoy the head coach/ gm hunt by the end of 2020. This season, I'm just looking for the development of Allen and Edmunds, maybe a few others. I guess we'll see.

Because I think they did it with a long term goal in mind. They knew that in order to get rid of some of the players they didn't want, they were going to have to deal with the consequences left to them by the prior regime. They also didn't entirely create this situation, unless you are proposing a conspiracy theory involving Wood and Incognito retiring. Dareus was the biggest source of dead cap that they created themselves, and they obviously viewed the team as better without him. It was Whaleys contract that guaranteed him the money.

Just out of curiosity, what plays would you dial up for: an offensive line that holds up for an average of 2.4 seconds, a wide receiver corps that we all knew was probably the worst in the league, and features a giant man with feet for hands as our number one guy, and a quarterback who's qbr ranks 244 out of 247 since 2001 and has the arm strength of a jv cheerleader? (All stats were off the top of my head so maybe slightly inaccurate but you get the point) Im guessing it would be something like quick, timing based throws and a few Our Fathers every time Nate dropped back to pass. If you watched the post game interview with Weddle, he talked about all of that. He said something to the effect of, "we watched Nate play, and we knew they were going to use quick short timing passes, and that he has a noodle arm that would give us chances to intercept him." Just like I'm giving Beane and McD a slight pass this year for having to put together and coach a roster with a mind boggling handicap due to the dead money, I'm giving Daboll a slight pass in that I don't think anybody could get success out of probably one of the least talented offenses ever assembled. As much as it sucks, we're going to have to play the waiting game to see what these guys can do when they have 90M in cap space and a full draft next year before we can get a reading. As a disclaimer, I'm also not that confident in Daboll. I'm just willing to wait till next year to let him coach an NFL offense, which we do not have this year.

I don't think many fans understand what 50 million in dead cap space means. It's not an afterthought or a small hurdle for a gm, it's a massive handicap that he has to work with. Off the top of my head, I believe the salary cap is around 170M or so. That means almost 30% of the cap this year is unusable for Beane. Do you think there's any way to truly evaluate this guy when he's been handed a roster devoid of talent and left in cap hell by the last gm? If it seems like better teams simply have more talent than us, it's because they have literally 50 million more dollars than us invested in their roster. And before you go there, it's not on Beane. The retirements were unexpected and out of his hands, and the Dareus contract he had to absorb was handed out by Doug Whaley. Lets wait until he is on an even field with the rest of the league to determine weather or not he's any good.

I genuinely can't tell if you're a Bills fan or another AFCE fan coming out here to troll. I just don't get why you waste your time on here. Is it so if Allen does bust you can hand out "I told you so's" to all the fans that support him? Or are you retired Jerry Sullivan off his happy pills again? If you're actually a Bills fan, you have nothing to lose by at least supporting our rookie qb. If not, you have way too much time on your hands. Get a hobby. Or maybe a vibrator. Something to lower the blood pressure.

Thank you, I appreciate all of it! And here's to hoping we can get some of that 2014 magic back in this defense. I was around the BBMB for years before that went down, and I've been lurking on here ever since, so I've seen what happens after a loss. I understand your point though, there's always going to be a fallout after bad games among the fans. I only thought this post was necessary because I saw some things not being discussed by the media/fans that showed me we aren't necessarily the dumpster fire people think we will be. Now, we could be, who knows. For example, I saw a ton of criticism about the lack of defensive pressure, but nobody talking about how the playcalling was about as vanilla as you could get, and I expect we'll see much more thought involved involved in a real game. Just trying to get some positivity out there with all the Armageddon threads out there.

Here is an article about Tom Brady's release time in the 2016 season. His season average was 2.57 seconds, which is correctly regarded as lightning fast. If one of the greatest to ever play the game takes 2.57 seconds to release the ball, I have no idea how anybody could expect a rookie in his first start to properly deal with a line that only gives him 2.1 on average. Brady's fastest average release time during the game they discuss in the article was 1.99 seconds, which was an average of 4 snaps in which the Steelers sent a 5 man rush. Even that, which is pretty incredible, would have barely cut it with our lines average protection time, and that includes plays with 4 or less rushers.

After the first loss where we score ~10 points or less, clueless fans will want his head. After a season ranked dead last in multiple categories, most fans will. Hackett was canned because he was the Dave Wannstedt of OCs: incredibly vanilla, and so predictable most fans could tell you what play they were about to run. Greg Roman was probably the least justified. He was a good fit for our personnel and mostly got fired because Rex needed a scapegoat for the train wreck he was building. Although we did improve when Lynn took over, it was with Roman's playbook, as they wouldn't have had the time to install a new system mid season. As for Rico, I think McD and Beane looked at all the calls and all the plays to find the problem, and came to the conclusion that it was a combination of Dennison's playcalling and Tyrod's execution, so they moved on from both. I don't think the fans had any influence on that decision.

Yeah, I miss that defense. Was a blast watching them fluster and beat Aaron Rodgers. I'm an AMMO guy, I enjoy the work. I get to mess with bombs all day so it's not too bad. Oki is pretty nice too, jus hard to watch games. Monday's are long days.

Im stationed on Okinawa right now, so it's pretty much the opposite of the cold front I'm used to, as I also grew up in Bufffalo. Regular season games are at 0200 Monday morning for me. The cold front name was a reference to the D line we had a few years ago wreaking havoc.

Yeah I am. Been stationed overseas for about a year and a half now, so games are at weird times for me.

Croom was a positive I forgot to mention. He looks like a freak athlete for his size, great hands and offers surprising RAC ability for a big guy. He could develop into a reliable target. Absolutely. I watched him closely, and he seems to be playing faster with each game. He looked a bit lost against Carolina, but now he seems to be diagnosing plays and getting to the ball faster. He's made some excellent plays in the last two games.

I just had a chance to watch the game on game rewind, as my current time zone did not allow me to watch it live. I think being removed from the anticipation and energy felt during a highly anticipated game helped a bit with perspective. After reading the meltdown on TSW while at work, and then seeing the game for myself, I had a few thoughts. POSITIVES: Josh Allen did not melt down: sure he had an abysmal stat line. I am not a member of the "JA can do no wrong" crowd, and of course I hold him accountable for the errors he made. That under thrown ball (I believe to Kirkpatrick) would have been a pick probably 8 times out of 10, he got away with one there. Then there was the overthrow on the next play, not as dangerous but obviously not ideal. But aside from those two throws, I saw a young and "raw" player making the most out of an impossible situation. Nothing went his way, but he remained composed and did what he could. He had drops from the two guys he should depend on the most, and the O Line may as well have not been there for a ton of his snaps, yet he did not make any major mistakes, and for a rookie, that's a positive in my book. He also showed good ball security considering he met the turf on pretty much every other play, something that seems to go unnoticed until its a problem. Peterman looks serviceable: As long as Daboll does not commit the Cardinal Sin of calling plays for Peterman (any throw to the outside that requires arm strength), the guy looks like he can get the job done until they feel the time is right for Josh to take over. Just don't do it Brian, for the love of god, stick to the throws he can make to the guys in the blue jerseys. The running game looks solid yet again: Remember, we didn't have our best RB on the field today, and they still ran the ball well without him. Ivory looked like a tank at times, and Marcus Murphy is having one of the best pre-seasons I've seen from a no-name guy, and the Bengals top defense did little to slow him down. With Shady wearing down the front 7, and Ivory bruising them, I think Murph will be an excellent piece for this offense. Also on this topic, the O Line seemed to remember they were playing football when a running play was called, so maybe they aren't entirely useless. Davis bounced back a bit: Okay, that wr made him look ridiculous on that first play. Pretty embarrassing in all honesty. But when he came back in, he seemed to improve. That hit he made late in the game was nasty, and something I hope to see more of during the season. WHY THE SKY IS NOT FALLING We still have time to adjust the O Line: I would bet my next paycheck (it's not very much, so don't get excited) that the line we saw out there today will not be the same configuration we see against the Ravens in week 1. Dawkins wasn't even in the lineup today, and there is still time to replace one of the guards (preferably Duccasse) with Teller or possibly a dumpster dive pickup after cuts. I know they looked awful today, but there are moves that can be made to bring them a bit closer to serviceable. Maybe put Castillo at quarterback during practice for some motivation, I think fans would enjoy that. The defense was extremely vanilla: I saw a ton of people whining that there was little to no pressure from the front 7. Watching the game, I noticed damn near every snap was a 4 man rush, with Kyle Williams in gym shorts on the side line. We weren't going to build a dominant 4 man front like we saw a few years ago in one offseason, and like the vast majority of teams, we will need to manufacture our pressure with blitzes and a little deception at times. That's to be expected, and very few teams have a 4 man wrecking crew on the line. I expect to see much more variance defensively during the regular season that will help with creating pressure and stuffing the run. There was also little evidence of game planning defensively. If you're leaving AJ Green 1 on 1 with ANY cornerback in the redzone, you're wrong. It should have come to nobody's surprise that he beat Tre for the TD catch on a perfect throw from Dalton. There's a reason he is considered one of the best in the game, and I would absolutely expect more attention to be given to him in a regular season game. The same goes for the rest of the secondary. It really shouldn't be difficult for an experienced qb like Dalton to pick apart a vanilla cover 2 defense with little in the way of blitzing. Not a huge concern for me at this point. Last, this team is still a work in progress: This mostly goes out to the "Fire Beane and McD now" crowd that will inevitably surface after every loss. Yes, they neglected the O Line and the WR corps this year, and that was probably a mistake. However, for the first time in my lifetime, it would appear that we have a front office with a long term plan in place. They are well aware that we will have a ton of spending money next year, and Beane did a phenomenal job preserving our 2019 draft picks. This means, if executed properly, we may have a huge influx in talent next year, in addition to key guys like Allen and Edmunds getting a year of experience under their belts. Time will tell if it will work out, but for now, hang in there. We are far from a finished product, and the guys in the high level business meetings are well aware of this.

As someone that's had two stress fractures (both legs at the same time), I can tell you it's tough to recover from. Takes longer than a month to fully heal, and even just walking around too much can make recovery take longer. I feel for any athlete that has to go through that.

This exactly. I couldn't understand why they were playing the way they were in preseason week 2, it seemed pretty classless. It felt like they were trying too hard to prove they can win games after winning 4 in the last 3 seasons. They have the talent to be successful on defense during the regular season, but they've been playing mid season ball against vanilla offenses designed to get a feel for the players. They should also be easier to gameplan for since they have already shown coaches what their D is going to look like.

Tell that to Jarvis Landry. He ended Aaron Williams career on a cheep shot and was allowed to stay in to catch the winning touchdown (if my memory is correct).

I've said this before and I'll say it again: what were they supposed to do? The Bills weren't the only team that didn't want Decker. All 32 teams, Pats included have had a chance to grab him for months now, but they waited until they were essentially screwed at the position. After trading away Cooks, losing Edelman to suspension, and Matthews to injury, they signed him. So I ask again, what move would you have made to acquire a wide receiver this year? We weren't going to be able to trade for anyone exciting. There's a damn good reason guys like Julio, Green, Brown, Megatron etc don't/didn't play on a new team every few seasons. They are rare players and teams aren't going to let them go. The only top tier wr that was "available" was Odell, and the Giants wanted multiple 1st round picks for him. Let's say we traded 21 + 22 for him, and the Giants were cool with that. Who's throwing him the ball? We still have to sign him to big time money, which we don't have at the moment. And now we threw away our opportunity to grab the qb we wanted and Tremaine Edmunds for a wr that's going to cost a lot and have no quarterback. That's putting the cart before the horse, we tried that with Watkins and now him along with everyone involved with drafting him are gone. What about drafting one? The only way we could have drafted an impact player at that position was if we didn't draft Edmunds or Allen, because the top guys were gone by our second round picks. So would you rather have a consensus top 10 player in Edmunds that addresses a huge need (our biggest need on defense), or a late 1st/2nd round graded receiver? I guess that's a subjective question, but given the choice between Edmunds and literally any wr in this class, I'll take Tre every single time. That brings us us to the third option: bring in a high number of less exciting options and have them compete to make the team. It's the only strategy that we could have implemented while still getting the two most important pieces on offense and defense. Sorry for the thesis here, this just irritates me to no end.

Where is the option for "no I don't feel offended by this, and will laugh at anyone who's life is so boring that they feel the need to protest nfl team names and promptly tell them to get a job"?

Here's an article I found explaining what offset language is, if you're like me and had no idea what that meant. In short, offset language means if a player is cut during his rookie contract, and his new team signs him equal to or greater than what his salary would have been, the team that drafted him doesn't have to pay him anything. Without it, the team that drafted him is required to still pay him that money he was owed while he plays for another team, allowing for double dipping. So teams like it, players don't, hence the disagreement.

I think a lot of it depends on Shady's availability. If he's playing, I expect to see a lot of power rushes with him, similar to what Roman did with the running game, just with Daboll's personal touch on the run designs, which should look more like variants of the 17 Alabama team. If not, we will be forced to be a more pass heavy team, which I don't think we're ready for. The playcalling will mostly depend on who wins the qb competition as well, so too early to tell. If Allen starts, expect more deep/intermediate passes highlighting KB and Clay. If Peterman starts, I expect them to try to utilize rhythm passes a bit more that don't make him force the ball into tight windows with a lot of arm behind it. Peterman can actually be pretty accurate, he just tends to lose that accuracy when forced to muscle the ball, so we don't want to see much of those outside throws that need to get there before the DB can break on it (like in the wild card game). In short, too many personnel questions at this point to think about what his offense is going to look like.

Nobody is saying this is fake with a certainty. There's a really neat thing in the constitution called the 5th amendment, that guarantees a right to due process. For the uninitiated as you obviously are, it means that in order to be punished for a crime, guilt must be proven in a court of law by a jury of your peers. To say he is guilty with the kind of certainty that you are implies that you have zero clue what this means. Also, !@#$ you, I'll make up my own mind on this.

This is exactly how I was. I said pre-draft, I would like one of Mayfield, Darnold or Rosen, and I would be okay with Allen if the others were taken. I was just being lazy, and agreeing with everyone pointing at completion percentage and lazy statistics that don't look any deeper than surface level. Since then, I've found plenty of reason to be hyped for Allen, and I hope he makes the best of his chance here.

I actually think Gronk is one of the biggest reasons LBs like Edmunds are coveted. Gronk is just too big for most defensive backs to cover, as he can box them out or just shove them around at will. Try to cover him with a linebacker, and he likely won't even be in the frame when Brady let's it fly. They're just too big and slow. Basically you have to find someone who is just as much of a gigantic freak of nature as he is, and hope Brady just doesn't beat you anyways. Guys built like Edmunds can help with that.

I really wanted the Bills to draft Geno Smith the year EJ was drafted. I also liked Tavon Austin from what I saw watching Geno's tape. I was so mad when we picked EJ, who wasn't even the consensus best in a terrible group. Basically I would make a horrible nfl scout.