ColdFront_USAF

This is why watching Denver during the offseason will be huge. I think Denver is still in "win now" mode, having a very talented veteran team. That makes me think they will be looking for one of the high priced free agents this year, maybe Cousins or a trade for Smith. Grooming a rookie qb might not be in their best interest, as many of the top players on the team could be old/gone by the time the qb is ready to make a big push. If they do land a free agent, they will be potential trade targets. If not, we would have to cough up even more to swing a deal with the Colts for #3. Only way to guarantee landing Mayfield if he's our target, as he won't get past Denver and the Jets.

Nice catch ? It would definately help if our linebackers were slightly faster than corpses though.

I would prefer Vea. When we traded Dareus, it wasn't speed and quickness we were lacking. It was a brute in the trenches that couldn't be moved and forced the opposing running backs to look elsewhere for lanes. Once he left, our line was put on roller skates and blown up regularly, forcing big time plays from either defensive backs or a very mediocre LB corpse in order to stop the run, not a recipe for success.

There's a reason good teams say building through the draft is the way to go. With the exception of this year, when was the last time you saw the Patriots spend big in free agency? Obviously those free agents are highly sought after, and you correctly stated that it's because they have proven something in this league. That's why a Kirk Cousins type player, a middle to upper-middle level qb is likely going to be pulling in close to or even exceeding 30M per year once he signs a contract. How much is Philly paying Wentz? But he was playing great. Youre right in what you are saying, but there's a reason teams pay GMs, head coaches and an entire armada of scouts a metric crap ton of money to go watch college football games. A good team can identify talent and find good players all throughout the draft, and hopefully identify a franchise passer. We have to trust them until its proven they are incapable, and then we hire a new one. Whaley was particularly bad at drafting, and made most of his biggest splashes in free agency. The results: a .500 team that was damn near pushing the salary cap every year. If that's what you want more of, that's your perogotive, but I would rather put my faith in Beane and McD and hope they can put together solid drafts the next two years and give us a team ready to make a run.

I definitely agree on Woods. Watching him play with the Rams, he just balls the same way he did with us even with significantly worse quarterbacks here. Shows solid hands, toughness, a knack for getting open. Also love that he almost never goes out of bounds without laying a shoulder on someone. Makes them not want to tackle him. As for the others, Goodwin I liked, but hurt too often, and I think Hogans uprising is a result of McDanials and TB. He's a good reciever but their system has a habit of making guys like him look really good.

Jack Mehoff has to be one of my favorite Gamecocks players of all time. In all seriousness, I would cry tears of joy if we got Mayfield. Watching him play, he just does things no quarterback we have had has been able to do. Throws guys open with ease, that's why you can see his wide recievers catch slants and take it to the house. Tyrod has never been able to do that, probably a big reason our recievers don't have a lot of yards. That alone makes him dangerous in our system, and he has plenty of other qualities to get excited about.

I was talking to my friends and family about this while it was going on. Said I was disappointed to see him playing like that, he's too talented to be taking cheap shots and I was a big fan of his while he was here. Honestly I was happy when he hurt himself, not because he was hurt, but he needed to be in the locker room before he hurt one of our guys.

Yup. Regular season games were at 2 am, then 3 once daylight savings hit in the north east. Been a fun season waking up and then working all day Monday, but this season was damned worth it. Proud to say I watched every game.

Unless you live where I do, and games are at 0300 on a work morning. I was really hoping for one of those Saturday night gigs

To me it's one of two things: Either the conspiracies are correct, and someone (Kraft?) is paying him to screw the bills. Would definitely explain how two weeks in a row he's made a mind boggling calls to overturn touchdowns. Much more likely its Hochuli Syndrome. Give a guy the power to control games, and sometimes it gets the best of people. When big time replays go to him that change the course of the game, he makes decisions that make sure his mark is being left on it. Just like old Ed getting up there explaining an offensive holding penalty for 15 minutes while he describes how the trajectory of the moon and Saturn led him to believe Richie was holding someone on the play. Big egos in big moments in big time games, the league should identify these people and remove them. But we all know they won't. Just enjoy the win and a much deserved shot at the playoffs!

I know there's still some season left and a possible playoff appearance, but as a Bills fan I've become accustomed to looking forward to the offseason and old habits die hard. My question is, who will we retain and who should we let go after the season ends? A couple thoughts: Kyles status is up in the air for next year. I know his wife wants him home, and his best years are behind him. Will we be able to convince him to return for one more or will we need 2 new DTs between free agency and the draft? EJ Gaines, although hurt every other play, has been fantastic when on the field. I'm hoping we can retain him and just hope his injury history doesn't carry over. Even serviceable corners are not easy to come by, and he is far more than that. Let's keep him instead of creating yet another hole to fill. Tolbert is one I definitely think we should part ways with. Has been ineffective all season and is used far too much. Maybe a good leader, but there isn't much use for a guy who runs to the LOS and falls down. J Matthews was supposed to be our top receiver, and we know at this point he's been anything but. Part of that is on our QB who would rather throw to Tolbert than any wide reciever, but I haven't seen much out of him that makes me think he's worth signing long term. Look to add another WR in the higher rounds of the draft. Last, I put Tyrod. Assuming we draft a qb high, do we retain him to provide a more than serviceable backup should our rookie flop/get hurt/need time to develop? Or should we just cut ties altogether and hope we can land a quality vet in Cousins or Smith to work with our rookie? Who do you guys think will be wearing a different jersey at the start of next season?

There's an article somewhere out there that explains it in good detail. Basically there's so much scar tissue in that arm that operating again would be nearly impossible, making another arm injury career ending for him. Something to do with resistant viruses causing severe infection. I still say if if he ever uses it as a weapon again like that it gets taken away, and whatever happens to his arm after that is on him for abusing the bionic arm. But that won't happen, because he is both a Patriot and a superstar player. NFL needs players like that because the game is a lot more exciting with guys like him playing.

I agree with this completely. I'm not saying he should pull a Pete Carroll and fake punt up a ton of points, but a good number of our wins this year were a few plays from being losses when they didn't need to be. This game and KC come to mind. The strategy of getting up by a score or two and then running a pop warner offense to chew the clock can certainly win games, but it lets the other team stick around when we should be going for the knockout. Up 3 or 4 tds in the 2nd half and I'm cool with the run run pass punt, not up one score.

You and me both man. Games where I'm stationed are at 13 hours ahead of Buffalo time, so a Thursday night game is at 9:30 AM on Friday. At least I won't have to wake up at 2 AM on a work night to watch this one. Huge game, hope we can pull off the sweep.

I thought Watkins was the more talented of the two, and still do, but would need more time to get accustomed to the offense and develop a rapport with Goff, who would be looking to the recievers he has played with before Sammy. I never really liked Gilmore, but I assumed that BB knew something I didn't when he signed him, as he usually does. I could not have been more wrong there.

I see a lot of people on here complaining week in and week out about this offense, and I agree that it is abysmal. It ranges from hard to watch, to below average at best. That being said, I think there are some things to keep in mind as fans. First and foremost, many are wondering why we didn't just keep the offense from last year, and I think there are several reasons. We were never going to be able to retain Lynn without making him the head coach, and I think everyone on this board would take McD over Lynn at the helm. So we would have needed another coordinator that specializes in the Power 0 system, and I hate to break it to you, but that is not a common system. This is a passing league, and there are just not many OCs out there that run that. Next up, while the jury is definitely still out on whether or not Rico is the guy to give us a Super Bowl caliber offense, his hire shows me that this coaching staff is trying to give us an offense designed to work in 21st century football. The West Coast is where it's at right now, and the teams that can run it at a high level are mostly on top. Run first systems require a lot of things to go right on game day. They need a defense to play lights out because they need to be playing with a lead, it is not a come from behind and win style of play. The drives are long and slow and chew a ton of clock, and that doesn't work when you're down a score or two with not a lot of time left. They also require a passing game that's at least adequate enough to force defenders to lay off the box, and we just do not have that. See Seattle or Dallas if you want proof. I think the most important thing though, is that this team isn't being built around the players we have right now. Just because Tyrod ranges from terrible to barely passable in this offense, does not mean it's going to remain that way. We stockpiled draft picks for a reason, and I think most of us can make a reasonable guess as to why. They are most likely going to either make a move up for their idea of a franchise qb in this draft, or sit back and take what falls to them and spend the remaining picks on weapons and help on the o line. Whaley is gone, and the team is no longer perennially in "win now" mode en route to a .500 season. It's alright to be frustrated with this offense and the piss poor results it's shown us, but as fans we have to at least appreciate that our brass is trying to give us a modern offense, and it is going to take another season or 2 of solid drafting to make it happen.

Totally agree. So do we start the rookie right away then? I don't see TT being on the roster next year, so I don't think we would have another viable option.

I actually agree with you, I was more interested to see other people opinions. I would personally rather use those picks to fill up roster holes/move up to get one of Beane's top qb targets, but this is just a potential option to explore.

I'm not sure what's outlandish about asking for opinions on a potential roster move that probably won't happen. Thought it would be a good change of pace instead of the standard "Tyrod sucks" or "Fire our front office after 2 games" posts. But !@#$ me for asking questions on a message board.

The additions defensively have all been phenomenal. Gaines, White, Poyer and Hyde have been so much better than our secondary last year, and when you consider the price tag it would have taken to retain Gilmore it's not even close. The soft zone coverage hurt us a bit against Cam and will continue to do so when we face elite qb's, but at least we'll see a lot less YAC and high priced db's getting burned badly by 3rd string recievers. Humber has been a gen as well.

https://deadseriousness.com/apparently-kansas-city-chiefs-placed-alex-smith-trading-block/ Here's a link citing bleacher report among others. If he could be had for cheap I think it would be a decent option to let our new qb learn while not sacrificing another year completely. He would be better in our system than TT as it fits his strengths more. He would basically be doing what he's doing now, being an effective bridge qb that could still take us to the playoffs with this current defense.

It's been announced/speculated that he will be on the trading block by the end of the season. Personally, I would rather take a qb in the draft, but I was wondering what other fans thought of getting someone that would make us relevant instantly. I would still prefer to have our drafted qb sit for a year, and Smith could keep us competitive while that happens.

Alex Smith has been playing well for KC, but they have his replacement already on the roster. What would you give up to obtain him, or would you not bother and plan on drafting one next year? I would think Dareus and a 2nd day pick could be enough to grab him, but would it be worth it long term?

Hey guys, just watched the Carolina/SanFran game a few times and wanted to share some of my thoughts on why I think we stand a fighting chance in this game. Keep in mind this was just the condensed view on NFL GamePass, as the time zone I'm currently in makes it really difficult to watch live games, so take my armchair coaching with a grain of salt. Anyways, there are a few things I saw that led me to believe the Panthers didn't have as much control over the game as the score would indicate. Boneheaded penalties from the 9rsThis was hard to watch. It seemed like every time they got anything going, someone would do something really really stupid and get flagged for a huge loss. If the season opener vs the Jets was any indication, it looks like McDermott's squad is going to leave the stupid penalties behind with Rex and his genius defense. The only penalties that seemed to have an impact were a few holding calls (looking at Incognito) which is just a part of the game, it's going to happen. Cam looked like EJ ManuelNo, really. Watch the game, and tell me it didn't look like a bigger EJ for much of the game. He made a few athletic plays here and there, but otherwise looked scared in the pocket and missed some wide open receivers by what looked like miles. He even tried forcing the ball into tight coverage multiple times and was lucky to have the ball bounce off the defenders instead of picked off. If he has a repeat of this kind of performance, the Bills will punish these mistakes way harder than the sorry 49rs defense. The few things that did work for San Francisco can be done better by the BillsIt was hard to find many positives about the offensive performance from the Hoyer-led group, but a few of the things they did well seem to be our strengths as well. Namely, throwing the ball to the outside and running the ball. The vaunted panthers defense had a few gaping holes opened up, allowing Hyde to run for some solid gains every now and then. McCoy is looking as good as ever, and will most likely punish them harder than Hyde could. Even Tolbert the Tank Engine could fit through some of those holes and pick up solid yardage when relieving Shady. The out routes also seemed to work well. Tyrod has always been better when throwing away from the middle of the field, and that seemed to be the Panthers week area. It makes sense, as it keeps the ball far away from Kuechly, who can take over a game by himself if you try to challenge him to often. I don't see Tyrod trying to push his luck with Kuechly's coverage, and just play to his strengths by throwing it outside and away from danger. All this being said, there are a few things the Bills will need to focus on in order to have a chance at getting to 2-0 on Sunday. Keep Cam containedThis one is obvious to anyone who has seen him play. Even if his throwing is rusty, we have to be disciplined up front and prevent him from taking off. Christian McCafferyThis guy had a stupid amount of touches last week, and may be in store for another big game. We have to find a way to limit his impact both on the ground and through the air. Play keep-away with Luke KuechlyI actually don't think this will be a huge problem, as there is literally no other coach in the NFL that has as much knowledge on this guy than our head coach. McD coached him for quite a few years, and will know exactly how to abuse his weaknesses or avoid him as much as possible. So there are my opinions on why we might actually win this game, or at least put up a good fight. I'd love to see what the rest of you guys think, I'm always open for criticism. Go Bills!