Avisan

Ring, singular, competing in a conference without a dynasty, with prime Brees. This is exactly my point, despite these advantages, the Saints just... weren't THAT good, consistently. They were almost always good, but they had years they missed the playoffs and didn't really stand out from the other good NFC teams. Meanwhile, the AFC has the Patriots to deal with. The Brees/Payton teams had comparable success to the non-Pats AFC teams despite not having the Pats to deal with in-conference. I see no reason to think he would have gotten better results than McDermott during the last 4 years.

I mean, bountygate is very much an indictment on Payton's team operation, is it not? Losing playoff games due to bad luck and things going wrong is currently where we're at right now. I guess my larger point is we make tons of excuses for other teams/coaches when things go wrong for their teams but do the opposite for our own team and coaches, and Payton is imo a great example of that.

McDermott turned around a doormat, too. Did Payton have a "crazy run" with Brees? How are you measuring that? He had the best QB in the NFC for basically the entirety of prime Brees. The Bills likely would have been playing for a chip last year if the refs weren't screwing them on spots all night. I think there are fair questions to be had regarding the McBeane regime, but the idea that Payton or Vrabel would waltz in and create a championship team with our roster is super questionable.

I agree, but his way historically ends up with these kinds of mistakes. Defenses play differently than they did when he was in his first few years. Every QB has had to adjust, including Mahomes. Trying to force big play ball when it isn't there leads to stalled drives and turnovers, and the Bills don't have the WR talent to force it to work. Hard to get that WR talent without becoming the Bengals, too.

Sean Payton is always a fascinating response to me. He had prime Drew Brees and missed the playoffs several time and while it's great he walked away with a ring, it was one singular ring while playing in a conference without a dynasty team. I don't think there's much to suggest that Payton would be a guy to take the Bills over the top, the Brees/Payton Saints were a worse overall team than the Bills despite Brees being an elite QB. And I think it would be folly to say that Allen is definitively a better QB than prime Brees.

Bailing from the pocket unnecessarily, misreading the read-option with Ty Johnson, etc. Went away from taking what the Defense was giving. And that INT was a big one, it's a mistake that had largely been gone from his game that showed back up again. Definitely feels like he presses way harder when Diggs is in the stadium.

Tough to say. Losing significant time for both rookie CBs (who seems to have potential) due to injury is rough, and you're likely trading for a de facto rental. Cap space is tight, which makes trading for a big-time WR tricky. Especially since our draft picks are always bottom third of the round. I would say LB or safety just due to cost and relative positional depth, it's achievable and we can pick up a guy that might actually stick around past this year.

Newsflash: We're still on pace to go 13-4 or better The "fire McDermott!" stuff after every loss is kind of amusing, this is two years in a row of Josh getting sloppy with the ball in his hands when Diggs is in the building. Offense couldn't stop shooting itself in the foot, and I was pretty sure something exactly like the red zone interception was coming after the OPI call based on Allen's body language. 3x turnovers is tough to overcome without great play outside of them, and we were strictly okay. Maye's plays were mostly made off-script, which means the script was working. Tre can't quite keep up anymore and we kept getting burned by it. Tough to blame coaching when our biggest struggles came from player deficiencies.

Brother, this is Allen's 8th year, it hasn't been a decade yet. The Bills are unfortunate enough to have ascended at the same time AFC dynasty #2 was getting rolling with the Chiefs. During the Patriots dynasty, other elite QBs had a way harder time making the Superbowl, too. It's frustrating and unfortunate, but them's the breaks.

Before, largely. Did you watch the games the last couple of weeks?

I mean, I suppose I could personally deep dive into every advanced metric to get a feel for their exact ins and outs, but I'm pretty comfortable leaving that to other folks because ultimately it doesn't matter that much. I think it's reasonable to start with a baseline assumption that most teams are facing roughly comparable types of coverage and that metrics are designed to be able to compare like with like, because that's the only way that they're useful. Your position is that Keon Coleman is ranking well in terms of separation metrics because he's facing outlier coverage relative to other receivers, which seems a difficult position to justify in the absence of your own data that demonstrates this.

Do you have any evidence that Keon Coleman is benefitting more than other receivers from facing man coverage?

His separation metrics are pretty good this season, though..? What are you basing this off of?

Yes, without all of our offensive investments, we would indeed be a bad team. This is not as strong of an argument as you might think.

... When did you become so pessimistic about the Bills? Some WILDLY negative takes coming from you today, and I don't have you on the usual suspects list.

The only game we definitely lose without Allen is the Ravens game, I think we're pretty handily 3-1 with *insert generic Top 10 QB here*

Disclaimer: Daboll obviously bears some responsibility for the way the Giants perform, given that he is the head coach of this team. That being said, the Giants have had an absurd number of plays over the last few years and especially the last few games where players have absolutely screwed the pooch of their own accord in a fashion that just cannot be blamed on coaching. It's genuinely ridiculous.

Maybe because they're grading out well, blocking like monsters, and our offense is rolling? I am very happy with all three TEs so far this season.

This game broke the Dolphins, I think. They gave it their best shot, with their best execution and game plan, and still couldn't get it done. No coming back from that. Edit: Misread, I didn't see the "playoff game" portion of your post. I'm referring to the game where Bass hit the 61 yarder to seal it. That was the finishing blow. Couldn't seriously entertain the possibility of ever knocking us off the top spot with the current regime after that.

Buffalo Joe by the numbers is a really, really good athlete, though?

Sounds like that's exactly what happened, Ed was feeling it so he kept cooking. I think rotation by default with wiggle room for when a guy is "on" is the best of both worlds, no?

I cannot even imagine being this miserable and insufferable after the team I allege to be a fan of pulls out a huge win against their toughest opponent of the season. Get a grip, dude.

It was the third down vs. KC, too. Kincaid had already gotten the first, then Allen got the first AGAIN, and somehow neither counted. That crew shorted us on spots all night. It was maddening. Football really is a game of inches at time, refs shorting us an entire yard in key situations is getting really, really old.

Yeah fam, I watched the game, too. Players were getting beat, and injuries reducing rep counts together in the preseason reared its head frequently. The Ravens are absurdly talented across the board and took advantage of every opportunity we gave them. It was extremely frustrating and disheartening to watch. Then our talent started showing up and the Ravens were spent. The Bills weathered things not going their way for 55 minutes, made a few crucial plays, and won the damn thing. When your team is less talented than the other team, the other team has a QB that ALSO is making unicorn plays, your team continuously gets rough breaks... and you pull out the win anyway, it's absurd to pretend that has nothing to do with the head coach of the team.

I mean, this game is the perfect example of why he stays. Players making mistakes that get the team in the hole. Getting screwed on a highly questionable but unlikely-to-be-overturned spot (seriously though why do the refs keep doing this to us in big games). Some balls breaking our way, but some seeeeriously not, leading to the team still being down 15 late. What does the team do? Keeps playing hard. Keeps grinding the Ravens down. Keeps pushing until they finally take the lead against an exhausted, demoralized team that is the most talented opponent we will face this season. This of course doesn't happen without Allen. It doesn't happen without the quality of culture established and maintained under McDermott, either.