Avisan

Yes, actually. Tom Brady functionally enforced a lot of Patriot Way culture elements and brought in several of "his" guys to help with that. The Buccs initially were up and down until Arians allowed Brady more influence over the offensive scheme and personnel. Talent alone is only half of the battle. Yeah, the Bills have knocked them out twice, and the Bengals once. The AFC playoff picture has been an absolute gauntlet recently.

I mean, the Bills' D has done so 5 out of 6 games this season, and we won the 1 out of 6. Further upthread is the stat that teams win ~75% of the games where they hold an opponent to fewer than 24 points. You don't need a world-beating defense to win a lot of football games.

Dread it, run from it, Elite Dragon Joe Flacco vs. the Steelers arrives all the same.

I mean... and lot of teams have players that can set pass protections and execute them and/or immediately get the ball to the hot routes. We have good pressure rates as a defensive unit, it's not as though we're failing to disrupt the QB from a schematic standpoint, our secondary is just dogwater. Despite that, we're currently the 17th ranked defense, so basically dead average, so SOMETHING has to be going right.

Tom Brady looked bad in games where he was under nonstop pressure by 4 pass rushers. For most of his career he murdered teams that sent 5 or more to try to get to him. His passer rating vs. the blitz was obscene-- some seasons it was like 120+.

That could have been the Bills if Shaq Thompson catches the INT at the end. The Chiefs had some absurdly good fortune like seven weeks last season to come away with dubs.

Does Mahomes make that throw? I'm guessing he does. That's Josh's competition, both in terms of money and expected impact. The whole point of earning that much is that your standard of play needs to be that high. If you don't want the standard to be that high, pay 30 million for a 30 million dollar QB and have the cap space to afford a bona fide #1 on top of tge O-line investments.

Sure, but when defense and special teams hold the opponent scoreless in the second half (prior to the three points at the end), you need to settle the heck down and take the plays that are there. "Josh felt like he had to!" is a piss-poor justification in a game where he demonstrably did not have to.

One additional note: When a team is blitzing relentlessly and refuses to come off of it, the way to beat that is by setting/hitting the hot route over. And over. And over again. The whole point of blitzing is to force mistakes by getting there before a traditional route comes open. Blitzing against Mahomes/Brady/Manning/Brees is/was defensive suicide because they would punish you for it again and again. That level of discipline is something Josh struggles to maintain. He WANTS to kill you with the big play and improv. Disciplined blitzing punishes those tendencies while simultaneously baiting a player like Josh to devolve into them. You have to win with your brain in these games, because the defense is taking away the option of winning with your body.

People here have also lost track of the notion of "NFL open". In the NFL, you will often have a very narrow window to fit the ball into. How many plays do we see every week where a QB hits a tight window pass into a window barely large enough to get the ball to through to the receiver? Or where there isn't really a window AT ALL but the throw is in front of the receiver's knees so they can go down and get it? Or a back shoulder throw? Etc. We have been spoiled by years of incredible plays by Allen, to the point that we've forgotten what it's like to put together an NFL-average offense doing the dirty work with the talent equivalent of spit, duct tape, and a prayer. When you have a 55+ million dollar QB, he needs to play like that QB or your team is probably screwed. Part of earning that much money is making plays to NFL-open receivers where the windows are extremely small.

The Bills' defense pretty reliably slowing down the Dolphins is a big part of that. Miami has for several years been equipped to win shootouts, and we haven't let that happen. We deliver a backbreaker to them every season. They've thrown their best possible punches at us each season and fallen short despite having decent records overall.

The guard commits a brazen hold there, actually-- just reaches out and yanks Logue by the shoulder pad to keep him from getting to contain. Definite penalty, but executed in a way that makes it hard for a ref to spot and call it.

Yeah, Knox is clearly looking for someone to block, here. Was not expecting to actually receive the handoff.

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.

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.

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.