Inigo Montoya

I thought it might be interesting to look at a few areas that give an indication of where the Bills are as a franchise right now in comparison to the rest of the AFCE. The AFCE is a division in transition with all four teams undergoing significant change. Gone are the days of the Pats automatically winning the division and the rest of the teams scrambling for one Wild Card spot. How long the Bills can stay on top is affected by how each of these five areas play out over the next several seasons. 1. AFCE Quarterbacks; Right now the Bills have the only franchise QB in the division. When is that last time a Bills' fan could say that? We don't just have a franchise QB, I think it's fair to say that we have one of the best QB's in the NFL. The Phins are likely going to roll with Tua, the Jets will likely draft Lawrence, and the Pats are wandering in the wilderness right now. I don't think Cam will be back. I also don't expect Belichick to draft a QB high, I expect he will go shopping for a vet QB to plug into the team. Time will tell about Tua and Lawrence and we'll have to wait to see what Bill pulls out of his hat, but there is no arguing that the BIlls currently hold a huge advantage at the most important position in the game. 2. AFCE Cap Space; Beane has been great in managing the salary cap and has been making contracts based upon the anticipated salary cap next year at pre-COVID levels. That plan has been blown up and it is projected the cap will be $30+ million less next year than expected. Beane is going to have to let some key pieces of this roster walk. The current Spotrac projections for 2021 have the Bills sitting at $5mm of available cap space, Jets $82mm, Pats $69mm, Phins $36mm. The Bills have gone from having one of the best cap situations in the League to far and away the worst numbers in our division. The Phins, Jets, and Pats should be able to be a bit more active in free agency and have the potential to improve their roster while we will be scrambling to maintain what we have. 3. AFCE Draft Capital; The Bills will have a 1st round draft pick this year, probably in the high 20's (I'm hoping for pick #32). The Pats should be drafting in the mid-teens. The Jets and Phins have stocked up on draft capital. The Jets have two 1st rounders (likely the first overall pick) and the first pick in the 2nd round, #33. The Phins have two 1st round picks and two 2nd round picks. During the first 33 picks in next year's draft, our AFCE opponents have six selections. That means on roughly one out of every five picks at the top of the draft we will have an ACFE foe on the clock. The Jets and Phins should be able to narrow the talent gap with the Bills this off season through the draft. 4. AFCE Rosters; Right now, from top to bottom, I think Beane has assembled the most talented roster in the division. As noted above, with cap space and draft capital the Jets and Phins should be able to close that gap some this off season. The Bills have the most talented offense and special teams units in the division. I don't think it's close. The Bills' defense is starting to get hot and regain its 2019 form, but as of right now, I think that the Dolphins' defense has the edge over the Bills, and the Pats' defense is frustratingly close. The Pats' defense should instantly get better next year just by getting their COVID opt-outs back. Hopefully Star's return will bolster the Bills defense and we are able to keep Milano. I'm worried more about the future of the BIlls' defense than I am about the Bills' offense or special teams. 5. AFCE Coaching; Belichick is the best coach in the AFCE. Sure he cheats, yeah he's a jerk, but the guy finds a way to win. He almost never makes a game management mistake and always puts his team in a position to win. They just beat the Cards. They had no business beating the Cards. Flores looks like a promising coach, time will tell with him. Adam Gase got hit in the head with a lawn dart when he was a kid and will be out of the NFL one second after the last play of the season. With Lawrence, draft capital, cap space, and a big market, I think the Jets' HC job will be the best job out there next year and they should be able to land a solid candidate. McDermott is the second best coach in the division and I think he is still getting better. The Bills are in good shape with McDermott extended through 2025. Losing Daboll this off season would hurt, hopefully that doesn't happen. My take away... The Bills are clearly at the top of the heap in the AFCE. How long they can maintain that position is hard to say. The Bills have several key advantages, a real franchise QB, solid coaching, and a talented roster top to bottom. The question is can the Bills keep that roster together as the rest of the AFCE rushes to catch up with more resources. We are in a small window right now with Josh Allen on his rookie contract, the Jets just beginning a rebuild, and the Pats without a QB. I think the next couple seasons will be a throwback to when I was a kid and it was the Bills vs Dolphins every year for the division title. I trust Beane and McDermott to continue to work together to put a solid squad on the field, but COVID19 has clouded what should be a very bright future. I think the Bills win the AFCE this season and next season as the rest of the division improves but not enough to knock the Bills off the top spot. After that I think it's really up in the air. The AFCE should be a very competitive division for the foreseeable future. The days of the AFCE being the Pats and the also-rans is over.

It was an ugly game. My son and I watch all the games together and he said something to me today that is spot on, he said watching the Bills play is always stressful and not a lot of fun. Even when they win they have to drag you through the mud first. He's right. I would love for the Bills to blow someone out from start to finish just one time. No stress. No angst. No sense of dread. Just one time....

Hey Mango! Daboll is now, for better or worse, true or not, that most mythological of all offensive coaches, a "quarterback whisperer". He took Josh Allen who couldn't hit the ocean with a football while standing in a rowboat and brought him along to a near 70% completion rate QB. A team that is drafting a new QB who has some rough edges may look at what Daboll has done with Josh and think it's a wise move to bring him in. In fairness, I think Daboll does deserves credit for some of Allens' development over the last three seasons but I'm of the opinion that Allen deserves the majority of the credit himself. He has spent big chunks of the off season paying out of pocket to work with his own QB coach, actually relocating to be close to Palmer during the off season. He has spent hundreds of hours studying defenses so he can be more mentally nimble on the field and has done every single thing he possibly could to get better at his craft. Daboll is not responsible for that competitiveness and that work ethic or that will to succeed. That is all inside of Josh. Let's contrast Josh attitude with this little gem from Baker Mayfield at the end of last season. I don't think Daboll would be having the same amount of success if he was Baker's OC. https://sports.yahoo.com/browns-baker-mayfield-declares-he-wont-work-with-throwing-coach-in-offseason-195337203.html Having said that, I think Daboll has impressed a lot of people in the League with how he has helped Josh come along (deservedly so) and I would be shocked if he doesn't get a HC offer this off season.

BOB wouldn't have won their division once in the last 6 years if he had the Patriots with Brady in it. It's a pointless comparison and an odd way to weasel in a gratuitous shot on McDermott, but you do you.

This might be an unpopular position but I think the Jets' job is going to be the best one out there next year. Big market, Joe Douglas seems mostly competent, tons of draft picks including the 1st overall pick (more than likely), lots of cap space, and time to do a complete rebuild with no immediate pressure to win. If you step into Houston they will expect you to win immediately because you have Watson. The problem is that Houston has mortgaged their future trading away many of their high draft picks on dubious Bill O'Brien personnel moves.

LOL! But I know something that you don't know... I am not left handed!

I think the lack of success from the Belichick coaching tree, especially when compared to the Parcells and Andy Reid trees, is because when you are an assistant coach in New England, Bill micro-manages everything. Belichick doesn't develop coaches, he simply instructs them on how to do things his way. When his coaches finally get a head coaching gig and leave New England they suffer from that lack of personal growth and development. Most of these guys go off to another team and try to be Bill Belichick, like Matt Patricia is doing, and it just doesn't work. The other thing these fledgling coaches don't have is the incredible good fortune to find a unicorn like Brady, a generational talent at QB who is also beta-male enough to tolerate the constant abuse of his head coach even after numerous championships and MVPs. What Belichick did in New England is not reproducible elsewhere and I think the rest of the League is finally starting to figure that out.

My Thanksgiving prediction is that Tyler Bass breaks the NFL record for the longest field goal by season’s end.

You guys are all just too ignorant to understand the offensive genius of Adam Gase!!! You only think the Jets are out of the playoff picture! Gase is now going to unleash hell on the the NFL and beat teams so badly that each victory will count for two and carry the New York Football Jets to a first round playoff bye and eventual Super Bowl Championship!!! You fell victim to one of the two classic blunders, the most famous of which is, "Never get involved in a land war in Asia," but only slightly less know is this, "Never go in against Adam Gase when death, or playoff football, is on the line!!!!" Ha-Ha-Ha-ha-ha-ha-haaa.....

Absolutely right mjt. QBs like Murray and Lamar Jackson would have never lasted a full season playing in Jim Kelly's era and would have been killed outright on the field playing in Bradshaw's era. I can't imagine what Jack Ham or Mike Singletary would have done to those guys during or after one of their runs. The amount of punishment opposing defenses were allowed to put on a QB back then was nuts. With the league putting rules in place to protect the QBs it allows a player like Murray to have a chance. I think Josh could have played 50 years ago and been successful. He has the frame and the stones for that kind of football. You know that guys like Steve Young and Bradshaw must shake their heads when they see what gets called Roughing the Passer in today's NFL. Personally, I like it. I don't want to see players getting injured and I think today's NFL is a lot more exciting that it was 40 years ago. I do miss the crushing hits sometimes, but on the whole, I think the changes were needed and the game is a lot more fun to watch now.

Here is where I got my stats Stank: https://www.foxsports.com/nfl/buffalo-bills-team-summary-stats?category=defense&sort=def_pts_a&season=2020&seasonType=reg&sortOrder=asc I did have the wrong numbers and I adjusted the original post to put the right numbers there, but your numbers and mine are still off a bit, not sure how to square that. In any event, thanks for the heads up.

We have all seen the big step backwards the Bills' defense has taken this year. I have listed the key stats comparing last year's dominant squad vs this year's below average group. I'm just not sure what can account for such a huge drop off. It would be one thing if we had new coaches and schemes. We brought back most of the unit. I've read a lot of conjecture here about the "Star Effect" and the ripples created in this defense when you don't have an immovable object clogging up the middle of the defensive line, but I don't know that you can reasonably put all of this drop off on Star opting out. In addition to Star, I think it is becoming very obvious how fortunate we were last year to have so few injuries on our team and it seems like this year we are falling back to the norm. In 2019 the Bills were 11th best in the league with 64 AGL (Adjusted Games Lost). The NFL average was 75.8. AGL is a metric created by Football Outsiders to measure the impact of players lost and guys playing injured throughout the season. They don't have numbers for this season yet, but I'm certain we won't be in the top half of the League again this season. Here are the Team Defense stats to compare... 2019 Points per game: 16.1 Points per game League rank: #2 Yards per game: 298 Yards per game League rank: #3 Rushing yards per game: 103 Average yards per rush attempt: 4.3 Passing yards per game: 195 2020 Points per game: 26.5 Points per game League rank: #21st Yards per game: 373 Yards per game League rank: #20th Rushing yards per game: 135 Average yards per rush attempt: 4.8 Passing yards per game: 238.7 Falling from 2nd in the League in points allowed in 2019, to 21st in 2020 is horrific. Last year we had a bend but don't break defense. This year we are bending and breaking. The consensus during this off-season was that the Bills would go as far as Josh Allen would take them based on the idea that we would return the same stout defense, and if we could just manage to score more than 19 points a game (the 2019 average), we would win more games. After 10 games played it is still the consensus that the Bills will go as far as Josh Allen can take them, but now it is because Josh needs to score enough points to make up for our poor defense, and so far he has. Barely... The offense is averaging 27.2 points per game this year, and the defense is giving up an average of 26.5 points a game. You can see how this team is living on the razor's edge week to week. Fixing the running game should be a big focus during this bye week, but figuring out what the hell is going on with the defense should be a close second.

Simms is right though. Josh has put this inaccuracy thing to rest. People who still bring it up are either intellectually lazy and haven't made any effort to have an informed opinion or are simply biased against him because they don't want to eat their hot takes against Josh when he came out of college. Allen is 1st in the NFL in adjusted completion percentage and he is anything but a Captain Check Down to pad his numbers. He is also doing it all without a running game. Josh Allen is a highly accurate NFL quarterback. Anyone who says differently at this point is either ignorant or lying.

You should go get a library card this afternoon. There is a great book I'd highly recommend, it's called The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. I think it could be a real game changer for you.

It was actually a fantastic punt. What you didn’t see is that his shanked punt hit Dan Lebatard in the stands knocking him unconscious. Some things are more important than football.

Classy move by Josh to throw in and fitting that his donation got us to $500k in honor of his grandmother.

HALF A MILLION DOLLARS FOR OCH?

Just jumped into this thread on page 30, forgive if this has been discussed previously... The Bills were pretty successful containing Lamar Jackson's running ability last year when we played. We will face the same challenge Sunday against Kyler Murray. The problem is that we are missing players that were instrumental in limiting Jackson last year. We are without Milano and Zo Alexander who combined for 15 tackles in that game and helped provide effective edge containment against Jackson. I'm not sure we have anyone on our roster with the mobility to do what Zo and Milano did last year. Frazier and McDermott are going to have to figure something else out, I don't think they can recycle that Raven's game plan this weekend because we simply don't have the personnel to execute it.

I think this is going to be another shoot out and I think Allen and Co. can score more points than the Cards can. I think our offense is becoming elite. Will Daboll line up Morse, Feliciano, and Dawkins shoulder to shoulder again and maul the Cards on the ground for 200+ yards ala the Patriots' game, or will he go 3 or 4 wide and light them up in the air ala the Seahawks game? Can the Cards can cover Diggs, Brown, Beasley, and Davis at the same time? Can anyone? If the defense can get some stops or take away the ball here and there, I like our odds even more.

I'm one of their many viewers who was going to ESPN for my escape from reality (why I love sports) only to find them talking about national politics instead of sports. If I had wanted political programming I would have kept the channel on CNN or Fox. Conservative or Liberal, it doesn't matter, I want to hear about sports on a sports network. Seems like a simple concept that somehow got lost at ESPN. I won't be back to ESPN until they get back to their roots.

I have always looked at play action like pre-snap motion. It gives defenders one more thing to account for and process at the beginning of the play and can slow their reaction time by a split second giving the offense an advantage. That slight hesitation on the part of a defender can be the difference between a play hitting big or being blown up. Statistics show that play action passes have a significantly higher completion percentage than passing plays without it. I've never understood why offensive coordinators don't include play action or pre-snap motion in every play they can. I'm glad Daboll has made them a feature of our offense this year. I think it has been paying dividends.

$200,000

You might have misread the situation. These donations are going to a children's hospital in Buffalo that Josh has taken under his wing and has been fund raising for. The donations are in his grandmother's honor. A nice gesture from the Bills' Mafia. I chipped in my $17. Seems like a classy way to support our favorite quarterback.

Done. 17 florins well spent. Not having Josh's back right now would be Inconceivable...

Diggs in on pace to break the Bills single season receiving yards record set by Eric Moulds in 1998 with 1,368 yards AND the Bills' single season reception record also set by Eric Moulds in 2002 with 100 receptions. Through nine games Diggs is sitting at 65 receptions for 813 yards. Not too bad to blow into town and challenge all time franchise records in your first year.