JGMcD2

Julian Hill? Darren Waller is on the IR.

Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? “They still barely got past Baltimore.” Yeah - I’d hope it wasn’t a cakewalk. No one “blows through” playoff teams for four straight weeks. Sorry if dismantling one of the league’s best defenses (Denver) the week before skewed your idea of what postseason football looks like. This version of the Bills offense averaged 29 points per game in the 2024 playoffs - better than the much-hyped Joe Burrow offenses, which average 23 across seven postseason games and never topped 27. The 2x MVP Lamar Jackson Ravens average 19, by the way. Even Jalen Hurts’ “high-flying” Eagles check in at 30. Welcome to the NFL playoffs. It’s supposed to be ***** hard.

Let’s not get things skewed. Baltimore and Kansas City are still Top 5 teams in the AFC, and quite possibly the NFL. Especially the Baltimore team we faced week 1. The Colts, Patriots and Broncos schedules may look better by SOS after 8 weeks, but they’ve had cupcakes left and right.

I mean, if you’d like to compare Tom Brady to Joe Burrow in order to make your point, that’s fine. How do you think Tom would have done with Chase and Higgins?

Did I say Burrow was crappy? Do I think the 10-7 Bengals Super Bowl run was completely on the shoulders of a QB who threw 5 touchdowns to two picks in four games? Probably not.

Burrow has won exactly one playoff game where the opponent scored over 20 points. If the Bills defense held teams to 20 PPG (it’s actually 18 in Burrow’s 7 playoff games) in the playoffs Josh would be 10-3.

We saw it when Jake Browning had them on the cusp of the playoffs in 2023 when Burrow went down. Burrow threw 5 touchdowns to 2 interceptions in their four game run to the Super Bowl in 2021. His defense allowed an average of 20 points in those 4 games, while his offense averaged 23. He came into the league with a silver spoon in his mouth because of the Heisman and National Championship win. He’s extremely talented, but he’s also part of the reason why his team is terrible. He’s always hurt and he took a fat contract, while also pleading with ownership to pay his two WR fat contracts. They don’t and can’t have the components it takes to win football games.

Why in the world are you acting like 31 teams made a trade and Buffalo sat out? The Jets and Cowboys were the movers and shakers this trade deadline. What a feat…

They’re don’t, they objectively do not.

They're also getting 2nd year receiver AD Mitchell back. Popular guy on this board in the 2024 draft, went 52nd overall (2nd round) to the Colts.

I remember looking last year at the past two seasons because people kept saying Josh’s rushing TDs weren’t real TDs just like Hurts. I want to say like 70% of them were from 2 or more yards out.

Quality depth is much different than a quality starter - I wouldn’t have spent a few minutes on researching my post if the person I was responding to had said “quality depth”.

3 quality starters is quite the embellishment. There's also a serious financial component will all three of these players. Michael Carter II: Pro Football Focus ranks Carter as the NFL’s third-worst CB regular this season. Per Pro-Football-Reference, he has been charged with a whopping 19.5 yards per completion and a 109.7 passer rating as the closest defender. Jaire Alexander: After seeing injuries keep him out of over half of the past two seasons, Alexander was dealing with a knee issue in Baltimore’s training camp, but he found his way off the injury report in time to debut in Week 1 of the season. Alexander had an extremely poor showing against Josh Allen and the Bills, and the Ravens reacted by making him a healthy scratch for the next three games. He was active again in Baltimore’s Week 5 home blowout at the hands of the Texans and again the following week against the Rams, but he didn’t see the field in Week 6. After the team’s bye week, Alexander was made a healthy inactive for their last two games. Jaelan Phillips: Phillips’ base salary for 2025 ($13.25MM) made him one of the more expensive options in terms of finances, even with a portion of that figure already having been paid out. To help facilitate this deal, Miami is taking on money. Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reports the Dolphins are retaining some of Phillips’ remaining salary in return for a higher draft pick.

I mean, in defense of Beane, most of the people questioning his personnel decisions are probably the same folks who think they can tell what someone is thinking from a ten-second clip of them sitting alone in a press box on national television. I wouldn’t give much credence to those people either.

They’ve drafted perfectly well — they just haven’t lucked into an elite player while consistently picking in the back third of the first round. Few teams do. If you define “early-round picks” as Day 1 and Day 2 selections, their track record holds up just fine: Josh Allen Tremaine Edmunds Ed Oliver Greg Rousseau Spencer Brown James Cook Terrel Bernard Dalton Kincaid O’Cyrus Torrence That’s 9 of 17 Day 1–2 picks from 2018–2023 who are above-average NFL players — including three elite ones (Allen, Cook, and Brown) and another two or three (Oliver, Rousseau, Kincaid) who are significantly above average. It’s also worth noting that judging a draft class in less than two years is unreasonable; the most recent groups are still developing. You can also include Harrison Phillips, Devin Singletary, Dawson Knox, AJ Epenesa, and Dorian Williams as solid depth pieces or average starters. Across six drafts, they’ve really only missed on three early-round picks: Kaiir Elam (1st), Boogie Basham (2nd), and Cody Ford (2nd). For comparison: Chiefs (19 early-round picks) — misses include Breeland Speaks (2nd), Dorian O'Daniel (3rd), Clyde Edwards-Helaire (1st), Lucas Niang (3rd), Skyy Moore (2nd), and Felix Anudike-Uzomah (1st). Eagles (17 early-round picks) — misses include Andre Dillard (1st), JJ Arcega-Whiteside (2nd), Jalen Reagor (1st), and Davion Taylor (3rd). I can assure you — 90% of the league would love to have our draft record.