CincyBillsFan

It's beginning to look like 12 - 5 might be good enough to lock up home field advantage throughout the playoffs.

But it started and ended with the Bills having 2 highly productive, HOF game dominator's named Thurman Thomas & Andre Reed.

I don't follow your thinking here. The Bills are an established Super Bowl contender and lost a close game to the Falcons. If the Bills are still a SB contender then they will lose fewer games they're supposed to win then the up and coming Pats.

The Rams offense had 4 possessions in the 3rd quarter but only one 1st down. Yet the Rams D bent but did not break and now they take a 3 TD lead into the 4th quarter. Another example of an offense disappearing for a quarter but the D remaining stout.

Last night I saw both Steelers and Bengals safety's get blown up trying to tackle RB's just as bad as Bishop.

When you look around the AFC the Bills at 4 - 2 are not in bad shape for the #2 or even the #1 seed. It's really quite simple, if the Bills repeat last seasons play then they will contend for the #1 seed. On the other hand if the doom & gloomers are right and the last 2 weeks are a sign of a systemic rot then the bottom is going to fall in. Either way, we'll know the answer after the next 2 weeks.

I agree with the following caveat - Hancock and Bishop need to be the starters. They will make mistakes but the upside is great. Bishop has had the bad luck of missing tackles in prime time for all to see. But he has played much better then Rapp and probably as good as Johnson.

Injured, again.

By then it was to late the damage was done and Allen had to be thinking that at any point the D would collapse again. The defenses performance in the first half was beyond bad. We all saw a guy miss scoring a 50 yard TD on a short pass at the end of the half by 6 freaking inches. The Bills gave up 335 yards. Sorry but the whole team including the coaches had to be shell shocked at half time.

Allen has the same look on the sidelines knowing the D can't stop the other team that Rogers had last night watching his D unable to stop the Bengal's. I've also seen both Mahomes and Jackson with that look this year in games where their D's were struggling to stop the opponent.

Great point and I suspect that was Coopers biggest impact on the Bills last season - teams had to respect him.

In my 60 years of watching NFL football I have noticed that young teams on the rise often lose games that they should win. This inconstancy is something I believe is a characteristic of young teams that are in the process of going from being bad to good teams. I expect the Pats to finish about 10 - 7 and make the playoffs as a wild card.

No since we don't know what the 2025 Bills will look like yet.

I was curious as to Allen's play this year versus last season and here's what I found: 2024 during the 3 - 2 start Allen averaged 221 total (pass + rush) yards per game; 2.0 total TD's per game & 0.4 TO's per game. 2025 during the 4 - 2 start Allen has averaged 275 total yards per game; 2.33 total TD's per game & 0.67 TO per game. Pretty close. So post the 4 - 2 start will 2024's MVP emerge or not? I think Allen will mimic last season.

We played the J.E.T.S!

He's not wrong. In fact he is spot on. The Browns are a reminder to all of us that the so called experts are not so expert at all. I mean consider that the Browns: * bailed on Mayfield when his performance issues were entirely injury related. Now the guy is a clear top 10 NFL QB. * signed Watson * drafted a QB in the 3rd & then in the 5th round with the 5th round QB being at the center of a media circus. * traded Flacco, their only hope of winning games, to a division rival. And that is just at the QB position.

The Pats are like the 2019 Bills - at best. And they will lose a couple of games they're supposed to win.

Good point. I was mostly thinking about fixing the offense. Every tine I look at the defenses problems I get queasy. I do think the tackling can be improved. These guys are pros and a return to good tackling fundamentals is a matter of working at it in practice. I may be hopelessly optimistic here but I'm betting the Bills go on a run after the bye, win the division and lock up a 2nd or 3rd seed.

What is frightening about the Cook extension was that it almost didn't happen - at least from my admittedly distant vantage point. As another poster noted it's almost as if the organization thought the offense could still excel without Cook.

The good news is that a lot of these problems can be fixed.

I would take it a step further, how many times does an "everybody eats" concept actually work in the NFL when you have a great QB and team with Super Bowl aspirations? Last night just reminded all of us that a great QB requires a couple of great skill players to have the type of O that wins SB's. The Bills SB years featured a HOF QB and 2 HOF skill players in Thomas & Reed and a 3rd in Loften for a couple of seasons. Like a lot of people I fell for the "everybody eats" concept because I very badly wanted it to be true. After all looking at the Bills collection of skill players in the preseason it was the ONLY option available. But reality has bit me in the butt and I can't ignore the fact that an "everybody eats" offense isn't likely to be a SB winning offense. So what to do? Either someone jumps up and becomes consistently elite AND stays healthy - Cook, Kincaid & Shakir - are our best hopes or the Bills make a big time trade.

Last nights Bengals/Steelers game reminded me again of how flawed the concept of "everyone eats" is. Everyone didn't eat - Chase and to a lesser extent Higgins bellied up to the buffet and gorged themselves. And over the decades this is how teams with great QB's win championships - they have elite skill players that eat all the food. Just go back to the Bills Super Bowl years - you had a HOF QB depending on the production of Thomas & Reed and for a couple of years Loften - all elite HOF skill players. Sure Metzalars, Beebe & Davis could explode but the notion of "everyone eats" would have been bizarre to those teams. The basic nature of high end NFL offenses works against the everyone eats concept if that concept means that a lot of average skill players can take turns putting in HOF performances on any given night. The reason a Beebe could have a 200 yard receiving game against the Steelers was because the Steelers were doing everything in their power to keep Thomas & Reed away from the buffet.

I suspect that by the end of the season they will be well above 500. And while I hate to defend the Chiefs I think their record over the last 7 years, how many Super Bowls have then been in, speaks for itself. As an aside while I have concerns about this seasons Bills team I also think that they are in a strong position to rebound and go on a run after the bye. Last season they were 3 - 2 and a lot of fans thought they were down for the count before they went on a 10 - 1 tear.

There is nothing in Beanes quotes indicating that Allen has much influence on who they pick or sign as FA's. If anything the tone of Beane's comments are more along the lines that Allen is a bit of a pain in sending him opinions on potential players. This is not the same thing as Allen playing a significant role in who they draft.

I was responding to a point that over the last few years, not just this season, Mahomess has often looked very pedestrian yet the Chiefs won the game. As for this season I would speculate that the reason the Chiefs are only 3 - 3 is that they've played a very hard schedule to data.