CincyBillsFan

Any deal is likely to be CAP neutral in 2021 & 2022 so covid should not be a factor here. If the Bills don't sign him this off season you will begin to see a rot spread through the organization. Allen will wonder if he really is the guy here. Soon we'll start to resemble the Dallas Cowboys QB saga where franchise tagging Allen every year is our only option. Now that's how you blow up the CAP. But not to worry. Bean will get it done and Allen will agree to a very CAP friendly deal. Nothing we've seen or heard on this topic from any of the key players would lead anyone to believe differently.

I think there is merit in this position. Tua was the 5th player taken in the 1st round last year and now he is at the epicenter of a possible trade for Watson. Darnold was the 3rd pick and Rosen was the 10th pick in 2018 and one is a bust and the other is on the brink of being a bust. Goff was the 1st pick in the draft not that long ago and now he got swapped for Stafford. I could fill this page with more examples of this.

Let's face it folks threads like this one and the multi page threads on Watson & Stafford only confirm that Bills fans have a bad case of off season speculative syndrome. For the last 25 years we have approached every off season like a gambleholic approaches a poker game. We have months to scheme preseason moves that will finally land the Bills a franchise QB and a playoff birth. But damn, this years Bills have spoiled that fun and now we have to exist in a world where we have a franchise QB and the Super Bowl is a legitimate goal. Where's the fun in that? I'm envious of Detroit fans who now can imagine all the pro-bowlers those 1st round picks will garner. Or how Goff will return to his super bowl year. And imagine how much fun the Rams fans are having as they speculate on how their almost elite new QB, who never won much in Detroit, will lead their elite defense (the one Allen and the Bills torched but I digress) to the Super Bowl. And I can only guess at the ecstasy surging through Miami & Jets fans in anticipation of landing the Watson. Who cares if they have to give up their first born child to get him. Think of all the awesome scenarios for any team that lands a top 5 QB like Watson. The outcome is guaranteed just like when the Bills landed Bledsoe!

And maybe the Rams are worrying that the Chargers and their great young QB are poised to jump past them in the eyes of the LA sports fan. Herbert is going to be a star and McVay is going to feel the heat if he doesn't get top level production out of his QB.

Absolutely there is IMO. And when you throw in 2 first round draft picks I take the picks and Goff EVERY time over Stafford.

The Dolphins have more holes to fill then their 10 - 6 record indicates. Unless the Fish expect to get gifted a slew of turnovers in key games next season they need to upgrade the talent level significantly just to get back to 10 - 6. Signing Watson upsets the Dolphins salary cap limiting the number of high impact free agents they can sign. And giving up those premium picks robs them of trade bait on draft day and the chance to accumulate even more picks and stocking their team with young, low cost talent.

I wouldn't. How many playoff games has he won? A lot of Stafford's stats were generated trying to overcome 3 score deficits. Prevent defenses are kind to a QB's stat line. But even if Stafford is better then Goff, he's not close to being TWO first round picks better.

IMO if Miami pays what it will cost to land Watson it will be the ruin of their team. Watson is a great QB but the cost to the Dolphins would cripple them and we know that when not surrounded by a lot of talent even great QB's like Watson will go 4 - 12. And this is why the NFL will not become like the NBA.

As others have noted the cost to land Watson just got inflated like a Weimar Republic Deutsche Mark! It's easy to throw stones at Goff but is Stafford really that much better? Put Goff in Detroit for all those years and he's more then capable of putting up Stafford's numbers. On paper this trade is a huge win for the Lions.

I can see Miami regressing with Watson at QB. First, to get Watson they'll have to give up most if not all of their first & second round picks this year. Second, the Dolphins won a lot of games because the ball bounced right for them. If they get only half the TO's next year they got this year they'll be hard pressed to win 10 games with Watson at QB. IMO there was nothing scary about that Miami team the Bills beat 56 - 28 in the last game. The Dolphins win that game and they're in the playoffs. The Bills sat a number of key players for the game and sat the rest in the 2nd half. What that game showed was that Miami is not as close as people think. They have a lot of work to do on that roster. The type of work that benefits from having a QB on a rookie contract.

I remember a couple of brave souls (I was NOT one) speculating that Allen's top end would look like the Miami game to end the 2018 season. Those few posters were torn to shreds by the still strong "wrong Josh" crowd. It turns out they not only were right but may have been underestimating Allen's upside.

This point needs to be repeated over and over again. Beasley AND Diggs had the best seasons of their careers. Gabe Davis, a rookie, catches a boatload of TD's. A guy the Bills lose on waivers catches a TD in the game that clinched the Bills a division title. When looking at who is and who is not an elite QB talent the ability to improve the play of others may be a distinguishing factor. In Allen's rookie & second seasons he showed he could do that (Foster anyone) but this year he took it to ridiculous extremes.

Are others as awe struck by Allen's numbers through 19 games (including 3 playoffs games) as I am? I mean think back to January 2019. Anyone posting these numbers for Allen's 2020/21 season would have been laughed off this board. Over 68% completions; just shy of a QB rating of 105; nearly 5400 yards of total offense and 52 TDs! Are you kidding me.

First off I don't care who is labeled the favorite in the East or the AFC in the preseason. It has no real impact on how things actually turn out. Second, I believe that the idea that Watson going to Miami turns then into a Super Bowl contender is premature. Sure he would be an immediate upgrade at QB but there would be other ripple effects in the Dolphin organization. I happen to believe that Miami overachieved in winning 10 games this season. Watson could arrive, significantly improve their QBing and they still only win 10 games next year. I agree with you that the NFL needs to squash this. Unless folks think the NFL would be better served mimicking the NBA Watson signed a contract, a good one, and he should be held to it.

To be fair Watson was throwing against prevent defenses a lot more then Allen. I suspect that at least a quarter of his stats were generated in that way. While Watson has been better then Allen over the last 3 years I'm one of those who think that RIGHT NOW Allen is better then Watson.

Can we all agree that setting Watson aside the Texans still had more talent on their roster then the Jets and probably about the same talent on their roster as the Pats? Yet Watson QBed them to a 4 - 12 season. Considering what a team will have to give up and the CAP hit of signing Watson he may not have as many suitors as people think.

I agree 100%. The gall of this clown. He could have been GM for 25 years and would not have sniffed an AFC championship game.

I'll bite. The process of signing your franchise QB to a big contract at the end of year three is designed to achieve much of what you want. That is to lock up our guy in a CAP friendly way. With the Ravens working to restructure Jackson and the precedent set with QB's like Mahomes, Watson, Goff & Wentz the Bills can not afford to not restructure Allen's contract now. Frankly I'm not going to risk the relationship between the franchise QB and the franchise should they choose not to sign Allen to a new contract. I'm confident the new contract can be structured to gain all the CAP advantages you describe while locking up a generational talent for the foreseeable future. It would be gross malfeasance on the part of the Bills not to sign Allen to a new contract this off season.

Are you seriously suggesting that the Bills allow Allen to basically become a free agent before paying him? The whole idea of reworking these contracts for your rookie franchise QB is to show him that he's your guy and to allow the team to get the most advantageous CAP friendly deal they can get. To do otherwise would be insane on the Bills part. There is a zero chance that Bean doesn't rework Allen's contract this off season.

Bingo and this is why Allen had so many designed runs against the Colts. But we're not Baltimore and the fact that Allen more then doubled up the rushing yards of our RB's in 2 of the 3 playoff games is a big problem. And it wouldn't take much from one of our RB's to shake up the kind of defense the Chief were playing. If Singleterry catches that pass and runs down the sideline for 30 yards it forces the Chiefs to rethink what they're doing. A run up the middle that busts open for 25 yards is going to give a D coordinator heartburn. Did we have even one run of that kind the entire season? Our RB's are slow and not very elusive. They have almost no power and Singleterry doesn't have good hands. The one thing they do well is pick up the blitz on pass plays. But Sunday we had to use Yelden to get the production Singleterry wasn't giving us. The problem was that Yelden missed the blitz pickup a couple of times resulting in Allen running for his life. It was a case of pick your poison. The good news is that IMO this is a relatively easy off season fix.

It's natural to want to find an explanation for why we lost. But the sample size versus KC is to small to try to ID an underlining reason. IMO it comes down to: * The Chiefs are a better team. They are defending SB champs with the best record in football. You tend to lose to that type of team. * In the first game Allen was dealing with a shoulder injury and in the last game 3 of the 4 Bills WR's were dealing with injury's. When you're as one dimensional on offense as the Bills are - they depend almost exclusively on the QB to WR pass - you're in trouble when those players aren't 100%. * The way to counter what KC was doing on defense meant using players that just aren't very good. The Bill's RB's are at the bottom of the league as pass receivers. The Bills TE's don't exactly terrify defenses with their pass catching and YAC potential. The drop by Singleterry on the Bills 2nd possession was huge because not only would it have been a big gain but it would have forced the Chiefs to adjust what they were doing on D. And to those saying Allen wasn't taking the check downs look at the stats. Beasley, Knox & Yelden caught 17 passes between them all of the short variety. And all but one of Diggs receptions was a short pass. This year the Bills didn't have the offensive personnel to exploit the check down pass. Only Beasley seemed to be able to make a defender miss after one of these catches. How many times did Moss or Singleterry juke a guy out after catching a dump off pass?

This is a great point. In my family some of the younger Bills fans are taking this very hard. I think the historical perspective makes a big difference on how you see yesterday's game. I became a serious Bills fan as a college student in Buffalo in the early 1970's (grew up in a small town west of Rochester). The Bills were bad back then and the only thing to root for was OJ. Then Chuck Knox came along and built the Bills into a playoff caliber team. But this only lasted for 2 years and the Bills were eliminated both times in the Divisional Round. We could only dream of playing in a conference championship game. Then it was back in the toilet for 6 years where our dreams revolved around getting back to the playoffs. Levy, Kelly & Company show up in the late 80's and we had a 10 year golden age. Sure the Super Bowl losses hurt but given what we were about to face for the next 20 years it was the best of times. Twenty years of oblivion where the fan base goes nuts when the 2017 Bills back into the playoffs then score a FG in a first round loss. And now some of these fans are belly aching about losing in the conference championship game to the defending SB champs? Incredible. For what it's worth yesterday's game reminded me of the Bill's loss to Cincinnati in the 1988 AFC championship game. Even though Kelly stunk the joint up (3 INT's) and the Bills played poorly there was a sense of optimism that this was the start of something big. Well I have that same sense today.

Different situation and different teams. Mahomes benefited greatly from the KC defense being able to shut down NE through three quarters of that game. He was afforded the luxury of floundering for three quarters. Had Mahomes faced an elite offense and his defense not played well that day the Chiefs end up losing by a score similar to the Bills loss yesterday.

Actually it's very close. By the end of next season you won't be able to tell the difference between Mahomes & Allen. And that's not disrespecting Mahomes in any way. I believe he's the best QB in the NFL. This is about how much Allen has improved, the fantastic physical tools he brings to the position and the expected further improvements in Allen's game from now to next season. I truly believe that next season Allen & Mahomes will be the consensus picks as the best QB's in the NFL.

Love this. It's important to understand the past to enable a proper perspective on the present. And let's not forget that Mahomes was shut out in the first half against NE and after 3 quarters had only led the Chiefs to 7 points in his first championship game. Sure he had an awesome 4th quarter but clearly Mahomes was impacted by the moment when he played in his first championship game. And your point about Allen not having a normal modern QB experience growing up is spot on. He didn't attend the elite camps that a lot of these guys do during high school that sharpens their skills and his college career didn't exactly groom him for the NFL. Allen took more of an old school path where QB's benefited from sitting and learning their first couple of years in the NFL.