CincyBillsFan

No he isn't. Everyone keeps posting about how "Allen pushed for Coleman" when there isn't the slightest proof that happened. And in fact it goes against how low key Allen appears to be in these things. And please don't link to the article saying how Allen sent Coleman a text saying "welcome to the Bills" and he was looking forward to "working with him". That's what every QB would do. And it's no big deal that the text went out before the Friday draft started as the Bills had the first pick that day. You don't have to be Ian Rappaport to figure out what probably happened. Bean told Allen in the days leading up to the draft that the Bills were going to take a WR with their #1 pick. I'm sure Allen got excited and Bean then probably told Allen what the parameters were going to be and who was likely going to be available at that point and he asked Allen for his opinion. Obviously an athletic, big bodied WR was the Bills greatest need and would appeal to Allen. And given that the Bills had Shakir guys like MaConkey would be less appealing. But Allen didn't vet these receivers the Bills scouting staff did. Allen likely got sheets with the pros & cons of the guys who the Bills were thinking of selecting late in the 1st round. Do you or anyone else believe for one minute that Bean went to Allen and said "hey Josh we want to draft a WR in the 1st round and we're vacillating between moving up in the draft and taking one of the studs or staying put and taking one of the guys late in the 1st" and Allen then pushed back and said "Brandon I love this guy Coleman, lets just stay put and pick him". If you haven't figured this out by now Allen is the consummate Company man. He will support whatever senior management wants to do.

The WR group is much worse this year then last year and as you noted last years group did not exactly wow anyone. Another thing that has happened is last year was the beginning of the offensive transformation from a high risk/high reward design to the low risk, short passing, run heavy unit we see today. Remember how the Bills turned it loose and went back to that old Dorsey/DaBoll offense in games against the Rams and Lions? They would not and likely could not do that this season. They should have abandoned their stodgy offense mid way through the 2nd quarter against Miami when it became apparent that the Dolphins were committed 100% to shutting down the Brady bulldozer offense. Just like they turned it off against LA & Detroit last season. To me last season was great because it showed that they could be flexible on offense. This season with the exception of the 4th quarter against Baltimore they are showing no flexibility and are almost insanely being stubborn about what they're doing on offense. And given that you have one of the most uniquely flexible QB's to ever play the game, it borders on lunacy how they have employed Allen. One final note. IMO and I don't think this should be controversial, in fact it's a Captain Obvious statement, the primary goal of the offense is to score points. It's not to chew up time, except in specific situations like at the end of the half or game. And while you want to minimize TO's you can't make an offense so timid and afraid to turn the ball over that they don't take the risks needed to create explosive plays. This would be like asking the D to not blitz because occasionally a team can exploit the blitz to make a big play. The bottom line is that asking an offense to balance what it does so that not only must it score points but do it in such a way that protects your defense is a recipe for problems.

I also thought we would see an improved passing game but it relied on the following things happening: 1) Coleman improving, 2) Kincaid improving & 3) Palmer/Moore being an upgrade over Hollins/Cooper. Unfortunately only one of those three happened (Kincaid improved). It is painfully obvious that the current WR room is significantly worse then last years rather mediocre group. In fact the current group has dropped below what would be considered a minimally talented NFL WR unit. Your Cooper point is interesting. While Allen never developed a highly productive relationship with Cooper they did connect on some great pass plays while Cooper was in the game. Some of those long sideline completions were works of art that the current ctrop of WR's can not duplicate.

Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. I'm as frustrated as the rest of you and there does seem to be something different about this teams struggles compared to previous seasons, BUT......................... 2021: The Bills drop to 7 - 6 and trail the 9 - 4 Patriots, who already beat the Bills in Highmark stadium by 3 games! We all know what happened next. 2023: The Bills drop to 6 - 6 and trail the Miami Dolphins, who they beat earlier in the season at Highmark, by 3 games. In both those years and a lot later in the season, the Bills were in much worse shape then they are now. I don't know how this year will play out but the Bills have been there and done that twice before in the last 5 seasons.

Some of that is Allen's escapability. I see a lot of QB's take sacks that Allen eludes and extends the play. But overall the pass pro is good which is an even stronger indictment of the receivers not getting separation or responding properly on plays where Allen is scrambling. That the Bills miss the contributions of Davis & Hollins is we need to know about the current problems.

I agree. What we're seeing is by design. The problem is that those tasked with selecting the offensive talent and designing the structure to execute this style of offense have so far failed at their job. It's obvious to those of us who follow the Bills closely that something is off with the passing game. I don't need Joe Marino, alt 22 or advanced analytics to see it. Even going back to the late 60's/early 70's when almost every offense pounded the ball first and emphasized the run game they had at least one big play WR. Think Warren Wells, Otis Taylor, Fred Biletnikoff and Don Maynard to name just 4 from Super Bowl winning teams. This has been pretty much a constant for most SB teams. The Chiefs sort of bucked the trend one season but they still had a 1st ballot, elite pass catching TE on the field.

I don't think it's over yet either. But time is running out. In 2 of the last 5 seasons I've seen the Bills overcome worse situations then they are in now. So it would not surprise me to see them go on a run. But it also would not surprise me to see them fall flat on their face and struggle to have a winning record. And that is different then how I've felt at this point in any of the last 5 seasons.

And this is what really worry's me. If the McD advantage is the culture he created then consistency and motivated effort should be hallmarks of a superior NFL culture. But increasingly we're seeing cracks in that. The Bills have managed to lose to 2 teams that have gone 4 - 13 versus teams not named the Bills by a combined score of 54 - 27! That is different then what we've seen before.

In the years the Chiefs O struggled they had a very good defense, particularly in the playoffs. And the Chiefs WR room from last season was much better then the Bills current room. This may change when Palmer gets back and if Davis can contribute.

It's not whether or not Palmer and Davis can save the Bills WR room. It a question of whether or not they can elevate it from being hopelessly ineffective to being an average unit. If they do that we might actually notice a big improvement in the passing game. The only WR group worse then this one in the Josh Allen era was the 2018 WR room. If this seasons Bills receivers can just get to the level of the 2019 group it will seem explosively better in comparison to what we're currently seeing.

That big QB contract doesn't seem to inhibit the Chiefs & Eagles from reaching and winning Super Bowl games years after year. There is a limit to how much better Allen can make players around him. At some point there is nothing Allen can do. The Bills are being greedy with Allen and they're asking to much of him. Sure Allen has the type of personality that takes on that burden but it's up to Bean & McD to make sure there is a balance. That we have been so close to the Chiefs in the playoffs is entirely due to Allen's elite QB play in those games.

I think we're just talking past each other here. The examples I gave are of HC/GM pairs who reached the pinnacle, had an elite QB under a big contract and reloaded to make another run to the Super Bowl. McD/Bean have failed to successfully RELOAD and we're nearing the point where we may need to rebuild. And I don't want them involved in the rebuild. The only caveat I would throw out is that I'm waiting until the end of this season before deciding that they did in fact fail to reload. If the Bills go on a run and they very well might, then Bean/McD pulled off the reload. Only time will tell.

It wasn't "garbage time" until McD inexplicably had our RB attempt an onside kick down 23 - 13 with 3 minutes left and the Bills having all 3 TO's and the 2 minute warning. And for the record Allen made several great plays on that drive that ended in the INT in the 3rd quarter. And again the problem isn't any one game. It's a WR room full of players who can't get open or make the tough NFL level catches every other contending team gets. It's a defense that on Miami's SECOND possession lets them go 92 yards in 7 minutes & 30 seconds to score the games first TD. It's an offensive coordinator who calls for a pass on 4th & 1 right after a Miami TO exposed they were going to pass on that down! It's a defense who allows huge game breaking TD runs at crucial moments in the game. Allen is not the problem and his play today is not the issue. The issues are how this team has been built, injury's and the under performance of so many key players around Allen.

Not every week but on occasion you need to win those games just like you need to win a 41 - 40 game. Ditto for the Chiefs & Eagles.

Allen made some of his signature jaw dropping plays today and he also made a couple of bad mistakes. So what. The problem isn't Allen it's what's around him. Almost no one steps up to help Allen and the D puts the O in tough situations over and over again. Throw in same bad coaching decisions and as the game progresses we see Allen get antsy and start pushing. This leads to both good & bad plays. My point with the "trade Allen" crap is that some of you people obsess over the little things with Allen while ignoring the huge issues around the organization. It's exasperating and some of us throw a variation of the Greenberg idea out there for effect.

The Chargers are on their way to winning one of those tonight. I agree that it's wrong to call McD/Bean a cancer or that they haven't won anything. They have been successful and they have created a winning culture. The problem is that they haven't been good enough given the unicorn of a QB they have.

They have also failed to stem the decline of the defense in spite of continuing to feed that side of the ball significant draft & FA capital. So along with your correct observation about not surrounding Allen with more skill player talent, they have dropped the ball on the D. That's 2 very large strategic actions that they have failed at. And while McD/Bean may have the highest winning % by a GM/HC in franchise history they have not come close to matching the achievements of the 1988 - 1993 Bills teams that won 4 of 5 AFC championships and went to 4 straight Super Bowl games.

I'm with you here and I don't know whether to be happy or sad. In 2 of the last 5 seasons the Bills faced worse odds at winning their division at this point in the season then they do now. And in both cases McD rallied the team and they went on win streaks won the division and at least one playoff game. It would not shock me in the least of they did it again. But that's where I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad. Here we go again with another season where we thought we had a good chance to lock up the #1 seed and have a straight road to the SB. Then they stumble and suddenly just winning the division or even making the playoffs is put at risk. The psychology here is compelling: facing the very real possibility of missing the playoffs we rejoice when they turn it around and win the division. The season is now a success because we avoided a disastrous failure. I fell for this both times in the past. I suspect I'll fall for it hook, line & sinker again this season if it plays out this way.

Good points: You make a compelling argument that McD/Bean are not nearly as good as 7 or 8 coaches/GM pair's who have built Super Bowl winning teams around elite QBs and managed to reload while doing it. Sure McD/Bean are better then the dumpster fires in places like NY, Miami, Tennessee and others but that is faint praise. I think the answer to whether or not we're rebuilding rapidly around Allen is "no, we are not" and worse what we are doing is strategically wrong headed and counter productive. And I don't think McD/Bean are the right guys to do it. I'll wait until the end of the season to more firmly decide, because for me hope springs eternal, but ever since 13 seconds I have slowly but surely lost confidence in those two to get it right with Allen. It's not a straight down drop it's more along the lines of 2 steps back then one step forward followed by 2 steps back, etc. As for swapping Allen for a bunch of picks that is coming from the Mike Greenberg suggestion that the Jets offer all 5 of their 1st round picks for Joe Burrow. It's a great thought exercise over a beer but I can't see the Bills ever doing that. Allen, not first round picks is the key to winning a Bills SB and unless the Bills got better after Allen left Pegula would soon have trouble filling up that brand new palace the tax payer just built. And I have a sneaky suspicion that wherever Allen went a SB might be in their future.

For some players, particularly veteran guys, load management makes sense. But it seems to me that the Bills are trying to load manage the entire team for the entire season. This is a novel concept that is done in baseball & basketball but I've never seen it tried in football before. Only time will tell if it was the right or wrong thing to do. So far, it's a mixed result leaning towards it being the wrong thing to have done.

This is sarcasm right? To bad we can't test your bad take. So let's trade Allen for 4 1st round picks. My guess is that there are at least 25 teams, maybe more, that would break down the door to make that offer. The Bills could probably get it to five 1st round picks. Then after Allen is gone we can see how well McD/Bean do.

It won't be easy for me but I suspect that Friday night football and Saturday's can go a long way towards satisfying my football addiction. I have toyed with getting Buckeye season tickets near where another lifetime Bills fan has his at the Shoe (we both graduated UB and came to Cincinnati to work). he's getting fed up with the Bills to. To be honest I couldn't walk away as long as the Bills were making the playoffs. But this year I was at my grandsons 7th grade football game listening to the Bills/Saints game on my phone. In the 3rd quarter I was so disgusted with the Bills struggling to pull away from the woeful saints at Highmark that I shut the phone off and watched the kids game. I figured if the Bills won great but if they lost to the Saints I didn't want to hear it. As an aside how do you think those tens of thousands of Bills fans who took over Atlanta and Miami's stadiums feel? They spent serious dollars to go to games that the Bills on paper should have won. how disappointing was today's loss? While I'm rambling I'll throw out one more observation. Some will think that we're being drama queens here and overreacting. But how have the last 6 seasons really been different from the drought years? Yea I get we're now making the playoffs and we weren't during the drought. But given how every season ends in almost the exact same way it seems like all we're doing is serving a life sentence in football purgatory in a much nicer hotel then we did during the drought.

I agree. While I respect Allen for this it's also not sustainable in a sport that relies so heavily on TEAM performance. Think about the Super Bowls Bills and all the help Kelly got from Thomas, Reed, Loften, Beebe & Metzelars. All the incredible catches and plays made almost every week. This season we are lucky to see 1 or 2 great plays per month by the receivers. Even during the drought years think about the quality of WR in Buffalo: Moulds, Johnson, Evans, Price, Woods & Josh Reed. Only Diggs and maybe Beasley could match those guys.

I just don't enjoy watching Bills games like I used to. They're wasting one of the great QB talents of all time and there's something sacrilegious about that. Here is the franchise that managed to lose 4 straight Super Bowl games (I agonized over each and every one) then spent 18 seasons in football purgatory which was awful to experience and now maybe their greatest sin in wasting the prime years of a QB like Allen. I have a grandson that will be playing HS football in 2 years and I'm a big Ohio State fan. That may be enough football for me. Sure I'll be glued to the TV the next few weeks to see if my hunch that the Bills go on a long winning streak plays out. But my patience is nearing the end. At least when Allen was turning he ball over more he was making one big play after the other in an offense that was awesome to watch. Today they've neutered their stallion QB and while the analytics say the offense has been great anyone watching the games knows there is something way off. In the end it's about wins and losses and this new offense is doing no better then the much more exciting turnover prone offenses of 2020 - 2023. I'll give it the rest of this season but if Bean/McD bet wrong with this new approach to Allen and the offense then I might be done.

This could be directly leading to an air of desperation within Allen, which is not healthy. Since we know he won't ever throw a coach or player under the bus he internalizes every failure. He thinks that if only he had thrown a better ball here or read the D better there they would have made the play. Yet week after week after week we almost never see a receiver make an extraordinary play to help Allen out. In fact today we saw Kincaid make a great catch on a ball behind him that was probably the first time in months that a Bills receiver made a super play on an Allen throw where his ball placement was a little off. Later in the game a Miami CB got his finger tips on a deep Allen throw and barely deflected the ball. Coleman couldn't snag a deflection that I see College AND NFL WR's routinely make. Coleman has terrible visual ball tracking skills. IMO this season will go a long way towards determining whether Allen pulls an Andrew Luck in the next couple of years or gets his mojo back and plays 10 more years. While Allen hasn't had the physical damage Luck had he's experienced a great deal more mental fatigue and that can be just as wearing on a person.