CincyBillsFan

People forget that McD/Bean gutted the Bills offense for the 2018 season. That unit was bad. The fact that Allen showed glimpses of the great QB he would become with that group around him is amazing in hindsight. A lot of rookie QB's would have been knocked out of the league facing what Allen faced his rookie year as a starter.

A lot of people would have said something like this about Mathew Stafford when he played at Detroit. Then he was traded to LA and won a Super Bowl. You might want to look at coaching & the Bills roster rather then Allen here.

I believe that the Chiefs would have had a better regular season record with Allen at QB this season and still would have won the Super Bowl.

You can absolutely say that Allen's has been at a disadvantage versus the Chiefs during the last "few years" if you define "few" as 3 years. * During the 2021 season the Chiefs had Kelsey AND Hill, and Andy Reid, enough said. * During the 2022 season the Chiefs had Andy Reid and one of the top 3 rated offensive lines in the NFL the Bills had one of the worst, enough said. * During the 2023 season for the first time in Allen's career he had similar talent as Mahomes on the O line & among his skill players. And the Bills beat the Chiefs during the regular season, finished ahead of them to gain home field advantage in the playoffs and then only lost the game when their FG kicker missed a 44 yard kick in the last 2 minutes. Oh and Mahomes still had Andy Reid as coach AND a championship caliber defense.

There you go again. Where in that sentence does it remotely suggest Allen NEVER makes an inaccurate throw? Rib's point, which is difficult to rationally dispute is that pressure as Allen released the ball impacted the throw and caused him to miss Shakir. A reasonable & defensible criticism here is that Allen should have stepped up in the pocket a half second sooner and made the throw. But again you demand PERFECTION from Allen and no one else on the team - it's crazy to me.

I don't buy this. In the 4th quarter Allen drove the Bills 54 yards in 14 plays using 6:23 BEFORE he threw those 2 incompletions. On that drive Diggs dropped what would have been at minimum a 60 yard completion. Allen converted one 3rd down and one 4th down on that drive. The FACT remains that while the ending wasn't perfect Allen put the Bills in position to tie the game with less then 2 minutes remaining. Missing a 44 yard FG in today's NFL is inexcusable. You are criticizing Allen for not being perfect on that last drive where "perfect" in your mind was to score a TD to go up by 4 with less then 30 seconds to play. That is an amazingly unrealistic expectation for someone who has been watching football for 50+ years. For nearly three quarters of the Super Bowl Mahomes could only lead his team to 2 FG's while throwing a bad INT. He was gifted a TD late in the 3rd quarter after a terrible special teams play by the 49's. The idea that if Mahomes were the Bills QB playing against the KC defense we would have achieved the PERFECT outcome (TD with very little time left) is purely hypothetical. Finally, the charges of "homerism" by you and others because some of us debate what we think are your awful takes on Allen is getting old. NO ONE is saying Allen is perfect and can't improve his game. What we are saying is that the extent to which Allen can further improve his game is minuscule compared to the other places that the Bills need to improve their play & coaching. The problems preventing the Bills from becoming a perennial AFC Championship/Super Bowl games participant and winner has almost nothing to do with Allen and almost everything to do with other aspects of the Bills.

Maybe, maybe not. A lot of us thought Jacksonville was going to be that team this year and look what happened. The Texans now must clear the first hurdle a bad team must overcome when they become relevant again - repeat it. This is easier said then done as Jacksonville and the NY Giants to name just a couple of recent teams that were unable to do it.

Where stats do matter is when you're trying to determine where you are falling short and how you get over the hump to "just win, baby". And Allen's stats are a reminder that he is the Bills best player. Stats also provide compelling evidence to disprove the morons constantly claiming that "Allen has to do more". And in the NFL a single player, even a HOF QB considered by almost everyone to be among the best to ever play the position, is not enough. Just ask Dan Marino.

I think you're on to something here. If QB had been listed as a reason for why he Bills had not been more successful the poll would have lost all credibility. I mean no sane person could list QB as a reason the Bills were not better. Heck, put Mahomes on the Bills and I am very confident they still would not have won a Super Bowl. Allen played very well in those games and made some monster plays to help win them. Also the threat of what Allen can do is a very powerful weapon and Brady deserves credit for using it in ways Dorsey did not.

You mean like the trash pick Mahomers threw against the 49's in the SB that his D saved his butt on? Funny how when Allen would throw a pick in the middle of the game giving the team the ball 50 yards from a score it was the turning point but on a championship team like KC it's an opportunity for the defense to rise up.

I went with coaching & FO: * Thirteen seconds was the year the Bills win a Super Bowl if not for that total meltdown by the teams coaching staff in that playoff game. With a win in 2021 over the Chiefs in the playoffs at Arrowhead and by definition the Chiefs are no longer the impediment. * This season the FO screw ups and MISSED opportunities in 2022 & 2023 kept us from winning the Super Bowl. I may not be fair here as injury's have an element of bad luck associated with them but the choices to sign Von Miller and not get CMAC and/or DHOP was the difference in the Bills not winning the SB this season. I know hindsight is 20/20 but is there any doubt that if the Bills had not signed Miller and traded for CMAC during the 2022 season and signed DHOP this off season instead of Floyd there would be a SB parade in Buffalo today.

AMEN! Allen does elevate the players around him and that is exactly what he did with guys like Beasley, Brown, Sanders, McKennzie, Foster and others. The fact is all the great QB's out there such as Mahomes & Burrow elevate those around them. The difference between them and Allen is how far they must elevate those players to get to the Super Bowl. Burrow in 2021 had to elevate his WR group a lot less then Allen did in 2022 & 2023 and Mahomes this season had to elevate his coaching staff a lot less then Allen did in 2021. Does anyone think that Spags & Reid blow that lead with 13 seconds left if the situation had been reversed and Mahomes had just threw that TD? I don't.

I agree and yes I do believe we can win a SB with McD IF he and Bean change the direction of the teams draft & FA signings to work at surrounding Allen with the best possible players and IF Brady is the real deal at OC. At the same time it will be a lot harder to win a SB with McD then with an offensive minded head coach. And what makes this station so frustrating to me is that McD is NOT a bottom tier coach he is actually in the top half of coaches. But living in Cincinnati all these years allowed me to experience Marvin Lewis who also was a good but not great coach who resurrected a dead franchise. IMO the only reason McD has had some playoff success whereas Lewis went 0 - 7 in the playoffs is Allen.

I guess you didn't watch yesterday's game. Mahomes was great especially when he had to be but what differentiates the Chiefs from the Bills is that their coaching staff and other players surrounding Mahomes are also clutch and came through when they needed to. That's true complimentary football, not the fake version that McD talks about. Yesterday the Chiefs defense kept them in the game while Mahomes and the offense were figuring things out. KC had only THREE POINTS at half and had not exactly moved the ball up and down the field. Yet the 49's only led 10 to 3. The Bills D would have probably given up 24 points to the 49's in yesterday's first half. But Mahomes and Reid had the luxury of time to get it right - thanks entirely to their D. Then in the 3rd quarter Mahomes throws a bad INT but again the KC D rises up and doesn't let the 49's gain a first down after getting the ball at the Chiefs 45 yard line. And how abut Kelsey? One catch for 1 yard in the first half and 8 catches for 92 yards in the 2nd half. The guy was a beast and made clutch catch after clutch catch for Mahomes. Who on the Bills offense rose up in the 2nd half to dominate the Chiefs D? All I remember was a single great Shakir TD catch and a couple of drops by the rest of the WR's. At the end of the game, in a situation similar to what Allen faced near the end of the Chiefs game Mahomes missed seeing a wide open WR for the game winning TD to try to force a throw to Kelsey. KC then made the FG to get to OT and in OT their D held SF to a FG after the 49's made it to the Red Zone and then Mahomes did his magic to drive for a TD and win the game.

So in spite of your "great love for Josh as our QB" it's his fault that we didn't beat the Chiefs in the divisional playoff game? Judas Priest it's this type of thinking that drives me nuts. By any objective observation the least of the Bills problems versus the Chiefs is Allen. Yet the same folks continue to call out Allen as the issue over and over and over again. You people expect Allen to be perfect and when he's not you cry about his "losing the game". And as Greg Cossel repeatedly notes about the Bills requiring Allen to be perfect every game is crazy and WILL NEVER WORK. BTW, Mahomes was far from perfect: he threw a bad INT in the 3rd quarter but his D rose up and snuffed out the 49's threat. And then at the end of regulation Mahomes zeroed in on Kelsey failing to see a wide open receiver that would have easily caught a TD pass and won the game. This is called the eb & flow of a game. And it's here that with far superior coaching and better clutch players surrounding him Mahomes can shine. If the Bills want to challenge the Chiefs they have to surround Allen with the same.

And notice how after Mahomes threw a terrible INT early in the 2nd half the Chiefs three and outed the 49's. That also sealed their fate. As an aside, it's interesting how some Bills fans view every Allen INT as the reason for a Bills loss. Yet Mahomes threw a pick yesterday as bad as any Allen threw over the whole season and what happened? The Chiefs D rose up and didn't allow the 49's to get even one 1st down. Now that's true complementary football not the fake version that McD practices. Coaching is the crucial and apparently insurmountable difference between the two teams.

From 30,000 feet the "chasm" between the regular season Bills and the playoff Bills comes down to two general factors: 1) Inferior coaching 2) The wrong roster structure with the defense being prioritized over the offense.

And even in the Bronco's game Allen walked off the field with the lead with less then two minutes to play. Folks can point to injuries as the reason that McD's defense lost the Bills multiple games (including the divisional playoff game) this season but except for the Jets opening game Allen's TO's were not a significant factor in the rest of our losses.

The operative word here is FINALLY. That it took them 5 years to get the O line right is on Bean. The fact remains that the Bills brain trust made a conscious decision to NOT surround Allen with the best O line and offensive skill players and that has cost us dearly in the playoffs.

What are you talking about? Allen had ONE turnover against Cincinnati while scoring 2 TD's. He also had over 300 total yards of offense. Allen was not the reason the Bills lost to the Bengal's, the Defense was. BTW he other TO was the Kincaid fumble at the Bengal's 10 yard line which deprived the Bills of a 1st & goal.

Mayfield's rookie season was on par with what we saw from Stroud this season but with inferior coaching and talent around him: Baker: 14 games had 3725 yards; 27 TD's & 14 INT's; rating = 94 Stroud: 15 games had 4108 yards; 23 TD's & 5 INT's; rating = 101

I agree. As an aside, I see no relevance to what his DAD did and Patrick Mahomes role as the Chiefs QB in the Super Bowl. If reporters want to talk about that story they should go talk to the Sr Mahomes, his lawyers, or the local police and prosecutors office. It has nothing to do with the QB of the KC Chiefs and quizzing him about it isn't journalism it's harassment. IMO of course.

Correct. The only player on the Bills offense that terrifies defensive coordinators is Allen.

Thanks in large part to Allen.

You can make an argument that the drops directly cost the Bills games: * Against the Jags the Diggs drop at the 5 yard line that resulted in a Jag INT was huge. * Against NE the 4th down drop by Knox was huge. * Against the Eagles the TD drop by Cook was huge. * Against Denver the drop by Davis that ended up as a Broncos INT was huge. * Against the Chiefs the 3 drops by Sherfield & Diggs combined were huge.