CincyBillsFan

If you mean that no other playoff caliber team in the NFL would have blown that lead like the Bills did I wholeheartedly agree with you.

Well if you're looking for reasons to be pessimistic just consider how the Bills coaching/management brain trust may be well on their way to ruining Allen. Instead of a forceful personality like DaBoll, who was willing to get in the trenches and argue with McD about what the O should be, we have a compliant OC who is faithfully executing the McD vision of how an offense should compliment his defense. So the guy that benched Tyrod Taylor to give Peterman a shot in 2017 and then decided that Allen wasn't ready to start in 2018 but Peterman was is now setting the strategic mission for Allen and the offense. I've got a bad feeling that this will not end well for the Bills. One last observation. Remember in the 2nd quarter of the 2021 KC playoff game when the Bills got the ball after a punt at midfield and they ran it three straight times and didn't get the 1st down? That always bothered me and I suspect that what happened there was that McD yelled at DaBoll for not doing enough (running the ball) to protect his D from Mahomes while DaBoll was arguing that his responsibility is to score. I will go to my grave believing those play calls by DaBoll were a big F you to McD in that game.

How big of you not to blame Allen for the 2021 KC playoff loss. The fact is that no matter how brilliant Mahomes, Kelsey & Hunt were to get into position for the tying FG it took an extraordinary level of incompetence on the part of the Bills coaching staff to lose that game.

Talking abut stats here is where the deeply "flawed" Allen stands relative to his peers after 7 games: Allen's rank among QB Starters: Yards passing = #6 Passing TD's = tied with Mahomes & Tua for #2 Total TD's = #1 Regular QB Rating = #6 QBR = #3

No McD's biggest blunder was in overseeing the collapse in the last 13 seconds versus KC in the 2021 divisional playoffs. Win that game and I'm very confident the Bills would have won their first Super Bowl.

Just a reality check on whether or not Allen is playing poorly this season: Allen's rank among QB Starters: Yards passing = #6 Passing TD's = tied with Mahomes & Tua for #2 Total TD's = #1 Regular QB Rating = #6 QBR = #3

Bingo. We're not saying he was close to flawless and we're not saying he couldn't have played better. But Allen played well enough to win that game and in fact his play in the 3rd & 4th quarter put them in a position to win.

Okay so Allen is lazy and mentally fragile. Not that by any objective measure his O line and collection of skill players is worse then just abut any other legit playoff team. Got it. And fine I'll buy what you people are selling and whine that Allen is playing poorly this season. Then explain this: Allen's rank among QB Starters: Yards passing = #6 Passing TD's = tied with Mahomes & Tua for #2 Total TD's = #1 Regular QB Rating = #6 QBR = #3 If this is Allen with all the "problems" you people are claiming he has then maybe he isn't the problem.

And Belicheat playing against a division foe he knows gives the Pats a massive advantage over whoever coaches the Vikings.

To be clear I think the quality of the offensive FA signings are a step below what we sign on the D. We bargain shop more often for offensive FA's. McGovern, a career back up at Dallas was our biggest offensive FA signing this year but Floyd (a good signing) as a bigger one both from cost and performance history. I hope you're right about this being the best O line in the McD era. The last couple of games it has not but like individual players can go into a slump so can units. It's fair to say that the jury is still out on this one. To be fair we have seen good results on offense compared to the rest of the league. We're top 5 in scoring and yards. So we are getting a lot out of our skill players which I attribute to Allen. But when you watch our WR's not named Diggs I don't see the consistent great catches that I see with a lot of other teams #2 & #3 WR's. As for KC this is the first season in the last 5 where you could say they don't have better skill players then the Bills do and their offense has looked inconsistent as a result. What you can say though is that the Chiefs have a much better O line and their offensive coaching is also far better.

That is what Marino's analysis of the NE game films showed. Greg Cosell has a different opinion for what Allen and the Bills O has been doing this season. And while you say "these arguments of whose fault is it are over simplified" you seem to put most of the blame on Allen. Sorry but I don't see it. Allen was off a bit in the first half (remember a dumb penalty wiped out a TD pass and the Bills missed a short FG) and excellent in the 2nd half leading the Bills back and taking a 3 point lead with under 2 minutes left to play. At least that was what I saw watching the game.

It's not that he's telling them not to try to hard it's that against bad teams McD wants the offense to chew up clock and be careful. Don't take risks that might lead to TO's, three & outs or great field position for the other team. Drive the ball to midfield and then punt them to the 10 yard line is a success in this approach. Don't give the other team a reason to get fired up and think they can win. McD wants a certain type of offensive game plan against these weaker teams in the 1st half. It's the opposite of the K Gun/Kelly years where Marv & company wanted to knock the other team out early using the offense to deliver the blow. To McD the Commanders game was the ideal game against inferior opponents. But against the Dolphins McD realized he had to be offensively aggressive right from the start and he was. Different opponent different offensive strategy.

You have to be more specific. The offense has been dismal in the 1st half of the last 2 games and outstanding in the 2nd half of those same games. Sure this is a frustrating lack of consistency. But why are they this way? Some posters are assuming it's the players particularly Allen. Others are throwing the blame at Dorsey. But what if it's neither and it's more about the strategy that the head coach brings in when facing what he considers clearly inferior teams? A defensive minded coach to boot. What are the things he emphasizes in the first half? Don't do anything that will compromise the defense and give our opponents a chance. McD wants a workmanlike victory where the other team implodes and he can rest his starters in the 4th quarter. But maybe we're not good enough to play this way or the difference between the really crap teams and the great ones doesn't allow you to play this way. If you remember a fully healthy Bills team played Washington this way and dominated by the end of the game. But look more closely at the Dolphins game. The fish were a very good team and a real threat so McD unleashed the Offense. There was no doubt that the Bills were more aggressive in their play calling and offensive attitude right from the start. And I think this was by design.

This is a great point and it suggests to me that the problem isn't Allen or even Dorsey but it's a strategic issue arising from the head coach. It seems like against inferior teams McD wants to win putting out the minimum effort. He does this I suspect in recognition that it's a long season and believes there will be less attrition of he does it this way. Of course the challenge is that in the NFL the difference between the best and worst team isn't that great. Think about the Dolphins game. McD saw the fish as a real threat and a great team. So how did the offense start that game - explosively and aggressively. I'll throw the Jags game out because the issue there was the travel. But against the Giants & Pats McD believed the Bills could win putting out 80% effort. Then when things went south the O was turned lose as you note and they performed very well at that point in BOTH games.

But to do this the team must prioritize the offense over the defense and by a wide margin. It definitely has not. You can't skimp on an O line that has been rated in the bottom half of the NFL this season and the last couple of seasons, and then expect the Offense to carry the team when the D experiences injuries and isn't playing well. And I haven't even mentioned our collection of underwhelming offensive skill players not named Diggs.

To be precise the offense has been unproductive in the first half and very productive in the 2nd half.

So who are the good outlet receivers who are reading the blitz and getting where they're supposed to be fast? Cook? Knox? Shakir? Harty? I don't see anyone like Beasley out there do you? And while you can argue the accuracy of PFF player rankings take a look at their assessment of the Bills O linemen so far this season. It ain't pretty.

Are the Pats really that much worse then the Vikings minus Jefferson? And part of Sal's pint was that in all 3 games you could argue that Allen & the Bills offense played the best. Now, setting aside the QB, let's line up the rest of each offensive unit and see who has the best talent.

Say this really is a significant problem for the Bills offense and I believe it is not, how is Allen fixing these things going to improve the O line? Seems to me that you can trace the offensive issues to a rapid decline in the O line's performance over the last 3 games then what Allen is or isn't doing. When the O line struggles even the elite QB's/offenses look disjointed and the QB's appear to have regressed in everything they do. Mahomes against TB in the Super Bowl; Burrow in a couple of games when he was sacked a bunch of times and just the other night with Tua/Miami missing multiple starters on their O line resulting in only 10 offensive points.

Sal makes a good point here:

Not true. If I believed as you do that Allen has played poorly the last few games and then proceeded to call out problems like: he can't read defenses; he's not accurate; he doesn't put the work in; he refuses to take the easy first downs; etc.; etc.; etc, then the obvious action would be to consider unloading Allen while his value is still sky high. The simple fact is that cumulatively the things that you and others are throwing out are not fixable. Judas Priest if you believe Allen has all these flaws in his game do you really think he can improve them at this point in his career? So logically trading Allen would have to be at the top of your list. Fortunately for the Bills I don't believe the stuff you guys are throwing out there are MAJOR problems. Sure Allen has to sharpen his game in places. You'll get no argument from me here. And yes Allen needs to be more consistent game to game. But when you look at the whole situation with the Bills those are relatively minor problems that can be corrected. The fact remains that with a clearly inferior O line; a group of skill players who are mediocre at best while at the same time the Bills are trying to change the basic scheme of their offense, Allen has managed to remain a top 5 QB. And if you don't trust me check out the stats. In the end we lost to NE because our banged up defense allowed Mac Jones and the anemic Patriot offense to march 75 yards in the last 2 minutes to score the winning TD.

I'll wait to hear from Greg Cosell among others before accepting Marino as being correct here.

So you're serious then. Okay but it will feel real crappy when Chicago is competing for and actually winning a Super Bowl in the next 5 ears while Buffalo falls back into football purgatory. Oh and do you think Pegula will give Williams a piece of the Bills as part of that rookie contract?

Pine Barren had to be expressing sarcasm at the direction this thread is going and not being serious here. I mean if they made that trade I would bet my house that Chicago would be an immediate Super Bowl contender and actually win one in the next 5 years while the Bills returned to the football purgatory of the great drought.

I suck at recognizing sarcasm and this is sarcasm right???? But if you're serious and the Bill's put Allen on the market tomorrow he would command at a minimum THREE 1st round picks and probably a couple of 2nd rounders to. And there would be 25 or more teams competing to make the trade.