CincyBillsFan

So your nit picks of Allen and the Bills are okay but these are not legit points to make in response - "the eruption of Beane knows what he's doing, what are your credentials, the team was 13-3 last year rain down"?

There was no courage in making the ridiculous charge that "Allen has lost his edge", whatever the hell "edge" is. It's just another in a long line of cheap passive aggressive shots that the Bills QB takes on 2BD.

Or more likely none of this has anything to do with a players off season work outs or in season performance.

Criticizing Allen for things beyond his control is wrong. Criticizing Allen for things that are contributing only a small amount to their playoff defeats while ignoring much bigger problems like: horrible O line play, weak defensive performances and the lack of offensive play makers, is wrong. Sure, Allen can get better. But IMO the degree to which Allen's improvements gets us closer to a SB win is very small compared to other things that this team can do to get better. If over the next 3 years Allen basically replicates his last 3 seasons and the Bills significantly improve the O line and add another play maker Buffalo will win a SB. If Allen improves but the Bills don't improve their O line or add another true play maker they will continue to exit the playoffs before the Super Bowl. The problem is not REMOTELY related to Allen. Allen is the reason the Bills are in the mix for a SB win every season.

In this scenario you would be remiss not to mention how much the Chiefs improved their O line since the debacle against Tampa Bay.

Funny how praising Allen on a Bills message board gets posts like this in reply. Seems odd to me. And for the record if you're going to count Allen's one lost fumble how about counting his one rushing TD? That gives him 4 TD's and 4 TO's. And what about Allen's 2021 playoff run? And in Hurts one playoff game during the 2021 season he had 1 TD and 2 INT's.

I would accept this as true if Allen kicked off and played defense in those last 13 seconds in KC.

I'm not saying that Boyd & Higgins make Burrow great he already is. Nor am I saying that the lack of a Boyd & Higgins on the Bills keep Allen from being great as he already is. So to be clear, BOTH Burrow and Allen are great QB's and are among the top 3 QB's in the NFL with the other being Mahomes. The actual rank ordering of the three makes for a great debate. But the differences between the 3 are very small and when the differences between QB's are small the #2 & #3 WR's can make all the difference in the world. Mixon was a much more dangerous RB then Moter and this was reflected by the fact that teams game planned to shut Mixon down. Did they do the same for Singleterry? The fact that Singleterry had a higher YPC then Mixon was mostly due to defenses fear of Allen running. ANY competent RB would have benefited from sharing the backfield with Allen. Mixon elevated the Bengal's offense while Singleterry took advantage of Allen's presence on the O. And where did you get the idea that we can't get the ball to our TE or RB? They did get the ball to all of them. Burrow struggled when Chase was out against Cleveland. The Browns were beating the Bengals 25 - 0 going into the 4th quarter.

I think putting total fumbles and not LOST fumbles in the same stat line as interceptions is disingenuous. INT's are turnovers; fumbles are nothing unless they're lost. With Allen we often see an O lineman miss the block and Allen fumbles as a result of the blindside hit. Fortunately the lineman, after missing the block, is standing there to fall on the fumble. And I disagree that Allen is more prone to mistakes then Mahomes. I believe a better explanation is that Allen presses more in games then Mahomes and the reason for this is that KC is a better football team which requires Mahomes to press less often.

It's hard to compare the two QB's stats when there is such an enormous difference in the quality of offensive play makers supporting each. IMO the above stats are surprisingly close given the disparity in weapons at each QB's disposal.

I watch a lot of Bengal's games living down here in Cincinnati. And to claim that Burrow's "floor is so far beyond Allen" is not supported by the evidence. Just last season Burrow had two games in which he was every bit as bad (or worse) then any Allen game over the last 3 seasons: Versus Pittsburgh Burrow threw 2 TD's while throwing 4 INT's including a Pick 6 and losing 1 fumble. That is 5 TO's. Has Allen ever had a 5 TO game? Versus Cleveland Burrow's stats ended up okay with 2 TD's and 2 TO's but that was misleading. During the first 3 quarters of the game Burrow was awful with no TDs and 2 TO's while a mediocre Browns team led 25 - 0 going into the 4th quarter. Burrow did pad his stats with meaningless yards and 2 TD's in the 4th quarter in a game the Bengals lost 32 - 13. And have you forgotten Mahomes 3 INT's against a bad Denver team last season? Sure he threw for 3 TD's and over 300 yards in that same game while pulling out a win. But isn't that a lot like Allen's playoff game against Miami in which a lot of folks on this board claim Allen played poorly? Or how about Mahomes "lows" in 2021 against the Bills and Titans - 2 TD's and 5 TO's - in blowout losses?

I have a lot of respect for Mahomes and agree that he's an elite QB. But no way I trade Allen for him. Since drafting Allen the Bills have been a defense first team and have relied on Allen to carry the offensive load with a significantly less talented offensive supporting cast then Mahomes has had. Mahomes would not have worked as well in Buffalo as Allen given the Bill's defensive mindset. I do believe that Allen would have been equally successful as Mahomes in KC.

Nice effort here. But IMO the difference between Mahomes and Allen/Burrow is even less then the career stats would imply as both Burrow & Allen had to play on terrible teams with awful offensive talent their rookie seasons. For example Allen had 10 TD passes and 12 INT's his rookie season. Mahomes had the luxury of sitting and learning his rookie year then starting on a Super Bowl caliber team his 2nd season. Jalen Hurts has had a similar advantage.

Wait the regression from 11 - 6 in 2021 to 13 - 3 in 2022? Or do you mean the bad loss to the Jets in 2022 compared to the good loss to the Jags in 2021? Or are you talking about the blowout loss to Indy in 2021 compared to no blow out losses in the 2022 regular season? The Bills went 1 - 1 in the playoffs in 2021 and 2022. The only place where we "regressed" from 2021 was in the playoff loss to the Bengals versus the loss to the Chiefs in the Divisional round. Everywhere else, from record to stats the 2022 Bills matched or exceeded the 2021 Bills.

Sorry but this is a one sided take on what happened in that 2nd quarter. Surprised you didn't add the following: * Knox dropped a TD pass that would have made it 21 - 0. * Shakir drops a 55 yard completion late in the 2nd half this if completed likely would have let the Bills run out the clock and score a TD to go up 24 - 9 at half. * The Bills gave up a 57 yard punt return to put the Dolphins in scoring position. * A ball bounced off Beasley's hands for an INT that leads to Miami points. A better description of what happened was that Miami got back into the game because of a series of fluke plays.

The QUALITY of who was injured is a lot more important then the QUANTITY of injuries. When the injuries happen is also important. Not sure that this stat is relevant to the impact of injuries on a teams success or failure in any given season.

McGovern is a HUGE upgrade of Saffold in pass blocking. The Bills go from having the worst pass blocking guard to one that is solidly in the middle of the pack. That jump alone is a big improvement on the O -line. Add in Torrence and Edwards competing with Bates at the other guard and the Bills probably improved their O line as much as possible given the reality of CAP constraints.

I give it a solid A on paper. For me the 1st & 2nd round picks are A+ guys because they potentially fix big needs on the Offense (a 2nd elite play maker and top end guard) while being among the best players you could pick at that point in the draft.

This may be true but once again the other top teams in the AFC are throwing serious resources at surrounding their elite QB's with top talent on offense. Meanwhile we're bargain basement hunting to upgrade our Offense. Does anyone else see this as a big problem? If we don't get D Hop then the #1 and #2 picks should go for offensive talent. If we trade our first for an extra 2 & 3 then both #2's must go to the offense.

This will be true if we lose out on D Hop to the Ravens or Chiefs.

And that will present an issue all on it's own.

And there's only so far you can restructure a 100+ million dollar CAP hit with a 41 year old.

I agree. Over the years I have seen plenty of teams with the talent to make deep playoff runs held back by bad QB play. But those teams still would win 10 or 11 games while making early exits as a wildcard from the playoffs. But the Jets went 7 - 10 with a miracle win over Cleveland. If they were truly loaded with talent and had great coaching even with poor QB play they would have done better then that. And like you I also think that with Rogers the Jets are at best a 9 to 10 win team that might sneak into the playoffs.

It will only get worse and more obnoxious. But in the end I believe that it will go more along the lines of Denver & Wilson: a lot of sound & fury swirling around the hype followed by a dismal under performing of bloated expectations.

Miller & Hyde suffered season ending injury's. It happens to veteran players and young players alike - you know just like the Jets rookie RB. And White was coming back from a serious knee injury. Let's see how effective right from the get go the Jets rookie RB is coming off his knee injury. You are correct about the Bills fielding a veteran team at the start of last season and then sticking with them through the season. This is a legitimate criticism of McD who is reluctant to give rookies/young players meaningful playing time. But I'm confident given his comments this off season and the example of the Chiefs using rookies all over the field that McD is going to change and play the young guys sooner and more often.