CincyBillsFan

Agree 100%. Some facts for those that want to point all the blame at the offense & Allen: * In a playoff game AT HOME and in bad weather, a great defense is expected to start the game off strong. Instead the Bills D gave up 2 long TD drives to put the team in a 14 - 0 hole with the offense having only run 3 plays. * After the Bills cut the Bengals lead to 14 - 7 the Bills D promptly gave up a 6 minutes FG drive that only avoided being a TD drive by a close replay overturning of a Bengals TD. That drive not only restored the Bengals two score lead but used up most of what was left of the 2nd quarter. * The Bills opened the 2nd half with a 7 plus minute FG drive that cut the Cincy lead to 17 - 10. The Bills D responded by allowing the Bengals to use up most of the remaining 3rd quarter on a long TD drive to go back up by 14 points.

And again we see that Allen had a much better game then originally thought making some absolutely spectacular throws. And he made those throws under extreme pressure and often getting hit as he threw the ball.

To be clear my main point was that during the playoffs the Bills supposedly "better" defense played poorly in 6 of the 8 Allen era playoff games. IMO the defense led directly to BOTH KC losses in the playoffs preventing the Bills from reaching the SB both years and almost blew the Colts game in 2020. The only playoff game where the D played a pivotal, winning role was against Baltimore. The Chiefs D has not been as damaging to Mahomes playoff career as the Bills D has been to Allen's. Great playoff defense by the Bills likely would have meant TWO SB trips by the Bills in the last 3 seasons. It isn't. It was an attempt to explain why the Bills D ranked so highly during the regular season and failed so often in the playoffs. My main point was to counter the idea that the Bills D gave Allen an advantage over Mahomes whose Chiefs had a weaker regular season D. The truth is that by any standard the Bills D has played very poorly in the playoffs likely taking 1 or 2 SB trips away from Allen & the Bills.

This is a great example of where stats can be very misleading. The Bills have had a very good & consistent regular season defense that mostly padded its stats at the expense of bad QB's and weak offenses. In contrast the Defense has mostly struggled against good offenses in the regular season and particularly in the playoffs. IMO the KC defense is designed to compliment their offense. It isn't built to shut teams down on the stat line but to force 3 & outs and TO's that give the potent Chiefs O more possessions. There is only one playoff game in the last 4 years that the defense could be said to have won the game and that was against Baltimore. In every other game except NE, and the O gets the credit for that win, the D has played poorly. This is 6 out of 8 playoff games which is startling given how well the D plays in the regular season.

Bills will go 13 - 4 Win the AFC East by at least 2 games Lose to the Bengals in the AFC Championship game.

Notice how the folks so quick to declare Mahoomes better then Allen because he won this last Super Bowl with skill players just a bit more talented then Allen's ignore the Chiefs MUCH BETTER offensive line. When I look at Mahomes versus Allen there are only 2 things I can say with certainty: 1) They are both elite and among the top 3 QB's in the NFL and both will be in the HOF if they maintain this level of play for another decade. 2) Mahomes has achieved more then Allen primarily due to significant advantages in the offensive personnel surrounding him over the last 5 years.

Agree. Bean & McD were trying to copy KC/Mahomes but in reality Allen succeeded his rookie year in spite of the actions of Bills management. They tore down the offense and didn't want Allen to take the mental & physical beating that entailed as a rookie. But given how awful Peterman was in week 1 they had to throw Allen to the wolves in week 2. That Allen has worked out as well as he has is a testament to the quality & grit of Allen.

If acquiring a vet WR for pick #27 who has had 338 catches for 4189 yards and 29 TD's in the last 3 seasons is an example of Bean's worst move then the man is a genius. I would say Bean's biggest blunder was to not recognize sooner that the NFL has changed to favor the offense and that the best way to win a SB is to obtain and EMBRACE your elite QB and surround them with the best talent available. At the same time you have to let your defense make do with the scraps. IMO the Bills have largely reversed this.

I disagree 100%. * Against TN, Allen slipped in part because the Bills left tackle got blown up at the snap * It was impossible for Allen to have taken a knee against the Vikings given where the ball was placed. Taking a knee would have resulted in a safety. The Bills had to execute a tricky QB sneak from the one inch line into the teeth of a Vikings defense that had committed 100% to stop the sneak. * Allen was one of only two offensive players to not miss a down against the Dolphins under severe heat conditions. That the Bills amassed over 500 yards often playing without multiple offensive starters was a testament to Allen's elite level of play. He missed one pass, BFD. It happens. And if you're going to site to many miscues at the end of games how about at the end of the KC playoff game in 2022 or the end of the KC regular season game in 2022? Or how about the end of the Ravens game in 2022? Or how about the end of the 2nd Dolphins game in 2022? Or how abut the end of the Lions game on Thanksgiving? That's 5 games in less then 12 months. I wonder why so many false negative narratives about Allen keep popping up on a Bills message board? Part of that includes fumbles that Allen recovers himself because he's a dog Part of that are fumbles that go harmlessly out of bounds Part of that are fumbles that his O linemen recover after they miss a block and are standing around watching Allen get blown up.

Is this true on the fumbles?

Well anyone giving Allen that label after his 2021 playoff performances is an idiot.

This is a much more striking and interesting stat then the one to kick off this thread. It's just another example of Allen being a unicorn when it comes to judging him by using conventional stats. The guy is still blowing up all of mathematics! And I would argue that the offensive talent (skill players & O line) on these three teams is better then the Bills.

Judas Priest, this crap gets old. What has the Bills regular season and playoff record been the last 3 seasons: Regular season = 37 - 12 Playoffs = 4 - 3 Show me a stat that actually matters not one that can be used as a backdoor jab at Allen.

I agree. But the poster also included Allen in his snarky comment. That's the part that jumped the shark for me.

I hope he make the Jets and leads the NFL in punting. And against Buffalo I hope he averages 50 yards a kick for the 20 punts he launches in those 2 games.

I don't get this type of thinking: First, the Bills have only been touted as the "best off season team in the country" for ONE off season (before the 2022 season). Second, the Bills were definitely a "contender" in the 2020 & 2021 playoffs. Third, are you suggesting that the Bills would be better off without Allen & McDermott? I don't get how any Bill's fan who suffered through 18 years of bad to mediocre football, and yes that 2017 "playoff" team was average at best, could get frustrated for not winning a Super Bowl after 3 seasons at the top of the NFL heap.

Bad angle worsened by bad lighting...........................

I don't disagree with you. At the same time "outside evaluators" have been universally hard on the Bill's O line. By almost any definition they say that it was bad. So given the importance of the O line it begs the question as to why the Bills offense was so good? My conclusion would be that with Allen the Bills have the most dynamic QB in football and that covered up a lot of deficiencies; Diggs is top 3 WR in the NFL and Dorsey wasn't nearly as bad as some fans proclaim.

Maybe I misunderstood the quote. I assumed this was the description of last seasons O line which IMO was not even close to being respectable. I do agree with you that the additions to the O line are a big improvement over what we had last season. I also agree that if Brown makes a solid jump in performance this may be the best Bills O line in the Josh Allen era.

This is a huge problem with the analysis IMO. By any objective standard the offensive line was NOT a "respectable group". And when it's likely that 40% of that line will be swapped out for next season the comment that "most of the unit returns" is just plain silly.

As others have noted the game against the Dolphins that won the division could have been added to the list - particularly Allen's otherworldly 4th quarter performance. I also think that in 2022 the Bills had the weakest O line and least effective set of skill players since the 2018/2019 seasons. In some ways this may have been Allen's best performance yet when you factor in the other issues.

My guess is that one of the main reasons PFF had Allen as one their top rated QB's overall was that they understood better then most how badly the Bills O line performed and yet Buffalo's Offense and Allen's stats were still very good. In fact they were elite. Give Allen an extra second from interior pressure and he will do bad things to opposing teams defenses - bad things.

13 - 4 baby - book it Dano.

Again, Kelly and company played very poorly on offense that day. Injuries and a stout Denver defense contributed to this. But was the Bronco's D in the 1991 season any better then the Bengals D from last season? As for the weather, 33 degrees, dry and with light winds is as close to perfect January game conditions as you're going to get in Buffalo. My question stands, in that game with the offense struggling mightily, had the Bills D allowed the Broncos to go down and score TD's on their first two possessions would Buffalo have won that game?

The point I was making was that even the best offenses can have off days. In the 1991 season playoffs the Bills had a historically great offense with 4 future HOF players. Yet at home in good weather (for January) they managed just one FG. You could no more draw conclusions from that performance as you can from the Bills face plant against the Bengals in the 2022 playoffs.