FireChans

No one is pretending staying behind the LOS precludes injury. Zero.

Why are you including the Burrow pick and not the Josh and Edmunds picks lol

I promise the day after the Super Bowl, you will see a whole new FC. Yes, Josh can get hurt in the pocket. Every QB can get hurt in the pocket. Every player who steps on the field can get hurt. Some can get hurt in warm ups or in training camp. Does any of that mean that it’s a bad idea to protect your franchise QB’s body and avoid as many hits as possible? Of course not. This is the silliest point ever on TBD. “why protect Josh from having to run so much when he could get hurt in a car accident on the way to the stadium” type logic.

If the justification for A is that he drafted the second best QB in football and that matters more than literally anything else, I’m fine with the A votes. Any other justification for the A grade is pure bunk, imo.

You can win with me. Surround Josh with enough weapons that he doesn’t feel like he has to run through linebackers to win games in November a la 2020. Then, when it’s do or die in the ACTUAL playoffs, he can be as close to peak physical health as possible. Instead, they have limited his weapons so that our offense is weaker than it should be with a QB of his caliber, arbitrarily tell him not to scramble and not to play hero up ball so we lose games in October and end 6-6 mid season, then let the reins off because we have to win out to make the playoffs and it becomes a 9 game playoff run starting in December. Sign me up for the first strategy over the second and I’ll be the first to hold hands and sing kumbaya

Josh: “I had to rework my mechanics this off-season because my injuries had me compensating incorrectly and making me a worse player” Beane: “I want Josh to keep that LB mentality and never change” 2024 off-season in a nutshell.

They weren’t the same drafts. I know this. That’s why I said the years. If we had taken Wilkins, or Lawrence or Simmons at #9 (all impact players that are better DT’s than Ed) and DK in the second, I would not be sitting here talking about how we failed to find impact players with those picks. If we had taken Jaire Alexander or DJ Moore (guys that would’ve for sure gotten second contracts with the Bills) over Edmunds (who was not an impact player and did not get a second contract here), I would not be sitting here talking about how we failed to find impact players with that pick. Beane (and you) keep talking about how they didn’t suck the year before Chase was in the draft so it’s not their fault they don’t have him. That’s true. What’s also true is that we had our own bites at the apple to find impact players at high value positions, i.e. pass rusher, CB, WR with high picks and failed to do so. We took a solid LB who was a disappointment, a bust OT/OG, and like the 4th best DT in the first round who no-shows in the playoffs. When we had comparable picks to the Bengals during their period of suck. They drafted stars at high value positions. We drafted league averages and busts.

It's not a good point. We had high picks in 2019 and 2 first rounders in 2018. Bengals took Burrow, Chase, Higgins when they had 3 picks in the top 38. We took Josh, Edmunds, Oliver, Ford when we had 4 picks in the top 38. It's literally the reason they have better stars. They nailed 3 of their high picks, and we nailed 1.

Dude I know they aren’t the same year. The point is that they drafted impact players when they sucked. We didn’t.

Ooooo okay. that makes more sense. QB’s aside, I 1000% take the Bengals roster of the last 3 years. They are better at all the important positions. We have had great safeties and linebackers and running backs. Oh hey, don’t forget we took Cody Ford in our sucky year when they took Tee Higgins lol

Dude 100%. What? You can’t talk about WR’s being force multipliers for franchise QB’s for like 24 months and then change your tune now. I would trade rosters with the Dolphins, the Niners, the Eagles, the Bengals this SECOND. Josh would have 60+ tuddies with a stable of great pass catchers. Sure, they will have to pay Chase $30M but at least he’s a star. We are paying big money to stiffs like Von and Knox to do what, exactly? This is what I’m talking about. The Bills roster has been sooooo overrated lol

You know we won 6 games with a rookie Josh and picked Oliver in the top 10, right? You know we had 2 first round picks in 2018 and picked an amazing QB, and a MLB who is quite literally just “okay” and doesn’t play here no mo? The Bengals took Burrow and Chase in their 2 sucky years. We took Josh, Edmunds and Oliver. Chase >>>>> Edmunds+Oliver, obviously.

Best player is tough. most impactful? Yeah probably. The 20-25th best WR is probably more impactful than the 3rd best LB.

Elite JAG

They restructured Allen.

I don’t think Higgins is elite but him + Chase is an unbelievable tandem. I do think it’s funny we all talk about how we need to get more good weapons around Allen, because it will make an exponential difference in performance, then @GoBills808 says the Bengals are getting more with less compared to the Bills, because uh, they only have great wideouts and good pass rushers and we have a really good off ball linebacker.

Kinda the point, right?

I think he might be the best QB they have ever had? The Browns thought they could do better and we saw how that went lol

Brother, while I appreciate the call out, I am so far from the sun, I've turned into a Morlock.

I don't do either of those things. I do think our defensive "stars" are mostly not stars at all. I think this team has two stars. Josh Allen and Matt Milano. One of them plays the most important position by a mile. The other plays the second least important position on defense. I do think there are some decent players on the roster that COULD be better with a HoF level NFL mind in charge. I do think the players on this team COULD be better if the GM acquired or drafted better players instead of his brand of elite JAGs. I don't think any of that should be controversial either. Having your 5th CB be an NFL caliber player is nice. Having your CB1 be elite is better.

100% Read this lol Nobody got this team to 7-9 like the Douggernaut!

What I fundamentally disagree with is McD getting retroactively blamed for a 4 week stretch where Allen played at a below Teddy Bridgewater level 4 years ago as a " midseason coaching failure." We all watched the games. Allen was getting outdueled by the ghost of Cam Newton and relied on the defense to make a critical turnover to win the game. Which they did. What a coaching failure by our doofus defensive HC. You want to complain about coaching in the playoffs? Have at it. I think there's some meat on that bone. I think 2022 is the biggest coaching failure because the team didn't show up at all v the Bengals and while the players deserve some blame, when its team-wide, I think it's mostly on the coaches to have the guys ready to play. No matter how much you guys contort yourselves to blame everything on McD, including blaming him when the offense sucks and then turning around and saying "he has no impact on the offense so why keep him", it's irrelevant. He will be here til 2025, at least. Because he's a good enough coach that the team isn't going to have a Brandon Staley or Nick Sirianni melt-down.

Maybe an addition to weird was Kyle Orton retiring and disappearing off the face of the earth without saying anything to anyone lol I remember folks weeping about Whaley getting fired then there’s like a bunch of players going nuts when he gets roasted here lol

McD doesn't coach the offense. That's not his area of expertise. I would rather have him keep his hands off the offense and hire a Brian Daboll who helped turn Josh into what he is today rather than meddle with something that he doesn't really get. I think you're railing against reality a bit here. If you felt so strongly about hiring an offensive coach in 2017, then hey, flowers to you. McD is here now. I don't think he's done a horrific job. If he gets fired, I would prefer an offensive coach like Ben Johnson because I think that having continuity for the most important job/position on the team (QB) is probably the way in today's NFL. McD isn't gonna break down Allen's mechanics and build them back up. It's not going to happen. If you think that's what we need to win a SB, then we are not going to win one soon lol. I personally think there's a lot more REALISTIC paths to winning a SB with McD on the team. I think that firing him and Beane and completely changing team-building and coaching philosophies COULD work. They might even have a better chance of working. But it's not gonna happen. Beane is safe. McD is safe. This is no different than before when you thought Beane had woken up and decided to prioritize WR more like 3 months ago. You thought he was gonna surround Allen with young promising talent. I told you he wouldn't. He didn't. He went safety in round 2 and backup DT in round 3 lol. They are going into the season with a dogwater WR group and ownership that has signed off on a down year with lowered expectations. That's the reality. FWIW, I rail against reality quite a bit on here. But the reality IS the reality.

Preach!