Billl

Making the Super Bowl is an awesome achievement. Obviously losing is gut-wrenching, but those were the 4 most successful seasons in franchise history.

Hackett failed as a HC, but Rodgers looked a lot better with him than without him. I’m sure Ken Dorsey will scheme circles around him, though.

The guy won two of the last 3 MVPs. In the past 3 years he's thrown 121 TDs and 21 INTs. You really don't think he's capable? They had 10 games last season without a single TD pass yet were still only outscored by 20 points on the season. Anything resembling competency at QB would have put them in the playoffs.

Exactly. I've said it before, but if adding those guys are enough to fix the line and receiving corps, then why didn't these move get made last year during the season? It's not like any of those players were so highly coveted as to be unattainable. It's one thing to look at a bad line and assume you'd be significantly better by adding Quentin Nelson and Wyatt Teller. Slapping Connor McGovern and a late second round rookie on it MIGHT work, but there's certainly no guarantee. If it doesn't, it will be really easy to look back and say that Beane didn't do enough.

This goes a long way towards answering my question about why Elam didn’t get more playing time.

Have you ever heard of a QB complementing a WR by saying that “he doesn’t complain”, though? I think he was sending a message to Diggs, and I respect him for it. As great as Diggs is, he’s Pippen. Seems like they’ve patched it up, and I don’t think Josh would make that comment today. It actually makes more sense that he said it three weeks ago.

He’s been a replacement level player for the entirety of his 5 year career. I had 3 more yards rushing for the Bills than he did last year in 6 fewer attempts. Why would you bother trying to design plays to get him the ball in space when you could get better production from any one of 20 UDFAs who won’t carry a $3.5 million cap hit?

Out of curiosity, why do you say that about Elam? When he was on the field, I never thought he looked like he didn’t belong. His lack of playing time remains baffling to me.

Double digit wins? They won 10 games last year. Playoff wins? Jacksonville just got one. Getting to the conference championship? Buffalo did that one time three years ago and got blown out. The Bills didn't win a playoff game until Josh's third season, and they average exactly one playoff win per season since then. The Jags just won a playoff game in Lawrence's second season, and they looked respectable in their loss to the Chiefs. The "laughable take" is that the Bills have achieved something that they can hold over Jacksonville's head. Both teams have proven they can win the division. Both teams have proven they can win a postseason game. Neither team has shown the ability to be excellent on a consistent basis which is what it takes to earn the one seed or to string together postseason wins.

I don't think Lawrence ever gets to Josh's level, but the rest of their roster has a lot more potential simply based on age. They're one of the youngest rosters in the league, and most of their cornerstone pieces are still ascending.

Of course I'm serious. What have the Bills "proven"? They can win their division. So can the Jaguars. They can win a wildcard game. So can the Jaguars. Beyond that, they've got a third year QB compared to Allen being in his sixth year, so they're just not quite as far into they're window as the Bills are. What is it you think Buffalo has proved that the Jags haven't?

What have the Bills proven that the Jags haven't? Both win their division and a playoff game. Jacksonville put up a solid fight in the divisional round as well. The Bills are +130 to win the division this year. The Jags are -170.

And if the Chargers and Bills had swapped divisions, the Chargers would have won the AFCE every year. And it's not like Josh's first playoff game didn't involve blowing a big lead.

The Bills have been better than the Chargers, but the fact that the Chargers have had the Chiefs in their division makes the disparity seem larger than it has been. Swap the Chiefs for any team in the AFCE, and the Chargers would have more division titles than the Bills. I hadn’t thought about it before, but I think newcam is right. They’re very similar.

So you met a former position coach for a team who wasn't the Bills one time ten years ago who is privy to inside information regarding the Bills draft targets and strategy and freely shares it with you? I 100% believe the story is true, but I don't think that's a reliable enough narrator to simply take it at face value that McDuffie was never a consideration as a draft target for Buffalo.

I was worried it was a Chiefs player when I originally heard the victim had described his attacker as wearing swim trunks and a Super Bowl ring, but I was glad that you didn’t have anything to worry about.

Hard disagree here. The Bills are sorely lacking in defensive players who are young, talented, and healthy. At this point, only Milano and Rousseau have really proven to be all of those three. You’ve got guys like Elam, Epenesa, and Basham who are young and healthy but haven’t proven themselves to be talented. White is young and talented, but he isn’t healthy. Hyde, Poyer, and Miller are talented but are neither young nor healthy. The Bills could still have a very solid defense, but the Chiefs and Bengals both have far more players who check all of those boxes. Frazier caught a lot of grief for things that were caused by Beane’s underwhelming drafting. He should have received more credit for taking guys like Hyde and Poyer who were considered mediocre players prior to coming to Buffalo and turning them into top performers.

Jones has always been a great teammate. He's asking for a contract. That's SOP on the league. Diggs has a track record of being a loose cannon, and nobody seems to know WTF he wants or is trying to achieve.

The biggest weakness Josh has is that he's a little slow to process what the defense is doing. Daboll simplified the offense, and Dorsey has picked up where he left off. The lack of complexity is likely by design in order to play to Josh's strengths rather than the inability of his coordinators to create something more sophisticated.

Chris Jones's situation couldn't be me different. He's leveraging for a new contract. That's just how this works. He doesn't need to be at camp from a preparation standpoint, and his absence isn't causing locker room drama. Nobody is pretending that Diggs needs to be in camp in order to prepare for the season, but his absence is a major distraction and it's becoming a pattern of behavior.

But isn’t that an example of management by inertia? If Oliver wasn’t already on the team, I can’t think of a single poster who would have been advocating for bringing him to Buffalo for that contract. IMO, the dropoff between Oliver and a random DT acquired for $2 million would be minimal compared to what that money could have done for the offensive line or a WR. That’s the type of move he’s talking about. Signing Poyer to another deal didn’t make the defense better. It just brought back an even older version of the same guy. Extending Oliver didn’t improve the D-Line. It just brought back a more expensive version of the same guy. He could have drafted someone to fill Poyer’s spot, signed someone cheap to fill Oliver’s spot, and re-allocated those resources to fill holes on offense while getting younger on the back end of the defense. That strategy seems more effective than holding onto expensive and/or declining veterans on defense.

He gave Oliver a big new contract. Was that really the best possible use of resources?

Why would a National guy mention the McGovern signing? To this point in his career, he has been the definition of JAG. Now maybe Beane saw something that nobody else did and he turns out to be a great signing, but unless and until that happens, it’s not a move he deserves any sort of recognition over. It’s not like he signed an established anchor on the line or made an aggressive move to draft a blue chip prospect. If this season ends the way last year’s did, Beane is going to be a pariah. The narrative will be that he had an entire offseason to address the line and WR situations and the best he came up with was Connor McGovern, a late second round rookie Guard, Deonte Harty, and Trent Sherfield. Nobody is going to be shocked if those moves fail to move the needle. Similarly, nobody is going to be shocked if a bunch of guys in their thirties are worn down and/or injured by the end of the season again. Now these moves could end up working to perfection, and if they do then the Bills are Super Bowl contenders. Still, it’s hard to blame someone who looks at the offseason and doesn’t see how the moves Beane has made have pulled them ahead of Cincinnati, Kansas City, and Philadelphia come January.

What did he do that puts him above being judged beyond seeing how the season plays out? He signed a 31 year old pass rusher in June after multiple misses in the draft in Epenesa and Basham a day after he gave Oliver a $68 million extension. If it works, it was a great move. If it doesn’t, he shouldn’t get a pass, though.

In the last decade, the league has been moving it to smaller cities. Remember, it was in NYC forever. It’s actually become more popular as they’ve moved it to the smaller markets. Cities like Miami could give two ***** about the draft. Kansas City used it as a showcase event, and it was awesome. Buffalo would do the same and try to top what KC did. Bills fans deserve their opportunity.