Chaos

Again, the Bills were the best team in football at moving the chains. Why must we move them a different way than we do now?

People say this, but why? Bills moved the chains better than anyother team in football last year.

It is based on the general theory that all wealthy people are corrupt, and sharing the wealth must share the corruptness.

This is literally true for every single team other than the Chiefs.

My personal observation is that most fans think their teams improve from FA and the draft every single year. Clearly not everybody can improve. My personal estimate is that over 80% of fans think their team is better now than they were at the end of the season last year. Probably 30% think their team 'won the off season". This is one of the biggest mismatches between perception and reality in the universe of NFL fandom.

No. Coming into 2022, it was expected we would have a healthy Von Miller for the whole season, which was viewed as the missing link from the 2021 13 second debacle season. It was also expected Tre White would return at full speed by playoff time. Coming into 2023, Micah Hyde, Jordan Poyer, Von Miller, and Tre White all come into the season with different types of injury concerns. Edmunds is gone. The defense is more questionable than coming into 2022. The DC changed. There is a presumption that Sean McDermott the new DC will be better. The offense comes in better looking in 2023. Pass catching corp is dramatically upgraded. Offensive line appears to be dramatically upgraded. From a productivity standpoint during the regular season, Josh Allen already had carried the 2022 offense to top 2 or 3 status. It seems he will be have more help, but it is unrealistic to say that we will end up better than a top 3 offense with certainity. That is an unreasonable bar. The Bills weak spot in the 2021 and 2022 seasons was a coaching staff have not proven to be closers in the playoffs. Two different versions, 2021, the biggest choke in NFL history, giving away a won game. The Bills were the NFL's healthiest team at the point, and were well positioned to advance after that. 2022 was kind of the other direction. The team seemed unprepared against Miami, but due to sheer roster superiority, were able to prevail. The following week against the Bengals, instead of blowing the game late, we spotted the bengals 14 points, and were completely unable to take advantage of a decimated bengals oline. We were much worse against the Bengals than the Huntley led Ravens were the weak before. Of course the 2022 season had all kinds of extenuating circumstances, but the coaches ultimately were not able to prove they were closers. Football is fun. The 2023 Bills are certain to be competitive every week, and they are almost certain to make the playoffs. The regular season will be fun. We won't know if we can close the deal until next January. The Bengals and Chiefs the last two years proved they can win the AFC championship. John Harbaugh with the refurbished Ravens has shown that at least once he could close the deal. The general public is not going to buy Bills hype this year as much as last year. Nor should they.

The Bills, Chiefs and Bengals are all heavily dependent on a single player. The Eagles and 49ers are lower risk, because they have more ways to win.

Another problem solved as only a wizard can solve problems.

The range from youngest to oldest average roster age is pretty narrow in the NFL. But Bills fans over the years have grown accustomed to the idea that the Bills are young. All of sudden we are grandpas. Key players like hyde poyer miller are pretty old. And they all have mileage. When you average it out among the AFC elite the Bills are the grandpas, the chiefs are the dads, and the Bengals are the kids. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cap/ Not sure it matters. But something I noticed.

I don't agree with your roster assessments, particularly regarding the Eagles. I also don't think the reason the Bills did not make the championship game the last two seasons is because our roster was deficient. So its a prove it thing to me.

The hard part is that nothing the Bills do during the regular season will demonstrate whether any of the teams shortcomings have been addressed. We really won't know until 2024.

Does Poona Ford qualify?

Four of those teams made conference championship games last year. None of the had head coaching changes or substantial downgrades on their roster. (small downgrade for chiefs). "To be the man, you have to beat the man." Is in play here. Bills are one about 10 teams with a meaningful chance to hoist the Lombardi. We really haven't shown we can beat the man in the playoffs though. So hard to place top 3.

Oliver and Davis for DHOP makes sense now.

-ev = Minus Expected Value

Until Sean McDermott proves he can outcoach Andy Reid and Zac Taylor in the post season we may not have done enough. Our roster has been sufficient for for the last two seasons to go to the Super Bowl.

I don't think you understand the tweet.

That music is the reason most of us old people are NFL fans.

Put Shorter on the Field instead of Davis, and you can run a 1960's green bay style sweep with Josh playing Paul Hornung. Bold added by me. The bolded part is a "BINGO"

OL 4. DL 3.

Kincaid will get starter reps from game 1. Base your target estimates on that.

Mahomes as a consenus first round pick, not 40. Some random outlier mock may have missed the point. But Mahomes was expected to go in the first round. He was not a huge reach. This is discussed earlier in the thread. ESPN's had mocked him at 20th overall. So a modest reach. Aaron Maybin defines huge reach. To be fair, Mahomes was a project and did not play his rookie season.

I don't see kindcaid and knox as competing for TE1 at all. Knox will play TE1 and Kincaid will line up in the slot on 1TE sets. and kincaid will move over to TE2 in two tight end sets. Kindcaids flexibiliytin this regard gives him a McCafferty-like confusion to the defense about what the offense is planning. Defense simply can't judge based on personnel in the huddle when you have a guy like that.

PFF grades each player in each college game all year. You do not have to love their methodology but it does mean they have a group of people paying attention all season not just during “draft season”