Chaos

The roster is not stacked, outside of Josh. Von Miller is washed. Tre White is washed. Every NFL roster has a handful of guys at the Diggs/Kincaid/Oliver level, albeit at different postitons from team to team. The Bills super bowl teams were "stacked" with future hall of famers. In the free agency era, its not clear any NFL teams are "stacked". Maybe the niners because of the cap advantage of a cheap but good QB.

The Dline disappeared entirely against the Chiefs in the season ending lost. I think every last one of them is replaceable.

Allen Mahomes Jackson Stroud Purdy Burrow (would be higher if he was not a part time player) A bunch of decent guys A few bums. Overall QB play is at pretty high level in NFL currently.

Tua vs. Dak , who gets the bigger new contract this offseason? Will either become the NFL's top paid QB?

It would have been a one day rest advantage to the #3 seed over the #2 seed. This makes no sense.

I guess this is another way of saying "every team that beat the Bills in the playoffs was clearly beatable"

I am sure Bass feels badly. But the truth is missing that kick, is like Bill Buckner letting the ball go between his legs. It was a routine situation.

Did Manning win before or after head coaching change? Asking for a friend.

The Dline are the true villians of this loss against the Chiefs. Statistically I am not sure there was even theoretical room to be less productive.

I did not mean to suggest you can find a 1500 yard reciever in the fifth round. That certainly is an outlier. My point, was probably not clear, but it was more related to the guys in the middle of the list. It was more about the fact that the Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Quentin Johnson type of first round draft picks did not pan out (For year 1) any better than the Michael Wilson or Jonathan Mingo type picks, in terms of actual production. I think for the most part Rookie Wr's come with a cap.

I don't think it is misleading. The point is that a mediocre defense can probably hold the Chiefs to one punt in the playoffs. And a good defense will also only hold them to one punt in the playoffs. In three playoff games against the chiefs, the McDermott defenses forced exactly four punts total. This includes fully healthy defenses).

Oline became a strength this year. However, Morse is ancient, and Brown can be improved upon. I would not be opposed to the Bills further solidifying or upgrading these posisitons with early draft picks. Its possible to get immediate impact from a rookie WR, but in real life without a top draft pick, its more of a crapshoot, and you can find these players in middle rounds. Its not clear that pick 28 would guarantee success vs pick 56 or 84.

I understand this sentiment. I don't think it is likely though. I also think it is a separate question from roster building though. But we have another season of experience with Sean McDermott. While it is popular to credit all of Belichek's success to Brady, the only thing we know for sure is that he was 1 for 1 in being successful with an elite QB. It seemed to me that over his career arc witht the Patriots, his vision on what it would take to win the super bowl changed from year to year and adapted to the personnel on hand. My personal impression is that Coach McDermott has "A vision" on how to win a championship, and that he is on a constant quest to get the personnel to implement that vision. It feels a bit like a Don Quixote quest to prove that his "complimentary football vision" can in fact win a championship and that the organization must pull together to prove this. Stylewise I would prefer a coach who adapts to his teams personnel and optimizes that situation. McDermott knows football. He is a good football coach. I would be happy to see him abandon his quest and pivot in this direction equally as much I would like to see a new coach. I

My observation of the Bills - Chiefs game was that neither defense was effective in the game. Bills forced one punt. Chiefs only forced punts after Bills self-inflicted wound's of dropping passes. Chiefs came to the game with a highly respected offense. Bills came to the game with a broken and aged defense. Against two of the top offenses in the NFL both were equally ineffective. Its not clear to me that a defense can be built to stop these top offenses. Personally I feel like filling in the defensive hole with premium draft picks won't move the dial in the playoffs. I don't think we need a major rebuild on defense to hold the Chiefs to only 1 punt in a playoff game. I think we can patch together a defense capable of doing that. On the other hand, it seems like the much improved 2023 oline and the addition of Dalton Kindcaid put us one step closer to being an unstoppable force. If we could use draft capital to add another sure handed WR, the we might have scored 35 against the Chiefs. Another way of saying it is , fix the defense with the defensive equivalents of Sherfield and Harty level players, and shift to building the NFL's best offense. Having the best NFL offense is in reach. I am open minded to learning about how we can retool the defense to stop the Chiefs in the playoffs, but we have never yet done that, healthy or injured.

How many championship games did Reid lose after he got his first generational talent at QB? Since Mahomes is in his 6th straight championship game, this should not be hard to figure out.

Very good point.

Chiefs scored on every drive until late in the game. The scrubs on D played like scrubs.

Punter / Kicker rounds 1 and 2. Would have made a big difference yesterday

As far as the roster goes, step 1 is bringing in a defensive coordinator with a history of winning divisional playoff games. Tell him he needs to figure out what he wants on defense, but he is not getting premium draft picks or big free agency dollars this year. Piece together what we can, and it will have to do. Then build to the teams strength. Try to trade spencer brown and use that plus the first round pick to get the best LT you can. Then use the second round pick to draft the best center you can. We could have a great oline if those selections are done correctly. Diggs, Shakir, Kincaid give the team three solid pass catchers. Bring in the best WR you can get with the rest of the draft. Based on history, the defense is going to suck in the playoffs regardless of personnel.

This was the week that mattered. Prior to the season more or less 100% of Bills fans expected the team to make the divisional round of the playoffs. And they did. And they lost again. This team was built to win last year. But with an aged defense and salary cap issues, it is not clear next years team is poised to be better. So I will flip the question back to you, if not this year, when?

This is the core problem "complimentary football" has become Billsspeak for "all hands on deck to make the defense look better than it is" Govenor's observation is the main reason for the statistic posted by BarleyNY.

Allen needs to spend the off season learning to punt and kick. He let us down again in that regard. Always delegating those responsibility instead of doing it himself.

This post game press conference with McDermott is one of his better efforts.

Bills fought hard tonight. It wasn't enough. The Bills under Sean McDermott remind me of of Rory MacAvoy (Kevin Costner) in Tin Cup. "I qualified for the US Open playing the back nine with only a seven iron" And every other team is Davis Simms (Don Johnson) who responds with "why". The Bills seem to make things so much harder than they need to be. "We won six in a row just to stumble into the playoffs". Why does the team with so much talent put itself in that postion. The Good: Bills made it to the divisional round of the playoffs Josh Allen played a great game. It was not quite perfect, but it was a game winning performance. The Bad: Bills did not make it out of the divional round of the playoffs Defensive performance. Chiefs offense is excellent. The Bills had injuries on defense. But it did not acquit itself well. Chiefs scored on every drive until late in the game. Team has been investing in defensive linemen with draft picks and free agent cap for years. Tonight we had 10 healthy linemen. They provided no pressure, and were gashed by the run. The ROI on this investment is almost -100% The Ugly: Special teams. Failed fake punts. Bad punts, missed FGs. Just awful. Each recent Bills seasons seems to end with an emphasis on the adversity and drama the team faced. Not really sure other teams end up quite this way (Eagles seem to be similar this year) The Future: Once again the Bills focus on how much adversity they faced is the real problem indicates that the only choice will be to "run it back' and hope next time ends better.

Imagine the Bills chances without Josh.