Long Suffering Fan

Excellent gif selection.

Brutal buzzkill, Billschinatown. That would suck the life right out of my body. Seriously, if the Bills don't win a Superbowl, lose Allen at some point, and he wins elsewhere?.....that would be an existential crisis for my fandom.

Here is the thing. Ask any Chiefs fan and they will tell you that Andy Reid is one of the best offensive coaches of all time and way better than McD. Shoot, most people on this board agree with them. On top of that, Kelce might be the best pass catching TE of all time. Importantly, both Reid and Kelce had that reputation prior to Mahomes. We all agree that offensive coaching really matters. That is why you can't use Superbowl wins as definitive proof that Mahomes is better.

My list is shaped by the fact that I have a hard time hating 3rd liners. For example, while I get the Kelsey hate because of what he symbolized, I can't hate him for not being a top 6 forward. I guess what I hate the most is lack of effort or downright stupidity and that wasn't him. For the same reason, I can't hate Tyrod. Besides, he broke the drought and we got a great pick for trading him which I think (?) was used to help us trade up for Allen. 1. Rex and Greggo - Rex is listed first because I disliked him before he came and hated the hire. They are listed together because they both came in and took a top defense, completely revamped it, and destroyed it. If I remember right, Greggo's defense was number 1 and the Bills number 3 in yards given up the year before he became our coach. He used that as a reason for the change. Such a stupid argument to switch your defense from 3-4 to 4-3 and turn over your players. 2. Orton - an obvious inclusion given that I hate lack of effort and he is a bit of a poster child for that. 3. Jauron - I want to view him as a try hard guy, but stupidity outweighed his effort. I remember once that he decided to play the Brady Patriots with such a soft defense and they ended up scoring on almost every possession. When asked about it, he said that he had to do that so they wouldn't get beat for a quick score. Meanwhile I am screaming at the screen because they are playing behind the sticks on third downs. Dude, it is about stops. I would rather have them beat us over the top 3 times out of 5 than to have them score 5 straight times. 4. Dareus - I can't tell you how high I was on him. He should have been dominant. I can't hate Maybin because the Bills were stupid to draft him. With Dareus, I think the Bills made the right choice to draft him. He just didn't put in the effort. What was his draft position? 3rd overall?

7 minutes of awesomeness...

Agree. Some of those things did not really fit into either good or bad but were just....weird. I appreciate the work you did on this. I'll add a few: GOOD: Sammy Watkins being traded during training camp. Me reading Astro's notes all the time about how he was dogging it in practices, then the trade happened, and I wondered then if there was a real culture change coming. We'll never know how important of a message this sent to the team. Hyde and Poyer - as someone who loves good safety play, it was a joy having them as a tandem. The Bills switch to being more aggressive on fourth down somewhere around the 2nd or 3rd year of McBeane. Taron Johnson's interception return to win a playoff game against Baltimore. I have watched the Turning Point (?) clip about that play so many times. BAD: Preposterous Punts that had me yelling at the screen before the Bills changed on that front. WEIRD: Recent history is dangerous to label because time changes perspective, but the entire Diggs Drama (TM). How did they go from Bromance to Breakup off the field (Josh only texted Diggs after the trade?)? That's weird enough, but then add to it the on field drop off in Diggs production? Weird. Side note - I love how you put the Rex Ryan era in both Bad and Weird, because it was. 🙂

The 40 aint the 100. I have no idea who would win a 40, but someone like Usain is still accelerating and has not reached his top speed until the 60 to 70 meter mark. That is why world class sprinters, when running the 200, will run their second 100m faster than their first 100m. I guarantee Usain has a much higher top speed than Tyreek and so would kill him in the 100 (obviously). The 40 would be closer. I think it literally could be a coinflip, especially since Usain is getting older.

It's a lottery ticket. The 90th guy on the roster almost never makes it. Why sign a fringe guy that you know is just that. Better to throw a dart at someone who has ridiculous athletic skills. They worked him out so they must have seen something. I have the same philosophy in FF redraft leagues (not that that means anything). In the late rounds, why pick up a WR that will go for 3 TDs and 450 yards? He is never going to start for me. If I have injury problems, someone like him will be sitting on the waiver wire. I'd rather shoot for the boom or bust.

Cap space is like draft picks - 1. It can be converted into players. 2. A draft pick in the same round is worth more this year, than next year. Because of the way a cap hit can be pushed to future years (but eventually the bill comes due), I always look at total cap space saved - this year and in the future. Say we only save 1.4M this year, but 5M overall. That 3.6M we save in 2025 is still valuable. It allows us to possibly restructure another contract and push more money into next year. If we don't, then it helps us next year. I get that we have to have the other contract to restructure and I get that we could do it anyway without the trade and just make our cap situation worse in 2025. Cap space this year is always worth more, but cap space in the future always has value - like draft picks.

This. I love this balanced assessment. I was not a big fan of Edmunds, but I found myself defending him in casual conversations because, despite his lack of big plays here, he did cause headaches for QBs because of his length and speed. 100% I will take Bernard over him, especially since I expect Bernard to improve and I agree with your statement that the best QBs were less impacted by Edmunds.

No. As I said, there was a time in his life...(when he was a toddler). Instead, he grew older so that he was just at the right age to really appreciate and savor the drought when it happened.

There was a time in my son's life where the Bills went to the Super Bowl every single year he was alive.

Zero, this probably won't help, but since you are normally a reasonable-ish poster. Watch the feet in the above videos. In the one where he slides, he leans back, folds one leg back and kicks the other one out like a normal slide. In the other one he stutter steps and changes direction. The feet tell the story. Plus, the fact that the guy he has to juke is not in frame also proves it was a change of direction and not a fake slide. There was no guy about to hit him that he was trying to fake out into letting up.

The guy was a special coach. He did amazing things as the D coord of NYGs and got 2 SB rings that way. One, very painfully, at our expense. Then he rebuilt a terrible Browns team and took him to the playoffs. Next he started to rebuild a terrible Pats team. When we look at stats like this, it is misleading because it is two rebuilding periods (without Tom) that are in the numbers. Next, he wins the SB with Tom and, his first year, I'm not sure Tom should get all that credit. I think he has one TD pass that entire playoffs. Later he goes 11-5 (?) with Matt Cassel when Toms out. Next, he dragged Mac Jones to the playoffs. Tom became amazing, but that shouldn't diminish Bill. Just to be clear, I do not like either of them and Bill has been a personal demon for me up until this year.

Unfortunately not as good as...It might be chilly. Still, I like it and thanks for posting it.

It's like playing Renegade before the Steelers. I like it.

I mean, by counting Dabol you are making it sound as if McD failed in that hire. When someone does so well that he gets hired away as a head coach that should count for McD, not against. And, to say no improvement in results....isn't it too early to make that statement about Brady?

Great job, Hoof. I appreciate this analysis. If I were to quibble, I would say that it is not all shotgun runs in all situations that are the problem. The ones that don't pass (my) eye test are ones to Cook, on a delay with him standing there, where he runs between the tackles. Sometimes Josh even has to move toward Cook to give him the ball while he was standing there waiting for it. The same run is not as bad with other RBs and the one where Cook runs in front of Allen and takes the shotgun handoff also seems to be better. I don't know if it is just because Cook is at his best when he has speed or that he is running outside. This. Even if you don't run the Tush Push, threatening it forces the defense to commit to stopping it. Just going to shotgun in that situation seems counter intuitive...and we had a very obvious example where it failed spectactulary.

I don't know if it can be fixed, but I have the same frustration. I am so sick of a penalty being called on a crucial 3rd down stop (that is the same as a turnover!) or a big gain and it is the definition of ticky-tack. Then, the infuriating in game official joins the broadcast and says that is definitely a penalty and they will call that every time. Ugh. It happens on almost every play and it has not been called all game.

I can't believe you guys and Madden. Get yourself an Atari and play some Activision football. 4 on 4 - my boss move is blitzing. If I don't get the sack, I run off the screen and wrap around as a safety and pick off the pass. I don't understand why the Bills don't do that.

Two things he said on this really stuck out to me: 1. I LOVE the idea of running 4x1 - Diggs alone on one side of the field and motion the back to or just go 4 WR to the other side. Force them to obviously leave Diggs 1 on 1 with a safety in the middle of the field - a match up I would take every time - or to double Diggs. If they double Diggs, work the other side/run a crosser to Diggs side, etc. That is a formation that works really well when you have a WR who is better than the other teams #1 corner. We have that guy. 2. Attack the two high shell with play action or by putting the LBs in conflict. It is what opens the intermediate routes.

First, I love Josh. I love watching him play. I love the adventure. So, I'm biased. Teef and Process nailed it. He is not perfect, but sometimes the design is to go a certain direction based on a pre-snap read. When Tom Brady was leading the league with a ridiculously short snap to pass time, he was making a lot of reads and decisions pre-snap. This is so powerful and so recognized by the entire league, that defenses often work really hard to disguise their coverages. I often see Josh go through a progression after snap, but not every play is supposed to be that. This one, with the way it turned out, and with the play action, and the turning your back to the defense - we can't know for sure, but this was likely a designed shot play. Take it if the safety comes down and you have one on one.

This. I used to watch Cowherd, so I can confirm that. The whole thing about offensive coaches is not only confirmation bias, but a bit of self fulfilling prophecy. Since the majority of new head coaches are former OCs, the majority of the best coaches will naturally be former OC's. That is the self-fulfilling prophecy part. The confirmation bias comes in when people mention Shanny (a truly great offensive coach), but leave out Josh McDaniels, Eberflus, Lafluer, Hackett, etc. whose teams have struggled. That said, the NFL rule change direction has emphasized offense. The fact that OCs are so sought after for HC jobs has created more turmoil for HCs with defensive backgrounds who are likely to lose their OC the moment he looks good.

Oh, that episode was terrible. I got a shiver down my spine when I played the clip. I remember even hating it as a kid.

Yes! This! I root for NE almost every week for this reason. I want them to finish with 8 wins and 9 losses for the next 20 years.