harryS

"As it stands" isn't really an option. We're for sure going to get the PED DLinemen soon and Hairston maybe in a couple of weeks. I don't know how much they'll move the needle (I'm hoping a lot in the case of Hairston) but changes ARE coming. Would love to see a trade for a deep-threat WR

We've already put too many assets/money into the DL, and we just have to hope it'll be enough there. (And it probably can be when everyone's healthy). Would love him but any assets we have to trade probably has to go to WR

In between bites of gabbagool at the dinner table, we all quietly admit that McDermott never had the makings of a varsity coach.

You'd have to be a dope to think these guys will significantly change the team. They may raise Buffalo's EPO/play a little bit but their juice will run out soon.

I hear ya boss. Never know who might be listening

It could just be a two-game blip. It was a horrible two games including horrible play-calling. But I'm far from convinced that's the way it's going to be going forward. I think it's more likely we'll get back to scoring 30+ points / gm

While I agree with you that a coaching change is needed, the comparison of Brunson and Allen is iffy, haha. Josh is perhaps the best player in the NFL and no worse than 3rd. He really should win a title during his prime. Brunson's like the 20th best player in the NBA. He won't win a title and can't be expected to.

Make the move after the season, and very talented GMs and coaches will flock to Buffalo to work with Josh Allen as the QB. There won't be a shortage of good candidates. I think they can be safely declared real right now. They are both playoff-caliber teams and it would be a surprise if they don't make the playoffs. The Bills @Patriots game will be one of the most important of the season for us, unfortunately.

While I tend to agree that the Bills will play better after the bye, I'm not sure that stat is very meaningful. In those seasons, those teams never had to deal with the combination of poor secondary talent, poor LB depth exacerbated by injuries and substandard LB play, and poor WR corps to the extent that this team is dealing with. Because of the defensive issues I mentioned, the Bills have only generated 5 turnovers in 6 games, which is very un-Bills like. We've had seasons where we had to overcome a struggling unit but we've never had this combination of poor DB, LB, and WR play, and we usually have always generated turnovers.

SF has so many injuries everywhere, too. That was a masterclass put on by the 49ers coaches. They embarrassed McDermott and company by comparison. As for the panthers, I echo others in hoping Bryce Young plays instead of Dalton.

OP didn't say anything about which team would beat the other. I'm interpreting the question as more of an emotional one, like "would you trade Keon Coleman for a bag of dirty tampons?" kind of thing

Thanks. This is what I alluded to in an earlier post. In the offseason, the Bills were heavily bet by both sharps and the public to win the Super Bowl. (It was schedule-based). So if the books are going to take on more Bills futures bets, they're going to make bettors pay a very bad price to do so.

Enough debating about how likely the Bills are going to turn this ship around. Get your predictions on the record! This is for bragging rights at the end of the season for those who predict correctly (or at least come very close). Poll will close before the kickoff of the next Bills' game against Carolina. Vote in the poll. Afterwards, a writeup of why you picked what you did is optional but encouraged. As a reminder. Here's the remaining schedule for the Bills. @Carolina Panthers Kansas City Chiefs @Miami Dolphins Tampa Bay Buccaneers @Houston Texans @Pittsburgh Steelers Cincinnati Bengals @New England Patriots @Cleveland Browns Philadelphia Eagles New York Jets

Not sure what that means, but I like it! Perhaps it's our turn to bribe game officials? If we somehow lock the #1 seed by Week 15, I'll be missing both thumbs and my third-born, having navigated us through some tough games with spiritual dealings. Please don't blame me, Jesus, for sacrificing my third-born to win at New England. I just really want the 1-seed and playoff bye!

You can read it for free: https://archive.is/R2zew

I'm all for that eventually I suppose, but maybe before that happens, if he could have one big freakout where he attacks Mahomes, takes him down, and ground-and-pounds Mahomes' face for a full minute before teammates pull him off, I think I'd be okay with that.

Josh Allen. Your turn. Show me the evidence that firing McBeane will bring about a new drought. When in the history of the NFL has a QB of Allen's caliber gone on a long streak of missing the playoffs? Josh is a buoy, you see. We're going to make the playoffs with him no matter who is the coach. The question is more, which GM will give him the talent to win in the playoffs? Which coach will be able to match wits against playoff winners like Andy Reid, Spags, Fangio, etc?

I am playing to an empty pub for sure. Not too many dreamers in here, haha.

Here is my dream. In rough order of importance: We add a WR that opposing safeties are concerned about. It doesn't necessarily need to be a superstar #1 WR. It can be a burner like Rashid Shaheed who is a threat to take the top off of a defense with his speed and therefore opposing safeties will shade towards him and try to stay deeper than him. We need a WR who can occupy two defenders in other words. What this accomplishes: More consistent running room for Cook More space for Shahir and Kincaid to operate in the middle of the field More predictable defensive alignments generally Hairston is an immediate impact starter once he completes rehab and goes through a mini training camp. Similar to #1, this team desperately needs an injection of talent and speed. (As things currently stand, the Patriots and Falcons have as much talent as the Bills outside of QB.) We need Hairston to be a gem, a hit first-round draft pick. When he returns, he needs to at least be a great CB2 and ideally (this is my dream, remember?), he would be like Quinyon Mitchell last season, a rookie corner that plays like a Pro Bowler and can be a CB1. What this accomplishes: Benford can become a great CB2, which arguably is his best usage, and we have two very reliable corners. The LBs stay unusually healthy the rest of the season (and return to form in some cases). This is a dream, remember? In my dream, Milano and Bernard stay healthy and play well to complement Shaq Thompson, who has already been playing well. Because of the lack of depth at LB, we do still need to use the 4-2-5 alignment a lot (while mixing in 4-3) in order to manage the snap count for those three guys and keep them healthy. A healthy trio of LBs accomplishes: Chemistry with the D-line. If they're not in and out of the lineup all the time, they'll develop the run fit and coverage fit behind the D-line that has been sorely missing. A healthy Milano, Bernard, and Shaq can actually make plays on the ball. If they manage to stay on the field together, they'll start to generate turnovers again for this defense, and they'll gain chemistry with each other. Continued improvement and emergence from Kincaid. In my dream, these improvements build off each other. If the Bills manage to get a burner that draws safety attention, then Kincaid should begin to dominate in the middle and deep middle . In terms of targets, I would like to see Kincaid be option #1, Shakir option #2, Shaheed option #3, Cook option #4 (I agree that we should use him in the passing game), and Palmer when he returns option #5. That receiving corps doesn't necessarily leave opponents shaking in their boots, but combined with a great rushing attack and Josh Allen, it'll be good enough for the consistent 30 pts/gm that we had gotten used to. More bread and butter from Joe Brady, less democracy. Again, these things build off each other. If we can get that burner on the outside to open up space underneath, then Brady needs to up the snap count of Kincaid and let HIM eat. Likewise, Brady can throw away some of the cutesie pie plays involving just-another-guy talents, e.g. jet sweep to Knox. With the safeties lifted, let Cook eat lots of carries. With space in the middle, Kincaid and Shakir should be targeted often as they actually separate from their matchups. Keep it bread and butter and feed those main guys, and take your deep shots with Shaheed so the defense continues to respect that aspect. Offense is fixed. Bishop improves a lot, and Rapp is replaced either internally or by trade. Again, it's my dream. With Bishop, we just have to let it play out. We don't have enough assets to plug every single hole with good players. I've already used some assets to get Shaheed here, and since Bishop has good physical tools (which he flashed when he made that INT against the Saints), I'll just dream that he puts it all together and starts playing well at safety. Rapp, on the other hand, doesn't have that kind of upside and needs to be replaced. Maybe Poyer can roll back the years and play a decent strong safety, or we have to use some other assets to get a good player in there. For anyone wondering about McBeane, I'm not going to fire them midseason where it will cause chaos and be hard to find good replacements.

What will have transpired to go from where we are today to that cushy 1-seed and playoff bye being locked up in Week 18? This thread is for the dreamers, the ones who want to use their imagination to concoct a scenario. Jokes are also acceptable. This thread is not for debbie downers who say it's impossible. So, what say you?

Did you watch the Lions-Chiefs game? Detroit thought similar to you since they have a banged up secondary. Won the toss, got the ball, and kicked a FG. The Chiefs eventually double-dipped for a two score lead that KC never came close to relinquishing. Deferring is almost always the correct play. (I'm leaving room for exceptions because one should not speak in absolutes, but I'm talking ~98% of the time, deferring is correct). It's not just about giving yourself a chance to double-dip. It's to guarantee that the opponent doesn't double-dip against us (barring a miracle on-side kick after halftime). McDermott has lots of issues. LOTS of issues. But deferring isn't one of them.

I would not hold out hope there. Basically by calling Jones and Palmer "week to week" and the other guys "day to day", he's saying that Palmer (and Jones) have the longer-term injuries. Which is what you expect for Palmer's high ankle sprain.

Thank you for having a classy, polite conversation about this. You are a gentleman, and I like the stats you posted. I still don't agree with that bolded statement there. The books have no opinion on whether Buffalo will right the ship, and if they do, they don't use it to make lines. Creating a futures market is easy. All the books are doing is estimating what the "true odds" of the Bills wining the Super Bowl is, and then they mark up the price for the bettors. So, there are prediction markets like Polymarket where you can bet both sides of the Bills winning the Super Bowl, which gets us to a reasonable estimate as to what those "true odds" are. At PolyMarket, the Bills are trading at 12%. That means that the fair price for the Bills to win the Super Bowl is 88 / 12 * 100 = +733. The book that was quoted above was offering the Bills at +600, which means the "vig" on that bet is 22.2%. A regular point spread bet only has a vig of 10%, as you know, and that 10% already kills bettors. The futures market is a book's best friend because they can just put up terrible prices for the bettor. I've seen books where the overall juice for all 32 teams in the market is around 50%. And that's all they're really doing in a futures market. They don't know if the Bills will turn it around or not. They just want to make it so if you're betting on the Bills, you're betting a bad price.

A good explanation for what's happening with the Bills in the Super Bowl futures market would contain these words or points: (1) "Priors" (2) A reminder of who the other preseason AFC favorites were and how they're doing in comparison to the Bills. (3) Why the Bills were a very popular offseason Super Bowl bet (among sharps especially) and how that affects the current line, i.e. the books will take more Bills bets but only at a horrible price for the bettor. Generally speaking, the books aren't in the prediction business. They're in the "force you to make a bad bet and collect the vig" business.

The oddsmakers do not hold this opinion at all; they don't know if the Bills will turn it around or not. Their job is just to make it so that if you bet on the Bills in the futures market, you're making a bad bet. They're not supposed to give you good value on ANY team; if they do, then they made a mistake. As for the Bills, which were a very popular offseason futures bet, they're forcing you to make a really bad bet right now. I agree with you that public money doesn't move lines (with rare exceptions), but I don't think you're doing a good job explaining what's happening with the Super Bowl futures market.