AuntieEm

Yea but the owl and the goat are both cheaters. Brady doesn't get to be absolved of the cheater taint.

Cooks is a wr id love to see the bills sign if he ever gets FA status and has the right to choose his destination. He may have been on a number of teams already but he's always been traded to his new team. Yet he still produced 3 consecutive 1,000 yd seasons with 3 different teams. That speaks to his being a talented top wr. I think he'd fit right in with our wrs.

I'm guessing it will depend on who is the OC that replaces Roman and whether their style is to fit their scheme around players strengths or will the new OC be one that wants his scheme to be above anything else. Of course depends on how much the HC leaves offensive playcalling in OCs hands. If a new OC is more pass oriented and isn't strong in run game planning then might be a bad fit with LJ. It would come down to how invested the HC as well as GM are in LJ being the franchise QB. If they are all in the next OC will have to cater to LJ's strength moreso than if they have some doubts on LJ's style being the longterm answer for them. Gotta remember there a reason even the best RBs go downhill at a quicker rate than probably any other position on a team so a RQB is likely to suffer the same rate of decline in those running abilities as the years go on. So if LJ is deemed by a new OC to only have 2 or 3 years of being able to depend on his running skills will he be more inclined to say hey if you want to lead this team you have to hit this level in passing. In fact I'm of the opinion that Roman is actually stifling LJs growth as a passing qb. We have all see LJ make good passes so he's capable. I just think they've never had the patience to let LJ make the mistakes in order to learn from them. Then again in practice maybe LJ doesn't seem to learn from his mistakes.

And of course all the rule changes that make it easier to pass. Wonder how many PF Bruce would have garnered with the new rules. Not that I recall him being brutal. Maybe he was more quick on his get-off than anything. His power bullrush moves were usually spent fighting off all the dbl and triple teams he faced,

Let's not forget the reason alot of our games are rated as easy is because Josh Allen is an elite QB and we have a quality well balanced team. Teams are already gameplanning to stop Josh Allen while not having the players to do that for a whole game. And don't even get to whether they can figure out where to attack our defense, to even have a chance at winning. Bills strength of schedule largely, dictated by their play quality..... Haven't had a team earn its schedule strength since the 90's and I think we have a better defensive potential than what the 90s defenses ranked in their era. The 90s were more stacked with the star players in Bruce, Talley, Bennett, Conlan, Jones, .... telling that Bruce was the only HoF from the defense those years. I think we got a more top tier defensive playmakers than the 90's defenses had or at the very least think as a total unit i think we have a better defense than Kelly's teams had.

Some people just need the stats and the eye candy splash plays. I'm sure there would be those who would complain if the Bills defense got 0 sacks the rest of the year while only giving up an avg of 10 points to opponents thru the 17 games. It would be the best ever statistical points against average in the the nfls history (talking about across every era but no eye candy fantasy driven statlines) and there would be complaints. Now believe me I don't expect the Bills d to be that dominant all season long. I will be expecting great defense every week going forward until it doesn't. I can then reflect on how well or not the unit performed over that span of games. I'm gonna be basing my disappointment or my elation on the W-L record of the team not the individual accolades to any one player offense or defense including whether or not Josh Allen puts up the MVP season we know he's capable of. If some switch flips for TE and he puts up some highlight plays in more upcoming games and we are STILL winning.... great sign me up. If he suddenly becomes Kuechly 2.0 but the Bills drop a few more losses then no I'd rather TE remain a winning underachiever that helps the bills defense go than to be a DPOY or even league mvp candidate at end of year. That's just me though.

And looking at PA the defense really only gave up 30 points in 3 games. I'm not counting the blocked punt in week 1 as it was ST blunder not on defense. That's only 10 possible a game average. Would be sweet if they keep up that pa avg. It's doubtful that avg can be sustained over a 17 game season. Still until they don't we can hope they do maintain a low pa rate. Just like offensive efficiency, defensive efficiency makes things easier for the offense. Knowing each squad can hang with the league leaders in their respective stat PF on offense, PA on defense would make this Bills team unique as usually most teams will have one side be more highly ranked than the other. High powered offense with decent but not great defense. Dominate defense with a bland offense. Both above combos have won SBs. Wonder what SB winner had the best rankings for PF and PA in their SB winning seasons.

Any kickoff once the ball travels 10 yards its anyone's ball. Why there are onside kicks attempted. So basically you never let the kickoff hit the ground if you can avoid it because its a live ball and anyone can claim possession.

It also makes a difference how serious the opponent takes you and then how they gameplan for you. I think last year especially the first 4 or 5 games opponents weren't expecting Josh and the offense to start off on fire and hitting on all those passes after all everyone knows you can't improve accuracy..... Surprise is always a benefit if you can provide it. Hard to do once the quality of your play is known so going forward Josh and the Bills will be adding new stuff that catches opponents by surprise. Then there are those teams that just don't have the defensive players to stop even the old stuff the bills offense is good at. The reason is teams are playing him differently. They now know he can beat you when you blitz so DC are planning more specifically for stopping him. As he adds new weapons plays this year it will become harder to come up with successful gameplans so games will start looking more like 2020. Josh and the bills offense isn't broken it just still evolving. When creating a masterpiece it doesn't always look pretty during the creation stage. Don't worry u çan just rewatch the parts you enjoy most on the 2021 Bills road to SB victory season DVD set. You'll be able to forget the bumps in the road you were less entertained by.

Think Josh needs some help choosing new playlist for his pregame ritual to get him settled in. We could offer suggestions here... What song or singer do you think he'd benefit from to keep him from over-ampage.

Allen will win multiple maps before he retires no doubt. I'm sure he wants team success over mvp so let's cheer for that.

Dunno if you can compare across eras that easily. Todays cbs playing by today's rules or another eras pass rules. Would be a big difference. I don't see today's cbs taking on a Franco Harris with a full head of steam behind him.

Why? You can be a fan of a player on a rival. Most will only wish bad games on them when it is in bills best interests if no bearing then no harm cheering them doing well.

Really isn't it smarter to try new thing out under real bullets when you know you can compete with the opponent? I always felt BB and the Brady would test things against the rest of afce because they did own the division for a close to a full decade. Let's practice our play on them now. With covid there was still less ota practices so extra practice where ever u squeeze it in surely helps.

He also made some td passes without forcing the ball but because he isn't posting higher fantasy winning stats fans are saying he regressed. 2 of 17 games not even a quarter of season played. We have a nice new pass rush that looks like it can really grow with interesting potential. I'm not buying many of the teams we will play still this season will have the defense capable of shutting down Josh and this offense not to mention that team would need an equally skilled offense to get by our so far stellar defense. Early yet but we got the horses now to maintain a rotation that allows for resting players that max need it during season. Bills have invested heavily in maintaining the right blend of recovery specialists to keep players in peak condition.

No it wasn't. In the recent past, pre-Mcbeane (our PM), the bills were the team that lost this game to the Pats. For however long this team embraces the current culture of winning and respecting the process we can be the top dog that let's division rivals make mistakes trying to beat the bills. No one circles the wagons is not just the fans these days. Think its part of the process to play complementary football.

Also his jump in accuracy, measured inaccurately one might say ( pun intended) by completion percentage which all the experts said was impossible to learn you either had it or you weren't getting it took everyone by surprise when he clicked so seamlessly with diggs to erase that false narrative. Now he's getting the respect his play warrants and he's now having to face games with specifically designed gameplans to stop him. Earning the respect of your peers is one thing now he has to juggle maintaining his edge as new looks pop up as the bills are now the hunted. It puts more on his plate so if he doesn't instantly come up with the answers but needs to process the correct counters after film study and some tweaking of plays that would be likely to succeed against those new looks.

As a long time fan I know that without reliably putting up points in whatever manner is best for your team any given Sunday will not lead to sustained success. Yes the rule changes over the the years do favor the pass but it doesn't preclude other ways of success just the degree of effort and ability thats required to sustain that success. Yes its improbable we see many examples of a SB winner in today's pass friendly thats gonna do it with a elite defense but a substandard offense, yet 2000 ravens did just that with an offense that did not score even a touchdown in 5 straight games. Will the Bills do that highly improbable because I can't see these players going 5 games without a offensive td. So we don't even need our defense to be as elite as that 2000 Ravens squad. They are capable of being that elite potential is there just hard to execute at that elite level for that length of time even with alot of talent. Complementary teams find its easiest to succeed. Everyone says KC is the team to beat in AFC no if and or buts, yet they couldn't overcome their defenses lack of execution. If Allen is deemed to be regressing from the level he achieved in 2020 then I guess Patrick Mahomes has regressed more since he failed to maintain an even loftier spot than Josh Allen has ascended to. In fact now that Sam Darnolds with a new team and he's 2-0 maybe we didn't get the best qb in the 2018 draft (I hope you know that's heavily dosed with sarcasm). Theres nothing vague whatsoever in the cliche slogan 'it's a team game'. This is absolutely indisputably a fact. Even the great Tom Brady knows thats true - Its why he got tired of playing at a team friendly rate but did not receive an appropriate influx of talent that justified his reduced salary. Much better to be surrounded with defensive talent making your job easier and getting paid appropriately while still winning SBs. Make a convincing argument on that I don't think you can unless you show me a team that only fields only an offense or only a defense and I'll concede that it would be impossible to field a sb champ on a team that's made up of Special Teams because thats more of a cliche 'ST is 1/3 of the game' it can swing momentum certainly but it only helps drive whichever side of the ball a one dimensional team is dominant. But even ST can dominate in individual games. NYJ all field goal game win was only bass putting up points but we still needed both the offense and defense or do you dispute that in today's pass is the only thing that wins in today's game mentality that you adhere to? But that game just happened last year in the midst of Josh's breakout year as a elite passed. 18-10 final score. Josh and the Bills offense could not find the end zone once despite Josh passing for over 300 yds. Granted to Jets were a hapless dumpster fire under Adam game so our defensive shutout in 2nd half of that game wasn't that impressive to those of us that view game as a terrible coach that lived off a rep as Peyton Mannings OC in Denver as if Peyton needed an OC after practically being the offense in Indy when they were sustaining success. Yet he failed to win a SB until he had a complementary defense. And he won a second SB with Denver largely due to a good defense his arm was shot the last year by time the playoffs came round. And yes I do consider Peyton to be a better QB vs Brady straight up. Brady just had more complimentary defenses to garner his lopsided number of championships, Brady developed more as he got deeper in his career but then he started with a lower football iq imho. Manning was groomed by his father Archie from a young age so he had a leg up on Brady in that regard. Can u argue Brady had less defensive help through his patriots years than Manning did during his indy years? I don't know if anyone could as some of the patriot success is due to belichek and his defensive coaching abilities. He was the architect of the defense that was able to stop the first Bills SB team which most bills fans feel was there best matchup talentwise in their 4 trips.

I have never said that I'm dismissing that the offense hasn't met what my expectations were after the brief look we got in preseason it surely looked like it would be a continuous Josh Allen MVP show. However as a longtime Bills fan, unlike what appears to be lack of coaching adjustments, I have adjusted my season expectations to whatever it takes to win as a team. The lose against Steelers was a team lose as Miami win is a team win not a Josh win where he was the mvp of game. Even though the team won on all offensive scores, only the xps to be possibly considered ST points no defensive scores so posting the shutout only guaranteed a tie if the offense didn't do its part. So yes a team playing complementary will get you far and is sustainable when its a focus which I'd expect to be high on the list of do's and don'ts in the process guidelines. Of course Tyrod could win games if the defense kept posting shutouts like today. However part of the reason I think the defense plays as well is they know that they don't have to be perfect all the time as we can easily say Josh carried the team last year in games where the defense didn't do its share a handful of times. I don't know if Tyrods not risking TOs and not trusting his wrs would inspire the defense as well as Josh and his play style does. That's cause Josh playing 2020 style is fun to watch even other players (Sanders) were tuning in to watch bills highlights taking notice. Tyrod not so much, though he did play pretty much turnover free football that would complement any strong defense. Josh basically flipped the Bills being a top destination for where a top FA wr would want to sign. Think Antonio Brown would refuse playing for bills now if his holdout and subsequent drama unfolded post Josh 2020. I think he'd have been on first flight into buffalo if that happened.

Yes, bottom line is the final score is the only factor that matters in the end. Style points are maybe important for fantasy football, but in the real world its the only thing that matters. I'd love for Josh to go on a amazing 500 yd per game, do nothing wrong, can't be stopped whatever the defenses bring, string of 15 games to finish the season as the most amazing defuting factor in "accuracy cannot be learned". Fact anything is learnable that doesn't require specific physical traits. For example, I'm pretty confident that in a limbo competition that lil dirty McKenzie has a distinct advantage and be my pick to win over Josh Allen. In the end though I don't care how the team wins the Lombardi at the end of the season. First Td of season Allen to Davis kinda of appropriate to quote Allen Davis "Just Win Baby".

Well Bills are now playing a division leader schedule. So he's gonna see better teams for one. These first 2 games were against quality defenses, most knowledgeable fans will agree. Now that Josh has arrived he's taken more seriously by opposing teams. You won't hear many opposing players saying stupid stuff like. Jalen Ramsey's famous 'He's trash..." rant and that's mostly from respecting him as a gifted top QB, so they are gonna wanna look good by besting him. They tried blitzing alot last year he was beating those attempts so defenses are trying new things and so far the team and Josh (it takes all players on offense to make it hum.... ) haven't figured out what are the best counters to what they are seeing on defense. They will figure it out shortly, I don't doubt that with the players we have they are just learning this teams identity. And while 2020's identity was fun to watch offensively it still didn't get the job done so yes some tinkering is needed to get it just right. Only so much you can tinker without seeing how your opponents play you and also how your team plays having last years success means you gotta be a few steps ahead of defenses who will be studying your film rather than shrugging you off as hey its only the bills as likely happened more often in the pre McBeane era. So you have added more motivated opponents. The good part is if the team can gel with proper counters then they become that much better of a team which is the goal to any successful season. So let's see how the team identity this year unfolds as I'm still expecting a Lombardi at the end of this season. I think we see Josh become better at reading defenses and getting the job done whatever works best. I'm sure Josh wants to be racking up all the passing yards etc. We all know he's capable after last year all 31 other teams dcs just watch his tape to know he's capable. So he's lost the element of surprise that I think he still benefited from much of last season. Does not mean he won't be pulling out a few new tricks during this season as he learns to counter what defenses are bringing this year. Good news is the defense is playing better than last year so with playing a tougher schedule they aren't needing Josh to carry the team. That takes a bit of adjusting to as well, especially when it got him mvp consideration, 2nd to Aaron Rodgers in votes. Let's see how he plays against teams that don't have the defensive talent and abilities that Pitt and Miami do. Context is important. I think we see 2020 offense then.

And I'm willing to bet every team going forward will also fail to go undefeated for their seasons.

While I agree it's concerning that this game is the first one since he signed his extension. I expect Josh will bounce back as I think that he sincerely wants to earn every cents of his extension and its a hard concept to go about proving your worth a 258 million extension. I think that is what had him a bit rattled first time in front of packed house cheering MVP as he entered I dunno there's any music that could keep him getting amped by that. Maybe they could play some sedate elevator music in the stadium till Josh is settled every home game. While I agree it's concerning that this game is the first one since he signed his extension. I expect Josh will bounce back as I think that he sincerely wants to earn every cents of his extension and its a hard concept to go about proving your worth a 258 million extension. I think that is what had him a bit rattled first time in front of packed house cheering MVP as he entered I dunno there's any music that could keep him getting amped by that. Maybe they could play some sedate elevator music in the stadium till Josh is settled every home game.

You are correct. Pittsburgh has always been a tough game irregardless of the talent on each squad at time of each game. It's also imho, a big example of why coaching stability is so important in the success of a team. Since the Bills have been in existence the Steelers have had only 6 total head coaches. The current and previous 2 HC each won a SB at least once. Cannot argue that the stability isn't part of that success. In comparison, the Bills have had 19 HC's in the same time period. 13, if you subtract the 'interim' hcs ( Lynn, Fewell during drought era) who never held the job over a season. Pittsburgh is 6-2 in their SB appearances. Buffalo 0-4. Coaching/culture matters. Talent can overcome some instability but its much easier to do it with talent and stability. Gotta be on same page throughout. We will see how they respond next week in a important divisional game as the stated goal has been to be in position to host playoff games. First way to make that likely is win your division. So next week is important. Recent history versus Miami is strong so a bad performance in Miami would be more alarming than being kept in check by a highly skilled defensive team lik e the Steelers.

Yea I am just grateful that we have a cushion between losing 4 in a row and this years SB. 5 in a row would have been too much.