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Where does Hyde rank on the top 5 most irreplaceable players on the Bills defense?

It's the Bills and everyone else. They will be a 2-pt favorite at KC. Everyone will freak out and say the Chiefs are being disrespected. And the Bills will absolutely crush the Chiefs, likely by multiple scores, and they won't be less than a 3-point favorite in any game the rest of the year. I am a KC fan. I have frequented this board the last few years only to keep tabs on the Bills. Last year was supposed to be Buffalo's big breakthrough. It wasn't. They addressed all the offseason needs (mainly the pass rush) and got even better. I've already heard some of the comments: "Well, Stafford has a noodle arm," and "The Titans stink." Oh, stop. These were absolute maulings. Both games huge overperforms, both games essentially over by the time the 4th quarter started. Buffalo crushed the Rams and shut down their passing game without blitzing a single time. Then they smoked the Titans, primarily stuffing the box and shutting down Henry (and still being near perfect vs the pass outside of one drive despite missing a Pro Bowl CB and having rookie DBs on the field). I have quite a few friends who are Bills fans. I want to hate. But I can't. This looks like the most complete team I've seen in the NFL since realignment in '02. The Chiefs have been great the last four years. But they've had an above average defense exactly 0 times in the Mahomes era. They've always been beatable, but Mahomes always seems to find a way (55% win percentage when KC falls behind by 10 pts, just ridiculous.) This offseason I totally expected defenses to find an answer for slowing down Buffalo's offense. Not stopping—but slowing down. The same way defenses have been able to make KC dink-and-dunk their way down the field. Through two games, that's out the window. The Rams were decent at it for a few quarters, then fell behind, got impatient and Diggs beat them deep. Against the Titans (admittedly outmatched in the secondary), they played some of the dumbest coverages I've ever seen and got beat deep multiple times. KC's defense has had mixed results vs Buffalo's offense, but I like how the Chiefs have played them on the whole (especially in the AFC title game in 2020). They're aggressive, they bring blitzes from every angle (essentially flooding passing lanes with DB's), and they force you into making some difficult throws. They can live with getting beat deep and don't play scared. The Chiefs need to add a piece or two at the deadline. I'm bullish on the D coming together by season's end. The Bills are going to be able to get off the field against KC and probably force three or four punts. I can't say the reverse is true, at least not yet. My AFC ratings: Bills Chiefs -4 pts worse Chargers -4.5 Ravens -5 Broncos -6.5 (bad start, but strong team) Bengals -6.5 (bad start, but better than this) Dolphins -8.5 (good start, but still skeptical)

i get so sick of INT commentary. it is very hard to not throw interceptable balls in the modern NFL the way teams are playing defense. you've got teams dropping seven into coverage, sometimes eight, and in the case of the chargers it's elite level players at multiple positions. you've got mack and bosa breathing down your neck. you've got samuel, jackson and others in the secondary glued to receivers. and then you've got LB's just roaming around. all the while, DC's are throwing crazy coverages at you (mahomes admitted afterward he was tricked on the samuel throw; the announcers tried to make it sound like it was kelce reading the coverage wrong). playing QB in the NFL is like playing Plinko. last year, mahomes had five INTs that bounced off a receiver's hands before being intercepted. this year, he's thrown a handful of passes that could have been intercepted but has ran pretty lucky. allen's first INT vs the rams was an unfortunate fluke, and his second INT was a contested ball that was quite literally ripped away from the receiver's hands. i thought allen played at an unreal high level last year and yet he threw a career-high 15 INTs. throwing downfield in the current NFL carries a level of risk. the QBs who aren't willing to take any calculated risks and would rather dump it underneath all game probably aren't going to be leading efficient offenses in the end.

The Chiefs are going to have a lot of growing pains. Super young team especially on defense. 1st round CB McDuffie misses, and in the end, it's a 7th round rookie CB who becomes the hero. Tonight was a great test. They played a C+ game and got out with the win. Not bad.

This Chargers D looks epic good to my eyes.

there isn't a single oddsmaker or pro sports bettor who would agree with this assessment. the bills will be a small road favorite when they play KC and would be -3 on a neutral field.

Chiefs fan here. I attended Bills-Rams at SoFi. The Bills are just simply better than KC. They might have been better last year. This year they definitely are. Yes, the Chiefs offense looked great vs the Cards (and I think they'll put up better numbers than last year on the whole even without Tyreek). But...the Bills will get KC's offense off the field enough times to win; and they'll get to Mahomes despite just rushing four. The loss of Tyreek will be felt most vs the Bills than any other team. Even in the playoff game, which was very much a dink-and-dunk effort for KC, the Bills had numerous chances to get off the field on third down (including on KC's very first series when Mahomes eluded a sack and flipped to McKinnon). I have very little faith that the Chiefs can force the Bills into multiple punts. KC's corners are young/green and simply not ready to go toe-to-toe with Buffalo's receivers. I think the Bills win fairly easily in the regular season meeting; I think a playoff rematch could be more interesting depending on how far along KC's rookie defenders come together. But in the end, it's the Bills pass rush. That's the difference. Really hard team to drive the full length of the field multiple times. Eventually, they get you.

does anyone think the bills might just choose to not punt tonight?

Will the starters get some run vs Panthers? Assumed no Josh Allen, but haven't seen anything stated by McDermott.

These offseason lines where they line every game after schedule release are typically pretty formulaic, have low limits, and often are very soft. And sometimes they simply make mistakes and post wrong lines. You can apply basic logic and end up making pretty decent bets just off mispricings. The Bills have two common games with the Chiefs when factoring in home field (both host Titans, both travel to Cincy). Bills are -7 vs Titans Bills are pk at Bengals Chiefs are -5 vs Titans Chiefs are pk at Bengals The only other common opponent is the Rams. The Bills are +1 at Rams while the Chiefs are 2.5-pt home favorites vs the Rams. HFA in the NFL is closer to 2-2.5 pts these days. If the Bills were hosting the Rams, they would be -3 or possibly -3.5 (from a power rating standpoint it would be Bills -4, but it's typically tougher to cross the key -3.) More comparisons from DraftKings lines: Packers at Bucs -3.5 Packers at Bills -4 Chiefs at Bucs -2.5 Bills -1.5 at Chiefs If you remove HFA for all these games, the lines would be: Packers vs Bucs -1 Packers vs Bills -1.5 Chiefs pk vs Bucs Bills -4 vs Chiefs From the above, we can infer that the Bills are 0.5 pts better than the Bucs, who are even with the Chiefs, but the Chiefs are ... 4 points worse than the Bills? Well that doesn't make much sense. Now let's look at the same Bills-Chiefs line, but place it next to two other Bills road games: Bills -3 at Patriots Bills -3.5 at Dolphins Bills -1.5 at Chiefs This would imply the Chiefs are just 1.5 pts better than the Patriots, and just 2 pts better than the Dolphins. Well, even DraftKings doesn't think those teams are in the same stratosphere as the Chiefs. KC's Super Bowl odds are 10-1, whereas the Dolphins (40-1) and Patriots (50-1) are extreme long shots. The Chiefs have the hardest division (and hardest overall schedule) in recent memory, and their season win total at DK is priced at 10.5 while the Dolphins (9) and Pats (8.5) are quite a bit lower despite having easier schedules. Overall, the Bills are and should be rated the best team in the NFL. But it's not by much. They're about 1-2 points better than the Bucs, Chiefs, Packers, Rams; and perhaps 3-4 points better than the Bengals, Chargers, Ravens, Broncos, 49ers (who knows what order these teams belong in, all are potentially very good teams.)

Never, ever, ever, ever, ever buy tickets this far before the season. I can't recall a single time, literally not one, where you couldn't get a cheaper price the week of the game (often on Thursday or Friday, or in the hours leading up to kickoff). The only exception is if you're in a larger group of 5+ and desire a good location (ie lowers between the 30s). This far out, everyone is just shooting for the moon trying to get someone to overspend. StubHub's algo gets tricked and as a result you start seeing "great value" in upper level corner, row 32, for $185 per seat after fees.

Well maybe that explains it! 😃

One of the best stadium renovations in all of sports is the Dolphins' Hard Rock Stadium. I loved the indoor/outdoor feel. Walking around, you'd never know this was a near 50-year old stadium. Cool time lapse of the construction:

I went to games at SoFi and Allegiant this past year. Beautiful venues, but as a fan I felt completely disconnected from the game. Yes, it got noisy at times. But there's just sooo much extra space, and so much else to do and see on the concourses. I felt like I was watching a football game at the Mall of America. The game felt like an afterthought. Hopefully the Bills design can resemble something closer to Lambeau, Arrowhead or the new(ish) Seahawks Stadium, where the actual game remains front and center.

With respect, as a Bills fan, what would you know about what it takes to win a Super Bowl? 😉

Before the trade, the Chiefs couldn't keep Mathieu. Now they can if they desire. The trade now allows them to add someone like CB Gilmore if they desire. It allows them to trade for a defensive player now that they've cleared space (Veach has made a ton of trades in his time, including last year for Melvin Ingram and LT Orlando Brown, on top of the Tyreek trade, on top of countless others.) There will still be post June 1 cuts. And most obviously, they have eight picks in the first four rounds, and he will likely package a few of them to move up to select a defensive player or two who can make an instant impact. Or a stud WR in mid 1st round. So yes, this can for sure help the team in 2022 on the whole, even while acknowledging that Tyreek was special beyond words.

If the Chiefs kept Tyreek, they were handcuffed. They already lost CB Ward, and are likely about to lose S Mathieu. The front 4 needs work. The secondary needs work. The defense needs to add depth all over. Signing Tyreek would have kept the offense at the same level for another year, but the defense would have gotten wrecked, particularly against an AFC where almost every offense got significantly better - especially in the AFC West. Even if the Chiefs were to put the best possible team on the field this year, with little regard to future years, they'd be flipping a coin on getting to the AFC title game. Winning the division is going to be brutal. They'll almost certainly be playing a Rd 1 playoff game (Bills are big favorites to earn 1-seed). KC's path to a Super Bowl will likely be something like this: vs Colts vs Broncos/Chargers at Bills That's like a 65% chance, a 55% chance, and a 45% chance at victory. Just to get to the Super Bowl. The Chiefs will remain contenders, and will be able to do more than almost any other team in the next few offseasons considering the cap space they just cleared and the flexibility they now have, to say nothing of the draft capital accumulated.

The Chiefs are undoubtedly worse right now, but they are extremely well positioned for the immediate future. Paying Tyreek as the highest paid WR in NFL history would have been a tough ask. He's 28, relies on superior speed, and has had heel issues in recent years. He's probably going to tear an achillies eventually, and then what? Getting back five draft picks to free up $20 million in cap space is a nice swap for them. They went into last year with a bottom 5 offensive line and revamped it completely—trading for Orlando Brown, signing Joe Thuney, and drafting what became the two best OL in the draft in C Creed Humphrey and G Trey Smith. It's now a top 5 OL in the NFL. They added JuJu at WR in an incentive-heavy deal. They still have Kelce. They still have Hardman. They think—perhaps wrongly—that Josh Gordon will get caught up to speed and be productive with a full offseason. They'll likely sign Marquez Reshard Valdes-Scantling and then draft another WR using one of their picks. KC's defense needs to add pieces. Frank Clark, Chris Jones and Melvin Ingram all return. But they need another pass rusher and added depth on the DL. As it stands, this is weak DL. LB's are solid with Nick Bolton and Willie Gay, who they invested early picks in the last few years. And secondary is a problem. These picks will let the Chiefs invest heavily in pass rush, DB and perhaps they can add another WR. If Hill returned at this price point, the Chiefs couldn't confidently fix their DL and secondary. If they can strike gold in this draft or next, this team is officially rebuilt in a major way.

Chiefs keep Frank Clark via restructure. Was widely assumed they'd have to part ways.

Anyone subscribe to Dunne's full newsletter? Curious what else.

I think you're reading too deeply into everything here. Respectfully, this is psychotic.

I said it didn't bother me, to be clear. It's obviously disappointing. But so disappointing that I'll spend a week dwelling on it? Nope. The Chiefs have essentially been the host city of the AFC title game for four straight years. They'll have more chances. Losses are easy to stomach when the opponent was deserving. The Bengals outplayed them and won despite losing the OT coin toss. Tip your cap and move on.

Sigh. Clearly I failed with my post and all ensuing attempts to have civil discussion have failed as well. Moving on...cheers!

Allen was a 4th-and-13 incompletion away from finishing 22-of-30 for 227 yards and two TDs vs Chiefs, with 75 yards coming on a blown coverage on a deep pass. Five of eight drives would have ended with a punt or turnover on downs. Obviously, he completed the pass, deserves all the credit in the world for how the Bills closed in that game, and was largely responsible for making the game so memorable. But there was probably a 1-in-4 chance of converting there—even with Dan Sorensen on the field—and the offseason narrative would be much different.

You might be on to something @Bobby Hooks, I will bring this up to my therapist at our next session. A sincere thank you!