BillsVet

God bless you and your family. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

I'm saying it's suspect that everyone jumps on board the OC decision when there's an underwhelming track record hiring coordinators. This is a macro level discussion which has devolved into isolated issues. Brady will implement the offensive game-plan which aligns with the HC's guidance. Right or not, it comes back to McD. My concern is, particularly since the 2020 off-season, that Buffalo will maintain status quo, and the offense will be built as if the Bills had a game-manager or slightly better QB. Brady's hiring seems to point in that direction, though it's a long off-season. We'll see.

Why not? McD's got a 3 year streak of firing a coordinator to take heat off himself for disappointing post-seasons. Funny thing about McD...he knows the owners aren't going to fire him with 4 years and 35M in guarantees due. I haven't even heard he needed to meet with them post season either. Besides, Terry has enough to contend with and wants nothing to do with a HC search. Brady will do what Dorsey and Daboll wouldn't (with Josh at QB): coordinate the offense to be "complementary" to the defense. And that means more running, more safe throws, a decent regular season record, and losing to KC/CIN or whomever actually runs a competent offense they play in the post-season.

When it's all said and done, the NFL is all about luck. No getting around it. Those 4 losses in the playoffs to KC and CIN each year came down to being banged up, bad officiating, or just bad luck. Really can't expect to win without much without everything being in perfect alignment before the kickoff.

One of these years the Bills will have their entire defense healthy in the playoffs. It’s only a matter of time.

No one who sat near him in the front row of 123 could ever say a bad thing about him. RIP Jon.

There comes a point where strategically building McD's style of defense requires too much good fortune, too many resources, and delivers too little regardless of who coordinates it. Particularly against good offenses that can throw the ball and more against offenses that can throw and run as we've seen the last 2 playoff losses. Just not a sustainable style of defense and why it's a broken record every off-season to hear about injuries. Front 7 types are making contact dozens of times a game for an entire regular season and people expect them to remain healthy in the playoffs? Case in point is both LB's need to be agile in this scheme to cover, but at the POA they're not the sturdy types in run support. Milano missed 13 games in his last 5 seasons entering this year. Great player, but shouldn't be a suprised he gets hurt. To mitigate injuries at the DL, they've consistently dressed/paid decent money to 8-9 DL every year. Lot of cost, but as we see in the playoffs, not a lot of production. Few rookies start in that rotation, necessitating lot of UFA dollars. Still perennially doing that because HC wants it. If after 5 seasons of re-tooling and improving that defense it can't be counted on, it's time to change strategy. Still not holding my breath McD will have an epiphany and shift his priority to offense and Josh against his defense.

And I'd add...the insanity of using their top pick to fill a need at a position of low value should have died around 2009. (Cue the response that McD's safeties are not of low positional value)

It is...but only when your team drafts like hot garbage, i.e. Buffalo from about 2005-2016. And most of the 70s.

There's must be a morale issue in that locker room trusting in McD's "process" by this point. His personality is already abrasive and he lacks the credibility to keep doing the same thing without people questioning it. He can spin things for fans, but inside that locker room with more disappointments it's not going to go far.

All of this makes me laugh. After the Divisional Round last year, Beane went to the podium and talked about how Cincinnati could draft JaMarr Chase because Burrow got hurt as a rookie. Right now, I take nothing they say (particularly given the timing) at face value. They know the audience is unhappy and media availability is to signal to players certain messages and placate the disappointed fans.

I will trust them if they bring back Phil McGeoghan as WR coach to advise the HC whom to select in the draft.

Ideal off-season: Beane tells McDermott to pound sand on defense because they won't be short-changing Josh anymore with receiving talent. That it's time to build a passing game around their franchise QB that can out-score teams when necessary. Real off-season: McD gets high-resource new safeties and interior DLinemen. OBD uses some mid to late round picks and bargain bin UFA deals on receivers. Season: Similar to the past 3. Pegula is MIA and McD is back in 2025 to run it back another season. Good times.

There's lies, damn lies, and statistics. Churchill knew what in advance that TBD'ers with too much time on their hands would get to this point...and have for years. (Correction - not Churchill, but perhaps former British PM Benjamin Disraeli or Mark Twain...who knows?)

I would hope by now that McD understands playing it safe doesn't get the W. I'd rather Buffalo not get into a shoot-out with KC, but if it happens not to get rattled and stay aggressive on offense. Because KC isn't going to go into a shell.

Calm down Francis.

Jerry didn't want to have to find another guy who wouldn't challenge him and was just happy being the Dallas Cowboys HC. He had one already. McCarthy gets to keep his job, Jerry still makes all the big decisions, and the fans have to take it. Someone will be tossed aside (Dan Quinn come on down) and welcome to the show that never ends...Dallas Cowboys suckitude. I couldn't be happier.

Winning off-seasons according to homers still doesn't mean squat. Nor does winning off-season awards when you keep losing in the divisional round. Maybe that changes this year. Maybe it doesn't. It still doesn't remove the fact that, in light of their goal this year winning the SB, celebration of any executive is premature at this time.

People taking the victory lap before the race has ended. Usually not a good idea because it can blow up in your face especially when the objective this season was the SB. 11-6 with 5 straight wins ain't the SB.

Who cares? Go read a book or exercise because it's not worth the mental energy demanding talking heads repent.

Funny thing about turnovers... The two teams to lead the league in turnover differential? Baltimore and the New York Giants at +19. And the next 3 teams? New Orleans, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati. Maybe turnover differential ain't that big a deal as people are led to believe. But what is a big deal and a guaranteed way to not make the playoffs is when your franchise QB is out for the season. https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats/team/_/view/turnovers/table/miscellaneous/sort/turnOverDifferential/dir/desc

Comparison has to be having a healthy Josh > an injured Josh. Josh has thrown too many picks, but there hasn't been much discussion of how several other NFL QB's have upped their number of picks. Hurts had 15, Mahomes had 14, and Tua had 14. Real question is, are throwing a couple more INT's over the course of the season better than having a guy moderately to significantly degraded physically at 30? And what can the franchise do to make the passing game better, provided that Josh is preparing appropriately?

I credit the team for rebounding from 6-6 after the Philly game and winning their final 5 to earn the 2nd seed and a home playoff game (hopefully more) this weekend. At the same time, you can't help but see that Josh is needed to run the ball down the stretch more each season, particularly after or into their normal mid-season swoon. Either by design or when receivers may not be open - far too much Josh has is still carrying the ball and under all 3 coordinators they've had: Under Daboll: 2020: Buffalo entered week 9 at 7-2, finished 6-1, with Josh averaging 5.5 runs to earn the second seed. (No games with more than 10 carries) 2021: Buffalo entered week 9 at 5-3, finished 6-3, with Josh averaging 7.2 runs to earn the third seed. (3 of last 5 games with 10 carries) Under Dorsey: 2022: Buffalo entered week 9 at 6-2, finished 7-1, with Josh averaging 7.8 runs to earn the second seed. (3 of last 6 games with 10 carries) Under first under Dorsey, then Brady: 2023: Entered week 9 at 5-3, finished 6-3, with Josh averaging 8.3 runs to earn the second seed. (3 of last 5 games with 10 or more carries) Maybe they'll finally re-look their offensive identity, personnel decisions, and play-calling this off-season to avoid needing to do this. Until then, they're going to rely on Josh carrying the offense again in the playoffs.

McBeane have used almost as much RD1/2 draft value to acquire Josh as they did on offense in those rounds from 2018-2022. They went Edmunds, Oliver, Ford, traded for Diggs, Epenesa, Rousseau, Basham, Elam, and Cook. My concern is McD gets his way again and because they used their 2023 on Kincaid, figure they can go back to defense in 2024.

Every time subjects like this are brought up, they're presented as some sort of binary issue. As in, you do or don't need an elite QB. You need an elite one who is surrounded by excellent talent...especially in the playoffs. The Eagles with Jalen Hurts lost in the SB to the team with a better QB AND offense last year. Brock Purdy comes to mind this year, a competent QB with top-end skilled talent and solid blocking. That will take you far, but in the 2023 NFL, it's no SB guarantee. See the 2019 San Francisco 49ers...perhaps the league's best defense that gave up 21 straight points in the 2nd half to an elite offense and lost that SB. That said, Buffalo seems to have had a plan for this franchise in 2017-18 that is largely the same today. They succeeded in acquiring the QB, but still want to feature an elite defense as though that will carry them. It might for some games in the regular season, but come playoff time it's victimized. They finally add a legit WR2 and WR3 who are threats and this team can go places. Of course, that'll mean not having everything on defense, but it's a net gain. I doubt they'll ever begin favoring the offense though. Perhaps the Bills start getting it right, but they need a course correction with where this franchise is going.