BillsVet

Few posters go full hyperbole so quickly when someone disagrees with them like you do. Dude, remove the bunched panties from your fourth point of contact and don't take it this personally.

It's amazing that people are quick to credit McBeane for the Cooper trade and practically ignore the lead-up to that, namely the costs involved. They spent an entire off-season preaching their "everybody eats" strategery only to change course after 5 games when Josh had been battered and they were blown out once and lost a winnable game at Houston. Yeah, they corrected themselves but only after it was abundantly obvious their plan failed miserably. The expectation of good management is to anticipate problems before they arrive...and it shouldn't have been hard to anticipate in the post-Diggs Bills last April that WR was a huge weakness. That insistence on stupid is why they're 2 games back of the #1 seed when they should be 1. Also meant the guy who is keeping you from being a 6 win team took some huge hits. Still amazes me that, after 8 off-seasons the Bills have not drafted a 1,000 yard receiver, WR or TE. Perhaps that changes next year, but it's further indictment that they don't value pass-catchers or know how to scout them.

You former military? My battalion commander said that all the time in Iraq.

Bad things man! That's what happens when people don't vote for Bruce LOL. He was DPOY in 1990 and 1996 an 8x 1st team All-Pro and 3x 2nd teamer. I could see Allen down the road, even though they played in different eras where passing is vastly different. But Bruce remains given the career length and dominance. Out of his own end zone no less where you could have, as a ST holder, your name on the Jumbotron. If memory serves, it was from the 2009 Cleveland game Buffalo lost 6-3 where Derek Anderson completed 2 passes for the Browns. Ughh. What marketing genius thought up that angle?

McD has talked about this now during the tenure of the last 3 OC's he hired. This loss, isolated to one week of the regular season isn't impossible to stomach. Playing on the left coast has always been an issue for east coast teams. But as you've alluded to, there are matters which aren't addressed which appear against above average teams which portend what we inevitably witness in the post-season. HC is married to his philosophy and will never change. And, he has failed to raise his coaching acumen to a level which parallels the abilities of his QB.

Inconsistent play against quality opponents and still...an over-reliance on Josh to do it all. Overall doctrine McBeane adhere to must change this off-season.

Obviously this move was timed by Pegula and the Machiavellian McDermott to deflect from the Sabres' historic loss last night.

Part of the oddity this season comes down to competition in the AFC. KC is still good, but seem off. They'll make their playoff run I expect. BAL will be there and is concerning because their run game is problematic for Buffalo's run defense. None of PIT, HOU, LAC, DEN concern me at this point. Ironically, I remember that 1990 season and Buffalo playing at NYG (which was 12/15 also) and winning. Ended up being the SB preview. Bills play Lions on 12/15...that would be a heck of a SB.

It's not surprising Goodell and the owners want this. It's amazing to watch how, since Gene Upshaw died, the NFLPA and commissioner/owners are basically on the same team now. There's no labor strife because they're united by making more money. No one talks about how an 18-game schedule shortens careers or that the quality of the product will decrease. We saw a glimpse of that this season when, with pre-season reduced to a few big scrimmages, the quality of play declined markedly at the beginning because starters don't get pre-season PT. I'm sure players even with another bye thrown in also aren't keen on the international games to Europe and South America. Which makes one wonder whether there'll be some division within the NFLPA about just acquiescing to this. Wouldn't be the first union where leadership and rank and file aren't agreeing lately.

Conflating the subject doesn't make your argument any more valid. Josh takes too many hits. Happened especially at the beginning of the season as receivers didn't get open. It's more him taking off on scrambles now, designed or not, but it's placing him in the line of fire too often. If your offense features/requires Josh carrying the ball, be it short yardage or otherwise, upwards of 8x or more times a game...the offense has issues that he's masking. Too late to resolve this season...but better be a point of issue this off-season. As in, leaning toward offense more in UFA and the draft than they've done before.

Stop being obtuse. This isn't a statistical debate as you insist on framing it as. It's how many unnecessary hits Josh takes because the offense needs him to run the ball. As to @Simon's point, he's been getting beat up each year. Perhaps a couple years ago that could be, in part, attributed to his style of play. Not anymore.

Less hits? Come on dude. The human body cannot take the head impacts Josh has taken (1 is too much) without some kind of lingering issues eventually. Even when it's him shaking his hand after a run like versus Arizona or in the Chiefs game it's disconcerting. And that's because they didn't resource the offense appropriately, which became apparent after Week 5's loss in Houston. Point is, the HC and OC all too often use their quarter-billion dollar asset sometimes like he's just another player when in fact he's the difference between being a top-2 seed and picking in the top-5.

Saw this as well and that ownership wouldn't necessarily fire Daboll and Schoen as a result. I am not so sure on the latter...owners know they need to win and HC's and to a lesser extent GM's are blamed first. And, owners don't fire themselves for weighing in on personnel decisions. Gotta have good ownership in professional sports now to be successful. To know whom to hire, when to get involved and when to stay out of football decisions.

Daboll is who he is. What he's not is the guy defining their overall football philosophy and establishing their correlating roster priorities. The cost of not having a top receiver group is that your QB is asked to do more and in Buffalo that's Josh running. He becomes the default option to make up for personnel deficiencies which, as we learned in the Baltimore and Houston games, isn't himself enough. Maybe retaining Cooper, seeing Coleman improve combined with a healthy Shakir and Kincaid are that group. But if Josh is carrying the ball more, that's largely because their receivers aren't good enough.

One would think this is enough for McBeane to recognize sub-par receiving talent leads to this outcome every season.

They haven't had the mid-season downturn either this year. SOS is light currently, but after those BAL and HOU losses and acquiring Cooper they've been steady. As in, no 6-8 week stretches where they don't play to expectations like they had in from 2021-23. Seems like players are more focused this season.

Still not sure what their offensive identity is short of just hope Josh makes a play with his legs. Which is more obvious the better the opponent. Hard to believe considering they've had the same staff and front office for several seasons now.

Yeah, media in general has resorted to too much happy talk to fill time. I get that material for a 4 hour show isn't easy, but those topics in your second sentence drone on too long. I doubt many people care about that stuff, but there's not that much news from day to day about the team. 2 days after a game it's talking about injuries, the 10 minute window they saw at practice and what else? But they need to fill that segment and you get Halloween costumes, what they got out of the vending machine, and some other nonsense. You can't talk about offensive philosophy, schemes, or anything nuanced because it'll lose the surface-level fan. Kinda reminds me of a story Mike Lombardi, a former personnel type told years ago while working for CBS He was about to do his segment on the pre-game show and had planned to talk about a rumored GM change for some team. I think it was Jim Nantz who told him no one cared about that stuff and to focus it on players or something else. The inside baseball stuff loses people...but the alternative seems to be happy talk.

More quibbling 101. Pre-season SOS? Do you get credit for that now? The next 4 games still go a long way toward confirming or denying they are set for a deep playoff run. When you regularly beat quality opponents, i.e. teams likely to be division winners and/or finishing with 11+ wins it tells the story. I do not expect them to go 4-0, but the embarrassment that the Baltimore and Houston games were should prompt a wait and see approach.

Buffalo's strength of schedule is currently 3rd easiest in the NFL and 2nd easiest in the AFC. It's a first place schedule with 6 games against the moribund NYJ, MIA, and NE. And who are those first place teams they'll play? BAL, HOU, KC, and DET, whom they're 0-2 against and have yet to play the latter 2 teams. This season still is about winning in the playoffs and the best predictor of that is how you fare against good teams. Your record is what you are and 8-2 is good. It's also deceptive in the way that 7-3 was at the same juncture in 2019.

"I don't like everything the way it is now compared to the way it used to be."

Yeah. No one is demanding they throw 50x/game, but to feature an offense which can routinely out-score their opponent when/if the defense breaks down. Because if the entire defense needs to be healthy, the likelihood of that is lower as the season plays out. The stretch versus KC, versus SF, then at the Rams, and at Detroit will tell the real story about the 2024 Bills. Because right now, 7-2 is nice, but with a strength of schedule the 4th easiest in the NFL and strength of victories sitting at .333 so far, it's not a complete reflection of how good they are. Because the real games are about to start and either they've improved over the ugly Baltimore and Houston losses or they're a similar team. In which case, their playoff experience is likely to end before the SB.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let Your perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen. RIP John.

With throwing to the backs, there seems to be something disjointed about how they align play-calling with personnel against a specific opponent. It's like the OC's forget that they can throw to the backs and never recall in-game that option exists. They also seem intent on throwing to the backs given their draft picks/acquisitions, like when they traded for Nyheim Hines in 2022. Then, they just didn't use him for that purpose. Or, now having Cook, Davis, and Johnson who combined have 33 targets in 8 games. And that's as the passing game has been stifled at times. Just strange.

Making a trade at positions they're not dealing with significant injuries is a sign the off-season plan was significantly flawed. This off-season you'd hope they revise their predictable offensive and defensive schemes which means downstream of that...their roster priorities. Can't have the HC, GM, and the staff being so complacent with their beliefs and not acknowledging what they do often doesn't work against the better teams. That is, if you want to get to and win the SB. Anything less is failure at this point, especially with the way the league is situated with no dominant team.