Zac Posted May 15, 2018 Share Posted May 15, 2018 I'm with Kirby. When your QB, WRs, and O-Line are in the conversation for worst in the league, it's hard to imagine you have a winning season. They'd never say it, but I doubt Beane and McDermott are expecting playoffs this year either. This season is taking one step back to take two steps forwards towards being a consistent contender. I think we all know what Tyrod was. He was a below average passer, with above average athleticism, who protected the ball so well that we could beat bad teams with relative consistency and good teams if we got lucky. He was never going to be a QB that could consistently lead us past contender-level teams, so we needed to move on. The cap situation is such that we could only fix so many holes this offseason. That was made even worse by the unexpected departures of Incognito and Wood. It's no surprise that our defensive head coach fixed the defense first. That might be the right move because it will keep us in most games. The defense is set up for now and the future. We also, most importantly, acquired the biggest piece of our offense going forward. Next offseason our cap situation really frees up, and I expect us to spend rather liberally, addressing the offensive line and WR first and foremost, and adding a top shelf player with what is likely a top 15 pick in the first round. We might have had a chance of replicating last season with Wood and Incognito back, but with them gone any chance of that went out the window IMO. Maybe Groy can prove he's not just a good backup, maybe Teller can hop in right away and adequately replace Incognito, maybe the perennial train wreck that is the right side of our offensive line sorts itself out with our FA signings, maybe Zay Jones makes a jump forward towards being a legitimate #2, maybe Kelvin Benjamin stays healthy the whole season, maybe AJ McCarron is able to outdo Tyrod as a passer and protect the ball just as well, or maybe Josh Allen is an upgrade from day one. But that's a lot of freaking maybes and I don't like those odds. With that said, I expect us to be a well-coached, smart, disciplined team and our defense to be strong, so I don't expect the rails to come of. I think 6.5 over under sounds about right, with my call being 7-9. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoBills808 Posted May 15, 2018 Share Posted May 15, 2018 4 hours ago, Kirby Jackson said: Different strokes for different folks I guess. I’d take Enunwa, Anderson, Kearse & Pryor over Benjamin, Zay, Kerley and Holmes (or whomever). Mahomes showed flashes of brilliance and has Andy Reid coaching him. Allen may be better long-term but I’d bet that Mahomes is an upgrade this year. The OL is a wild card and the Bills were unlucky with Wood & Incognito. We certainly aren’t in a position though to say that any other line is definitely worse than the Bills. Whether you have the Bills at 30 or 32, the point remains that those groups aren’t good. Allen developing will soften the blow and set them up. As of today though it could be a long year for the offense. I'd say for me I don't see why people are so down on the offense. I agree that the reconfigured line plus McCoy being a year older may hurt the run game (which produced at a solid-but-unspectacular 4.1YPA, good for 14th in the league), but it would be hard to have a passing offense much worse than the Bills did last season (28th in net yards per attempt, 27th in TDs, 31st in yards). Overall, the 2017 offense was 29th in the NFL in yards gained and 22nd in scoring with 4.8 yards/offensive play good for 27th...they really have nowhere to go but up imo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Beebe Posted May 15, 2018 Share Posted May 15, 2018 21 hours ago, Augie said: This is actually a slight improvement over the Bills record the first 2 years of my marriage (2-14 back to back). My young bride asked “why do you do this to yourself?” I remember those days. I had to listen to most of the games on the radio. They weren't on the tv. When we got a first down I cheered like you would for a touchdown. Hard times. But I hung in there until we became the play off team we are today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldmanfan Posted May 15, 2018 Share Posted May 15, 2018 We were going to suck last year too, according to many 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aristocrat Posted May 15, 2018 Share Posted May 15, 2018 we have a question mark at the qb position. can mccarron manage the offense at the very least? if he can do that this team can actually be ok. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billsfan_34 Posted May 15, 2018 Share Posted May 15, 2018 Wow, all this before injuries, additional possible trades, more FA pickups, players not being evaluated during camp/pre season. How utterly ridiculous this guy is! Last year we were gonna suck and went 9-7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Beebe Posted May 15, 2018 Share Posted May 15, 2018 1 hour ago, oldmanfan said: We were going to suck last year too, according to many Remember everybody yelling "tank!"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJS Posted May 15, 2018 Share Posted May 15, 2018 23 hours ago, Happy Gilmore said: Forecasting that the Bills will completely suck is a popular position to take for the media, kind of like forecasting that NE will be great...all the cool kids are doing it. Meh, so what, let them be proven wrong. Which is weird, because the Bills have been basically an 8 win team the past few years. They haven't really sucked in a long time. Just average. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob's House Posted May 15, 2018 Share Posted May 15, 2018 This isn't projecting who will win, it's projecting how many points each team will score. The team that scores the most points doesn't always win the game. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCal Deek Posted May 15, 2018 Share Posted May 15, 2018 1 hour ago, MJS said: Which is weird, because the Bills have been basically an 8 win team the past few years. They haven't really sucked in a long time. Just average. You can say that again! Over the last EIGHTEEN years, the Bills have only finished below 6-10 three times. (They won 3 one time, 4 one time, and 5 one time.) Of course in that same stretch they have NEVER won more than 9 games....(They won 9 games three times.) Hard to believe that any organization could be that consistently mediocre when you factor in all of the many coaching and QB changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColoradoBills Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 5 hours ago, Rob's House said: This isn't projecting who will win, it's projecting how many points each team will score. The team that scores the most points doesn't always win the game. I hate this new math. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 20 hours ago, The Red King said: Our point differential was mainly the result of a horrific three-game stretch. I love how people want to point to that, but give the Chargers a free pass on their four-game slide to start the season. We made the playoffs because of heart. Cinci beat us last season. If the Ravens had won week 17, would everyone say they were lucky to make it in and only made it in because Cinci beat Buffalo earlier in the year? Not likely. Yet people are quick to reverse it. We were "lucky" the Bengals beat the Ravens...but the Ravens were not "lucky" those same Bengals beat the Bills. A little hypocritical, don't you think? Buffalo had enough BS calls this season (TD vs. NE overruled...). You can't point to one questionable call against Indy. Indy got some calls, too. I don't care what our defense was ranked. It was a solid unit that had a lot on its plate because the offense couldn't do squat. Three bad games tanked those rankings. Look at the other thirteen. And that same defense got a lot better in the off-season. Clay is a dolt. Predicts the scores of every game, then says he's not predicting records. Then what the hell is the point? We're going to lose to Miami and Jets at home, by one point each? Our only two victories are going to come on the road to those two teams...we're not going to beat anyone out of the AFC East? I get it, Buffalo has been bad for a looooong time. People are skeptical. But bad teams do not stay forever bad. There was a time when the Bills were going to Super Bowl after Super Bowl and the Patriots were a complete joke. Things cycle. But given how bad Buffalo has been for so long...people are going to assume they're going to remain that awful, even going so far as writing last season off as a fluke. I haven't lost perspective. I can see clearly. The Bengals had a 49 yard TD in the dying moments of the game on a 4th and 12. https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2018/1/3/16842984/the-improbability-of-the-cincinnati-bengals-fourth-down-touchdown-andy-dalton-tyler-boyd-playoffs I suspect that, if they ran that play under those circumstances 100 times, it would only result in a TD 1 or 2 times. You seem to discount how miraculous that play actually was. Oh well. As for the Colts game, the refs called a horrible penalty very, very late on the two-point conversion that would have won the Colts the game. You may recall that they threw the flag (very late) on a play that Tom Brady and the Pats run incessantly without ever having a flag thrown against them. http://fox59.com/2017/12/10/controversial-penalty-costly-as-colts-fall-to-bills-in-ot/ Regarding the point differential - did the "horrific three-game stretch" (your characterization) not count? It seems to me that those games counted in the standings as did the points that were scored against us. I suppose you want to pick and choose which games actually count or should be considered, but the fact is the point differential was worse last year than the year before. I see that you are trying to do the same thing with the relative offensive and defensive rankings by discounting those rankings as compared to the year before. If only the Bills had that luxury. Maybe, this year, we can ask the NFL to give us some Mulligans on the games that we do not like. In any event, the point I was making (and a valid one) is that it would be advisable to not look at this team with rose colored glasses especially given that some of the significant metrics last year were worse than the year before even though we made the playoffs (thanks in large part to a miracle 49 year TD on 4th and 12 and a very late and questionable call against the Colts on the two point conversion). We have significant holes - particularly on the offensive line and WR. I feel sorry for Shady and whoever our QB ends up being. I would rather have low (read realistic) expectations and be pleasantly surprised if we do well. Just my two cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augie Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 I predict that before the regular season starts, there will be a thread where this will be considered as overly optimistic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Costa Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 9 hours ago, Zac said: I'm with Kirby. When your QB, WRs, and O-Line are in the conversation for worst in the league, it's hard to imagine you have a winning season. They'd never say it, but I doubt Beane and McDermott are expecting playoffs this year either. This season is taking one step back to take two steps forwards towards being a consistent contender. I think we all know what Tyrod was. He was a below average passer, with above average athleticism, who protected the ball so well that we could beat bad teams with relative consistency and good teams if we got lucky. He was never going to be a QB that could consistently lead us past contender-level teams, so we needed to move on. The cap situation is such that we could only fix so many holes this offseason. That was made even worse by the unexpected departures of Incognito and Wood. It's no surprise that our defensive head coach fixed the defense first. That might be the right move because it will keep us in most games. The defense is set up for now and the future. We also, most importantly, acquired the biggest piece of our offense going forward. Next offseason our cap situation really frees up, and I expect us to spend rather liberally, addressing the offensive line and WR first and foremost, and adding a top shelf player with what is likely a top 15 pick in the first round. We might have had a chance of replicating last season with Wood and Incognito back, but with them gone any chance of that went out the window IMO. Maybe Groy can prove he's not just a good backup, maybe Teller can hop in right away and adequately replace Incognito, maybe the perennial train wreck that is the right side of our offensive line sorts itself out with our FA signings, maybe Zay Jones makes a jump forward towards being a legitimate #2, maybe Kelvin Benjamin stays healthy the whole season, maybe AJ McCarron is able to outdo Tyrod as a passer and protect the ball just as well, or maybe Josh Allen is an upgrade from day one. But that's a lot of freaking maybes and I don't like those odds. With that said, I expect us to be a well-coached, smart, disciplined team and our defense to be strong, so I don't expect the rails to come of. I think 6.5 over under sounds about right, with my call being 7-9. In the immortal words of Michael Cohen who says” ? ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aussie Joe Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 On 5/15/2018 at 9:00 AM, Kirby Jackson said: Vegas has the Bills at 6.5. That feels close to right because of the defense. I still don’t think that they win 7 games. That offense could be the worst that the Bills have ever fielded. If Allen can play it won’t matter though. Look at what the Browns did to their offense this offseason. The Bills have a chance to do that next offseason. Are you familiar with the 1985 Bills? Doubt they are winning 6 games if they are this bad.. From Wiki... Quote The Bills' offense was anemic: its 200 points scored is the lowest total in the 1980s, and the lowest total in team history for a 16-game schedule. Bills quarterbacks Vince Ferragamo and Bruce Mathison only produced 9 passing touchdowns all season, while combining for a league-high 31 interceptions.Buffalo scored fewer than 10 points in seven of its 16 games. The team's point-differential of negative-181 points is the third-worst in franchise history. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
transplantbillsfan Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 Who cares??? We're winning more than 2 games. The national sports media is truly a bunch of idiots. In the last few days I heard Kurt Warner say that Josh Allen, AJ McCarron and Nate Peterman were all basically the same guy because they're all just immobile pocket passers and Colin Cowherd also said that Allen was likely to bust because he would have to be strictly a pocket passser because he doesn't have the athleticism of Carson Wentz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dollars 2 donuts Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 (edited) On May 14, 2018 at 3:52 PM, WMDman said: we were supposed to go 4-12 last year Yes, WMD, and wasn't there some idiot out there who said either we could go 2-14 or that there was a chance (or a different guy said it) the Bills could go 0-16? wish I remembered who these mental giants were. Edited May 16, 2018 by dollars 2 donuts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cba fan Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 On 5/14/2018 at 3:04 PM, Rubes said: I just took my Debbie Downer pill so sorry in advance. WTH. If you are projecting score of ea team in ea game your are projecting the winner whether you intended to or not. If projecting the betting line this is complete BS as no one can do that until week of game due to injury, weather, cheating suspensions by Patriots, PED suspensions, trends, etc etc...… and does not have as much to do about who you project as the winner. Has everything to do with trying to get all bettors to bet evenly on each team. extreme ex: Team A is hands down best team in league at every position talent wise including best b/u RB in league, and is going to steamroll mediocre team B this Sunday. Public is fixated on mid week news that Team A starting star running back is out due to PED use. Line changes from Team A favored by 6 to Team B favored by 3 as Public goes nuts and bets Team B. Team A without star RB still steamrolls Team B 37-10. Line had nothing to do with projected winner and everything about getting bettors to bet evenly on each team. Two completely different types of projections. I can not for the life of me figure out why someone would take the time or care about projecting the betting line so I can only assume this is a projected winner line based on talent on rosters as we speak. But Clay apparently is trying to say the opposite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nucci Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 What a ridiculous thing. It's only May Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machine gun kelly Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 Funny- I just read the AP rankings and they had us ranked tied for 12th. 2-14 is ridiculous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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