How long will the Bills window be open?

[FilthyBeast]

True SB windows are fleeting in the NFL unless your name is Tom Brady, which is why we will likely never see something like what happened in New England again in our lifetimes.

 

This is also why it's such a dangerous assumption to say it's the Bills and Allen's time this year with Mahomes and Andy Reid on the other side this Sunday. The entire KC organization is smart enough to know they only have so much time left with their current window (i.e. having the core group of Kelce/Mahomes/Hill) and why it's foolish to not think they are going to play with a similar intensity and sense of urgency especially since they secured the crucial home field advantage in this game that the Bills should have had.

 

But in regards to the Bills own situation, realistically the best chances are right now and probably 2022/2023 before things get dicy with veterans, contracts, etc like the aforementioned situation in KC.

[Victory Formation]

I think losing Daboll could be frightening. At that point you would have to trust Beane and McDermott to find a quality replacement and you would have to hope that Allen has a say in it too.

[Alphadawg7]

4 hours ago, zow2 said:

Obviously last season the window opened up wide for us...and it continues this season.  How often do you see one team ranked with the #1 overall defense, the #5 overall offense, awesome QB, talent everywhere, great coach with assistants being coveted around the league....etc.

 

My question (knowing there is no concrete answer), how long does the window stay wide open like this..  For the next 2-3 seasons? For the entirety of Josh Allen's career?  

 

These are good times to be a Bills fan.  Not sure what the braintrust has drawn up for KC this weekend but this seems like the perfect time to seize the moment.  They got hot at the right time.

 

Beane has been masterful in how he does contracts and manages the cap.  So I think “this” window stays open for as long as our key players are here and -at the top of their game.  Guys like Poyer, Hyde, Milano, Diggs, etc.  I don’t name Allen because he’s young and locked up a long time, so he’s a given.  

 

After these guys start to decline or maybe leave at their next contracts, it will be about Beanes ability to refill the tool box like he’s done on the DL with young talent.  But I would view that as the next window.  I see windows as being about bulk of the current roster makeup.  
 

So I think this team has another 2-3 years at least and that window can go on much longer or even the bulk of Allen’s career if Beane keeps doing a great job.

[Dr. Who]

Just now, FilthyBeast said:

True SB windows are fleeting in the NFL unless your name is Tom Brady, which is why we will likely never see something like what happened in New England again in our lifetimes.

 

This is also why it's such a dangerous assumption to say it's the Bills and Allen's time this year with Mahomes and Andy Reid on the other side this Sunday. The entire KC organization is smart enough to know they only have so much time left with their current window (i.e. having the core group of Kelce/Mahomes/Hill) and why it's foolish to not think they are going to play with a similar intensity and sense of urgency especially since they secured the crucial home field advantage in this game that the Bills should have had.

 

But in regards to the Bills own situation, realistically the best chances are right now and probably 2022/2023 before things get dicy with veterans, contracts, etc like the aforementioned situation in KC.

[FilthyBeast]

1 minute ago, Victory Formation said:

I think losing Daboll could be frightening. At that point you would have to trust Beane and McDermott to find a quality replacement and you would have to hope that Allen has a say in it too.

 

This is in some ways I hope Daboll (or Frazier) poach some of the current assistants on the Bills offensive and defensive staffs because there are many strong candidates from outside the organization that are probably better fits than sticking with 'continuity' and promoting guys like Dorsey, Eric Washington, etc.

[Awwufelloff]

The only thing I worry about is when Allen gets older and loses his legs will he be as effective? He will still be good but his dual threat is what separates him from pretty much every other QB in the league.

[Victory Formation]

Just now, FilthyBeast said:

 

This is in some ways I hope Daboll (or Frazier) poach some of the current assistants on the Bills offensive and defensive staffs because there are many strong candidates from outside the organization that are probably better fits than sticking with 'continuity' and promoting guys like Dorsey, Eric Washington, etc.

Oh, yeah, I agree and I know some folks who are really hard on Daboll, but in my mind he is one of the best play callers in franchise history and he is certainly a top 5 OC in the NFL.

 

I don’t want to be too cynical here and I’m not trying to be because I respect our coaching staff and FO, but as far as the short term is concerned, as in immediate and preeminent dangerous threats, losing Daboll is the most dangerous potential reality for us that can turn things sideways.

 

McDermott is a defensive guy, not an OC.

[T master]

4 hours ago, zow2 said:

Obviously last season the window opened up wide for us...and it continues this season.  How often do you see one team ranked with the #1 overall defense, the #5 overall offense, awesome QB, talent everywhere, great coach with assistants being coveted around the league....etc.

 

My question (knowing there is no concrete answer), how long does the window stay wide open like this..  For the next 2-3 seasons? For the entirety of Josh Allen's career?  

 

These are good times to be a Bills fan.  Not sure what the braintrust has drawn up for KC this weekend but this seems like the perfect time to seize the moment.  They got hot at the right time.

 

Well if you look at teams that have been in the hunt just about every season since they got their franchise QB like Green Bay, The Patriots, Pittsburgh, and the Colts at 1 point it seemed as if every single year they are the teams that have a chance .

 

Even this year with Big Ben on the down side of his career they made it to the play offs so if we use them for the template i'd say we have a good while before the Bills are seen as irrelevant . 

 

Unless of course Josh has some kind of horrific injury but that can happen to any of them on any given sunday ...

[FilthyBeast]

1 minute ago, Victory Formation said:

Oh, yeah, I agree and I know some folks who are really hard on Daboll, but in my mind he is one of the best play callers in franchise history and he is certainly a top 5 OC in the NFL.

 

I don’t want to be too cynical here and I’m not trying to be because I respect our coaching staff and FO, but as far as the short term is concerned, as in immediate and preeminent dangerous threats, losing Daboll is the most dangerous potential reality for us that can turn things sideways.

 

McDermott is a defensive guy, not an OC.

 

Despite the bills current success in recent weeks, and even if they win a SB I'm still not sure losing Daboll will be as disastrous as some think unless you truly believe he's the single most important recent for Josh Allen defying the odds and experts and developing into the player he is today.

 

My point is that there are a ton of great offensive minds out there both younger and veteran alike that will be lining up and begging McDermott for the OC job if Daboll does in fact find a HC gig.

[Victory Formation]

Just now, FilthyBeast said:

 

Despite the bills current success in recent weeks, and even if they win a SB I'm still not sure losing Daboll will be as disastrous as some think unless you truly believe he's the single most important recent for Josh Allen defying the odds and experts and developing into the player he is today.

 

My point is that there are a ton of great offensive minds out there both younger and veteran alike that will be lining up and begging McDermott for the OC job if Daboll does in fact find a HC gig.

Yes, sir. I do think that Daboll has been a huge stabilizing force for Josh Allen, no question. He turned out to be a lot better than Rick Dennison, that’s for sure.

 

Thing is with Daboll is that he learned under both Bill Belichick and Nick Saban. So we are talking about arguably the greatest NFL coach of all time and the greatest college coach of all time. Daboll has picked the brains of giants throughout his entire career, giving him an unbelievable, vast wealth of knowledge from two of the best to ever do it. Daboll is as good as gone 100%.

 

I hope for a few things:

 

#1. Buffalo hires someone who runs the same offense that we’re running now, the EPO.

 

#2. Buffalo keeps copies of Brian Daboll’s offense and Josh gets to go through and pluck every single play that he likes from it for our new OC.

 

#3. Our next OC uses the verbiage that Daboll, Allen and our entire offense uses currently instead of the other way around. It makes sense for 1 person to relearn our verbiage instead of half of our roster. Things will go more smoothly, there will be no learning curves for our players and we’re off to the races.

 

Ultimately, in closing, I think we need to keep things the same for our players as much as humanly possibly.

[MAJBobby]

3 hours ago, In Summary said:

A decade and a half if he learns to play a reduced contact style once he hits 30.  

If he gets hit in the pocket he gets hit. If he get hit running still getting hit. No different 

[TheFunPolice]

I'll bet Dan Marino thought his Super Bowl window was wide open as a rookie.

 

 

[Alphadawg7]

4 hours ago, Victory Formation said:

Oh, yeah, I agree and I know some folks who are really hard on Daboll, but in my mind he is one of the best play callers in franchise history and he is certainly a top 5 OC in the NFL.

 

I don’t want to be too cynical here and I’m not trying to be because I respect our coaching staff and FO, but as far as the short term is concerned, as in immediate and preeminent dangerous threats, losing Daboll is the most dangerous potential reality for us that can turn things sideways.

 

McDermott is a defensive guy, not an OC.

Disagree on Daboll.  It can easily be argued Daboll is a lot of the reason we don’t have the number 1 seed.  It took him 13 weeks to figure what was so obvious week 1, that Singletary was our best RB and should be featured.  It took him that long to finally buy into running the ball in general.  First Pats game would have been a cake walk had they let Josh run and used Devin.  
 

Yes there is some genius to him…but he’s also not been good in Redzone situations and spent too much time being allergic to running the ball.  
 

He is replaceable, Allen has already arrived.  And we may even get better with someone who keeps the run game involved the way we finally haw these past 5 weeks.  

Edited January 19, 2022 by Alphadawg7

[Nextmanup]

8 hours ago, MAJBobby said:

As long as Allen is the QB  So the next decade and a half

I would say as long as Josh is the QB and capable of playing at a level close to what he's playing at now.

 

Pittsburgh has had Ben Roethlisberger the last few years, but ZERO chance of winning a SB with him!

 

I'd say 12 years for sure, plus whatever he can do beyond that, which might be considerable.

 

 

 

 

[Victory Formation]

49 minutes ago, Alphadawg7 said:

Disagree on Daboll.  It can easily be argued Daboll is a lot of the reason we don’t have the number 1 seed.  It took him 13 weeks to figure what was so obvious week 1, that Singletary was our best RB and should be featured.  It took him that long to finally buy into running the ball in general.  First Pats game would have been a cake walk had they let Josh run and used Devin.  
 

Yes there is some genius to him…but he’s also not been good in Redzone situations and spent too much time being allergic to running the ball.  
 

He is replaceable, Allen has already arrived.  And we may even get better with someone who keeps the run game involved the way we finally haw these past 5 weeks.  

Grass is greener..

 

As far as Singletary goes, I think Daboll is simply going with the hot hand there. Some weeks it may be Moss other weeks it may be Breida. It’s folly to stick to RBBC simply for the sake of sticking to RBBC. You always go with whomevers hot. Singletary is our best back, but I accredit our running success to the extra OL sets that we’re running (Doyle at TE) and that’s the fruit of Daboll’s play calling.

 

It seems to me that our OL was the major issue in play here. It seems to me that it took awhile for Bobby Johnson to get our starting line dialed in and that played a major factor in our running attack or lackthereof of a running attack. Exhibit A: Putting Spencer Brown at RT and Darryl Williams at RG and Exhibit B: Ryan Bates at LG. It took WAY too long for these changes to be made. This line needs to stay the same, period! If he starts Feliciano or Boettger over Bates, what a tragedy that is!

 

Also, I am in no way overestimating the ability of Daboll. He dropped almost 50pts on a Bill Belichick team in the playoffs, that just doesn’t happen. 7 TDs for every 7 drives our offense had on the field versus a Bill Belichick team? That’s unheard of. Daboll is gone in the offseason for that reason alone. Don’t forget that Allen looked like hot trash until Daboll got hired either. Do I expect Allen to regress? Not to the point of him being a bad or terrible player anyways, but if we don’t hire the right coach, yes, absolutely he could regress to being a good player and not a great one.
 

Once again, we have an established offense, with an established elite QB. Hire an EPO guy and let Allen call his own plays. Allen likes this offense, Allen thrives in this offense, our staff is built around this offense and half our roster is familiar with this offense. Why start over? We have a winning culture here, any new hires must adhere to the offense our MVP QB thrives in. Period.

[HOUSE]

Why are we always talking about these freaking windows ?

 

Get a basement apartment...geeez

[Bubba Gump]

As long as a $10 hooker's legs are.

 

 

 

 

Warning in 3, 2, 1.....

[harryS]

17 hours ago, corta765 said:

The one thing with windows is they close before you realize it. You can basically pin point with every great QB and team when there's truly closed. For the 90s Bills their last great gasp was the Steelers loss in 95. After that Kelly was pretty much done in 96 physically and the gas was dry. BUT going into 96 you wouldn't have thought that at the time. In 2019 the Pats window clearly closed as Brady and a decent defense got rolled by the Titans at home. But people still thought until he left they would reload and be good. The Seahawks exploded like a supernova in 2012 but after their loss in 2014 the magic never came back. I think a lot of people would've figured another SB run would happen but here we are and they faded.

 

In general windows being open are really really tough in all sports. Golden State in the NBA ran super hot for 7 years and then fell back for two. The examples are endless. For the Bills it is reasonable to say they probably have 3-4 years here. One of the other things thought is outside of NE/Brady most of the time you get maybe 1-3 cracks at winning the title. Brees and Rodgers each have only one a single title, Ben won 2 and went to 3, Manning went to 4 and won 2, Eli won 2, Russel Wilson went to 2 won one, etc.. It is incredibly difficult to get a ton of cracks and once your there that could be your only shot. Marino went year 2 and never again, but Kelly went to 4 and Elway 5. So yea maybe the Bills win the SB this year (god willing) but it is very possible despite the window being open that could be our only crack (not complaining if they win). The AFC is loaded with young talented QBs in Mahomes, Burrow, Herbert, & Jackson who will all challenge Allen even with his and the Bills window open. If they all eventually get even one crack apiece this decade, that leaves four chances for Josh to have his or go. That isn't including either that some young hotshot comes in to join the crew like Lawrence. In general what I would say is feel good about the fact at some point in probably the next 7-8 years Allen and the Bills will get their chance at the crown and make their run god wiling. How many more times they do after that? There is just soo much that goes into it and you need a little luck too

 

Good post.  The only examples that we have to think about are Wilson and Marino, as all the other guys were old when their windows closed and had great success.

 

With Wilson and Marino, I would say the lesson is the same.  This is really the Allen/McDermott era, not the Allen era, as Josh still needs McD to maintain being a very good coach who can adapt to changes in the league in order for the Bills to realize the 15 years or so of contention that we want to see.  You can easily argue that Carroll and Shula couldn't maintain current with the times or otherwise support their superstar QBs in the way needed to consistently contend.  Carroll runs the ball too much and probably has a defensive system that's been figured out that he stubbornly sticks to.  With Shula, my memory is hazier, but I believe he couldn't hire a defensive coordinator worth a damn and couldn't adapt/adjust to the division rival running a newfangled no-huddle offense.

 

 

Edited January 19, 2022 by harryS

[Alphadawg7]

10 hours ago, Victory Formation said:

Grass is greener..

 

As far as Singletary goes, I think Daboll is simply going with the hot hand there. Some weeks it may be Moss other weeks it may be Breida. It’s folly to stick to RBBC simply for the sake of sticking to RBBC. You always go with whomevers hot. Singletary is our best back, but I accredit our running success to the extra OL sets that we’re running (Doyle at TE) and that’s the fruit of Daboll’s play calling.

 

It seems to me that our OL was the major issue in play here. It seems to me that it took awhile for Bobby Johnson to get our starting line dialed in and that played a major factor in our running attack or lackthereof of a running attack. Exhibit A: Putting Spencer Brown at RT and Darryl Williams at RG and Exhibit B: Ryan Bates at LG. It took WAY too long for these changes to be made. This line needs to stay the same, period! If he starts Feliciano or Boettger over Bates, what a tragedy that is!

 

Also, I am in no way overestimating the ability of Daboll. He dropped almost 50pts on a Bill Belichick team in the playoffs, that just doesn’t happen. 7 TDs for every 7 drives our offense had on the field versus a Bill Belichick team? That’s unheard of. Daboll is gone in the offseason for that reason alone. Don’t forget that Allen looked like hot trash until Daboll got hired either. Do I expect Allen to regress? Not to the point of him being a bad or terrible player anyways, but if we don’t hire the right coach, yes, absolutely he could regress to being a good player and not a great one.
 

Once again, we have an established offense, with an established elite QB. Hire an EPO guy and let Allen call his own plays. Allen likes this offense, Allen thrives in this offense, our staff is built around this offense and half our roster is familiar with this offense. Why start over? We have a winning culture here, any new hires must adhere to the offense our MVP QB thrives in. Period.

I gotta disagree here.  Devin was averaging 4.6 to 4.8 YPC the whole season.  There was no hot hand either, because we didn’t even attempt to run the ball.

 

You have to actually give guys carry’s to establish a hot hand, and Daboll refused to even try and run.  We had one game with zero attempts in the first half even. I watched McD several times call out needing to run the ball more in post game press conferences because it was an issue.  
 

Despite being amongst the league leaders in YPC most the season as a team, Daboll just didn’t call very many run plays with our RBs the first 13 weeks.  Since then, Devin has averaged 19 carry’s per game himself and we are undefeated…including 2 absolute beat downs of the Pats who we lost to earlier in the year because we didn’t run the ball despite horrible weather.  

Edited January 19, 2022 by Alphadawg7

[Milanos Milano]

If Josh keeps running the ball, the window might only be open for a handful of years. This is why we need to find a high end RB and draft a bunch of great o-linemen. As fun as it is to watch Josh run, it should be sparingly to reduce wear and tear.