2nd Window for Superbowl Taking Shape

[GunnerBill]

6 minutes ago, DrBob806 said:

Cincy is dangerous on offense for sure. If they start off slow again, I'd expect changes to the coaching staff. 

 

Yea Taylor needs a good year. 

[Thrivefourfive]

4 hours ago, SoonerBillsFan said:

I noticed that as well. Less wobble on passes vs. Past camps.

Just fanboyin’, but I think this stuff matters. I threw footballs in HS, so always take notice of stuff like this. During Peyton Manning’s HUGE season with the Colts his ball was so much tighter than the previous years. He was never a “pretty ball” thrower. Allen’s got that tight compact motion going, and a pretty nose up / nose down accurate piss missile coming out his hand this camp. Much like the 2020 season.

[Sierra Foothills]

On 8/13/2025 at 8:28 PM, Draconator said:

Either stop drinking or pour yourself a double

 

That is the question... too much or not enough?

 

[Draconator]

1 minute ago, Sierra Foothills said:

 

That is the question... too much or not enough?

 

I know right?

[Sierra Foothills]

1 minute ago, Draconator said:

I know right?

 

To paraphrase Rasheed Wallace, "Organs don't lie."

 

[SoonerBillsFan]

1 hour ago, Thrivefourfive said:

Just fanboyin’, but I think this stuff matters. I threw footballs in HS, so always take notice of stuff like this. During Peyton Manning’s HUGE season with the Colts his ball was so much tighter than the previous years. He was never a “pretty ball” thrower. Allen’s got that tight compact motion going, and a pretty nose up / nose down accurate piss missile coming out his hand this camp. Much like the 2020 season.

Agreed.

[SF Bills Fan]

I think it’s one continuous window that will be open for another decade. We were just not lucky that the Chiefs happen to be good and have all the blessings. They won’t stay on top forever. If our D improves we will get our shot. I bet we win 2 Super Bowls over the next 5 years. We’ve been 1 bad call or bad bounce away from going to the Super Bowl. We’ll get our chance. 

[SoMAn]

On 8/13/2025 at 10:45 PM, PoundingDog said:

When Josh broke out 2020 season, the 1st window for superbowl opened. OBD went ahead added Von to their core players of Allen, Diggs, Knox, Dawkins, Morse, Oliver, Milano, White, Hyde, and Poyer. 3 seasons, 21-23, some bad luck like injuries, inexperience, and aging of a lot of the core guy proved to be not quite good enough. 
 

2024 was supposed to be a reset and reloading year. Almost all of the aging core guys were let go. But Allen took a step ahead into an MVP. As such OBD is setting up the 2nd window for superbowl, identifying and signing up the new core guys. Allen, Oliver, Dawkins, Knox remained; Bernard, Brown, Shakir, Rousseau, Benford and now Cook are given extension to be the new core guys. They really need a few more to step up like Kincaid and Coleman, plus a few defensive side rookies to pan out in the next 3 years, starting from the 2025 campaign. NFL windows are short. 3 years from now, if they don’t get it, a number of these core guys will be out of the door and a new reset is in the order to clear the book.

 

Let’s hope from the coaching stuff to the core guys left from the first window got hardened enough to gives us better results in January.

Maybe, but bear in mind that they’ll continue drafting and developing more players every year. Attrition is a fact of life for NFL teams. 
Even with constant turnover of players, the Patriots remained the team to beat for nearly 20 years because of their star QB. Fortunately, the Bills have a similar advantage to keep that window from slamming shut. 

[ganesh]

18 hours ago, SF Bills Fan said:

I think it’s one continuous window that will be open for another decade. We were just not lucky that the Chiefs happen to be good and have all the blessings. They won’t stay on top forever. If our D improves we will get our shot. I bet we win 2 Super Bowls over the next 5 years. We’ve been 1 bad call or bad bounce away from going to the Super Bowl. We’ll get our chance. 

Let us wish the magic starts this year...a great way to sign off Old High Mark Stadium and raise the banner on the New Highmark Stadiurm !   Go Bills !!!

[zow2]

I think the Bills most likely scenario to win the AFCCG is to get the 1 seed, host the game and win in blowout fashion.  Maybe it's PTSD from all these heartbreaking KC losses, but I don't think the Bills eek out a close nail biting win.  They must stomp the heck out of whoever it is and take out their years of disappointment to finally make the SB.

[PoundingDog]

18 hours ago, SF Bills Fan said:

I think it’s one continuous window that will be open for another decade. We were just not lucky that the Chiefs happen to be good and have all the blessings. They won’t stay on top forever. If our D improves we will get our shot. I bet we win 2 Super Bowls over the next 5 years. We’ve been 1 bad call or bad bounce away from going to the Super Bowl. We’ll get our chance. 

In a broader sense, having a QB like Allen means you have a chance, not what I call or a window. I said earlier, there are other teams with a QB as capable as Allen to have a chance to win it all. 

 

I interpret the "window" term to mean a team loading up assets for a push to win it all; it won't let go any assets even though it probably mean better for the team in the long run or effectively "renting a player" (baseball term) for the short term purpose. In Bills case, signing Von Miller to a 6 years 100+ million deal, even at the expected 3 years effective life span of the contract for a 33 year old guy, is not something a team not believing it is about to win it all would do.  Conversely jettering Diggs for a 2nd round pick, even though we had no one better than Diggs on the team at the time, is something we believed we were NOT in the window while the Texans believed that they were in the window.

 

There are exceptions, of course, and plenty of them. Brady's 1st superbowl. Chiefs superbowl after trading away Hill etc. Last year Allen's unexpected step forward got us to the door step of a superbowl. 

 

The Bills extending all these players this off-season means they believe these guys are good enough to help Allen to get to the superbowl within those extension years, thus the window.

Edited August 17 by PoundingDog

[boater]

The Superbowl prospects come down to the defense. More specifically, Bobby Babich.

 

The 2024 Bills defense was not very good. Some of that was personnel, but not all of it. I believe coaching had a lot to do with the defense's mediocre performance. In particular, what's the deal with their horrid third down performance? We also see third down problem in the 2025 preseason.

 

Sure, Beane made some big personnel moves to improve the D, but will Babich take full advantage of his new toys?

[ganesh]

1 hour ago, boater said:

The Superbowl prospects come down to the defense. More specifically, Bobby Babich.

 

The 2024 Bills defense was not very good. Some of that was personnel, but not all of it. I believe coaching had a lot to do with the defense's mediocre performance. In particular, what's the deal with their horrid third down performance? We also see third down problem in the 2025 preseason.

 

Sure, Beane made some big personnel moves to improve the D, but will Babich take full advantage of his new toys?

Babich could be on a short leash just like they did to Ken Dorsey.   And people like Ryan Nielsen could take over as interim DC if Babich stumbles through the gate.  This team cannot afford to make mistakes that will cost them the #1 seed. 

[HappyDays]

2 hours ago, boater said:

The Superbowl prospects come down to the defense. More specifically, Bobby Babich.

 

33 minutes ago, ganesh said:

Babich could be on a short leash just like they did to Ken Dorsey. 

 

This is McDermott's defense. I won't accept Babich as a scapegoat if the defense disappoints again. Especially since McDermott personally chose him as an internal hire that he was already comfortable with. He's had almost a decade to get this defense right when it matters and it just has to come through this year.

[stevestojan]

The window will remain shut until the defense can finish a big game. 

[SoTier]

On 8/15/2025 at 9:20 PM, PoundingDog said:

Come on now. We are now way past the drought years when we had no chance because of qb issue. We are now talking about windows among elite teams which have qbs who can lead the respective teams to a Super Bowl. Yes Allen is elite. But when he is facing another team in the playoffs that also has an elite qb, then it matters who has more and better core supporting casts. 

 

The Bills did NOT suffer a 17 year playoff drought because they lacked a franchise QB.  Numerous teams have made the playoffs without having great QBs.  A few even won the Super Bowl with pretty ordinary QBs. 

 

The Bills suffered a 17 year playoff drought because the team's owner, Ralph Wilson, and Wilson's second-in-command, Russ Brandon, prioritized profits over winning football games.   The results were most noticeable in the Bills constantly using the draft to fill holes created by allowing their best players to either leave in FA or via trade as well as the Bills unwillingness to raise their pay levels for assistant coaches, especially offensive assistants.   (Terry Pegula did spend big on Rex Ryan and his entourage, but after poor results, he sent Ryan and Company packing and put Brandon back in charge.)

 

On 8/15/2025 at 11:00 PM, DeltaDigital said:

They need a Chris jones type… all the rose colored glasses in the world won’t make ed Oliver that… can’t get pressure with 4 when dudes disappear for months at a time… mcclappys defense relies on pressure from front 4. Can’t get it. Can’t close. See: Chiefs, Kansas city. 

 

The Bills added 3 veteran FA DLers: Joey Bosa, Michael Hoecht, and Larry Ogunjobi plus DB Tre White.  If things go well -- Bosa stays healthy and Hoecht and Ogunjobi come off their suspensions ready to play -- the Bills defense could look very different  by the end of the season. 

 

That's not even counting on some of the 6 defensive players the Bills drafted in 2025 from making contributions.   

 

 

[DeltaDigital]

1 hour ago, SoTier said:

 

The Bills did NOT suffer a 17 year playoff drought because they lacked a franchise QB.  Numerous teams have made the playoffs without having great QBs.  A few even won the Super Bowl with pretty ordinary QBs. 

 

The Bills suffered a 17 year playoff drought because the team's owner, Ralph Wilson, and Wilson's second-in-command, Russ Brandon, prioritized profits over winning football games.   The results were most noticeable in the Bills constantly using the draft to fill holes created by allowing their best players to either leave in FA or via trade as well as the Bills unwillingness to raise their pay levels for assistant coaches, especially offensive assistants.   (Terry Pegula did spend big on Rex Ryan and his entourage, but after poor results, he sent Ryan and Company packing and put Brandon back in charge.)

 

 

The Bills added 3 veteran FA DLers: Joey Bosa, Michael Hoecht, and Larry Ogunjobi plus DB Tre White.  If things go well -- Bosa stays healthy and Hoecht and Ogunjobi come off their suspensions ready to play -- the Bills defense could look very different  by the end of the season. 

 

That's not even counting on some of the 6 defensive players the Bills drafted in 2025 from making contributions.   

 

 

Hey that’s all amazing on paper man. And I hope more than anything it works out as designed. This will be an indictment on Mcdermotts defense if these guys are all healthy and the result is the same. 

[Governor]

6 hours ago, ganesh said:

Babich could be on a short leash just like they did to Ken Dorsey.   And people like Ryan Nielsen could take over as interim DC if Babich stumbles through the gate.  This team cannot afford to make mistakes that will cost them the #1 seed. 

You think 2 bad defensive performances early would finish him?

5 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

 

This is McDermott's defense. I won't accept Babich as a scapegoat if the defense disappoints again. Especially since McDermott personally chose him as an internal hire that he was already comfortable with. He's had almost a decade to get this defense right when it matters and it just has to come through this year.

Yeah I view him as another sacrificial puppet coordinator. They better be awesome or that seat is going to get hot a lot quicker this time. If the suspended players come back and they still suck uh oh.

Edited August 17 by Governor

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

On 8/14/2025 at 6:26 AM, GunnerBill said:

 

I agree that I think it will be someone other than KC in the Superbowl from the AFC this year. For both Buffalo and Baltimore it really has to be them. They have been the two teams vying for that #1 contender status consistently and yet the one other time in the past six seasons that it was someone other than KC it was the Bengals who sort of came from nowhere and have not as consistently contended. 

 

There is pressure on both the Bills and the Ravens this year to get it done. And if it is not KC but also neither of them then pressure will rachet up on both staffs IMO.

No love for the Bengals who absolutely throttled us? I get that they’re having problems, but that roster is way too good to overlook.

[ganesh]

9 hours ago, Governor said:

You think 2 bad defensive performances early would finish him?

 

Dorsey had 1 season + chump change before he was dumped....It is quite possible for Babich to be gone if he has yet another bad year.