Its OK for the Bills to be a run-first team

[folz]

Was just thinking about this and didn't think it deserved a new topic, so I decided to put it here.

 

Many Bills fans have lamented our WR room for at least 2-3 years now (not totally without cause). And we drool over teams with two stud receivers. So, I thought that I would look at how the teams with the best WR duos are doing.

 

At the start of this season, the following teams were considered the best WR duos (generally-obviously opinions differ) . I have included their current records and chances of making the playoffs this season:

        

                                  Odds of making

Team/Record            playoffs (2025)

1. Bengals (4-8)                 2%

2. Eagles (8-4)                  95%

3. Cowboys (6-6)             16%

4. Lions (8-4)                   43%

5. Rams (9-3)                     96%

6. Vikings (4-8)                <1%

7. Dolphins (5-7)               <1%

8. Seahawks (9-3)            93%

9. Tampa Bay (7-5)           81%

10. Washington (3-9)        <1%  

11. Chargers (8-4)              61%

12. Chiefs (6-6)                 35%

 

The Bills are 8-4 with a 90% chance of making the playoffs. Only two of the top WR teams have a better record than the Bills (by 1 game) and only three of them have better playoff odds than the Bills. Only 5 of the 12 teams have better than 50% odds of making the playoffs. Yes, I know there were injuries (Burrow, Chase, Lamb, Tyreek, Evans, Godwin, etc.---kudos to TB for weathering their storm), but that's part of the equation too. You may be weaker elsewhere on your team in order to have those two studs and if one of them gets injured, it's a bigger loss to the team (harder to get wins without those players, obviously).  And obviously who your quarterback is matters big time too (but I think you could say that at least 9 of those 12 teams have pretty good QBs).

 

I'm not saying this is some be all end all stat to discourage getting better at wide receiver. And I would not say no to one or even two stud receivers if the opportunity were there for Buffalo and it made sense (obviously you don't want to pay two stud receivers if you are a run-first team). But, I think it does at least go to show that just having stud receivers does not guarantee anything.