This roster is a disaster however…..

[CincyBillsFan]

2 hours ago, Steptide said:

My fear is that McDermotts defense is really no better than it's ever been. I'll explain. After we went up 11 yesterday, the Bengals get the ball and Burrow just chucks it right down the field in 2 or 3 plays and throws a td to Higgins. If it's the playoffs and we're up with a min or 2 left, I have zero confidence the defense can do anything. I don't know if it's the prevent or what. 

To be fair I think not having Bishop on the field for that drive was the main cause of this.  Bishop has improved so much and is playing at such a high level that having him out of the lineup for that one drive was very noticeable.

 

 

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

22 minutes ago, Chaos said:

People discussing the decline of the Raven's as parrallel to the Chiefs and Bills is silly.  The Ravens with Jackson have never approached being the favorite to go to the Super Bowl from the AFC.  This has rotated between the Chiefs and the Bills.  The difference is the Chiefs won some championships before the decline and the Bills did not.  If anyone who watched Mahomes yesterday and Allen yesterday and Jackson yesterday, and still does not understand how much better Allen is than the others at elevating the team above the level of its roster and its coaching, there is nothing to say that will make that clearer. 

This is the worst Chiefs roster in several years.  And Jackson is just not good this year. The problem in Baltimore is coaching / QB , not the rest of the roster. 

Maybe this will be the year, but Beane and McDermott have the NFL's greatest cheat code, but somehow even with the cheat code can't get to the level to even play the final boss. 

The ravens had one of the best offensive outputs in nfl history last year and were the 1 seed in 2023.  Last year they were a road favorite over Buffalo in the divisional.  Gotta firmly disagree with that first point 

 

I think even in the offseason coming into this year the ravens had the best Super Bowl odds out of the afc teams and at worst equal to Buffalo/kc 

People are so weird about the ravens because they think it’s a Lamar vs Josh thing specifically but really it’s that the ravens roster is absolutely stacked.  The falloff there is honestly shocking 

Edited 1 hour ago by Generic_Bills_Fan

[Mod_Squad_Reject]

However…. Josh Allen covers a lot of deficiencies.

 

The roster as constructed isn’t necessarily a disaster, injuries are a killer. With a healthy defense where you could get penetration and disruption and a healthy Kincaid I think this team would be rolling.

 

The bigger question is why so many key injuries especially around this time of the year with this team year in year out.

 

 

[colin]

1 hour ago, zow2 said:

The win was great yesterday, but I have no illusions about the playoffs.  This defense is not going on the road and winning 3 straight games against good teams.  Road games are different.  Allen won't be able to be Superman in all of them and you need a few defensive 3 and outs.

 

you are right about the road problems, but frankly it's not the d on the road, it's the O.  our d got destroyed by miami on the road, but the O turned the ball over horribly that day which led to our collapse.

 

our biggest issue, and the reason we lost to atl, houston, and kinda miami on the road, is we just can't pass the friggen ball on the road at all.  we turn it over in desperation when teams key in on the run game.  we had a shot last year w the in season trade (maybe not a great one) to get adams instead of cooper, and we coulda signed him as a FA maybe (again, it seemed he wanted to be in LA), and reports are we balked on trading up some picks for waddle this season.  getting waddle mighta won us the game vs miami (as he killed us, and we couldn't sustain on O) and houston.  that alone puts us in a position to beat NE and be the #1 seed.

 

the roster that we fielded vs cinci was pretty short on talent, but missing hoyt, oliver, bosa, carter, rook jackson, bernard (he sucked so far this year, but i think he's been hurt the whole time), palmer, spencer, samuels is just a bridge too far.  throw in one single game breaker at wr and i think we have 2 more wins this season, to me that's the biggest hole beane has allowed, and what make people angry is he did it by design (as shown on his smashing of wgr radio guys for talking about wr).

[CincyBillsFan]

41 minutes ago, The Jokeman said:

If you can't see that James Cook (minus his fumbles) and this offensive line aren't elite you've got to really watch things again. Listen, I love Josh, but he's not the only great thing on this offense. Heck Knox yesterday played great for a starting let alone a backup TE yesterday. 

If we aren't paying Josh than that cap room be used elsewhere, maybe it be on an elite DE? Or maybe shore up the holes at WR? Who knows but as a whole this team with this QB and this HC are amongst the league's best. As we're tied for the 6th best record in the league. 

You are right, the O line and Cook are elite.  But if they didn't have Allen and even with a star DE as a result of the CAP savings, the Bills are a 500 team.  

[Bockeye]

4 minutes ago, Mod_Squad_Reject said:

However…. Josh Allen covers a lot of deficiencies.

 

The roster as constructed isn’t necessarily a disaster, injuries are a killer. With a healthy defense where you could get penetration and disruption and a healthy Kincaid I think this team would be rolling.

 

The bigger question is why so many key injuries especially around this time of the year with this team year in year out.

 

 

This is accurate. Oliver is def one of our top 5 defenders on the team and the way Hoecht played, you could argue he may have been a top 5 defender on our team. Those are big losses. 

[SunDSolar]

10 minutes ago, Blackbeard said:

He's also gotten this team to the playoffs how many years in a row and with what personnel outside of allen?   How many championships has Mc D won?  

 

Maybe relish the fact we won last night instead of crapping on the coach.  This ***** is getting old. 

 

You're being naive if you think that a average QB would be able to keep up with any of the good opposing offenses that smoke our defense almost every time we face them

[Coffeesforclosers]

The Bengals podcasters are having the exact same discussion after a loss as this thread is after a win.

 

Almost word-for-word. "Zach Taylor without Joe Burrow is awful!" 

 

This is insane.

Edited 54 minutes ago by Coffeesforclosers

[muppy]

1 hour ago, SCBills said:

Chiefs seem to be aging out.  A lot of their success was predicated upon a Defense that could play off an elite Chris Jones and Offense that could play off an elite Travis Kelce.   When those two are no longer elite, you see their roster building around Mahomes is pretty similar to ours around Allen.  Chiefs with a better WR room. Bills with a better OL.  This also shows, what we’ve known… that Allen is, and for a few years now, better than Mahomes. 
 

Ravens and Bengals, if we’re being honest, those two teams are in the positions they’re in due to QB injuries/QB play.   Ravens have a good roster, but Lamar has been hurt/terrible most of the year.  Burrow, we see how insane that offense is with him at 80% and if they weren’t in the position they’re in, the Defense is still bad but at least Hendrickson would be out there. 
 

 

I visited the Chiefs message board today . They not only agree with you from what I was reading they are thinking playoffs are not happening this year. The golden era is gone and looking forward to a higher draft pick in 2026. Kelce is being roasted. 

 

oh how the mighty have fallen

 

lol 

[harmonkillebrew]

3 hours ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

 

Good point about depth v. game changers.  But what SB team has been built with mangaing injuries yet to happen in mind? Build for depth and a team helmed by a once in a franchise lifetime QB gets pushed around by the likes of Miami and Atlanta.

I said something along these lines earlier - Beane prioritizes depth and seems to think that as long as you stay competitive year in and year out that the balls will bounce your way once and you win a SB.  I'm not sure that's the case, but we'll see. I think having a few game changers on both sides that make critical clutch plays is how you win in the playoffs. Hopefully Benford, Bosa and others can step up to give us that on the D

[Jrb1979]

2 minutes ago, muppy said:

I visited the Chiefs message board today . They not only agree with you from what I was reading they are thinking playoffs are not happening this year. The golden era is gone and looking forward to a higher draft pick in 2026. Kelce is being roasted. 

 

oh how the mighty have fallen

 

lol 

Sure that have fallen but they have won 3 Super Bowls in that era while the Bills have won 0. I would trade places any day for that. 

[WotAGuy]

3 hours ago, SoCal Deek said:

I think the point is that the Bills won 39-34 with their outside WRs catching a grand total of FIVE passes, while their heavily invested in D Line recorded a grand total of ZERO sacks. Is the roster a disaster? Probably not. But it’s definitely not well constructed. 

They had three starters on their D line out with injury. Not sure what you expected from backups and practice squad guys pretty much off the couch. And their crappy D line made a great tandem play to further turn the game around. 
 

Cincy has a terrible time defending TEs. First play - 32 yards to a TE. Why throw to WRs when the TEs were open all day. All three would have had TDs if Knox hadn’t bobbled it. 
 

Both Cincy and Dallas have a franchise QB and two elite WRs. Neither will make the playoffs, in all likelihood. The Bills have done a great job weathering the storm of injuries every year; since Allen arrived, the Bills have done well getting decent performance from their backups after injuries. 
 

I swear people read the takes in these threads but don’t actually pay attention to what’s actually happening here and around the league. 
 

 

Edited 10 minutes ago by WotAGuy

[muppy]

2 minutes ago, Jrb1979 said:

Sure that have fallen but they have won 3 Super Bowls in that era while the Bills have won 0. I would trade places any day for that. 

the point is that their sense of superiority has been shattered and Im enjoying it fully.

[Kenosha2Buffalo]

9-4 , yet it's a terrible roster  😅

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

31 minutes ago, SunDSolar said:

 

The thing is we should have already had a super bowl appearance

 

Jesus look at Josh Allens post season stats, then comeback and tell me why we don't have a AFC championship yet?

I mean does mahomes not have crazy playoff stats too? Lol reminds me of how Brady blocked Peyton manning for years but then manning broke through 9 years in 

 

Josh is obviously amazing but there’s a handful of hof-level or close to hof level guys in the afc right now it’s honestly pretty crazy.  Idk that the nfc has any…maybe Stafford the way this year is going 

Edited 40 minutes ago by Generic_Bills_Fan

[All_Pro_Bills]

13 minutes ago, colin said:

 

i'd state it as a great gm finds a way to find and get those players, but the point stands.

 

i wonder if this is beane being "cheap" with his management of pics or something, or just his kinda fraidy cat mentality of fearing not having great depth, so he doesn't pull the trigger on getting waddle for a 1st in 2026 (+ something else im sure) or whatever.

 

at the time i liked the trade for cooper (who i think went from a ton of talent and not so much passion for the game to less talent and not so much passion for the game) but in retrospect if he coulda gotten adams (maybe it wasn't on the table cuz adam's loves aaron) and moved cap around and not signed palmer or whatever, that woulda put us in a much much better position right now.

I think Beane overvalues his draft board vs. the grades given by other teams on certain players which has him consistently trading up and chasing a player and drafting for need. In the 2025 draft, he traded the team's 2 2nd rounders to Chicago for the 9th pick in the 2nd round to pick DT Sanders. He's been a serviceable rotational DT this year.

 

The Bears used those picks on an OT, Ozzy Trapilo, and DT, Shemar Turner. A DT that graded out on par with Sanders. So in theory, staying at 24 and 30 the Bills could have filled the DT need and selected another player at another position. Only 1 other DT went in the 2nd round, at 11 to the 49ers, before the 30th pick. Its hindsight but its also a good example of the value of staying put and not spending premium picks on trade ups in the draft. 

[BananaB]

37 minutes ago, Blackbeard said:

He's also gotten this team to the playoffs how many years in a row and with what personnel outside of allen?   How many championships has Mc D won?  

 

Maybe relish the fact we won last night instead of crapping on the coach.  This ***** is getting old. 

He’s a big contributor to the personal decisions but you’re giving him a pass because it’s bad. Lmfao! All he has is Allen, but him and Beane are running the show. 

[Steptide]

49 minutes ago, CincyBillsFan said:

To be fair I think not having Bishop on the field for that drive was the main cause of this.  Bishop has improved so much and is playing at such a high level that having him out of the lineup for that one drive was very noticeable.

 

 

I hope. I mean I know we're not the only team that does this, but this has been a thjng really since 2019 (Houston playoff game) 

[Chaos]

51 minutes ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

The ravens had one of the best offensive outputs in nfl history last year and were the 1 seed in 2023.  Last year they were a road favorite over Buffalo in the divisional.  Gotta firmly disagree with that first point 

 

I think even in the offseason coming into this year the ravens had the best Super Bowl odds out of the afc teams and at worst equal to Buffalo/kc 

People are so weird about the ravens because they think it’s a Lamar vs Josh thing specifically but really it’s that the ravens roster is absolutely stacked.  The falloff there is honestly shocking 

Jackson is playing like crap with no heart, and the coach is a dinosaur.  Its not complicated. 

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

4 hours ago, Xwnyer said:

Even though Beane has done a terrible job assembling this roster we are still in the hunt for a playoff spot and have a remote chance of finishing first in the East.  Meanwhile teams like Bengals, Ravens and Chiefs are almost eliminated from the playoffs yet people thought those rosters are in much better shape than ours.  Could you imagine if Josh had the weapons Burrow has or we had a defense that can actually generate pressure on the QB?  We are lucky we have Superman on our side but it would be nice if he had a supporting cast like the Superman has with the Justice League 😀

 

If we don’t win the east being the fifth seed won’t be a bad thing Pitt and Balt are terrible and as long as Cincy doesn’t end up winning that division I can see us winning a playoff game on the road.

You have to give McDermott credit. Teams like BAL, KC, and CIN have all had one or more down seasons where they had to miss the playoffs (KC is on their way.) The Bills have had double digit wins since Allen’s 2nd year and never looked back. Even with the rise of the Patriots, the Bills are most likely going to do it again. McD is great at not completely imploding in the regular season, never loses more than 2 in a row either. He’s got a ton of faults, but I just wanted to give credit where it’s due.