The View from Patriots Wire

[Nihilarian]

They have a good team, along with a good HC, a good young QB, and a very good OC. Last season that NE defense was top 10, the offense was top 5, and they just signed two good WRs to help that young QB. AJ Brown is no scrub and helped the Eagles win an SB.

 

Last season, they had a somewhat easy schedule and, more than anything, a great deal of good luck. They meet the Broncos in the AFC Championship game only to have the Denver QB Bo Nix break his ankle in the last series against Buffalo...I mean, WTF. 

 

Like Buffalo, they open with a tough team on the road at Seattle. Then face the Pittsburgh Squealers at home and then on the road to Jacksonville, Buffalo. A schedule not unlike the Bills, in which they face some tough opponents. They face the Chiefs late in the season at Arrowhead and even Denver at home. 

 

It's going to be a very interesting season as we will soon find out if the new Buffalo HC can run the team and call the offense during games. Then we will see if this new DC is worth his salt as a coordinator in the big leagues. On paper, things look great and will be a continuation of the past Bills teams. The reality might be somewhat different. Buffalo lost that top O-line coach, run game helper, in Aaron Kromer to retirement.

 

I can only hope that things work out for the best this year. If the owner lost his patience with the last HC, I gotta wonder if he will have any for the new guy.

[Kirby Jackson]

14 minutes ago, Nihilarian said:

 

I can only hope that things work out for the best this year. If the owner lost his patience with the last HC, I gotta wonder if he will have any for the new guy.

Only Marv Levy coached more games for the Bills than McDermott. McDermott coached more than twice as many games as the coach with the 3rd most games coached in Bills history. He certainly didn’t get a “quick trigger.” 😂😂

[Victory Formation]

2 hours ago, Ray Stonada said:

Came across this article:

“The Patriots have seemingly pulled away in the race with the many moves they've made in the offseason.

 

Meanwhile, the Bills haven't done much of anything to signal they'll be any better than they were last year. One could even argue that they'll take a step back after firing head coach Sean McDermott. Josh Allen is Superman on the football field, but he's going to need more than D.J. Moore and a middle-of-the-road defense to fly high enough to reach his first Super Bowl….

 

The Bills have to be seeing the moves being made by the Patriots, and it would be hard to imagine them feeling good about their offseason in relation to the competition. They are now faced with a situation where the Patriots have one of the best young quarterbacks in the league in Drake Maye and a top-10 defensive unit that gave Allen problems last season.

 

Will the Bills ever wake up and realize fighting fire with fire is much better than laying the hopes and dreams of an entire franchise on the shoulders of one man?”

 

Do you think this is justified or comically arrogant?

The Patriots have a credible team, but they're not giving the Bills their proper due..

 

 

They also have the following things working against them:

 

1.) Super Bowl hangover... They just lost the biggest game of the year..

 

2.) There's pictures of their Head Coach going on a love cruise with a woman who was 7 months pregnant..

 

3.) Their schedule will be a lot more difficult this year..

 

4.) Teams have been able to study Drake Maye, McDaniel's offense and Vrabel's defense..

 

 

Let them count out Josh Allen and this Bills team.. We pretty much have won the Division over the last 4-5 years, I mean so what that New England got it this one time..

 

 

Prove it.

[Gunsgoodtime]

Justified imo.  I felt the same way about the offseason before I read the article.  Terry didn't finish the job, Beane is still here.  We will find out soon I hope I'm wrong 

[H2o]

4 hours ago, Buffalo Junction said:

Don’t sleep on Doubs. He tends to be invisible then show up in big games. Kind of the opposite of Diggs in a way. 

Doubs has TWO whole 100 yard games in 4 years and 63 games worth of action. That's a whole lotta meh. 

 

[DCofNC]

I think it’s been covered, but from the outside, the Bills didn’t really do a lot and what they did looks like questionable value.  The Pats got a “top 10” WR to go w a young stud QB. 
 

All that said, let’s see what they can do against a real schedule and a year of tape on Maye, specifically how to crush him in the playoffs.

[Scott7975]

I would lean towards arrogant. Maye was very good last season. I was one of the few that said it most of the year. However, can he play another year before anointing him? I know he got to the SB, but IMO it was easiest path ever and not only was he pretty bad in the SB but he wasn't all that great through the entire playoff run.

 

On the flipside, not everything they said was incorrect. The Patriots are trying to improve. Beane seems to be trigger dead since being burned on the Miller signing. At some point he needs to realize that getting ok starters and good depth is ok, but you need some stars too. Even with that though... have the Patriots really improved a ton? To me it looks to be a little but some of it is mostly replacement. How much better is Brown than Diggs for instance?

 

In any case, anyone anything says is pure speculation. I'll let the teams talk on the field and with their results.

[Einstein]

3 hours ago, Kirby Jackson said:

Only Marv Levy coached more games for the Bills than McDermott. McDermott coached more than twice as many games as the coach with the 3rd most games coached in Bills history. He certainly didn’t get a “quick trigger.” 😂😂

How many of those coaches got fired a year after going to the AFCCG?

[uticaclub]

1 hour ago, H2o said:

Doubs has TWO whole 100 yard games in 4 years and 63 games worth of action. That's a whole lotta meh. 

 

A lot more competition at WR in Green Bay. He would have been our WR1 last year

11 minutes ago, Einstein said:

How many of those coaches got fired a year after going to the AFCCG?

Do you want to go to a Super Bowl, or are you okay with losing in the divisional round again? 9 years is an eternity for an NFL coach. How many coaches have been with one team that long without making a Super Bowl? Marvin Lewis? Great company.

[Buffalo Junction]

1 hour ago, H2o said:

Doubs has TWO whole 100 yard games in 4 years and 63 games worth of action. That's a whole lotta meh. 

 

That’s my point though. Those two 100 yard games were in the playoffs. Against the Jets for a 1pm Sunday game he might be invisible. Prime time game and he shows up big, especially on third and fourth down. The only playoff game he didn’t ball out in he was knocked out with a concussion. 

Edited June 26 by Buffalo Junction

[Kirby Jackson]

18 minutes ago, Einstein said:

How many of those coaches got fired a year after going to the AFCCG?

I’m going to play the UNO reverse card. How many of those other coaches had an MVP QB considered arguably the best player in the game? 
 

I posted in the other thread the records of other coaches that had elite QBs. Their records with and without those star QBs are vastly different. Unsurprising to anyone with common sense, the QBs winning percentage didn’t change much as the coach did. 

[dcinmuncie]

Cool

 

 

Boston is nice and is a shame that it is housed by horrible, deplorable, front running, idiotic, sophmoric, rude, ill informed imbeciles they try to pass off as ‘people’

 

watch the departed. That’s the city in a nutshell

f&&& New England 

 

 

(if you can’t tell. I harbor a true dislike for them) 

Edited June 26 by dcinmuncie

[Buddy Hix]

Pats made it to the SB, the argument is over. Allen is 30 and the Pats should be confident.

[NewEra]

6 hours ago, BillsFanForever19 said:

 

It's both arrogant and justified. 

 

I went into this off-season expecting us to do more than we have. And looking at what the Patriots have done vs. what we've done - there's little question in my mind that they've done more.

 

That doesn't mean they've pulled away and have the Division on lock though

 

I don’t think they’ve done more.  I think we’ve done more tbh.  They’ve done more to upgrade their roster, I agree with that 💯.  IIRC, they stared the offseason with 40M cap space.  We were -22M.  I think that would make it hard for Beane to add more talent to the roster than NE considering.

 

Changing HC and adding Leonard and Carmichael to the mix is doing more imo.   Adding several players is easier to quantify than adding a new coaching staff in the offseason.   
 

Only time will tell obv, but I think our offseason was better than NE’s and brought in some much needed change to our defensive scheme.  I think Leonhard and his defense will be more complimentary to Josh and the offense.   College definitely isn’t the pros, but his ridiculous success with Wisconsins defense leads me to believe this kid is a winner and will make us a winner.  I also think that Brady, with the help of Carmichael (and DJ Moore) will level up the offense.

 

jmo

[Buffalo716]

So so sweet if the bills sweep them

[Heavy Kevi]

I get their thinking... 

 

But I believe last year was a fluke for the Pats, with not only an incredibly easy schedule, but a historically weak path to the SB in the playoffs.

 

Maye just might be the most overrated player in the entire league right now, and he folded in clutch moments and was just terrible in the playoffs.

 

It's very telling that even though the Bills made no big splashes, they are favorites to win the division.

 

I am definitely biased but I would bet the Pats win 9 games or less.

[SydneyBillsFan]

10 hours ago, Ray Stonada said:

Came across this article:

“The Patriots have seemingly pulled away in the race with the many moves they've made in the offseason.

 

Meanwhile, the Bills haven't done much of anything to signal they'll be any better than they were last year. One could even argue that they'll take a step back after firing head coach Sean McDermott. Josh Allen is Superman on the football field, but he's going to need more than D.J. Moore and a middle-of-the-road defense to fly high enough to reach his first Super Bowl….

 

The Bills have to be seeing the moves being made by the Patriots, and it would be hard to imagine them feeling good about their offseason in relation to the competition. They are now faced with a situation where the Patriots have one of the best young quarterbacks in the league in Drake Maye and a top-10 defensive unit that gave Allen problems last season.

 

Will the Bills ever wake up and realize fighting fire with fire is much better than laying the hopes and dreams of an entire franchise on the shoulders of one man?”

 

Do you think this is justified or comically arrogant?

 

The top 10 defense that Allen ripped for 35 points in their own backyard?

 

Anyway.... getting DJ Moore, Bradley Chubb, CJGJ + a promising draft crop + Jackson and Carter back from injury is not exactly "not doing much of anything".

 

I fancy our chances to win the AFCE. After that, who knows...

[BigAl2526]

During the Belichick/Brady era, New England fans and media became incredibly arrogant and entitled.  I suspect that the McDermott/Allen era in Buffalo did not totally cure them of that arrogance. After all it became ingrained over nearly two decades.  That said, any fan base can easily become arrogant when their team starts to enjoy consistent success.  The opinions on New England's off-season have been mixed.  They signed some big-time stars but there are still question marks on some areas of the team.  As others have noted, it looked as if Maye had been "figured out" toward the end of last season.  For all young QBs, there is an interesting dynamic to their development.  Opposing defenses and their coordinators do tend to zero in on their strengths, weaknesses and tendencies.  At the same time, those young QBs are still developing.  It happened with Josh Allen, and it's happening with Drake Maye.  With another off season of study and work, he will likely come back this coming season and do some things better where he's struggled in the past.   The bottom line is that a straight-line improvement for New England is not the most likely outcome of the season.  Will they get better?  Maybe, but they also have a much tougher schedule this season. 

 

What about Buffalo?  Is the assertion that they haven't done much of anything really true?   I think it's important to note that Buffalo has been under severe salary cap constraints for a while now.   Buffalo could have shuffled things around and renegotiated enough contracts to make a huge splash signing like Myles Garrett on defense or AJ Brown on offense, but I think with a new coaching regime and a new defensive scheme, Beane figured that he was going to need to make changes in multiple areas on the team.  Blowing the wad on one or two splash players might mean he was going to have to settle for lower quality players at too many spots.  He signed a second-tier WR in DJ Moore, let go of a potentially higher priced slot corner with some potential injury issues for a slightly younger slot corner with a slightly different skill set and perhaps some upside, let go of a good but what turned out to be a very expensive guard in David Edwards (given his new contract) and settled for some competition to identify his replacement, took a chance on Bradley Chubb and traded down in the draft to snag a bunch of third day  picks where the Bills have sparkled in recent years and took another chance on a talented hot-headed safety in CJ Gardner Johnson.  Beane is left with a bunch of question marks, but they are not question marks where the answers all have to be mediocre or worse.  DJ Moore may have gone down in production in Chicago because he's had lousy QBs.  Dee Alford has impressed in off-season work and his skill set better fits the role he'll be playing in Leonhard's defense.  Chubb hasn't been really impressive in recent years, but he hasn't been terrible, and now he's going back to a defense that gave him his best opportunity to shine.  The third day draft picks again impressed in off season work, with Kaleb Elarms-Orr looking like he might have early starting potential.  There are at least as many potential positive surprises on the team as there are risks of disappointment.  I would say Beane rolled the dice big time this off-season, but I think he was in a position where that's what he had to do, and it is very possible that we'll all be pleasantly surprised.

Edited June 26 by BigAl2526

[eball]

The next time Drake Maye puts a team on his back will be the first.

 

Boston fans are delusional.

 

They’re at most a 10 win team this season facing a real schedule.

 

The Bills “took a step back” and will win at least 13.

 

[stosh64]

FFS, the "offseason" seems longer this year