I hate that when the Bills enter the post-season, they're always missing key players. Always.
It wasn't going to be a first down. This has been covered and discussed by many people who were both at the game, and who have access to the All-22. Diggs wasn't getting a for sure first down. Defenders were baring down on him, and he likely would've been a few yards short.
Please stop posting ridiculousness. WE get it, you hate Allen. He stinks. He's the reason they can't win a superbowl.
Give it a rest.
I'm soured on the process more. We're going into the 8th year of the program and process, 7 with Josh Allen. You have seen KC, Baltimore, the Rams and 49'ers adapt and evolve to remain consistent. You have seen the Browns rise on defense, adapt to Flacco in an emergency. The Bengals have risen, evolving with Burrow, the Dolphins evolved for Tua to keep people off him and develop a quick strike with Hill and Waddle, Houston is rising with vigor under a rookie coach and QB.
We made an o line in front of Allen for a season finally, since the last time we had an ok one with all FA's early. Oh no, receivers again. The offense is not fluid, dynamic and consistent, it sputters, revs, stops and starts with curious erratic personnel use. Maybe Brady has a solution, but's still 7 years of Josh Allen used up. Build an offense to maximize him, not count on him to rescue it.
Defense. Injuries. In Bernard and Milano, McDermott is sticking to his scheme with lb's 10-12 lbs short of the muscle Davis and Kuechly had in Carolina. If you've ever added that much more muscle, you're going to know it makes a huge difference on contact, and they have smaller guys coming up in contact besides. Of course they're going to have injuries.
Next man up is never challenging a starter. He's a placeholder. Williams at LB has some promise, is he challenging Milano ? 230 lbs...coming into his game, dunno. Defense is plug and play, with degrading performance on injuries. They keep patching the DL with vet FA, vet FA are guys other people drafted with wear on them.
Vet FA is going to be the same, they'll fish the bargain bin before the draft and insert them as starters, then draft most rookies as placeholders behind them, man corner Elam drafted for zone ? Shakir and Cook could have saved them some FA money by getting snaps
Where's the low cost draft pipeline pushing starters on the OL, dt and at safety ? For that matter, wr, and rb to enhance their franchise gem Allen ?
Seriously, how many vet scrub FA's have they gone through on offense and defense trying to patch, ala throw someone elses' picks against the wall and see if they stick ?
Looks to me like Beane gets what McDermott wants every year as best he can, the college scouting has been hit or miss, they have not built a happy Allen oriented offense, have remained stale on defense and accordingly remained injury prone, and remain handicapped by McDermott, timid and conservative, or inexplicably going for all the chips with poor judgement.
There are no fierce competitors besides Allen and Diggs, you saw Kelce screaming at Reid, you've seen Kyle Williams, Fred Jackson, Lorenzo Alexander, Richie Incognito, Jim Kelly, Darryl Talley, Bruce Smith, Thurman, Reed, Cookie, Stratton, furious Saban, frothing Levy throwing his headset, even Conrad Dobler, Takeo Spikes raging on the field and channeling it, instead, of clap clap clap, we have tomorrow boys, no worries, great job, next year, we're fine.
They ALL need to ramp it up, or we wasted a franchise QB without maximizing the window. And don't even try and say we maximized the window if you watch the Bills. We're closer to falling back into the pack than we are to taking it over imho, and it's the 8th year of the program. 8 years, 7 with Allen coming up, really ?
My 2 cents.
Lone Stranger (02-14-2024),T&C (02-13-2024)
The part that's hard to take is this wasn't close to the best Chiefs team. Yes they had a good D. And yes that D largely carried them. But it's a lot like NE back in the early years of their dynasty. Brady did not beat himself and come crunch time he made plays. Mahomes is the same way. It's not that he's unbeatable or that he's perfect. But you have to beat him. We were really really close this year.
Lamar Jackson put up 10 points against the Chiefs. 10. Stats are for losers. Often the best play for a QB is a throwaway. Josh made EXCELLENT decisions all day against the Chiefs until the last 2:00. He could have run the 1947 Army ttriple option and threw for 10 yards and that would have been perfect if we won the game.