I’d hope they’d realize the difference between a great offense and a great defense after watching what happens in the playoffs every year. But they haven’t. If it was WR…yes I would. At Edge rusher…no I don’t. You’re going to end up in a shootout with Mahomes or Burrow anyway. And defenses just don’t matter as much against that level of QB. Philly had a great D…then they ran into Mahomes. Shootout.
We keep sending Allen out to win shootouts without enough bullets.
No, you won't... This is one of the most overused yet incorrect statements about the NFL - I think special thanks goes to the younger members of the Buffalo media for not understanding the reality of complimentary football and thinking that the NFL just boils down to weapons and skill position players.
There's no such thing as one dimensional Super Bowl contenders, both sides of the ball have to be great, full stop. During the playoffs, KC held each of their opponents to 20 points and forced multiple turnovers defensively in a couple of one score games, just to get through to the Super Bowl. Could Mahomes have won those games in a shootout? Absolutely, but it's far from a guarantee, he only had to score more than 20 points. I mean, FFS, look at the 2nd half drive chart from the KC-Jax game:
Hardly a shootout. The vast majority of games are not back and forth shootouts, it's an ebb and flow and having an elite QB gives you a cheat code at the end of the game.
While the Super Bowl this year actually was a shootout, does KC win without the defensive score and the big punt return? Again, maybe, but we'll never know.
You don't need to be an elite defense, you need to be great, and more than anything you need to not play like this:
Lucky for us, both our offense and defense are actually elite.
Our offense returns everyone except our starting RB and our weakest link, Saffold at LG, which we already upgraded. The other weak points at RT and WR should both improve with healthier seasons. Our starting TE experienced a massively tragic life event. Despite all this, we had the #2 ranked passing offense in DVOA with a WR corps of Diggs, Davis, McKenzie, and Shakir. Even if we only draft a day 3 WR, I refuse to believe we'll be taking much of a step back, if any.
Our defense is aging and our two biggest playmakers have experienced ACL injuries the past two years (White & Von). Our freak starting MLB left via FA. Our safeties are starting to age out. There's just way more question marks on the defense.
Lastly, I know a lot of WR talk comes from that Bengals game. I remember stumbling across this random twitter dude after the game:
I just re-watched the All-22 from that game earlier today and couldn't agree more. Allen had a shit day - his WRs were open. Beyond that, Dorsey did him no favors in his playcalling either.
