00:00Yeah, it certainly showed that they can use Shakir a lot more.
00:03I thought that that would be the plan, by the way, this season.
00:06And there's been little spurts like we saw this past weekend of them giving him the ball.
00:11And you see there he had 12 receptions for 82 yards, a lot more targets,
00:16nine different players with a pass catch in that game.
00:19And so my takeaway, Dan, sort of on Buffalo was very similar.
00:25And you obviously probably feel differently about this.
00:28But I looked at the Bills similar to the Ravens and similar to the Chiefs
00:33in the sense that they all three had down seasons.
00:37All three of them were the favorites to go to the Super Bowl.
00:39The Bills have played the best football of the three.
00:43They played good enough to beat Jacksonville in Jacksonville.
00:48I don't know that they have to play any better, by the way, to beat Denver in Denver.
00:53But is there a stark difference from Bills teams of the past and this season?
00:59Because squeaking by in a playoff game is not going to work, say, three, four times in a row.
01:05Yeah, this is and that's why this national narrative that it's the Bills, you know, opportunity and Josh Allen's opportunity to go to the Super Bowl because there's no Burrow,
01:14no Lamar and no Patrick Mahomes is just kind of crazy to us that have been following the team so closely this year.
01:21And I understand, look, if you look at the EPA and you look at points per game and all of this stuff, it may feel to the eyes, if you're looking at numbers,
01:30that this is just another Bills typical Josh Allen offense that we've become accustomed to seeing over the last four years, this offensive juggernaut.
01:39It hasn't been the case.
01:40This team, this most of this season has been a slog, a grind offensively to pick up first downs.
01:47Third and seven for most of the season has been a death sentence to this offense because they don't have receivers that can get open.
01:54And Josh has taken way more sacks because of that.
01:57Josh and Sean McDermott had both admitted that at times he feels like he's pressing because the offense doesn't have those easy buttons.
02:03He doesn't have the Stefan Diggs anymore or a Cole Beasley.
02:06I'd argue that this is one of the worst offenses that Josh has had since 2020, 2019.
02:13Like this is a makeshift offensive line.
02:15So now I had my concerns going into this postseason because of that, because you're going to need to throw the ball in games.
02:24But when you have Josh Allen, it makes up for a lot of deficiencies.
02:28So when you talk about their margin for error, I think the Bills are 0-4 or 0-5 this year when they don't score 23 points.
02:35That's the bar that the Bills offense has to be.
02:38And look, Greg, this defense is not elite, but they're not as bad as people think they are.
02:43And they're starting to find ways.
02:45They have their flaws.
02:47They struggle against the run.
02:48But you want to know what Sean McDermott has always been like?
02:50It has always been, but don't break.
02:52It's, okay, you guys can average Jacksonville seven yards a run.
02:55Don't care.
02:56We'll force a turnover and we'll make you be in third and longs if we have to.
03:00And then we'll confuse you.
03:02Sean McDermott's defense isn't getting enough credit for what this team has been able to accomplish this year.
03:07Because the offense, while the numbers may say something different, they have not been as explosive.
