Like Tears In Rain: 2024 Buffalo Bills Preview

2023 PREDICTION: “12-5, tied for AFC East crown. As always, the injury factor will be dispositive, but we have reason for Hope.”

2023 REALITY: 11-6, winning the AFC East, disposing of the Steelers and running face-first into the Taylor Swift Buzzsaw.

It was a Tale of Two Seasons for the 2023 Bills, by turns sucking unexpectedly and rising to the occasion. Losses to trashpile teams like the Jets, Broncos and Patriots left them at 6-6 going into the bye week. They shitcanned prior Hot Commodity offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey and installed shitty Carolina castoff Joe Brady as interim OC.

And it worked!

Despite missing large sections of their back seven (linebackers, safeties and cornerbacks) due to injuries, the Bills rattled off five straight wins to get into the playoffs.

Even with a defense consisting of more Thoughts and Prayers than a Republican Congressman after mass shootings, the Bills played the Chiefs tough in yet another Instant Classic. It came down to shitty strategic calls by and a predictable Wide Right.

2024 Big Damn Changes:

Equally predictable was the bill coming due for three years of trying to Run It Back with mostly the same roster. A lot of guys left. A lot of guys got cut or traded to get under the cap. Stefon Diggs tantrumed his way out of a second town, sufficiently hard that the famously conservative Bills decide that they would rather eat $31 million in dead cap space during Josh Allen’s prime than deal with his bullshit.

But that’s not all. Thanks to the bloodletting, the Bills are in fact toting around twice that amount in total dead money- more than 20% of their cap space.

The offense may look like a bit of a throwback this year, as our three most proven weapons are two tight ends and a running back. James Cook broke 1500 yards from scrimmage last year, while Dalton Kincaid and Dawson Knox (aka The Roadhouse Twins) may be the best tight end duo in the league. This, combined with an almost-entirely-new set of receivers, means we are likely to see more two-tight-end sets than is currently fashionable.

But fuck fashionable. Fashionable got us influencers, bell-bottoms and ten thousand Sean McVay clones fucking up teams across the league. Let’s get nuts! Let’s get Old School!

The defense looks frightening. Not in the “intimidates other teams” sense; more in the “I am afraid to watch” area. It’s patched together in an apparently random way. Rasul Douglas was a brilliant midseason pickup, Christian Benford was surprisingly good, and Taron Johnson was quitely a second-team All-Pro at nickel. But both of our starting safeties have left the field in an ambulance in the last 18 months, which is…not great. Still! Patched together might work!

Schedule:

It’s tough sledding- seven playoff opponents, including the Goddamned Chiefs, the Niners, away at the Ravens and away at the Texans. But the last three games are Patriots-Jets-Patriots, so by the time every single one of our stars is crippled, at least we will be playing the chumps.

2024 PREDICTION: 11-6, playoffs. It’s gonna hurt, but I am Ready to Love Again.