Thurman#1

No, that is incorrect, that the "MVP QB ... has won a Super Bowl already." If you go and look who won the Super Bowl, you will find that it was an entire football team, called the Kansas City Chiefs. What Mahomes did is he played quarterback on the Chiefs for the last two years. Very very well. What you do when you try to figure who won a trade is to figure out which group of the players who got traded is better. The fact that the Chiefs have Kelce and Hill, for example, has nothing whatsoever to do with who got the better side of that trade, and a great deal to do with the overall success of the Chiefs. It's extremely close. If Allen continues playing at this level, and so does White, we won, IMO, but it would absolutely be extremely close. Yeah, this is another very fair way to look at it. But a few months ago there were plenty out there who "knew" that KC had won that trade and that we'd lost.

Because it's extremely close right now. That's why. Good question. Which is why I started a thread about it a week ago. But whatever.

Come on, man. Neither 2013 Russell Wilson nor 2018 Tom Brady should ever have been called a game manager. Both had explosive potential on any given play. Both were far beyond game managers. You can make the argument about Peyton Manning that year. He certainly didn't have the arm that he'd used to have but he also was capable of winning games, though more with his brain than his arm. But in nine games that year he had 3 game-winning drives and 4th quarter comebacks. That's not what happens with game managers. But at least the argument is reasonable with Peyton, though I don't buy it. Not true with Brady or Wilson. I do agree, though, that Super Bowls can be won in many ways. Right now there's no defense as good as the Ravens, Bears or Bucs Super Bowl-winning defense. If we see one, and the team also has a good run game, they'll have a chance to win a Super Bowl even if the QB isn't top ten.

Oliver was the right call, without a doubt. I'd choose Metcalf over Ford in terms of talent. Not make the trade for Diggs last offseason? No, I think after Metcalf's first year you figure he's going to be good but not so good that you don't bring in Diggs if you have the chance. We can now see that in his second year Metcalf looks like he may be elite. With Metcalf playing the way he is now you probably figure you don't need Diggs. But last offseason I think you still make that trade. My opinion, anyway. Probably not, but people forget that Troup was starting to look sensational till his back injury, and then he was urged to come back early from that and was never the same. Troup was kicking butt, though. Remember that article about him, with all the quotes from Kyle Williams and people saying that in offseason workouts his second year he was just destroying people?

The Ravens. But after that, I'd pick the Bills also.

Got an easy solution for you. Don't open threads with "Kelly" in the title. Like this thread. That's why the threads have titles.

Zoom audio problems. Good interview, though. Thanks for posting it.

You anticipate me perfectly. Or mostly perfectly, anyway. A complete rebuild doesn't have to strip a team of ALL of it's talent. Just all of it's older talent, or even young talent if it doesn't fit the new scheme. And if your team is in cap trouble, big contracts also become expendable. But that's not everybody. Jimmy Johnson didn't get rid of the young Jim Jeffcoat from the previous regime. Michael Irvin had been drafted in Landry's last year and they didn't get rid of him. Same with Nate Newton. Young talented guys you can keep. But older guys like Everson Walls, he wasn't finished but he didn't have a lot of time left, so he had to go. But if you can get a bunch of draft picks for a very talented guy who's going to be due a big contract soon, as Johnson did with Herschel Walker, that's gold. But yeah, the Bills rebuilt and still managed to get more wins that expected. I don't disagree. But I also don't think that first team was actually any good. It was great to see Kyle Williams see the playoffs, but I knew we weren't going anywhere in the playoffs that year, and I bet you did too. Whereas this year we're playing at a level where nothing is absolutely out of reach. I'd disagree that the early playoff berth got them more credibility than normal. More good will, yeah. But any first year coach is going to have credibility and a significant grace period, two to three years at the very least, short of utterly losing the locker room or proving a buffoon, ala Rex Ryan. You say "tank-worthy," and without going into my usual excruciating detail, there's no tanking in the NFL. Only rebuilding. The two are different, and tanking doesn't exist in sports without fully guaranteed contracts, as it's against the coaches and players interests to play at anything less than their best at any time. This was a rebuild. And it wasn't a complete one. I think we agree on that. I think they would've been even better at this point if they'd gotten rid of Shady and Tyrod earlier, they'd have even higher-level talent than they have now. But I can't say anything against them at this point. Success vindicates unusual approaches. Can they fully strip it down and be authentic? Yeah, of course. It's been done many times. McDermott was the defacto GM those first few months and it's the GM's job to look to the future, to care for the long-term interests of the team. If he had acted like a typical GM, nobody would have had trouble understanding it. But he didn't, he found installing a winning culture more important. But that was a choice, not something he had to do. Bill Walsh won a total of eight games his first two years. He didn't have any problems with credibility or authenticity. I certainly don't disagree with you that they have earned the long and well-compensated stays here that they are pretty much sure to get at this point. Anyway, good post, Monsieur Noggin.

I believe it too. Particularly the first two years those teams outplayed their talent level significantly. And 25-23 is insane for the first three years of a rebuild, insanely good. If you look at arguably the most successful rebuild of all time, where the third year was a Super Bowl victory, the first three years - including that Super Bowl season - were 21 - 27. Jimmy Johnson's Cowboys rebuild put up 19 wins the first three years. I do disagree with one thing from the OP. This was absolutely a rebuild. But it wasn't a complete one. Keeping Tyrod, and Shady as well, showed that very clearly. I wanted them to rebuild completely. Time has vindicated their methods and made my objection irrelevant.

Thing is, everybody's major problem is block shedding. That's why guys like Star are so valuable. Look at Ray Lewis. A lot of people don't remember but he was seen as one of the absolute best, then in the middle of his career, Tony Siragusa retired and Ray Lewis became a pretty ordinary LB. People said he was done, that he's lost what made him special. Then they drafted Haloti Ngata and coincidentally at just that moment Ray became a terror again and for the rest of his career. Edmunds has an injured shoulder and is playing behind a line that's not quite as good as last year's was. And he's still playing pretty well. He'll be fine.

And just to look at the Kool-Aid thing again ... who's the guy who is drinking Kool-Aid? The guy who saw the new coach come in and make it clear that they were rebuilding, and then said, "Welp, they're rebuilding, this is going to be years of pain. This is going to suck. At least at the end of three or four years we'll hopefully have a QB who can be a franchise guy and a team that will support him, ... remembering that not all rebuilds succeed." And was correct, watching years of pain, enduring losses and sucky football, but saw them pick up a guy who at least had a chance to be a franchise QB. Was that guy, the one who knew pain was coming and weathered it, (really a large large group of realistic Bills fans who understood the mechanics of a rebuild), were they the Kool-Aid drinkers? Or was the Kool-Aid drinker the guy who thought that we didn't need a rebuild since we had the world's first 7-9 .500 team, QB'd by Tyrod Taylor and so we should just soar our way to offensive excellence immediately? The guy who was surprised that a rebuild sucked? The guy who still doesn't get what happened and still thinks things should have been much better than they were? Which guy was the Kool-Aid drinker? The guy who knew what was going to happen and watched it happen, hoping the end would be good, knowing it would take a long time? Or the guy who thought everything should be fine and dandy immediately, was puzzled by the fact that a developmental quarterback needed development, and who still won't accept what actually happened? The guy who looks at a new regime come in to a team that hasn't gone to the playoffs in 17 years and has Tyrod Taylor as their starter, sees that new regime build up a Super Bowl competitor in their fourth year and says that in his world things should have gone much better? Which is the Kool-Aid drinker? That answer will be obvious to nearly everyone who's a serious Bills fan and understands what drinking Kool-Aid is actually a metaphor for.

The Kool-Aid I drunk is sugar and water and nothing else. It's fans who didn't get that a rebuild was coming who got the drugged batch. And, um, let me help you out with your math ... 7-9 isn't .500. And a team that has not made the playoffs in 17 years is NOT a team that should think, "Hey, we're 7-9, it's almost 8-8, hell, let's just reload and keep going the way we have been. We'll be fine long-term with Tyrod at QB. We don't need to make a big stir, things are going fine." As many fans do, you're mixing up reloading (that's what McCarthy is doing in Dallas, which makes sense when you've got Dak Prescott) and rebuilding. And yeah, rebuilds suck.They're painful and soul-draining. The only thing more soul-draining is reloading to continue a seventeen year cycle when you aren't good enough to compete but aren't bad enough to get a pick high enough to maximize your chances of drafting a good QB (and then getting a higher pick in every round after that as well). And yeah, fans who hear the coach come in and explain that his goal is not winning this year but becoming a team that can compete consistently for championships ... and doesn't get that a rebuild is coming ... yeah, those poor fans are missing the point by a few county lines. And to repeat the point - you keep saying that the offense hasn't been good, and I repeatedly don't disagree but explain why that was so ..... they were rebuilding. Rebuilds mean pain. That's the way things go. Fans of rebuilding teams have to put their big boy pants on and look down the line and say, "We'd better be good four years from now." And we are.

Heh heh. Yup. Except the one they really hate, who are still criticized even for praising him.

Yes, 23 - 25. But as has been pointed out a million times ... that's what rebuilds look like. In fact, that's a rebuild with more wins than usual. And comparing Allen to Burrows is butt-stupid. Allen was always ... always ... considered a developmental guy and many if not most of the pundits said he might need two years on the bench rather than one. Burrows and Herbert didn't go JUCO and Wyoming, and they did step on the QB camp carousel very early, which is totally unlike Josh. The comparison is ridiculous. You just look at the record? Well, that does indeed explain why you're missing the point. Which is that rebuild suck for a few years, because they involve a lot of losing at first.

If you're wondering whether it could have happened sooner, the answer is pretty much "No." I did a study of serious rebuilds a few years back, looking particularly at rebuilds that had been successful. I especially looked at how long success took. And somewhere around 15% became successful in the third year. None sooner. By far the most common year for success was the fourth year. And all of the teams that were successful in the third year had picked up a QB in the first year, not the second. So, the bottom line is that no, it couldn't have happened earlier. Fans who don't quite get it want instant gratification. Rebuilds guarantee the opposite, a long painful road. This was the least painful rebuild I've ever seen, two playoffs in the first three years. Yes, the offense was poor for quite a while. That was simply the way it was going to go when you look at the resources they threw at offense those first two years. They put a bunch of resources into Allen and beyond that they simply hadn't spent much on the offense till last year. Other than Allen, they'd used two 2nd round picks and traded a 3rd for Benjamin (certainly a bad move, though we don't make the playoffs in 2017 without him), with no high-level, hell, no mid-level FAs. It wasn't going to happen that year. Last year Allen had a good OL and decent WRs in Brown and Beasley and he wasn't able to take advantage of it. So, no. When your OL puts Vlad Ducasse, Russell Bodine, John Miller and Jordan Mills on the field as starters, conservative play-calling is not your biggest problem or even close.

Marty's teams were NOT usually the most talented teams. Player by players they were generally considerably less talented, but Marty got so much out of them that he could coach rosters that had no business being there into the playoffs. He had a lot of mediocre QBs through the years to work with and that didn't encourage him to open up the offense. The time he did have good personnel was that young Chargers team, and they lost to the Pats in the playoffs. Remember that awful play, the interception in the 4th quarter by SanDiego and the defender then fumbled during the runback and the Pats then continued the drive and scored a TD? Jeez. That was a very good Pats team, though they were outscored by the Colts in the Conference championship that year. What you saw again and again with Marty is that he'd inherit a team that wasn't good, with few wins, immediately start winning more, and when he'd leave the next year the team would immediately regress. Marty is undervalued. And yeah, Cowher underachieved in the playoffs. Remind me how he did when they were able to draft Roethlisberger? A little better than when he was forced to use that endless stream of guys like Neil O'Donnell, Kordell Stewart, Charlie Batch, Jim Miller, Bubby Brister, Kent Graham, Mike Tomczak and Tommy Maddox. The problem for those guys wasn't so much conservative play as it was bad quarterbacking and in Schotty's case, lesser talent on the roster.

They do a great job with their data. It's why most NFL teams subscribe. Not all of their entertainment product is particularly good. But they're consistent, methodical and thoughtful. Doesn't mean anyone has to agree with all their scores, of course. Intelligent disagreement is a good basis for discussion.

While that's true, it's also true that part of the reason there were a lot of drops is that Josh was rifling every ball in at mach speed, including the short ones. One of the major things he's done is develop touch so he's throwing balls much more catchably.

It is indeed a process, and in Allen's case a long one. But he absolutely did suddenly become great. He hit his tipping point. He's been improving consistently, but not being great except in short little flashes here and there. Now, suddenly he's terrific nearly all the time and is only showing short flashes of not being good. Did it come from consistent extreme effort and from trusting the process? Yeah. But it was absolutely sudden visible massive improvement. A lot of the process is beavering away learning and improving various facets of whatever you are getting better at without visibly making huge leaps upwards. Then you reach a tipping point and you're doing significantly more right than wrong and when you hit that point, your improvement is suddenly visible and obvious. That's where Allen is at. Some guys never reach that point. Thank goodness Josh did.

Yeah, but key injuries appear to have a major part in that, and those guys seem to be coming back not just enough to play but to play close to normal level. No Star really hurt those first four weeks. Hopefully our new 1-tech, who played pretty well last week, will also be part of the solution. I see no reason to worry about this defense ... yet.

Disagree. There's a reason he was interviewed as a head coaching candidate last year. Daboll's been very good. And that was when Allen couldn't carry anyone. Allen needed development. But not just any development. He needed smart, well-structured, thoughtfully systematized, well-scaffolded development. Plenty of guys who had the stuff to be real QBs have been ruined by crappy development and handling. The Bills did this really well. Yes, Allen gets a ton of credit too. But we'll miss him. But the mature Josh should be able to handle a different OC as long as he's good.

Yes, Daboll has been terrific since he got here. We're likely to miss him. Hopefully, though, with Allen here to dangle in front of possible OC candidates, we'll have an opening the best guys will be fighting over.

Remind me, did he wait till this year to draft Josh Allen? Yeah, he figured it out ... Probably around the year 2000 or so. The reason we have offense now is because they've been working on it like crazy men since they got here. And Allen finally hit the tipping point. And of course, they've been working on the defense like crazy too. Because you've got to be good on both sides. Because the best offense is also a good defense. That works both ways. Yes.

You should be. Feliciano's good but not that good. Same with Ford so far. lt'll depend how good Teller's pass blocking becomes. Both Ford and Teller are still developing and learning. If we'd had both, though, that would've been nice. He's developed a ton since leaving. And he's cheap. We could've used him. He's devastating people right now.

Yup, he is kicking ass and taking names.