Thurman#1

Not especially. It's Star who has been the big missing piece. Phillips was below average against the run, and a few flash plays against the pass but not much impact otherwise. The guy has two sacks and one QB hit this year. In five games, that's not a lot of hits.. That's the way he was with us too. Few hits and pressure, converting the ones he did have at a higher than normal rate into sacks. So he had a huge effect on the plays he got sacks (obviously) but didn't effect many other plays at all. That's not what you pay big money for.

While the deflected INT can't be blamed all on Allen, the bad throw was absolutely a contributing factor. Roberts still should've caught it, but a better pass and he likely does. Both share the blame there. Agree that Allen is the silver lining, so far. It seems, though, as if teams have figured out one thing, that they need to play deep and not allow the long balls, that they are going to try to force Josh and the offense to play small-ball, which requires consistency. Today, that consistency just wasn't there. This is how teams will play us, IMO. How will we respond?

I thought he was over the line, but it wasn't anywhere near a full yard. It was a matter of inches. The announcer mis-spoke, saying the LOS was the 8. It wasn't. It was about three inches short of the 7. As I say, I thought it was a penalty, and that it should've been reversed, but it was very close. Bottom line for me was that we lost by a huge margin. The reffing was pretty much beside the point. The Bills performed far far worse than the refs did. The whole team played crappy. At least the defense had three starters out, two of whom are among the three most important players.

Sorry, man, that's not how you calculate it. The roster bonus and work out bonus have already been paid this year. You'd only save the salary, or the part of it has has not been paid yet. Oh, wait, he's also got $500K in per game active bonuses. So you'd save $6.925M. Or rather 3/4 of that, since we've already paid a quarter of his salary and a quarter of that bonus. And no, the Texans wouldn't agree to eat up cap money for us. Their cap situation is pretty much as bad as ours. A lot of the reason that trade would appeal to them (actually it wouldn't, but if they did it, opening cap room would be a major reason) was the ability to save cap money. They wouldn't eat more. They don't have much more cap available than we do. They're already $11.5 mill UNDER the cap next year. Yes, next year they'd save Watt's salary but would also have to replace him, either paying Murphy or bringing in someone else. You can't ignore that but even if you did they would have almost nothing left after paying their draft class. They're not going to swallow extra cap this year for our consideration. And again, it would turn next year's Bills cap from +$3 mill to -$15M. Simply does not make sense in any way. Really doesn't make sense for them to trade for anybody much above vet minimum. This year and in particular next year's cap figures are a tight choke collar around our necks right now. Their freedom is very limited. They can do some wiggling, but not enough to do much more than move from extremely limited to very limited.

You mean the group that says he's gotten much much better? Yeah, what do they know?

While the folks around him in 2018 certainly didn't help, it was mostly him. He made far more poor decisions, was more inconsistent with accuracy and simply didn't know what he was looking at with defenses.

222 yards in five games? 44.4 YPG? Are these $9M a year numbers? IMO they almost use Sammy as a potential option to give defenses something more to worry about than they do as a guy who directly does much damage.

Maybe, unless he got injured the way he often does. Oh, wait, what's this thread about?

So his $15.5M cap hit would put us about $12M over the cap. Cutting Murphy would save us $6.4M. That means we would only have to cut two to four guys to fit under the cap. It's a bit more complex than that because each has already been paid for 5 games and has 11 left, but ... Can't happen. Cap problems. Worth remembering that next year we have $2.5M left in cap space, and Watt next year will cost $17.5M in salary, so we go from $2.5 over (already have to cut someone just to fit our drafted rookies) to $15M under the cap. So we'd have to make major cuts, perhaps of Watt himself. Yeah, doesn't make sense. Really doesn't make sense to make a trade for anyone who'd cost much more than minimum right now. To get better next year, they'll basically need draft picks to bring in affordable guys. Can't see them trading away any high picks anytime soon.

Agree to disagree. He's had talent around him on and off. I don't think he's the problem there at all. Their defense is most of the problem. Having said that, he's 35, and they could consider bringing in the next guy.

Yup.

I don't think Trent Williams was ever a thing. Many on here were unhappy with Dawkins, but there is no particular reason for that. He's not elite, but very solid.

Missed the point again, hunh? Maybe I didn't explain well enough. You said that the QB won the game. That is wrong. You're quite correct that that is not a debate. You're just wrong. Here is what it does NOT say when you look up the winners of the Super Bowl: 2016: New England Patriots 2017: Philadelphia Eagles 2018: New England Patriots: 2019: Patrick Mahomes It doesn't say that, nor will it ever. Mahomes didn't win the game, he played in it, on the winning team. The winners were the whole team, the Chiefs. What Mahomes did was play QB. On a team with an excellent roster, a team that probably, for example, doesn't win that Super Bowl without trading for Frank Clark and Tyrann Mathieu. A lot of things came together to add up to that SB win. And while a Super Bowl win absolutely vindicates the direction your FO has taken, and certainly makes it clear that that trade was successful for the Chiefs, it doesn't say anything about which of the two teams was more successful. That depends on the talent level of the players traded.

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.