Thurman#1

It kinda is. Just because we have cap space doesn't mean we'll use it. They're going to need it next year when the guys they want to re-sign come due. They've made it real real clear that they aren't going to bring in a lot of high-priced FAs, that they don't want to build the team that way. They want their model to be sustainable for the long-term. Their model is building the core through the draft, filling in holes with low- to medium-priced FAs and re-signing our own FAs. Expect that to continue. You're right that they've made it a priority to fix and build the line. And they've done so. Done a terrific job of it so far, from the looks. He's older, he's expensive, we have two guys who can play the position well, and we'd have to give up a relatively high pick in the draft. I think it's really safe to say he's not going to be here.

Not just a game. A kid's game!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah, got it. When people give the figure as "an extension worth ..." it's almost always a total ego massage, because they'll be getting four extra years, but the money won't only be going in those four years. It's a fake metric. The total contract, including the extension is the real way to look at it. The extension is for 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024, yet he'll be receiving a huge portion of that money as a signing bonus today, in 2019. "An extension worth $X per year," is spin delivered at centrifuge speed. Six years for $154M. Good deal for both sides, IMO. Wentz will lose a few mill total this way, but will be getting his signing bonus a year early, which make him safer in case of career-ending injury. Good deal for Philly too. Less than $26 mill a year for Wentz. They pay him now they get him for $26 mill a year. Wait a year and you end up paying him Luck money, assuming he works out. And the consensus is he will. Though you're right there are injury concerns.

There you have it, someone who doesn't get it. Stats simply reflect what happens on the field. What you find, when you look, is that good QBs have good stats and bad QBs have bad stats. And it's not coincidence. It's an opinion that was asked for. I was there, and I watched Fouts. He was certainly better than Ferguson. But in my opinion, formed watching Fouts and Rivers and a lot of QBs - and yes, informed by stats - is that Fouts was very good but Rivers is better. And as I said, there were about 5 - 6 years when Fouts was at his peak but for the rest of his career he wasn't as dangerous as he was during that heyday. If your opinion is different, fine.

Rivers and Montana. Fouts was very good, especially for his time, but he threw a lot of INTs. Some of that was desperation from being on a bad team and being behind a lot. Not all of it. 254 TDs and 242 INTs. It's a bit startling to see. And yeah, it was harder back then to put up great stats, I get that. Still. Plus Fouts had about 5 - 6 years when he was very good and in the rest, he wasn't hitting on all cylinders. I liked Fouts a lot, both then and now, but Rivers is terrific. He's underappreciated.

They're not building the team by bringing in high-priced guys, especially older ones. Williams is good. Not going to be here, though.

He's been solid. Best of luck to him. Yup.

Those are some bizarrely self-confident fans.

It's a major deal for the OL. But other than that, yeah, it's business as usual. Especially this early in the life cycle of the team.

We have talked football with him. Online. Where he's doing pretty close to the opposite of going out of his way to be polite, kind and gracious. That's fine that in person he's a great guy. But he's still responsible for what he says here, including the insults and the undeserved condescension. I might indeed like him in person. I'm pretty different - much mellower and less argumentative and sarcastic - in person myself. But I'm responsible for both of my "selves," the in person and the online persona. And I expect to be judged on what I say as both.

Yup. I don't think it was a mistake that McDermott started accumulating draft capital for a QB well before Beane arrived and far far before McDermott benched Taylor for Peterman.

Yeah, and the Wawrow story, "Bills Not Ready To Talk Rebuild," has "rebuild" in the headline but not the story. And the headline seems to be based on a statement from Eric Wood that they want to win this year. In the first story, you can't tell how the question was phrased but essentially McDermott is talking there about wanting to win. He's not addressing whether they are going to turn over the roster, whether they are going to accumulate draft capital like crazy to bring in a QB, or whether they are going hell-for-leather to get the cap in shape (though as has been pointed out several times, Beane promised the Pegulas in his job interview that he'd get the cap in shape by this year). That's a rebuild, whether you use the word or not. Here's specifically what McDermott said, "... the odds are stacked against McDermott succeeding in the short term, but he refuses to use the word "rebuild" to describe the philosophy being embraced by him and new general manager Brandon Beane. "That's not it at all. It's about winning football games," McDermott said in June. "Our goals are to win now, because winning now helps you sustain success down the road." He's denying a tank.

No, Beane absolutely never said it would not be a rebuild. I've asked other people to provide links on that, and none have. He said it wouldn't be a "tank." Which it wasn't, considering there's never been a tank in football nor probably ever will be. Tank is really a hockey word, maybe another sport or two, but not football. Go ahead and try to find a link where he said it would not be a rebuild. You won't succeed. But the rest of your post is on target. I really like the moves he's made. Definitely made some mistakes, as does everyone. But he's established an extremely sensible plan, followed through, and been smart with extreme consistency.

This is how people talk when you have sucked for ages. And won 6 games last year. And no, they don't need to win a Super Bowl. They just need to become a team that competes for championships ... a top 6 or 8 team.

Without seeing the story you are specifically talking about, this can't really be discussed. I googled "four small steps out cut" and got nothing to do with sports. Then I added "football" and got a lot of soccer stuff. What specifically did they say? Where did you see it? We need to see the exact words to know what you're really referring to here. Generally, though, yeah, route running is immensely technical and guys who are really good at it gain a real advantage over DBs.

You say they ought to tell what they see and the implications. They did. You got irritated. The reporters see pretty clearly that the implications of what they see ... include Bills fans going nuts with their expectations. It's no coincidence that all this fan irritation comes when the media says something fans see as negative about the Bills. You never see threads going "Damn those reporters and their moronic opinions ... for example, here's one by Hank Hacksworth predicting that this front office is making smart decisions and moving the team in the right direction." Plenty of reporters have said stuff like that at various times. Somehow no fans get hacked off at those articles.

Well, fine, if the whole reason you're a fan is to be unrealistic, go do your thing. But you should know from long bitter experience that those who told you to pump the brakes on your unrealism have been right time after time after time after time. Unrealism is an excellent way to be consistently wrong. If you have no problem with that, and with the crash at the end of the season, that's your business. And those Super Bowl seasons came in four years when it was not unrealistic to make that call at all. They weren't coming off a six-win season. They'd gone 12-4 in '88. They'd fallen off the year later but by the end of the year Kelly was again healthy and they'd talked about stopping bickering. The preseason take on the '90 Bills was that if they really had stopped bickering they had a tremendous amount of potential. They were a good team, a team that had been in the playoffs two years in a row, a QB going into his fifth year, and Bruce Smith and Cornelius Bennett. In the last three years they were consistently in the top eight or so teams before the season. In the first year probably top 12 or so. I'm glad you went to the SBs. But this year isn't like 1990. It's not unrealistic every year. It really is this year, though. So you feel it's your self-appointed duty to tell me why I'm wrong. Equally nice. As I've said, if you want to be unrealistic, that's your choice. But don't feel it's everyone's duty not to tell you you're sipping Kool-Aid, though most do it in nicer ways.

You, personally may not need it. Their duty isn't to tell you what you, personally need to hear. They have a larger audience. And plenty of Bills fans are dreaming 10- 11- 12 and 13-win dreams for this season and thinking it's not just possible but that that's the way it looks. You must see a thousand things a day that you then ignore, as we all do, the ads we have to suffer through and try to ignore, on bus stop benches and billboards and T-shirts , the pop-ups. The high-end fashion stores which if you like me you walk past without registering. The homeless guys who want to tell you how to save money, the overweight people who want to spend hours telling you about their diets that really work, the bad husbands that want to teach everyone how to treat women ... don't you find there's a tsunami of things you totally ignore every single day, hell, every hour? If you don't like it, just make this another thing to ignore. Nah, you're misunderstanding them. Nobody, including those reporters, are trying to take away your hopes. They're trying to anchor expectations to reality. There's a vast difference. They aren't saying we aren't getting nine wins. Or even 12. Just that the odds on that last one are really really ... really really high, and for good reason. We're a 6 win team with an OL that's never had one player play next to each other and a bunch of FAs and new draft picks. There's a reason that the over-under started at 6.5 and has now gone up to 7. It's not 10 for good reason. Though taking the upper right now might make a ton of sense.

$11 million base this year and $12 next. $500K roster bonus each year. And $31,250 bonus for each game played. Norman is a good player. But this isn't how they're building this team.

Tetris!!! Seriously. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tetris-shown-to-lessen-ptsd-and-flashbacks/?redirect=1 Keep your phone/computer nearby and play very soon after the heartbreaking losses that bring on your symptoms.

Lynn has indeed earned respect. But he got a team with a terrific QB, a team with a solid base ... at bottom a team that needed a reload. Not a rebuild. Whereas McDermott went through a rebuild. Judging a coach on how many wins he gets in the first couple of years of a rebuild says a lot more about the guy judging than it does the coach. Teams in a near-total rebuild like this one can't reasonably be judged on wins. Rebuilds don't win much the first two years. Comparing wins and thinking it means something is like comparing height between a 6 year old and an 14 year old. You don't learn anything worth knowing about how tall either one is going to be at full growth. Thinking that the 14 year old is taller means something just shows you don't get it. Same with judging a coach in a rebuild on how many wins he gets the first two years. Much respect to Lynn, though. He's done a fine job.

There's another choice. Yeah, you can be a skeptic. Or you can be a pie-eyed Kool-Aid drinker. Or you can withhold judgment. Be hopeful but know there's a lot still to prove. This is the best perspective if you want to see how things are likely to be rather than seeing things the things that confirm your prejudices.

It's not a huge deal, especially for a guy who's been in the same system for years. He hasn't. It's a new system for him and a new QB. Not a very big deal, but it will slow up adjustments and learning. It's who Beckham is, from the way he comports himself. You get a lot of good things when you bring him in, but some bad things come with the package.

Daboll will always be asked to play within the team concept, as any OC is, really. Beyond that, he was in control last year and will continue to be.

Yup. He's gone because of his salary. Not because he wasn't the best TE on the roster. If he were here he still would be. Hopefully some of the younger guys will quickly become better than he was. Hasn't happened yet, though.