Thurman#1

It's an interesting chart. I'd like to see the Bills be more aggressive in this measure. But the Bot recomments going for every 4th and 1. Including your own 9 yard-line. I'm not that aggressive, not if the game's close or especially if you're ahead with some time left. If you don't make it there the opponent get the ball at a place where any team would get 4.5 expected points. I agree that NFL teams are too conservative in this decision. I think the Bot errs a bit on the other side.

Last year they were still getting out of the cap morass Whaley left them in. Yes, the offense was bad. Largely because they spent almost nothing on it in FA. Not to mention cutting/trading a whole bunch of guys whose salaries would have clogged things up for years while simultaneously bringing in draft capital allowing them to move up to get Josh Allen. Yes, the offense was bad last year. This year they are in good cap shape and so they addressed that offence. So yes, this is indeed what professional and responsible cap management looks like in a rebuild. Suffer for a couple of years. Clear space. Handle the space intelligently so that you can fill the most massive gaps and yet leave yourself a bunch of space the next year.

And $45 mill free next year, before this year's unspent money gets rolled over and added in. 9th in the league. They're simply smarter in terms of approach and procedures than a Bills regime has been in a long long time. That doesn't guarantee success, but it's the best way to start to maximize your chances.

They kept 6 WRs both of the last two years. IMO that's the best guess this year as well.

So, to sum up ... you're a Bills fan who is willing to drink Kool-Aid? Don't know if I've ever seen one of those here before. Me, I'm still legitimately hopeful, but as always, from Missouri.

Nicely put. Good post. Particularly the bit about Watkins' salary as being a major part of the equation ... a part of the equation that many here simply refuse to think about.

Looking at their organizational chart, that would be Matt Bazirgan, the Director of Player Personnel. I would think he'd be the defacto GM, with O'Brien supervising. As for the cap, they probably have guys who will help if Bazirgan needs it. Their cap's in decent shape this year, with around $20 mill left and $62 mill next year according to Spotrac. All they have to do from now till February is not screw things up too much. My guess is they can manage that. I'd guess the tough part would be synchronizing Caserio when he come in January or February - assuming they get him - with the scouting staff who have been doing the work. Tough, but not impossible. I'm not a Texans fan and I don't like O'Brien, so I won't mind if this causes big problems, but I don't think it will. I don't think it's a great move, but it might not be so very awful either.

No, "it" didn't happen. That's your interpretation of what actually happened. "Anemic," "untenable," those are your words, with nothing particular to back them up. There's no reason whatsoever to think that Star isn't doing just what they want, or that they're not perfectly happy to pay him the money they gave him. Fair enough about your take in the third paragraph. One-dimensional? Yeah, fair enough. Least productive? Nah. My take is that they're getting what they want from him. They need a guy in the middle to do what he does. It's not like they didn't know what they were getting. McDermott had worked hands-on with the guy for four years in Carolina. He knew who Lotulelei was and what he could do. But your idea that he could start to miss games due to lack of impact is made up out of whole cloth with nothing to base it on but your opinion. And with Lotulelei in the middle, McDermott's built an excellent young defense that's been really productive and efficient. They need a guy to do what he does in McDermott's defense. If they didn't, they wouldn't have acquired him. And they think what he does is worth what they are paying him, which is why they gave him that contract.

This really should be my approach, Shaw. It's what I would do if I saw someone doing this in person. I should probably shake my head sadly and walk on. I'm not sure I'm a good enough person to do that here on the net. It is the smart move, though, no doubt.

Yes, as you point out, if they'd kept Cordy Glenn he might well have started. But as I have pointed out again and again and again ... no matter how much you want to pretend that we didn't have a cap problem, we did. You want to put your hands over your ears and say, "Nonny, nonny, nonny, not listening, no cap problem," that's fine. But we did. Choose to miss the point if you must, but we did, and that's the main reason Glenn was traded. That and of course one of the main reasons we were rebuilding was because we were in pathological need of a possible franchise QB, and the Glenn trade put us in a much better position to get Josh Allen. And yeah, they might have worked with Incognito. If they'd wanted to take on a guy who was showing signs of a massive breakdown. They didn't. Pretty much everyone here but you is fine with that decision. The cap problem was hanging over this team like a thunderhead from Whaley's term here. He'd spent like a team in the last year of a Super Bowl window to produce a mediocre roster that managed seven wins. And I'm not guessing that Beane promised that in the interview. It's been widely reported that he promised to fix the cap at his interview. Again, you want to hide your head in the sand about their cap problems, that's fine, but you'll miss stuff, as you are now, and it will be very obvious to everyone around you.

Everyone's got an opinion. We'll see whether he's right. But in his defence, he's asked for a semi-bold prediction that fans aren't expecting. He says he hadn't thought about it. He then says he reserves the right to change his mind over the next month or two. And while the OP is right that he momentarily said that he predicts that Ford won't start all year long, he pulls that back at the end and his final prediction is that Ford isn't a starter week one. This ain't a big deal.

He failed the Pats physical. https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/patriots/patriots-trade-tight-end-michael-roberts-voided

Yup. If you can't show somebody's argument doesn't make sense ... pretend he said something else. Just go ahead and write up some straw man nonsense and counter your own straw man by yourself. Pretend your opponent compared the Bills WRs to Edelman, AB, Cooper and Beckham and you're doing something saying they don't compare. It's the kind of move these guys need to make fairly often because they just don't have much in the way of sensible arguments.

No, Belichick and Carroll and Kubiak all fit the description just fine. Nothing was said in the original description Scott proposed about whether guys were out of the head coaching ranks for several years. Typical that the already spectacularly restrictive description isn't producing results you like, so you just add in yet another condition and pretend it had been there all along. That they couldn't get a head coaching job after their earlier regimes made massive mistakes by firing them doesn't mean those weren't massive mistakes. And you also ignore the argument he ignored. For the same reason, that the results don't fit your preferred narrative. So, for you too ... Now try and find guys who fit [Scott's proposed] requirements ... "a GOOD HC coach who was mediocre for 4 straight years ... and succeeded ... in the modern day NFL" ... and was kept around longer and failed? There aren't many because of the quick trigger fingers that modern management has adopted. So we've got four examples of success and not all that many examples of failure. It's a strategy that has worked out a good percentage of the few times it's been tried, even in the modern NFL. And you should probably restrict that even further the way you're trying to do when looking at successes. You only want to look at guys who did not have time off from HCing after being fired for doing poorly? Fine. You have to apply the same requirement to failures too, then. How many coaches fit the original requirements plus your new one ... who then failed. The answer will be zero, won't it? If I've missed someone let me know!! Which would mean that even if we go along with your nonsensical extra condition and throw out Belichick and Carroll, leaving only Garrett as a success in the modern game ... would then leave ... who? ... as a failure. In other words, a good strategy that's gone one for one in the modern game, but still isn't being used by owners unable to marshal the patience for it.

The fault about their OL was due to the fact that the 2016 Bills didn't have a great OL except for Incognito and Wood. I forget, didn't something happen to those two. They also had Glenn but needed to trade him for cap relief and to get in a much better place to allow them to draft Josh Allen. Pretty much the same for the WRs. One quite good player in Woods who they couldn't sign for cap reasons and one up and down one in Watkins who they again traded for cap relief and draft capital to bring in Allen. For about the 18th time - no matter how little you want to hear it - they had terrible cap problems that Beane promised the Pegulas in his job interview that he would solve before the 2019 season. Which then forced him to spend very very little money on the 2018 offense to fill the gaps. This year shows what they do when they have cap space. And no, the cap issue was anything but overblown. They took massive action. And got massive results, which is why they so very quickly went from a terrible situation to an excellent one.

I'm not ignoring anything, Shaw. I didn't say he'd been consistent. I said I thought it would've been very difficult for anyone in those circumstances to be consistent. And for the record, in those two years you're talking about, he had 826 offensive snaps in the first, and then 595 in the next. Again, not good circumstances for consistency.

I'd argue Beasley's been very consistent. Beasley took three seasons to find his feet. Since then he's been very consistent indeed. Like most slot guys he doesn't put together a lot of yards, but he's been terrific at catches per target and he's been open a lot more than they've thrown to him. Cashed in a ton of first downs. And I'd further argue it's hard for a WR (in this case Brown) to be consistent when the QBs who are throwing to him during his five years in the league are: Rookie year: Carson Palmer (6 games) and Drew Stanton (696 yards) 2nd year: Carson Palmer (16 games) (1003 yards) 3rd year: Carson Palmer (15 games) and Drew Stanton (517 yards) 4th year: Carson in his ineffective last year (7 games), Drew Stanton (5 games) and Blaine Gabbert (5 games) (299 yards in an injury-plagued season with 5 starts and 10 games) 5th year: Joe Flacco (9 games) and Lamar Jackson (601 yards in Flacco's 9 games and 114 in Jackson's 7) I don't think too many guys would have had consistent production in Brown's circumstances, myself. If Brown stays healthy and Allen raises his game significantly, I think they stand a good chance to be a respectable group. Too many wild cards to get much of a fix on this group but if you keep the bar at "respectable," a solid chance, IMO.

This is a pretty heroically bad take. You're missing the point about rebuilds yet again. Rebuilds take two or more years of badness. The 2017 Rams were in absolutely no way a rebuild. They had the QB they believed - correctly - could become a franchise QB already on the roster. They needed a reload, some work on the OL, an FA WR or two and for their QB to improve a bunch in their second year. They got all those things. You're not comparing apples and oranges when you compare the Rams reload and the Bills rebuild. More like apples and microwaves. Snead, the Rams GM, has been beavering away there since 2012. It simply isn't a rebuild there, or anything close. And again, plenty of the FAs they brought in over the last two years have been very successful for what they were paid and what was expected of them. Offense included. Robert Foster is only one example. There are plenty of others such as McKenzie who was paid less than $300K and despite no training camp and only joining the team in November was solid. For that price he was a terrific pickup. What happened is that except for Josh Allen, they spent almost no significant draft or money resources on the offense. The very low-priced guys they did bring in often performed better than would generally be expected of guys paid like that.

Good point. What's changed? Nothing. Smart evaluators don't label players busts until they're cut or three years have passed. You can often tell good players earlier, but plenty of players who don't do much in their first year or two see the light come on a bit later.

Yeah, no. Carroll is a fine example. One year with the Jets at 6-10. Let go. Took over a New England team that Parcells had taken to 11-5 the year before and watched them erode as he reshaped them, going 10-6, 9-7 and 8-8 and then being fired. Weirdly, though, some people think Pete Carroll is a coach who could take a team to a Super Bowl title if you keep him around a while and give him good players. And no again, that 12-4 record you mention for Jason Garrett came in Garrett's fifth season there. Not the fourth And more, he then went 4-12 in his sixth season. Probably 95% of all teams would have fired him. Dallas didn't, and they're now seeing the benefits. And Belichick's fourth season in Cleveland clearly wasn't a sign that he had turned the corner on that team, for two reasons. First, his fifth season he went 5-11. The second reason is that he was fired after that 5-11 fifth season. And yet ... many people actually seem to feel that Belichick is a good head coach if you put him in a good situation. If the Bills hover around 6 - 8 wins for the next two seasons ... that simply isn't enough evidence, you need to know more. A smart ownership group would need to due a lot more work figuring out what to do there. If the team's not improving behind the scenes, then yeah, the coach should be fired. But wins are often a phenomenon that is subject to a tipping point ... staying low for a while till a lot of upward trends come together and a tipping point is hit. Jason Garrett is an excellent recent example and there are a lot more of them throughout NFL history. If they lose because he lost the locker room, then yeah, jettison him. And fast. If they lose because of injuries, or because Josh Allen is improving but slowly, or simply because they haven't hit the tipping point, the smart owner keeps the coach. And you're ignoring my question for you in the post you replied to here ... for obvious reasons. Namely, that the answer destroys your point. To repeat ... Now try and find guys who fit your own requirements ... "a GOOD HC coach who was mediocre for 4 straight years ... and succeeded ... in the modern day NFL" ... and was kept around longer and failed? There aren't many because of the quick trigger fingers that modern management has adopted. So we've got four examples of success and not all that many examples of failure. It's a strategy that has worked out a good percentage of the few times it's been tried, even in the modern NFL. Typically, though, in a league where most teams aren't run all that well, this promising strategy which succeeded so often in the past hasn't been used that often despite a pretty decent success rate when tried in the old days and in modern days as well.

Yup. None of the others stretch quite so very badly, but there isn't a really solid point in the bunch.

Well, of course the owners don't always know. I didn't say that there's never been a failure with this model. But a smart owner should have a pretty good idea most of the time. The problem is that these days What does being fired have to do with anything? Has McDermott been fired as an HC I don't know about? You are just putting that in there for no reason whatsoever to make it harder to find guys who fit. In any case, Carroll and Belichick fit your qualifications. And since being fired has nothing to do with it ... yet again, look at Jason Garrett and Kubiak as well. Now try and find guys who fit your own requirements ... "a GOOD HC coach who was mediocre for 4 straight years ... and succeeded ... in the modern day NFL" ... and was kept around longer and failed? There aren't many because of the quick trigger fingers that modern management has adopted. So we've got four examples of success and not all that many examples of failure. It's a strategy that has worked out a good percentage of the few times it's been tried, even in the modern NFL. Typically, though, in a league where most teams aren't run all that well, this promising strategy which succeeded so often in the past hasn't been used that often despite a pretty decent success rate when tried in the old days and in modern days as well. And your absolutism about what happens if Allen fails is just wrong. That's one possible outcome if Allen doesn't succeed. There are others.

Maybe a few. I was there too and yeah they booed the ones they thought were fakes. Probably that included a few real ones. But when fans see genuine injuries, it reminds us it's more than a game, it's people's lives as well.

It also tends to be the most realistic way to treat the likelihood of a team that was as bad the year before as we've been most years for the last 19 or so. It's the realist's way when looking at a team that hasn't been very good recently. Particularly for a team that before Allen hadn't had a QB with even a tomato can's chance of becoming a franchise QB in a long time. And IMO while there are a few guys out there predicting 4 or 5 wins, the average and the way the realists are tending to fall is to expect improvement ... just improvement that isn't as fast as the Kool-Aid brigade would like. That's not a negative outcome at all.

They are not few and far between at all. There are tons of them. Most of those many many examples are from a longer time ago. Yes they are fewer and further between recently. But that's the point. Back when teams gave coaches a longer time, there were a lot more success stories. The fact that there are so few now is likely because there are so few chances for it to happen as social media whips up fan outrage faster than ever and gradually erodes the patience of pretty much all of America. A lot of the reason you don't see those success stories anymore is that there are so very very few coaches who get the chance to continue after two or three years of not much winning, regardless of the circumstances. My logic isn't that keeping a guy a long time will work for every coach. There are bad coaches. Keeping them won't help. But there are also good coaches getting fired too early and it happens more and more often. Good owners have to figure out - they have info we don't have and access that is almost infinitely better than ours - to make good decisions about whether the coach and GM are good or not and whether they can work well together. And that if they are good, they should be given more time than they usually get these days. Agreed that their win record will depend greatly on Allen. But if they get the rest of the team functioning very well even if Allen does poorly, they could be here for a while. Bowles I don't really know well enough to say. Frankly, I thought he was a competent guy, but I wasn't paying all that much attention. I am not sure he was the main reason for the quagmire over there. I thought it might well have been the lack of good players rather than bad coaching. Jauron didn't seem to get it. Great guy / bad HC. I wouldn't have kept him. Might have given Gailey more time, though. He was generating offense with poor players. If he could've gotten a really good DC in, I thought he had a chance. But nobody wanted to come here with Mr. Wilson in bad health and the future of the team so up in the air.