Thurman#1

I agree he's in the top 32, but not the top 20. The problem with him is that you can't run an ordinary offense and expect success. Like Tyrod you have to put him in a certain kind of offense to maximize him. If your team is at the beginning of it's cycle and is trying to input one kind of offense, you don't want to bring in Kaep and then have to change things up and stop the learning process for what will be your system for - you hope - the next five years or more. As for Garoppolo vs. Kaep, come on. The thing that made that performance amazing for Garoppolo is that he had thrown 63 previous NFL passes. And no, their stats weren't all that comparable. Garoppolo was throwing for 8.76 YPA (1st in the NFL), in other words, he was putting the ball down the field and making a lot of yards. Whereas Kaepernick threw for 6.49 YPA, a bit lower down than 1st, at 27th among QBs. He was throwing a lot of checkdowns. Kaepernick replaced the 1-4 Gabbert and went 1-10. You can't blame him for those losses, it wasn't a good team. But Garoppolo replaced a 1-4 Beathard and an 0-6 Hoyer and went 5-0. Sorry, but those two seasons were anything but comparable.

No, they didn't "jettison" the talent they lost on the offense. The majority of it was lost by career-ending neck injury and career-ending nutsoism, two of our three three above-average OLs last year, or above-average OLs who played more than five games before season-ending injury, anyway. They did trade away some talent for draft capital and cap relief, but outside of Robert Woods, none of that talent is proving impressive anyway. And yes, you did forget the rebuild ... again. And you're still not getting what a rebuild is if you say McBeane doesn't want to win. They want to win. But their goal is long-term, not short-term. Deal with it, dude. Don't avoid thinking about it. They're sacrificing the short-term for the long-term. This is what a rebuild does. It actually annoyed many of us, me included, that he didn't do a complete rebuild. Instead he kept Tyrod, Kyle W, Incognito and a bunch of others in 2017 that he would have gotten rid of if he'd given up on winning and completely rebuilt. He instead gave them a chance to win, and in a crappy AFC and with a lot of luck from the schedule, they won nine games. Is it hubris in the Rex Ryan mold? No, just the opposite. Rex was so smart and capable - in his own mind - a rebuild wasn't necessary. Sure he could win a title with Tyrod at QB, he thought. It's the reloaders who are full of hubris. Why did a defensive minded coach hang the offense out to dry? Wrong question. Here's the right question ... The right question is, "Why did a defensive minded coach going into the second year of a rebuild with serious cap problems from the previous regime hang that year's offense out to dry, with the tremendous exception of bringing in a QB who may well be their future franchise QB if things work out?" And the answer is in the question. He prioritized the defense. And he prioritized the long-term, which is what rebuilding teams do. He at least brought in a QB who could be the answer down the road. And the cap problems handcuffed him even further and losing Incognito and Wood pretty much drove the final nails into the coffin of the 2018 Bills offense. Not the Bills offense. The 2018 Bills offense. And that's what a rebuild does. It guarantees suffering for a year or two for a greatly increased chance of success in the long term. Not a guarantee. This could fail, as could any personnel strategy. But it is the strategy that contains the greatest chance of long-term success.

Back then we weren't in a rebuild. Now we are. Wins are a team stat, not a QB stat.

That isn't much of a post. Ridiculous from the first minute. The first job is to motivate? Good grief, hire a cheerleader if that was the case. Players are pros, they're motivated. It's a part of the job but nowhere close to most important. Beane isn't doing his job? Jeez. The most any Beane draftee has had is eight games of experience. And you want to judge him? Bizarre. Again, Beane has only had one draft. He's the one in charge of personnel acquisition, though he undoubtedly asks advice from McD. As for Beane not working out, we should know by around 2022. Thinking you can judge by the personnel on the roster in the second year of a rebuild is pretty sad stuff. Winning is a habit. So is losing. They are both habits that can be broken, mostly by building a good roster. If you'd like a team not to be embarrassed by ... wait till the second year of the near-complete rebuild is past. Because this is what they look like. Embarrassing. Unpleasant. It does indeed suck. If they still look like this a year or two from now, they would deserve the criticism.

Nor anywhere else, not for $20 mill. Some of these guys will re-sign, but there's plenty out there. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2783459-an-early-look-at-the-2019-nfl-free-agent-class#slide3 1. Odell Beckham Jr., New York Giants 2. Brandin Cooks, Los Angeles Rams 3. Stefon Diggs, Minnesota Vikings 4. Golden Tate, Detroit Lions 5. Larry Fitzgerald, Arizona Cardinals The top five free-agent wide receivers only scratch the surface of potential movement. Beckham, Cooks and Diggs are 25 years old or younger and established No. 1 targets. Tate is the game's best after the catch. Fitzgerald will again consider retirement next offseason, but three straight 100-reception seasons say he's far from done. Randall Cobb, Kelvin Benjamin, Devin Funchess, Martavis Bryant, Jermaine Kearse, Rishard Matthews, Donte Moncrief, Cole Beasley, Tyler Lockett and Tyrell Williams are wonderful second-tier options. Whatever skill a team lacks in its passing game, it can find in free agency next year.

Your last sentence is ridiculous. You'll pay or win unless your health is much worse than can be expected. I'd do it. $100 isn't going to break me. Yeah. Could've picked up a hundred bucks or so.

Don't feed the trolls. Already being discussed in multiple other threads and this one adds nothing whatsoever. Nothing.

He wasn't. But the last three weeks or so the light appears to have come on.

Yeah, our offense is awful. And our defense is good. McDermott and Beane put together both. Not just the offense. They put almost no resources into the offense outside of bringing in Allen. McDermott is a defensive coach, it wasn't a surprise to see them prioritize the D. They're likely to spend a lot more resources on the offense next year. They're in Dorsey's second year, correct? Yup, same very reasonable argument still holds. They're still very early in Dorsey's build. Not that either team should be happy with recent history. But both fan bases can feel real hope for the future.

The LA Rams are in around the 6th year of their rebuild. Check the GM. He's been there a while, putting things together. Reid's been there awhile too and though the Rams ran a partial rebuild, the Chiefs didn't. The Chiefs, outside QB, weren't awful. They had some good talent to start with in Jamaal Charles, Dwayne Bowe, Moeaki, Branden Albert, Tyson Jackson, Dontari Poe, Justin Houston, Derrick Johnson, Tamba Hali, Eric Berry and Kendrick Lewis. And because they were in good cap shape, Reid managed to bring in Alex Smith to play QB. Both teams were really lucky, because the previous year's team had two wins.With that kind of background to your hiring, you can get an impact player at ground zero. A complete rebuild, or near-complete in the Bills case, is different. The second year will suck.

The talent wasn't there. We made the playoffs through a real accumulation of luck. The first bit of luck was an easy schedule (126-130 with most opponents from the weak AFC giving them their own weak schedules) The second bit of luck was that that schedule was made a ton easier by playing two of the good teams we played, KC and Atlanta, right in the middle of the only slumps of their season. Atlanta was in a three-game slump in a season where they never lost more than one game in a row elsewhere and that was made even worse by having Julio Jones injured and out of the Bills game. The Chiefs were in a four-game slump that you could argue was a seven-game slump with one win coming from beating an awful Denver team in the middle. But the biggest chunk of luck was making the playoffs with a 9-7 record. Most years 9-7 won't get you in but we were in a seriously weak AFC that year, and that was very lucky indeed. Watkins has 453 yards in 8 games. In other words, he's on track for a season of 906 yards. While being thrown to by a QB who's playing lights out in an offense that doesn't let teams double Sammy easily. Three TDs. For $16 mill a year. So by average salary he's the 6th highest paid WR in the league and for that money his production is this: 453 yards (30th in the league) and 3 TDs (in a 24-way tie for 34th position, so he's in the top 58 in the league). And that's not a bad year for Sammy. Glenn plays LT, a highly-paid position that we have filled. Woods was a great bargain for the Rams. Would've been great if we could've kept him. But teams in serious salary cap situations have to give up players they would like to keep, as do teams trying to put together enough draft capital in trades to be sure of bringing in a franchise QB.

For the limited amount of time in which it is inevitable to suck in a rebuild, yeah. Same as it's a bad thing to be immature, but actually OK when you're eight or ten years old. Not so much when you're 23, though.

Where do the Bills have more than three? The Bills tendency through the years has been to reload, even when the talent clearly wasn't there. One of the Bills rebuilds was the one led by Polian and Levy. The unfortunate QB-less Nix-led failure was another. The year they picked OJ was another, probably, though the head coach was so awful the improvement would maybe never have occurred if he hadn't been replaced by a Bills icon. The Bills have a lot more reloaders than rebuilders. Rex, Marrone, Jauron, Mularkey, Gregg Williams, Wade, all reloaders. You can make an argument for Gregg Williams, but bringing in Bledsoe and a bunch of other moves always made it seem more like a forced cap dump followed by a reload to me. In any case, nobody says that rebuilding is perfect. It isn't. In fact, it sucks. The only solution that's any worse are all the others. I'm with KellytheDog above that they should've done it earlier and made the rebuild complete. But they didn't and at least we don't have to hear people moan about the playoff streak anymore. Do I think McDermott is in that class? I have no idea. Nor does anyone else. Before those rebuilds, Walsh, Johnson and Carroll weren't yet in that category. And all of them suffered through a ton of "See how horrible this guy is ... he's had long enough and he's proved he's a loser ... dump him fast" knee-jerk criticism in the middle of those rebuilds. If they'd really wanted to gut the team last year, John, they'd have traded Tyrod. And Kyle Williams and probably Hughes. McCoy and Incognito for sure. Could've lost a bunch more games and had a better draft pick. And not had to trade away so much to pick a QB this year. I agree with the rest of your post here, though. this coming year they'll work on the offense.

Correct answer: we'll know in two to four more years. I wanted one of the other three of the big four, and I certainly hoped they'd pick Rosen over Allen when they traded up. But I still thought Allen deserved to be drafted as high as he was, and I'm on record about that. But it'll take Allen a lot longer to reach his potential probably. On the other hand, Rosen might be injury-prone. Too early to know. We'll know in two to four more years.

Tyrod's a character guy and a tremendous physical talent. But he's not a guy who you want mentoring a young guy. He's never shown a real command of the passing game. And he's a guy who requires a certain kind of offense to maximize. You also don't want to have the team running a different offense than the one they want to run the next few years after Allen (hopefully) sees the light come on. I bet Tyrod has a long NFL career, but my guess is he's eventually going to be a backup, and not for a guy who needs a mentor. Please provide the link, brother. Thanks. Makes it easier for anyone who wants to respond. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000979101/article/players-attracting-interest-ahead-of-trade-deadline I'm not clear who Austin Knoblauch, the guy who wrote this, is, other than the "Digital content editor." I don't see this at all, myself.

In two years the Allen project won't have an outcome, at least it won't unless he becomes terrific in that short time. I'm not convinced Allen will ever be a franchise guy. But we're talking about a guy who was said from minute one to require a year or two of development. Mayock said he should be drafted by a team that could let him sit for a couple of years. Highly unlikely that anyone will be putting an end to this project by the end of 2019.

Nah. Rodgers started out at a low level. He had about the best development process anyone could have, under about the best teacher anyone could have. McCarthy changed his motion and taught him the position. McCarthy is considered a QB guru. Tyler Dunne has a great story about it here: http://archive.jsonline.com/sports/packers/mccarthy-can-teach-qbs-with-anyone-el6mfil-168285666.html/ "He's considered an architect of the quarterback position, the modern-day standard. McCarthy has worked with Joe Montana, Rich Gannon, Steve Bono, Matt Hasselbeck, Brett Favre, Aaron Brooks and, of course, Aaron Rodgers. But he never even played the position. McCarthy was a tight end at Baker University (Kan.). His first job? Coaching linebackers at Fort Hays State. The making of this Quarterback M.D. is rooted in his first 10 years as a coach. McCarthy did "the whole sleep-in-the-office thing." Other stuff from the Dunne story: "Over their four years together, Gannon started only 19 games. But it was McCarthy who helped Gannon morph from journeyman to juggernaut. Behind the scenes, he revitalized the quarterback's career. Eventually in Oakland, Gannon would make four Pro Bowls, earn league MVP honors and reach the Super Bowl ... 'He was so organized and so detailed and had such a good way of breaking it down - and he was such a young coach at the time,' Gannon said. 'If I had his quality of coaching early in my career, boy, things would have gone a lot smoother. He just took it to another level.'" "On the field during his QB school, McCarthy forced his charges to visualize a defense. Before a snap - no defense, no receivers, no linemen on the field - he'd call out a defensive formation, such as 'under front, three sky with a Mike blitz,' Gannon said. On the fly, the quarterback had to drop back and react with proper footwork. 'So it's all mental,' Gannon said. 'We got so many mental reps, we were so, so, so far ahead.'" Rodgers sucked his first three training camps and preseasons. McCarthy's "QB camp" was huge for Rodgers, including changing his throwing motion. "Before he got drafted, I worked out with [Rodgers] and now he's a totally different quarterback." - Jerry Rice And the long long time beat writer for the Pack, Bob McGinn, while explaining why he'd take Favre over Rodgers, says the same thing: "The MMQB: You documented how fortunate it was that Aaron Rodgers didn’t have to play the first couple of years—he just wasn’t ready. McGinn: “He was a very poor player here for his first two summers and regular-season practices. Fortunately for him, and he knows that down deep, he didn’t have to play early. His delivery was a mess, bad body language, he didn’t know how to deal with teammates. He learned so much from Brett Favre on how to in some ways be one of the guys and relate, and he became much more of a leader. He was really poor and how many great players have ever had a start like that? Not that many. A lot of scouts look at that exhibition tape those first two years and he was a little bit better the third year, but not to any degree, and then he just really developed. He lost a lot of close games in ’08, but by ’09 he was playing great and by 2010 he was maybe the best in the business." https://www.si.com/mmqb/2017/06/13/themmqb-exit-interview-bob-mcginn-green-bay-packers-milwaukee-journal-sentinel-nfl-beat-writer Rodgers was lucky he didn't have to play early. He didn't look good at GB till into his fourth year.

Yes, you have to sign FAs. No, you don't have to build by signing the high-priced guys. The Pats, Steelers, Ravens, the consistent teams fill in with low- to mid-priced guys while drafting their core players. The Packers signed almost nobody. It was an interesting experiment but it didn't work on defense.

The night before a game? Not a good look at all. Wonder if it's Dareus. I'll be interested to see the names. EDIT: Nope, at least according to Deadspin, it's Barry Church, Ronnie Harrison, DJ Hayden and Jarrod Wilson, and all but Church were arrested but none wound up being charged. https://deadspin.com/jaguars-players-arrested-released-after-misunderstand-1830055056

Ah, the sound of a man surrendering while still trying to insist he's right. The goal posts aren't moving, Avi. I've challenged you five times now, in pretty much the same exact words each time. You aren't coming up with any because there aren't any. But hey, let's make sure the goal posts aren't moving. I challenge you again, in exactly the same words I used in the first challenge. I'll just copy it right to here. You said this: And on Tuesday at 8:44, I said this: Goalposts ain't moving, Avi. You just don't have a football to kick through them. Still waiting.

You don't do this with me because I don't engage with you except when you say something that doesn't make much sense, and because of that you nearly always lose the arguments. You're losing the argument here and you don't respond with a single specific. Again, still waiting for all those national musings about "being annual contenders for the playoffs" you talked about.

Yup. Yeah, them too. The Ravens, the Pack. As DPBerr suggested above, I think the Panthers are there too. Falcons? Maybe even the Vikings? I'm running low, but that's just it, there aren't all that many. To join them you've got improve as a whole organization and maintain some consistency. By rebuilding, getting the cap in order and installing their culture. And consistently improving. Of course, easier said than done. But it is possible in the long term.

Fourth time now I've asked you for all these national musings you reference here. Fourth time I've asked you for any article mentioning "being annual contenders for the playoffs" or anything like it. And strangely enough ... I'M STILL WAITING, AVI!!!!!

As always, you talk, but you never make the point you think you make. It's a weird kind of underachievement, but even when the Bills don't underachieve, you do. You try first to say we didn't underachieve by pointing out the after-season rankings ... ONE rankings. More, the rankings you point out, if they're totally factual and we don't challenge them at all prove precisely the opposite of what you're trying to prove. When you average out those ranking scores - the ones in your own link - they come out to 20.7 ... they say the Bills average out at between the 20th and 21st best team in the league. And yet, the 20 links you're trying so sadly and unsuccessfully to answer predicted before the season that the Bills would average out at 26.47. Meaning they were predicted to end up between 26th and 27th and they actually ended up 20th and 21st if we completely believe your link. What a joke, Avi. You proved they over-achieved. And crowed about it, thinking you'd done the opposite. What a joke. As for your second point, of course they'd begun the teardown. They'd inherited a sub-mediocre roster that was paid as if they Super Bowl contenders. But it was you who used the word under-achieved. You don't underachieve this year with last year's roster. It makes no sense. You under-achieve or over-achieve based on who is on your team. Judging it by people who aren't on your team is ... what? ... under-imagined-achievement? Imaginary-achievement-guessing? And the 2016 Bills team didn't underachieve much either. They weren't especially talented. Offensive starters: Tyrod Taylor, LeSean McCoy, Marquise Goodwin, Sammy Watkins, Robert Woods, Charles Clay, Cordy Glenn, Richie Incognito, Eric Wood, John Miller and Jordan Mills. Defensive starters: Adolphus Washington, Kyle Williams, Marcell Dareus/Corbin Bryant, Preston Brown, Lorenzo Alexander, Zach Brown, Jerry Hughes, Ronald Darby, Stephon Gilmore, Corey Graham, Aaron Williams/Ihedigbo And with that lineup they'd put themselves in cap trouble. Pitiful. The decent players there are either still here (McCoy, Clay, Kyle Williams, Lorax, Hughes), or off the team due to salary cap decisions (Gilmore (performing very well), Watkins, Goodwin, Dareus (perhaps as much a result of not showing up to meeting as a cap decision but these three are still underperforming their contracts), Robert Woods (having a terrific year, the real major loss of these cap casualties), not scheme fits (Darby, who's having a bad year but I think will be fine down the road). Or retired due to injury or craziness (Aaron Williams, Eric Wood, Incognito). The rest are nonentities. That was a mediocre lineup that was being wildly overpaid ... to win a mediocre seven games.

We weren't that talented. We had managed to put together a roster that was sub-mediocre and yet wildly expensive. I've already answered this question about four times, but what's it indicative of? It's indicative that we're in the second year of a near-complete rebuild. The second year of a near-complete rebuild will suck. That's what it does.That's who it is. Has Belichick ever cut his own throat? No. But that's not what we have done here either. Has Belichick ever cut talented players because they didn't fit his scheme or they were too expensive ... even when he only had less talent behind that guy? Yeah. He does it every single year. He cut Richard Seymour, Chandler Jones, Nate Solder, Jamie Collins, Terry Glenn off the top of my head ... any list of the players he's cut when he had worse as replacements would probably go into triple figures. Has Belichick done a rebuild? Yeah. Not a full rebuild like ours but he churned that Pete Carroll roster very quickly indeed. Look at the 1999 Pats roster the year before he arrived. Then look at his roster the next year. With one quick look I think I see 11 starters gone. Look at what he did in Cleveland. Kosar gone, Webster Slaughter, Ozzie Newsome. He inherited a worse roster in Cleveland than he did in NWE and he cut and purged to his heart's content ... something he still does in New England to this day.