Thurman#1

You didn't say they were keeping Woods, Gilmore, Goodwin or Tyrod. But if you think they weren't then you're missing the point. They wouldn't have kept Dareus and the others unless they were reloading instead of rebuilding. And if they were reloading they'd have had to try to keep as much talent as possible, precisely including the guys I mentioned. If you didn't get that, it's exactly because ... well, you didn't get it. And yes, they could have been a better football team ... this year. They might easily have won an extra two or three games and ended up winning six or seven ... at the cost of continual suckage into the future. Sure, they could have traded hope for the future for less immediate suckage. THANK ... GOD ... THEY ... DIDN"T!! This way they got Allen and hope for the future. Yeah, they could have continued in a crappy cap situation, traded away their next year's first and more ... to stick with a lineup you appear to think was talented ... a lineup that managed to get us seven wins with all the "proven commodities in the league" that they had. What they had there was seven-win talent. Corrected things for you. The Pegulas knew how awful this offense would be. Not precisely how awful, but they knew it would be very bad. To be honest, pretty much everyone except a small coterie of Kool-Aid abusing Bills fans did too, just by looking at the roster. The Pegulas knew they signed on for a rebuild. So did anyone with much sense. You're fantasizing here. Get used to McDermott for at absolute minimum another year. Oh, and the idea that this all depends on the offense is actually nutty. It's code language for "I hate McDermott." Fine, hate him, but don't let your hate blind you to reason. When it finally does come time to rate him, a year or two from now, on current results after the rebuild starts to rebuild, he absolutely won't be evaluated on the offense. He is the head coach. He will be evaluated on the entire team. Which right now is not just an awful offense. It also contains an excellent defense. He'd be evaluated on BOTH of those and the STs besides. That will happen once the inevitably horrible first couple of rebuild years passes.

No. The difference between the Bills and teams like the Eagles, Rams and Chiefs was that those three teams were at a totally different point in their team building plans. Those teams were not in the first two years of rebuilds. Not even close, actually. Whereas the Bills are right there, early in a rebuild. Addition by subtraction is a method used early in rebuilds. It is not used late in rebuilds and it is not used in reloads. And since all of those teams you cite are either late in rebuilds or reloading instead of rebuilding ... of course they didn't do that. The Bills had neither the cap situation nor the roster talent to reload, though and that's why they rebuild, necessitating the bloodletting it takes to get a team very quickly from salary cap hell to salary cap sanity and at the same time get the draft pick to bring in a potential franchise QB. It was completely necessary once they decided to rebuild. And in fact, since it has been reported that in their job interviews they promised the Pegulas that they would clean up the cap by the end of this year, the moment they were hired ... this became necessary.

We're not likely to be after "premium offensive talent," in free agency. They have committed to building through the draft and in this article Beane makes a point of saying they will spend "judiciously." Which is what the best teams, the ones who are competitive consistently, do. We'll fill in with low- and medium-priced FAs. And we have a number of spots, particularly on the offense, where that would be a real upgrade and fill holes. It's not lacking even slightly. It's a very convincing argument. The problem wasn't time. As we all knew, and as he further says in this very article, money was at a premium. They were in awful cap shape from the Whaley era and they committed to the owners to fix that by the end of the season. Doing that meant there were only so many holes that could be filled this year. And the young and inexperienced QB should have been on the bench all of this year. When that didn't happen - due to the mistake Beane owns up to making in QB depth - Allen ended up in games. But yeah, they absolutely need to make protecting Allen a major goal going forward.

It was the Jets. And a QB for the Bills nobody had any video on. We still have the same needs. RT, RG and C are major needs, along with slot receiver. A couple of years ago, Clay was getting open all the time. I don't see that anymore, so unless Croom really gets better, TE could stand an upgrade as well. If Teller continues looking good, that's one need met, IMHO. Other than that, still the same needs, I think.

Try FootballOutsiders. Their drive stats are excellent. https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/drivestatsdef2018 And yeah, the Bills defense gets the third-worst average drive start in the league this year, a huge handicap. Not only that, but the average defense has faced 102 drives so far this year, while the Bills defense has faced 114, another major disadvantage. 4th-worst in the league. While the offense gets the 7th best drive starts combined with the third-most total drives, a huge advantage. The defense is very good, and the offense is handicapping them considerably. But nobody should need stats to tell them that. It's clear to the naked eye.

Exactly. Points Allowed is probably 25 - 40% offense and STs. Hell, Peterman has thrown three pick-sixes this year. Should those 21 points really be counted against the defense? In no way. Yards Allowed is virtually all on the defense.

High draft pick, please. I was hoping for a two-win season. Damn. Now I'm hoping for a three-win season, ideally with some visible improvement on the field while still losing. Of course, the players should play to win. But that's not even a question. They will. The question is what fans should root for, and for the long-term good of the team the best thing to hope for is a high draft pick this year and the wins to start coming next year.

No offense, dude, but you didn't know. Your educated guess/opinion turned out to be correct. But nobody knows for sure, ever. And if it had been all that obvious, Mahomes wouldn't have fallen so far. You did well there. I had him as a maybe/maybe not, personally. Tables did not run away from me in fear of being pounded. But as I've said to you before, you're saying McDermott didn't know. And a lot of that may be because the GM he was working with at the time, Doug Whaley, had been all in on the EJ Manuel pick. McDermott was in the driver's seat in that draft, but he was still relying on Whaley and Whaley's scouts. McDermott isn't a personnel guy and he's particularly not a personnel guy with much expertise on the offensive side of the ball. And we don't even know what Whaley was saying. Maybe Whaley hated Mahomes. No way to know. McDermott may well have been taking a very intelligent tack, saying, "I'm not an expert here, and by next year I should have a GM I can get along with in here. I know next year is a good year for QBs. Why don't I wait a year and work with a GM I trust and who is hopefully a lot better than me at picking QBs. We can collect a ton of draft capital this year and be ready to trade up and get one of the big group from next year." That would make sense and be the opposite of concerning.

What history generally shows is that guys go to whoever pays the most, winning team or losing. And yeah there are a few who don't do it that way. But probably 90% do. The ones who don't tend to be the guys looking for a third contract who've already made a ton of money. There are a few cases when it helps. Guys going with one-year prove-it contracts, especially if they play complementary positions like WR or RB, are going to want to be in good situations. A WR doesn't want to have a prove-it contract with a team with poor QBing and an RB looking for a prove-it contract doesn't want to joint a team with a poor OL. But overall it generally comes down to who pays the most. Oh, and yes, we were never tanking. Tanking is a basketball and hockey word. We were rebuilding and absolutely valuing the long-term over the short-term but you're right that it was never a pure rebuild where they gave zero thought to winning this year. They proved that the minute they hung on to Tyrod and Kyle Williams and Shady last year.

Yeah, if those were the only moves that would have been different if they had reloaded instead of rebuilding. But it shouldn't even be necessary to point this out but those are very much NOT the only moves they made differently based on long-term strategy. And yest the results would have been a continuation of cap hell.

Who talks nationally about the Bills? Everyone, that's who. Yeah, they spend far more time on the good teams but they talk about everyone to some degree. And they're often far more on target than Bills fans because they're not emotionally involved. Who was closer on win counts this year, the national pundits or cheery Bills fans? Oh, and is Dareus a better player than Star? Right now? The evidence on that is simply not there. Dareus no longer gets much of a pass rush. He's turned into a far more expensive Lotulelei. Dareus used to be terrific, but he hasn't been the same guy the last three years or so. Dareus has one sack, one tackle for loss and one QB hit this year. If he's better, it's not by all that much. Dareus is only "slightly more expensive"? $16 mill per year vs. $10 mill per year? I think you're straining the word "slightly" there. That's comparing the 4th highest average salary for DTs versus the 15th highest. "Sammy is a #1 WR on most teams", you say? Man, I think you're flat-out dreaming. Five years and 3567 yards and 28 TDs. In what universe are those #1 WR numbers. How many #1 WRs have one out of their five seasons over 1000 yards, and none of them are in the last three years? He isn't even the best receiver on that team or his team last year. Two guys have more catches than him just on the Chiefs, and he's in a two-way tie for third in TDs, just among the Chiefs. Hill has three times more TDs than Sammy and Kelce twice more. Watkins is a #2. Guy's been paid on potential his whole career and nothing is changing now. He's 31st in yards, in a multi-place tie for 43rd in TDs. You don't become a #1 WR based on how many yards and catches and TDs you might get if they threw it to you much. I always liked Sammy and I thought he was going to be a #1. I still hope he becomes one. But right now he isn't even close. And yes, the Bills are overpaying Benjamin. But the fact that the Bills are overpaying (two years for $9 million, $8.5 of which is for this year, but he's off the roster next year w/ no dead cap) for the 24th highest paid WR if you use this year's salary only, is no excuse whatsoever for KC's wildly overpaying the 6th highest paid WR in the league with a contract that will keep him there for years.

Your question is subtly spinning. Watkins, Dareus, Glenn and Darby aren't the only moves they made to save cap. They made a ton of them. So, to unspin, I'll ask the correct question: Simple question: How much cap room would the Bills have this offseason if they hadn't rebuilt, if they'd reloaded instead. Simple answer: A whole shitload less. Instead of being #3 in the league next year in available cap rankings they'd probably be somewhere similar to what they were last year going into the offseason, #26. We'd still probably have Tyrod at QB, and Robert Woods (ah, Tyrod racking up the yards throwing to Watkins and Woods. Yeah, the good old days and all those 300 yard games. I remember it well. From my imagination.) And Gilmore. Marquise Goodwin, maybe. Now to look at your (well-spun) question alone, and give a rough answer based on average salary per year (if you want to be more specific, do your own research, which you could have done in the first place): Watkins: $16 mill Dareus: $16 mill Glenn: $12 mill Darby: Hard to say as this is the last year on his contract. Would we have franchised him? I'll say yes, though he's not playing all that well this year in Philly. $16 mill. Total $60 mill Lotulelei $10 mill Benjamin $0 (his contract ends this year and I don't see them re-signing him, do you?) Murphy $7.5 mill Davis $0 He retired. I'm guessing the Bills go after his bonuses and guarantees. Could they be denied? Maybe, but my guess is they win. Total $17.5 mill Net difference $42.5 mill, just on the guys you mentioned. Throw on Tyrod's salary, Gilmore's, Robert Woods', and Goodwin's and since they're reloading instead of rebuilding they move as much of Incognito's and Wood's dead money from this year to next ... and a few other reload rather than rebuild moves and you're right back in the salary cap crap. And you don't have Josh Allen unless you threw in next year's first or more to go from #22 to #7.

Yeah, if I'd said anything about what Belichick says, you'd have a point. Since I didn't mention or reference anything about this, as seems absolutely standard for you recently, you're completely off-target and your point is totally irrelevant. I'm getting to the point with your recent posts where I feel I don't have to answer because they don't require rebuttal as they're so far off-point they serve as their own best invalidation.

Nah. Points are the most important thing, of course, but points allowed does NOT isolate the defense. Yards allowed does. Points allowed does not. Does three pick sixes thrown by Peterman mean the defense sucks? In any way? It does if you go by points scored. Does any points scored against the STs or the offense mean the defense stinks? It does if you go by this stat. If a Bills fumble is picked up and run back to the one yard line mean that the defense sucks if the opponent scores? It does if you go by this stat. Does a Bills fumble run back to the one yard line when the defense holds and forces a field goal reflect badly on the defense? It does if you go by this. The defense allowed three points, according to this measure. Field position is HUGE in scoring. Scoring is a whole team stat. It's probably 60 - 70% on the defense but the offense and STs are a huge component of points allowed. Yards on the other hand isolates the defense from the offense and STs very effectively indeed. And no, the defense isn't #1. But top ten? Yup, absolutely.

First, read carefully. Make sure you understand correctly. Only after that, comment. They didn't say they Bills have the 27th ranked defense. They said they had the 27th ranked TEAM. Not defense. Rodak's comment, that they aren't the #1 defense as the YPG figure would indicate, is extremely reasonable. They shouldn't be considered the #1 team. But yeah, probably top ten. The only "fireable offense" here should be your serious misunderstanding of what you're reading.

So, your first sentence is a guess based on absolutely nothing. Your second has no apparent meaning. Yeah, I used "if" twice. And yeah it was based on an article. There's nothing wrong with using "if." Check the dictionary, it's a legitimate word. And yeah, hearsay. I am indeed reporting something that journalists with sources have reported. In court that's a problem. In the real world it means I've made my point. My "if" is based on a source. Your "maybe" has nothing to back it up. Man, that's one horrendous post, dude. To repeat: Nah. You don't "ride the coattails of Belichick and Saban." They don't hire guys they don't respect and they don't tolerate hangers-on. Belichick had him as a coach from 2002 - 2006 and then hired him again in 2013 and then promoted him. That doesn't happen with Belichick unless you're doing your job and doing it very well. And the Boston Herald reported that if McDaniels left, they would see if Daboll was available. And that if McDaniels had left last year Daboll would have got the OC job. https://247sports.com/nfl/new-england-patriots/Bolt/Bill-Belichick-would-check-in-on-Alabamas-Brian-Daboll-if-Josh-McDaniels-leaves-the-New-England-Patriots-113078544/

Of course they'll be back. Allen could sit on the bench or look like developmental rookies look and they will be back. And yes the offense got worse, but this is to be expected. Getting worse is what happens to teams doing a near-complete rebuild. Particularly teams that started out in serious cap trouble. And yes they were in cap trouble. Out of all the people we lost in this cap purge, I agree with you that Woods and Gilmore were the biggest losses. I wanted to keep them both at the time. They were the only two I felt that way about. And they didn't trade Darby for Matthews. They traded Darby for a 3rd round pick so that they could be sure they'd have enough trade capital to be able to get one of the top four QBs, and got Matthews on top of that. Lotulelei is worth every penny. And how come you folks who spend so much time talking about how bad the offense is don't spend the same amount of time talking about how good the defense is? Exactly. Because you only want to mention what's wrong. Things going right don't fit your narrative. And yes the dead cap space is because they got rid of "talent". If they had kept that "talent" they'd have almost no dead cap space but almost exactly the same cap situation this year (the money they spent on dead cap space this year is almost exactly what they saved this year on salary and roster bonuses and stuff. But the huge advantage of accumulating that dead cap space this year is that next year those guys are off the books, whereas if they weren't we'd still be in cap trouble the next few years paying guys like Sammy (assuming we'd ponied up to keep him) and Dareus to underperform their contracts. Murphy's been alright when healthy. "Davis, Gaines, Bodine all terrible"? Good lord, what a horrible point. At least it makes your objective here - finding anything to nitpick and B word about - as plain as the nose on your face. Davis was OK but quit. Costing us less than a mill on the cap assuming they get his signing bonus back, which they are likely to do. Gaines is like veteran minimum for half a season. These guys aren't expensive. Outside of Davis quitting they were cheap fill-ins who are playing like that. They also brought in Poyer and Hyde. Strangely, you didn't mention them along with Davis, Gaines and Bodine. Wonder why that is.

Sorry, man, but that cap thing is true. And pretty much everyone knows it, nationally. It's really only a few Bills fans arguing otherwise. The reason they were able to sign Poyer and Hyde in McDermott's first offseason here was because they had already started a cap purge and knew they had to continue it the next year. Together those two totalled less than $10 mill a year. Those were not big signings. They were both very reasonable. For example, they signed those two for just over half of what they saved by trading Watkins. They signed Poyer and Hyde because they felt they could do that and still get the cap in line so that by 2019 they would have a ton of money to spend. And as they have shown, they were correct. They absolutely did have to do what they did. First because they had told the Pegulas at the interview that they would get the cap in order by the end of 2018. And second because it's how good teams operate. You occasionally see good teams cornering themselves if they feel they're in a Super Bowl window. Needless to say, we are not in a Super Bowl window. And yeah, they chose a difficult path. The only more difficult path would have been all the others. There is no easy path from a team in cap trouble with an average lineup and no QB to being a consistent contender. A complete rebuild is almost certainly the highest-percentage way to go. But there is no easy way. Expect Beane to be here five years at a minimum unless the team absolutely self-combusts over the next couple of years. But looking at their drafts the past two years, my guess is that we'll still see both of them here for another five years or so at least.

Yes, Drew Brees was good with the Chargers. In his fourth year, after one year on the bench and then two of poor play (more INTs than TDs and a total YPA of about 6.0 for those two years and a passer rating in the very low 70s). He needed an awful lot of development, as do many. And this being the modern NFL doesn't change anything. Mahomes is as modern a story as it's possible to get. He sat and developed and that was a very very good thing. And yes you have seen QBs take two or three years to turn into a franchise guy. Cam Newton for one was terrific running the ball early on but when teams figured out how to defend him, for three or four years there were real questions whether he'd ever be a franchise guy or be more than mediocre in the passing game. Kirk Cousins says hi. Eli Manning too. Whether you like the term "project QB" is beside the point. If you don't like it, use a different term. But they're still out there, whatever term you use and they still need development. Not every guy is one. But some are. Oh, Bradshaw wasn't the driver of that Pittsburgh team? Come on. Yeah, they had a good team. But Bradshaw was a terrific QB - after two or three years of development - and without him they don't win those Lombardis. Their offense was 5th, 5th, 7th, 1st, 10th and 8th those years. And I'd take Aikman over Kelly, much as I like Jimbo. Aikman was accurate as hell. And yes after two or three years Aikman had a terrific lineup around him, but so did Kelly. Brett Favre ... took a season on the bench to learn. I think it's pretty likely that during that first year he stopped not knowing "jack about nickel and dime defenses." And for his first year or two of play he was far from "crushing it." Over his first two years on the field, after sitting for a year, he threw 37 TDs and ... wait for it ... 37 INTs. His passer rating for those two years comes out in the 70s, and while passer ratings were definitely lower then, he wasn't crushing it. He looked like he might have a future. His fourth year in the league was when he started playing like Brett Favre. ----------------------------------- As for why Eli didn't want to go to SD, it was more understandable at the time. LT was playing really well, but Gates had just finished a so-so rookie year where he had 24 catches for 389 yards. And who's Chris Chambers? I looked and nobody of that name was on the Chargers roster in either Manning's rookie year or his last year in college. There was a guy of that name at WR on the Chargers in parts of 2007 and 2009 and all of 2008. That Chambers was far from spectacular. SD looked like a franchise that didn't know how to win. They were coming off a 4-12 season. Eli was a rookie in 2004 and SD's last winning season was 1995, a 9-7 season.

Nonsense that he needs to start. Did Mahomes need to start as a rookie? EDIT: Oh, it hasn't been decided? Horrible thread, then.

You headline says, "A number one". No, I think the odds are miniscule. But your post says "THE number one," I guess meaning our best receiver. Yeah, I would give that a smaller but not miniscule chance of happening. The throw's fault.

Very cool. Thanks. But why is he referencing an article of rainwear? Sorry, bad spelling joke.

Nonsense. There are plenty of "good NFL quarterbacks" who didn't have serviceable rookie years. Look at Drew Brees.He wasn't able to beat out a dead-armed Doug Flutie. Flutie in Brees' rookie year completed 56.4% of his passes, threw 15 TDs and 18 INTs, managed a horrible YPA of 6.6 and a QB rating of 72.0. And Brees couldn't beat him out and was bad enough over the next two years that the Chargers drafted Rivers. I personally consider Brees a "good NFL quarterback." Would you disagree? Was Troy Aikman a "good NFL quarterback"? Because he bit the large one as a rookie. Nine TDs and eighteen INTs and a QB rating of 55.7!!! Plenty of QBs who turned out excellent sucked as rookies. Look at Terry Bradshaw. Rich Gannon threw 21 passes total over his first three years and became a very fine QB. I don't disagree that they did a bad job of building a QB room that would keep him on the bench for the first year. Beane has already said that he should've brought someone else in after he got rid of McCarron.

The article doesn't back up the fact that it was always going to be Allen. What it says about Newton is that physically you want someone like Newton. But Newton isn't mentioned about leadership, decision-making or anything but physical makeup, really. Nah. Not on that basis anyway. Newton has a career passer rating of 86.6. That undersells him a bit because his first four years or so he was always a low to mid-eighties guy. It wasn't certain for the first two or three years that Carolina had gotten a franchise guy with him. Look at the rookie years of an awful lot of great QBs and you'll see guys who weren't very good. The odds are a good deal higher than 1%. But anywhere from a floor of 5 - 10% to a ceiling of 30 - 50% is arguable, really. Looking at a rookie year tells you little or nothing unless you somehow stumble onto a Dan Marino or an outlier like him that just obviously has it. There are a fair amount of guys who play decent as rookies. Very few are obviously franchise guys early, and that very much includes Newton.

Nice. Thanks for posting this. It's hopeful. Yeah, we traded away the guy who was likely our best ... as he plays the same position as the guy who was likely our 2nd best, and much cheaper besides. We also had holes at WR, LB, DL, QB and CB, and a few others besides, and not much depth. I know I personally was shocked to find that a team in a rebuild and in salary cap trouble besides hadn't plugged all those holes. Oh, wait, I wasn't. Perhaps if you re-checked your fact check? Seventeen plays. https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/snapcounts And I mildly disagree about Ducasse, as well. He's consistently underappreciated on this board. He was solid last year, and though he has taken a step back recently he started the year pretty well.