Thurman#1

Good argument for those who disagree with you. In two years they've spent almost no draft capital and very little FA money on the offense on anyone but Josh Allen. And Kelvin Benjamin and Zay Jones have both started to look good the past two games, Ducasse has been pretty good, easily outplaying his $1.2 mill a year price tag, and the rest were pretty much vet minimum depth types. You left out Dawkins but he's been a terrific pick.

You maximize the personnel you have - you reload - when you have good personnel. Which Schwartz very much did, thanks mostly to Buddy Nix. When you don't have good personnel, your best move is often to rebuild.

Wow, tough question. Why did they make him the #3? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Jeez. Couldn't have been because he played third-best, could it?

The difference being that McVay is reloading, not rebuilding. He joined a team with a GM who's been in place, building a solid roster for years and picking the #1 overall QB the year before he got there. The Bills did not have a roster that would have made a reload tenable. They weren't good. The Rams had build a strong defense that was very young, and had brought in Gurley and Goff before McVay arrived, and they were in good shape with the salary cap. But yeah, you make a good point, McVay was a lot better than Fisher. And you're certainly right that you don't always have to start over. Do you really think the 2015 Bills had enough talent to reload around? I don't, especially when Whaley had built a very mediocre squad while treating his salary cap situation like a sailor in port treats his pocket money. If you do think we could have reloaded, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

This is an opinion stated as a fact. And not even a particularly solid opinion ...

No, they haven't. Their goal is to build a team that consistently competes for championships. It's way way too early to see what kind of job they are doing. I'm really really hopeful, but so far they have done a good job only at following their plan. How will that plan work out? Too early to say. They still have a ton to prove. I do like the tenets of the plan. They're smart and committed. But plenty of smart and committed team leaders have failed. We'll see.

Nope. The last two SBs have been won by: 2017) Philly, the #4 defense 2016) The Pats, the #8 defense (and as might be predicted by their bend but don't break nature, the #1 defense against scoring) And the three before that were won by: 2015) Denver, the #1 defense 2014) The Pats, the #13 defense (and the #8 defense against scoring) 2013) Seahawks, the #1 defense And the offenses were #7, #4, #16, #11, and #18 in the same five SBs. Defenses still win SBs.

We "is need of one"? Nah, we've got one, the two-headed McBeane. And it's too early to know how good they'll be. Anyone judging a regime by the second year when they are rebuilding needs his own rebuild ... in his football IQ. Reactions that early are by definition knee-jerk. Beane and McDermott have a lot to prove but their grade "Incomplete." In the second year of his rebuild, Bill Walsh went 6-10. The next year he won the Super Bowl. You just don't know. What you should know is that it takes more time than they've had. Am I saying McBeane is the new Bill Walsh? Nope. I'm saying we don't yet know what they are.

Yeah, Schwartz cobbled together a defense all by himself. All he had to work with were Jerry Hughes, Mario Williams, Kyle Williams, Brandon Spikes, Nigel Bradham, Preston Brown, Leodis Mckelvin, Stephon Gilmore and a young and motivated Marcell Dareus. How did he do it with such scrapings, leavings and dross? Yeah, Schwartz got them up to the #4 defense but they'd been the #10 the year before. That was a talented lineup. That defensive roster and our current offensive roster should not be mentioned on the same internet, never mind in the same breath.

... is it's the end of the 2020 season and we still aren't any good and show no signs of getting there soon. Short of losing the locker room completely, that's pretty much the only reason.

Sigh, another person who confuses his opinion with fact.

Last thing we need right now is an inexperienced QB who will need to be developed. He likely did that with the (correct) feeling that McCarron could be a mentor to Allen, while Bridgewater couldn't. Then McCarron became #3 not #1 or #2 and showed signs of discontent (according to Carucci). If we'd known that would happen then yeah, Bridgewater would have been a better pickup.

The lineup they wanted? That's overstating it, I think. More like the lineup they chose based on the limitations inherent in the situation ... particularly their promise to the owners to clean up the cap by the end of this season, the need to acquire a lot of draft capital in case it was needed to bring in a young QB and their obvious plan to prioritize the defense over the offense this early in the process.

Yup. Some of the posts on here are almost as bad as that game was. The carping and mewling ...

Fine, you want better coaching, better weapons, more experience and a much more innovative offensive system. I'd argue that you're making unwarranted assumptions. I would like to see him get whatever he needs. I don't think all four of those are obvious needs, and I'd argue that a better OL might trump almost all of those four, and possibly - though I certainly hope not - more time on the bench might also be a bigger need than those four. As for your list of four, it's one opinion. If McDermott, who has a ton more info on the situation than we do, shares it, DB'll be gone. If he's still here it'll be a very good indication indeed that there is good reason to think that he was handicapped by the roster. And Daboll doesn't have a horrible track record as an offensive coordinator. His track record is mixed and debatable. Terrific at Alabama. Arguable at places like KC in a sinking ship with Crennel at the helm and Cassel at QB and at Miami with Matt Moore and Chad Henne at QB. Remind me, has anybody made these QBs look like NFL starters? Same with Cleveland. Whereas he apparently did a terrific job at NE. It's arguable. If he'd been terrible and everyone knew it, he wouldn't be here. And I'd also argue that Goff has a much much better idea than you do of what caused him to look better. And while he gives a ton of credit to McVay, he simply thinks he improved an awful lot in his second year. He's probably exactly right.

It's the fans fault that the team has sucked for a long time? Nope. That's on the people who created those rosters, hired the coaches, etc. Guys like Marv as GM, Whaley, Nix, etc. It's the fans fault that the fans own expectations for turnaround time in the current conditions are unrealistic? Yes siree Bob. Not that all fans were suffering from the overoptimism. But obviously plenty did.

Yeah, by people who are silly enough to think you can judge a QB by his rookie year. People who think that are very often simply wrong.

The Ram and Eagles were not rebuilds. They were reloads. Snead's been the GM in L.A. since 2012, building pretty consistently. Both teams brought in brand new franchise QBs before these miraculous "immediate ... turnarounds." Both had GMs who'd been in place. GMs don't generally get the chance to rebuild their own squads, not unless they've won a Super Bowl or two anyway. A rebuild says the team isn't good enough and won't be. A GM saying that about his own roster is grading his own performance poorly. Those teams had been building for quite a while. Poor arguments that it doesn't take 4 or 5 years to build a team. Our roster was simply poorer and we got a new personnel team in and they decided to rebuild. That's very different from teams that have been building for ages and continue along their path and hit a tipping point. As for the Chiefs didn't they nearly replace everyone very very quickly? And their turnaround was all Reid? Didn't have anything to do with replacing Matt Cassel with Alex Smith? Or with Crennel pretty much losing the locker room? I actually do think that Reid is one of the very very few coaches who actually do make a major difference. But Reid changed a lot of personnel, particularly on the offense. I'm looking at the offensive starters between the Crennel meltdown in 2012 and Reid's rosters and there was major turnover beyond dumping Cassel for a very capable veteran QB in Alex Smith.

I suppose there are plenty of cases where ego has an effect. I doubt it's the majority, though. I think it's mostly, as you say, new schemes. And the other usual suspects, things like lack of a QB and a consequent need to accumulate trade capital, the time that a rebuild takes and how the team's cap situation fits those time constraints. Football teams have to deal with things that other businesses don't ... salary caps, the extreme speed with which players age compared to how it happens in most industries, the commonplace nature of injuries and the consequent need for depth ...

Fair enough. If they can get something for Shady, some real value, I'm for it. As good as he is, he's getting old.

Well, it's not a particularly convincing argument. You assume that his improvement comes from better coaching. In fact, it's just as likely ... more so, really ... to be that Goff's simply playing better in his second year and he's got a better roster around him. Yes, good coaching helps. What's generally a lot more important is the player and the roster getting better. They went from Tavon Austin, Kenny Britt, Brian Quick and Lance Kendricks, upgraded to Cooper Kupp, Woods, Austin, Watkins and Higbee and upgraded again to Woods and a non-rookie Kupp and Brandin Cooks. Not to mention major improvement of the OL and major improvement of Goff's decision-making and understanding. Check this article out: https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/09/27/jared-goff-los-angeles-rams-sean-mcvay-vikings-thursday-night-football "The point here? Goff’s come a long way in two years, for sure. But it didn’t happen all at once. And if you think it’s all coaching, Goff isn’t going to let that get to him, or even try to change your mind, and he insists it doesn’t bother him in the slightest. “'Never. Never,' Goff said. '[McVay’s] incredible and he deserves all the praise he gets. My rookie year was not so good, and coming into my second year, one of two things was going to happen—I was gonna be bad or I was gonna be good. And if I was good, they were gonna pin it on someone else. It’s all positive, it’s the way it works. I expected this coming into everything. All I can do is get better.'" Exactly.

Yeah, hard to see any improvement at all. No LB improvement. No defensive improvement. They didn't draft a 4th round CB who's playing well as a rookie. The DL hasn't started looking better. There's been improvement. A lot more than a glimpse. There's also been some areas with huge problems. But that' was always what looked like it was going to be this year. It's what teams in the second year of rebuilds look like and it's even worse when you have to start the rebuild in horrible cap shape. Yeah, it's hard to watch. Man, that was an awful game. But again, that is what teams this early in major rebuilds look like. And please, folks, don't give examples of teams that had better looking rosters and are in their third of fourth year of rebuilds, or teams that had decent enough rosters to reload rather than rebuild as counter-examples. That's apples and oranges. It's way ... way ... early.

Oh, well if YOU don't care about the cap room, that's huge. Till now I'd thought the importance of a healthy cap situation to the owners and to virtually every team in the NFL that is consistently good was the important thing. Boy, was I silly. As for overpaying, that's nonsense. Not true for Buffalo any more than anyone else. The team that offers the most gets the guy. That's the system. Plenty of good FAs go to bad teams. Hell, the Browns picked up two or three very solid guys the offseason after 0-16. As for your list of good young players ... please. Ragland? He's played less than half KC's defensive snaps and hasn't produced well even when he's in. Dareus? Wildly overpaid and producing ... what, he's had zero sacks on one QB hit this year. One tackle for loss. He's not producing anywhere near the way he did here and he was underproducing here. Watkins you're obviously right about. He's on track to put up a massive 725 yards on the season with Patrick Mahomes throwing to him!!! He's the new Megatron. Glenn, I'd love to have kept. It's be great if they had two good tackles. But they couldn't afford it. Same with Woods, who's actually been a terrific bargain for LA. Darby by all accounts wasn't a good scheme fit. It's too bad but it happens. He's not having a good year for Philly but I'd guess he'll iron things out. But bad scheme fits happen. And our defense has not been the problem this year. You may not care about getting the cap under control. But it's S.O.P. for the best teams in football. Doing what they did hurt. But in the long run, it's plain smart. People keep pretending Goff is just a product of the coaches. And there's no reason to think that's true. Goff was always considered to be much more NFL-ready than Allen, and yet he was making a lot of bad decisions last year that he's not making this year, and with better players around him. Yeah, the good coaching sure didn't hurt but he's simply playing better and a ton of that is likely that he understands what he sees a lot better, understands defenses better, and that the game is slowing down for him. Goff didn't improve a whole lot as his rookie season went along. Why would you expect that of Allen, who again was considered much less NFL-ready?

Valuing the long term over the short term is smart, and that's what they've done. And again, they promised the owners they'd clear up the horrendous cap mess by the end of this year. So yeah, to do so they had to stay light on FAs, they had to let some guys go they maybe would've rather kept, and they had to try to use up all the dead money this year and not pass it on to next year. They were always going to suck this year. That's not setting the team up to fail, it's understanding in advance that's the way the cards had fallen and valuing the future over this year. Yeah, it's hard to watch. But those surprised by this were too high in their expectations.

Yup. Some people want change for the sake of change. They want scapegoating because it feels good right now. Moving on from Hughes would make zero sense. He's a guy likely to be able to play at a high level for another two to three years and that's when if plans work out - far from a sure thing but it has to be what the Bills are working towards and expect - the team will need a guy like Hughes. Benjamin has had two solid games in a row. No need to get rid of him especially if the return is low. If he's not a guy they want in the locker room, fair enough. But otherwise he's starting to play well, and with crappy QB play that's not a small thing. Moving on from Shady would only make sense if you get back a real return and with the injury that's not likely now. Savings for Clay against the cap would be insignificant. Haven't bothered looking much at the All-22 after the first game or two but last season Clay was spending a lot of time open and untargeted. Don't know if that's true now but probably. And he's finally cap-friendly and not too old. It's time people accepted that it's not only the receivers killing the QBs here, that it may in fact be even more so the other way around.