Thurman#1

Yeah, we knew. We also knew that keeping them in games by not throwing INTs while putting up sub-mediocre throwing numbers wasn't going to get us competitive for a Super Bowl. So they got rid of him and brought in a QB who might get us competitive. Eventually. Might. Me, I didn't want three or four more years of seven and eight wins. Yeah, Tyrod could've got us that. No thanks. Gimme a rebuild and a couple of seasons of major suckage with at least a real shot a being competitive in the long term.

Apples and oranges. Rex told the Pegulas he could reload immediately. They wouldn't need time. He could make the defense great right away. They were just a few pieces away. Remember this one? "Is this thing on? Because it's getting ready to be on!" Or remember this one from Rex in his introductory press conference? "You mentioned how well we played on defense last year. Fourth in the league is probably a little disappointing, to be honest with you, because that's not where my expectations are. I know we'll lead the league in defense." These new guys approached it completely differently. They didn't try to snow the Pegulas with moonbeams and fairy dust. They told them correctly that the cap was in crappy shape and that the roster wasn't any better than mediocre and that you need a QB to win in the NFL and you aren't going to get one by reloading. They told them it would take a while. That's the difference. What's irrational is thinking there's enough info on this FO to give them anything remotely like a final grade. Doing so is a knee-jerk reaction.

It's not clear whether we'll ever be a great team. It might happen and it might not. Depends mostly on how good their roster becomes. But this is how it works in a rebuild. You suck and then you suck some more. And then you continue sucking. It's painful. And out of that, the teams that have managed to get a franchise QB and handle the rest of their roster well hit a tipping point. Two years before they won the Super Bowl, Bill Walsh's 49ers won two games and lost 14. Did it look like they were building a winning culture? No. People were calling for Walsh's head. But were they in fact building a winning culture? Um, yeah. It didn't look like it at the time, but yes they absolutely were.

Fair enough. But not football. Coaches and players can't afford to tank here. It can destroy their job prospects more or less completely.

So, using the 12th, 53rd and 56th picks on the offense is neglecting it? 'Cause those three picks and Cordy Glenn besides were all traded for the pick we used on Josh Allen. We didn't neglect the offense at all. Getting your franchise QB (we hope) is pretty much the opposite of neglect. But apart from that, yeah, they spent most of the rest of their draft and cap resources on the defense. This early in a rebuild, especially a rebuild that starts with cap trouble, you aren't going to be able to fill all the holes. That's just the way it works. People get all pissed that we didn't spend more resources on the offense. If we had, the defense would be a lot worse. Would it really have been that much more satisfying to have a poor offense and a poor defense, both? Not for me. At least I can see good football when the D is on the field.

I very very much agree that we need to be patient. But we aren't tanking. We just aren't. It's a hockey word, first of all. But if we were doing what is correctly called a complete rebuild, we'd've traded Shady and Tyrod before the 2016 season and probably Hughes, Kyle Williams and Incognito as well. Some of which would've worked out a lot better than what we did. If we'd completely rebuilt, it wouldn't have been that difficult to avoid the playoffs last year and maximize that draft pick in this last year's draft, which is the time when getting a high pick was absolutely necessary to get a QB. They're not trying to lose. McDermott is working as hard as he can, but yeah, they knew it would be tough sledding this year. I wish they had done it. I wish they had rebuilt completely and stripped the team of all older talent before last year. But they didn't and they have brought in a lot of talent, especially on that defense. But yeah, the rebuild isn't a complete one, but it's a serious rebuild. And yeah, this year was always going to suck. And you're exactly right that they made getting the cap problems completely taken care of a major priority this year, as they had promised the Pegulas they would. That prevented bringing in talent and mandated getting rid of a lot of young guys they maybe could otherwise have kept some of.

He's always curled up when he's about to be smashed and won't be able to get away. Reasonable choice for a guy with his frame. I don't see it more than I ever have. I just see him consistently not having holes or good cutback lanes. You might be right I suppose, about retirement. I doubt it, personally. I don't see him giving up the $6.425 mill, or the chance to add to his legacy. He's seen bad teams before, he was on a 4-12 team in Philly.

Having a competition was fine. They wanted - very very reasonably - to sit Allen for his first season or a great deal of it. Would've helped him a lot. The injuries and poor performances unfortunately eliminated that possibility. And with Allen sitting, of course they wanted a competition. How can someone be the obvious choice when he can't beat out Peterman? He can't. Because he wasn't obvious or a good choice. The problem was not bringing in a vet the minute they got rid of McCarron. They should've kept him or replaced him with a grizzled vet. I do get the frustration. Man, this is hard to watch, really really painful. But this stage of a rebuild always is. Bills fans have to bite the bullet and watch for development.

The two injured QBs he's referring to are Anderson and Allen. And while Tyrod is better than anyone we have, it would not have been rational to keep him, for financial reasons but also because one thing you want in a backup QB on a rebuilding team is a guy who will not require a different scheme. You want the team to use the scheme they hope to use going forward so they have a year's experience in it when they - hopefully - start to improve the next year. Maximizing Tyrod means switching the scheme around. And a rebuilding team also wants a backup who can be a QB whisperer to the young guy. There's no particular reason to think Tyrod is that. A better QB? Yeah. A good fit? No, not at all. But yeah, looking back, they sure should have brought in somebody, perhaps Anderson or Barkley as soon as they let McCarron go, or bringing in one of those two instead of McCarron. Though I thought going into the season that McCarron was better than Anderson or Barkley.

If you think that's worked out for Denver, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Denver's 3-5. Whereas last year at this point they were 3-5. Last year they were the 13th ranked offense and this year they've moved to 17th. Yeah, "Keenum only has 10 TDs, but that's more than Manning, Prescott, Smith, Mayfield ..." But he also had 10 INTs which is less than ... nobody. Darnold and Winston have tied him at 10 and everybody else has fewer. Keenum's 10 TDs put him on track to beat Denver's last year's total of 19 by one. He has racked up more yards but he's got a passer rating of 83.0. Last year the Broncos put up an 84.5. And while it's possible Case Keenum might have signed with Buffalo, is it likely? To a team that was obviously going to draft someone and had a receiver corps like ours?

I think it's you who's missing the point. How could choosing Peterman define McDermott when he has no other choice. It's a dumb statement. If the statement had been different, something about bringing in a different QB at some point, my answer would have been different. It's simply a dumb headline. And your post here is wacky and non-responsive.

You may be right. In a couple of years we'll know. Depends mostly on Josh Allen and how he develops, IMHO.

Nah. The last 17 years were a series of GMs and coaches refusing to rebuild. "Sure, we were 7-9 last year but that was only bad luck. Next year we'll definitely do it. We don't need a rebuild. We'll just reload and reload and reload and reload." That's what's made the last 17 years so awful. Consciously choosing the hell of a rebuild is pretty much the opposite of what was done for nearly all of the last 17 years.

Good post.

Nah, the majority had that opinion. With the very incomplete info we fans get compared to coaches. And it was a reasonable opinion then and now but not a fact.

I get that you're tired of it. But it's still true. You edited the quote. He said, "this year was never about winning." Not that winning isn't the most important thing. It doesn't show you're in the wrong business to value long-term consistent winning over the short-term, one season's worth of winning.

Oh, yeah, who can believe he isn't playing Terrelle Pryor at QB instead. Yeah, yeah, he defines his legacy with that choice and his choice of Bojorquez. And his choice of Humber as his original ILB. Oh, yeah, all of these totally define a tenure that is in all likelihood very very far from completion. Totally.

I don't know or much care about any Rosen narrative. Two concussions and a shoulder in college. Once concussion doesn't necessarily mean much. Two in one year, that's a worry. That's about the extent of my interest. And yeah, QBs need to ignore the bad habit and put blinders on. And abused wives and vets with PTSD need to do the same thing, tough it out, show some guts ... you get I'm being sarcastic here, right? The human brain doesn't work that way. It would be nice if it did, but it doesn't. There's a ton of stuff that goes on well below consciousness. And trauma has an effect, an effect that can't always be controlled. Carr is the classic example not because there are few of them but because he's by far the most obvious example. Carr has two of NFL history's biggest season sack totals. 76 in 2002 and 68 in 2005. Second most-sacked QB in NFL history in terms of sacks/attempt. 10.54%. That's insane, and most of it was on the GM for never really putting an OL in front of the guy. You're wrong about Aaron Rodgers, completely. He started with a very high release point, which is what his college coach, Tedford teaches. It was seen as a major drawback and considered a major reason he fell in the draft. Mike McCarthy, in the QB camps he put Rodgers through starting during the years he didn't start, totally changed his motion to a much more classic one. Rodgers practices and is good at off-platform throws but his motion was greatly improved in his seasons on the bench and it was very likely that it was exactly the fact that he sat on the bench that allowed him to groove that new motion rather than go back to his old one when the rush came if he'd played early. He was much worse in camp his first three years or so. And by the way, your first of several straw men here is the assumption that "broken" implies the problem is always physical beating. It's not. Guys never reaching their potential can happen in a ton of different ways that have nothing to do with physical pain. There are many ways to prevent a guy from reaching his potential. Putting him in the wrong system. Putting him out there to do badly before he understands what's going on around him and thereby putting him in position to fail. And the more developmental a guy is, the easier ruining him can be. Developmental guys need to be developed. Correctly. That's where the word comes from. It's why some guys are called NFL-ready and others are very much not called that. "JA's not shook he won't be," you say. I don't quite know what to say to that, as it's pure wishful thinking! I mean, I hope so too, but while we know he's a tough kid, plenty of tough kids are affected by consistent horrible experiences. You're flinging straw men all around here. What does Vince Young have to do with this argument, unless you think he was ruined. I don't know either way but I think he just wasn't good enough and that he had some mental issues. Tebow doesn't belong in this discussion. Does anyone say he was ruined? Puh-leeze. You argue that "some would say" Russell Wilson has a bad habit in running out of the pocket? Good lord, dude, how desperate are you? Who would say that? Wilson's very good from the pocket. And he can also leave it when the time is right. Nothing wrong with that. And yeah, I said people will be saying that first year ruined him. I perhaps phrased that badly. People will say it, but no, not all the damage to guys who get ruined will happen in the first year. But guys whose first year didn't allow them to set a good foundation for success? Guys greatly hurt by that? Particularly guys identified as developmental who were pushed in early? Yeah, there's a good case to be made for a number of cases like that. And probably many of them involve guys taught early on in their career things like, as you say above ... "sure.. go back to your bad habits if you're trying to win a ball game and the ole pro I-form 7 step drop, stand tall and sling every blitz ain't working, do your thing!" Stupid on every level to say that to a QB. Things will tend not to work for young QBs, based on not understanding the pro game. Telling them to go back to the delivery flaws - such as Allen's bad footwork they're trying to fix to improve his accuracy - that reduce accuracy or the tendency to leave the pocket before you need to and cut down your visibility and run away from and make it impossible to hit many of your receivers on the play, or to run backwards rather than step up in the pocket when it's available, all flaws Allen needs to work on, can eliminate improvement in a crucial area of a young QB's game. The reason bad habits are called "bad habits" is because ... wait for it ... they're bad. Guys going back to old bad habit stymies development and makes the player worse. Sure, I can name some guys who may have been badly affected by poor handling. There can be no proof of this of course, but there can also be no proof it's not true. The NFL believes that it happens. Including Josh Allen by the way, to repeat myself. As for guys who were possibly ruined ... Just off the top of my head, Joey Harrington. Tim Couch for, gulp, Cleveland, and being pummeled consistently and just handled poorly. Plummer was treated badly enough early in his career he finally just junked it all. Jason Campbell was in a horrible situation. Byron Leftwich seemed like he was becoming a pretty good QB but didn't get much in the way of an OL or recievers and they lost faith in him quickly. Really smart guy, Leftwich and tough too, played on a broken leg in college. RGIII, maybe. His athletic ability had them put him out there before he was maybe ready and then he had coach controversies and was maybe protected by his owner from the coaching Shanahan wanted to give him. He's apparently a good guy, but nothing now. There was a time when he looked terrific. Rick Mirer was handled badly, though he was an arrogant and maybe troubled guy. Gannon has said that he wonders what he could have become if he'd had McCarthy as a coach earlier in his career. McCarthy turned him around. It'd be fair to question him but he is a very sensible guy these days and he has some ideas about how he should have been handled. I'm not going deeper. And I don't say there's proof ... either way. How could there be? But are some of these guys likely bad case studies on how to ruin a QB? Yeah.

The trick plays weren't the reason McCoy ended up with 13 yards on 12 carries. In fact, 12 of his 13 yards came on the first play from scrimmage, the first Wildcat play. The second Wildcat play made 4 yards for Chris Ivory. The third was McCoy for 1. The fourth was McCoy for -3. On a super-quick look-through, I can't find anymore. So McCoy went 3 for 11 on the Wildcat plays and 8 carries for 1 yard on the non-Wildcat plays. I agree that Zay and Benjamin have really come around and are playing well the last three games or so. And I don't think that it's three games, the Anderson games, is entirely coincidence. I just don't completely buy that the run game has been that successful when they committed to it. Looked to me more like we planned a lot of runs against teams we thought we could run against and kept it up when we had some success. I don't know that, obviously. But that's what it looked like to me. If they fire Daboll after the season, I'm fine with it. If they don't, I think it'd show they don't put the blame on him.

That wasn't Beane saying that. It was me. And it's pretty obvious ... Five years from now people will say either, "Yeah, the Bills destroyed him that year. Should've sat him and brought in some good QB coach," or "That was the year where he got the foundation of what he is today. Great year. We only won three games but in retrospect, what a great year." I have no clue which. It's complete nonsense that only weak QBs get injured. This is the NFL. Plenty of people get injured, strong, weak and in between. And if you don't believe in breaking QBs, then you're avoiding the truth. Pretty much everyone in the league believes it's possible. Hell, Josh Allen said it happens. Blaming David Carr's busting on David Carr shows how deeply caught up in your argument you are. That simply doesn't make sense. This isn't about excuses. It's about how humans brains work. You can have your career destroyed without ever giving in to the yips. Guys who get hammered regularly can learn. But if they're guys with bad habits, bad mechanics, or guys who depended on gimmicks like running that in college worked great but can be countered in the NFL, (developmental guys, generally) they're more likely to go back to what worked in the past, to their first instinct rather than taking the time to develop new muscle memory of the good habit. Got nothing to do with toughness. Last year the three best QBs in the league all had taken their first year on the bench. And not one was a top five pick. This year it's up to the top four in the league with Mahomes. When you look at how few starters sat for their first year, this looks less and less like coincidence.

Fair enough, you've done your homework, and I didn't understand that before. But I would argue that first, we were well behind in a fair amount of first halfs. And that we're spending a lot of time in long-yardage situations which will move things towards the pass. And that teams are tending to load up against the run and that has allowed teams to throttle our run game to the point where we're only managing 3.7 YPC. We have to have some success passing to loosen up things for the run. When they're stuffing the box, you have to make them pay for that a bit, even if it's only completing short little passes. And we finally did have a bit of success passing, getting a bit better with Anderson and being downright OK against the Pats. But the Pats game is a solid example. 19 runs (for 46 yards) and 26 passes (for 313 yards). But if you look at situations, our hand was forced a lot. 1st drive: 3 runs, 3 passes. But the last two passes came on 2nd and nine (flea flicker) and then 3rd and nine. 2nd drive: 2 runs, 3 passes. But the last two passes came on 2nd and 13 and 3rd and 13. 3rd drive: 1 run, 2 passes. But the 3rd down pass came on 3rd and nine. 4th drive: 4 runs, 5 passes. The first pass for a 1st down came on 3rd and six after two runs gained a total of four. And on the final 3rd and eight they ran it to Shady. For a gain of two. That was the first half for the Bills. 10 runs and 13 passes, but several of those passes situationally almost had to be passes. And yet they did cross things up with Shady on the 3rd and eight to go against tendencies.

Did Mahomes need time on the field in his rookie year? Brees, Rodgers or Brady in their first years? Time off the field can be just as useful and in many ways more so. You can learn just as much about the defense while concentrating on basics and mechanics that need to be grooved. Young guys in trouble on the field tend to return to old habits under pressure. Young guys on the bench can take the time to work on creating new habits. Did you see the Matt Nagy article? "Nagy was the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator last season. His primary function was putting Smith and the rest of Kansas City’s offense in the best position to succeed each week. But along the way, Nagy also was involved in bringing along Mahomes. "The Chiefs planned for Mahomes to be a spectator as a rookie. The Bills entered this season with a similar plan for Allen, but were forced to start him five games after Peterman’s disastrous season-opening performance at Baltimore. Since injuring his elbow in his fifth start, Allen has missed two games and is expected to be out again this week – and possibly longer. The circumstance has created an opportunity for Allen to be a student, a role Mahomes fully embraced. And the results have been incredible, with his off-the-charts production pushing the Chiefs to a 7-1 record. “ 'Off the field, and I’m going back to last year, we had him on a pretty good regimen in regards to coming in and teaching him how to be a professional,' Nagy said. 'How do you watch tape? What time do you come in in the morning? What do you do on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday? So you teach them, first, how to be a pro and understand that it's football, 24-7. Number two, you're taking care of your body. And then you're out in practice (taking everything in) as a backup quarterback as a rookie.' “ 'There were times last year, when Alex was running the first team offense, when you watched the video from up in the sky, you can see Patrick 30 yards behind the line of scrimmage doing the exact footwork drops that Alex is doing, just doing it by himself behind the play. He's getting the footwork and the timing, and he’s visually going through calling the play and all that.' “ 'Those are the little things that you can do to help yourself out when you're not getting those live reps in practice. He did that and that's a credit to Patrick and those guys for really having the ambition to do that. And then you take it to this year, Patrick has some talent around him that knows the system, too, so that helps him, which is great. Coach (Andy) Reid’s done an awesome job with all those guys.' ” https://buffalonews.com/2018/10/31/buffalo-bills-josh-allen-patrick-mahomes-kansas-city-chiefs-mitch-trubisky-chicago-bears-matt-nagy-sean-mcdermott/ In any case, excellent job with the OP. Thanks for writing it.

Yeah, the whole season revolves around one player. Josh Allen. This season from the instant he was drafted became about nothing but how well he develops. Winning don't enter into it. Five years from now people will say either, "Yeah, the Bills destroyed him that year. Should've sat him and brought in some good QB coach," or "That was the year where he got the foundation of what he is today. Great year. We only won three games but what a great year." Nothing else matters. Certainly none of the pissing and moaning that always accompanies the horrible early years of a rebuild.

He was maybe my favorite football writer. A very sad day. "Super Bowl XXVIII will go down in history as a blowout, because that's what a 30–13 score looks like when you read it in the record book five or 10 years later. But the score won't come close to telling the story. The Buffalo Bills, short-enders for the fourth straight year, had the Dallas Cowboys on the ropes on Sunday at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, and they let them escape. "The Bills have now lost two Super Bowls that they should have won, the first and fourth in this series of consecutive defeats, and have lost the other two most convincingly. Sunday's defeat was the most disheartening because the Cowboys were a struggling team in the first half; Dallas was ready to be put away. The Cowboys' quarterback, Troy Aikman, seven days removed from a severe concussion, was having difficulties. Emmitt Smith's favorite running play, the lead draw, was getting stuffed. Buffalo quarterback Jim Kelly was picking Dallas apart with his short, meticulous passes, and the Cowboy defense was on the field far too long—41 snaps in the first half—against the Bills' no-huddle offense, which literally takes your breath away." https://www.si.com/vault/1994/02/07/130416/the-fumble-dallas-bashed-buffalo-in-their-super-bowl-rematch-as-miscues-made-the-bills-four-time-losers

How's Keenum working out for Denver? As for the other two, it seemed pretty obvious to me that they didn't want either guy because you have to run a different offense to maximize them, as neither can run a passing game out of the pocket. And rebuilding teams don't want to have to change the offense. Even in a horrible season like this one at least the team is learning the system so that next year when they upgrade the offensive personnel I see why people might want to ask those questions, but I think the answers are pretty obvious. Now, if Keenum was kicking butt in Denver, the Broncos would look like geniuses and the Bills like eejits for that Keenum decision. Yeah, Keenum's been better than anyone we have but he hasn't been that good and Denver has a lot better talent around Keenum than we have on offense. IMHO Wawrow has an interesting point. If you think that's the narrative on this major problem, more questions should be asked right now, and also in the past. My understanding is that McCarron's diagnosis of a hairline collarbone was later found to have been mistaken. https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/report-bills-aj-mccarron-didnt-fracture-collarbone-expected-to-return-to-practice-soon/ But yeah, he was outplayed. Looking back, they should have kept him anyway, but Carucci reported that they were worried that he had problems with being the third-stringer and they thought he might let his dissatisfaction show. What they have is surely a major mess, but I understand letting him go if they thought he was going to cause problems in the locker room. Yeah, this is a good point, I think. Bringing in Anderson or Barkley earlier would have been playing it safe and smart.