Thurman#1

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.

Really. "Pocket Movement Rudolph Rosen Jackson Mayfield Darnold Allen" https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/news/2018-nfl-draft-rankings-accuracy-arm-strength-and-everything-to-know-about-qbs/ "His fourth quarter and final drive against the Seahawks were excellent, as he dropped a few dimes at the intermediate level, calmly moved away from pressure with his eyes downfield, and tossed accurate passes to secondary targets. Like Darnold and Allen, his offensive line is concerning and, thus far, has been the worst of any of the four first-round quarterbacks from the 2018 Draft who saw the field in September." https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/news/initial-nfl-evaluations-of-baker-mayfield-sam-darnold-josh-allen-and-josh-rosen/ That's just the first couple I found. He's always had legit injury concerns and no ability to escape the pocket and run away, but he's been generally considered as good at moving within the pocket.

First, Allen's developing just fine. He was originally expected to red-shirt this year and develop, now he can do that for a few weeks, study defenses, work on mechanics, watch how a vet runs the team, etc. Second, while you want a reliable short term starter if possible, you absolutely do not want a reliable short term starter who needs to run a different scheme to be successful, and that's Tyrod. You don't have to change the scheme for Anderson or McCarron. I sincerely doubt that. 8-8 would be more likely. Last year's schedule turned out to be a really easy one and they squeaked in with that 9-7 a much better OL with Richie and Wood. In any case, thank God McDermott and Beane value the long-term over the short-term. I wish the best for Tyrod but don't want him back here where they're trying to build a rhythm passing attack and get past awful cap problems from the Whaley era.

Fewer run yards, I'm betting. But yeah, maybe the passing numbers would be close. A pro bowl berth as an alternate.

Yes. They were in their second year of existence as a team, an AFL team. At that point, the NFL and AFL drafts were separate so players could play the two teams that drafted them off against each other. And the more established league, the NFL, won most of those faceoffs, so you could easily draft a guy and not get him. In their first draft the Bills chose Norm Snead, for example. So the AFC teams tended to pick early guys who they thought they had a better chance at getting. The AFL was the junior league, and for a reason. They were facing disadvantages, getting better, but that was their second year. And the game was played under Canadian rules, and in Canada. And again, as you say, the Bills were not an NFL team at that point. They were in a junior league that couldn't even play in the Super Bowl. The first Super Bowl was in '66, and he's talking about '61. Not to mention that the games took place in the AFC preseason, and in the middle of the CFL season. It still wasn't a high point for the Bills but not all that much of a low point either, looking back.

Factually incorrect. We were an AFL team. In the second year of its existence.

I don't know. Brandon Williams is the same kind of player and earns almost exactly the same salary, $10.5 mill per year. Dontari Poe, Damon Harrison, Linval Joseph ... they're all paid in the same area. It's the planet theory. Some defenses need a guy like that more than others, and McDermott's does seem to require one.

It shouldn't show you that. DLs who eat up blocks make LBs better. Terrific LBs can be nullified when the DL is allowing blockers through. Remember in the middle of his career when everyone said that Ray Lewis's career was over, that he just wasn't special anymore? What a coincidence that he'd been sensational with Siragusa and Sam Adams and then those guys left and he was average and then they went out and got Ngata and suddenly Ray Lewis was terrific again. Milano and Edmunds do indeed look like very good LBs. But they wouldn't look as good without Star up front of them. Star's eating up double teams. Phillips is doing a really good job but he's not being consistently doubled yet.

I don't think you do understand, at least not deep down in your heart. You said it, we are in a rebuild. Teams in a rebuild virtually always suck for a couple of years. Expecting a decent team this year was a mistake. They had a sliver of a chance, if McCarron had been good or Allen had developed way way more quickly than expected. But when McCarron was bad, this team was going to be bad, and that's what you have to expect in a rebuild. Rebuilds are all about sacrificing the short-term good for the long-term good.

Ahhhhhh. That makes sense now. I wondered why they cut him.

No offense, but your needs mean nothing here. Mine too, I'm not pointing you out specifically but I don't run around talking about what I need from the Bills. Anyway, Benjamin had a pretty good game last week. If the holding penalty hadn't taken away one of his long completions (35 or 40 yards, wasn't it?), he'd have been very productive. Yeah, he looked bad earlier, but knee-jerk reactions like you're suggesting don't make sense.

Eli is still playing. Yes there have been changes, but no, most of the rules protecting QBs were already there. How much has average yards per attempt gone up since that year? In Eli's rookie year, QBs averaged 7.1 yards per attempt. Last year ... oh, oops, 7.0. You're trying to pull the old trick of squeezing the sample size to eliminate outliers. And yeah, squeeze it down to a year or three and you'll eliminate the other examples but you'll also make your whole (dumb) statement even less interesting. "There has never been a QB to do that - not once - in the whole entire storied history of the NFL's ... um ... last three years." Weak, extremely weak, same as comparing him to a QB with 79 career passes and thinking it means anything. Again, thinking you know something this early says more about your poor reasoning processes than it does about Allen.

Yeah, this D is too good, most likely.

Sure he'll have to take live reps. Eventually. But practice reps can make a huge difference, as they did with Rodgers. But yeah, sooner or later game snaps are necessary. Later would likely be better in this case.

Assuming players at the right value were available when we had a pick ... 1) RT/WR 2) WR/RT 3) C 4) OLB 4) G 5) CB 6) G 6) WR 7) Depth 7) Depth Eli Manning says hi. And he was taken out for most of the first half of the season and had a better supporting cast. Thinking a final answer can be seen now says more about your reasoning than it does about Allen.