Thurman#1

It makes you an excellent choice as a sinker for someone's fishing gear. Plus Superman can't see through you.

Well, if they said it wasn't what McDermott wanted, I agree with them. I'm sure if there was a legit, high-odds way to take a team with sub-mediocre talent, no QB and serious salary cap trouble and turn it around without a painful rebuild, they probably would have tried it. There isn't. They didn't want this. They accepted that it was a necessary though painful part of a turnaround. And that's nonsense that we've been rebuilding for 18 years. They've been below average for 18 years. There's a difference. For most of those 18 years they kept kidding themselves that they were close and reloaded and reloaded and reloaded again and again. Very few rebuilds during that time.Which is why we kept having draft picks of #9 and #11 and #14 and couldn't come up with a decent QB. You're right that having the cap space and draft capital doesn't mean they'll be successful. We can definitely agree that far. They have a ton to prove. But at least they have started the process intelligently. There's no particular reason to think they will overpay. That's not their philosophy. They want to build through the draft and fill in with FAs. Which is how the teams with long-term success achieve it. They'll draft some duds and some hits? Um, yeah. So will all 32 teams. So far their drafts look pretty damn good, though. Tre White at #27? Zay Jones has taken a while but actually shows signs of becoming good over the last two or three games, or as good as a WR can be with these QBs. Dion Dawkins? Matt Milano in the 5th? Josh Allen is still a question mark. No way to know what he'll be. I wanted Mayfield, Rosen or Darnold myself, but Allen still might turn out to be a good one, or not. Too early to say. But Tremaine Edmunds, Harrison Phillips in the 3rd and Taron Johnson in the 4th look like a very nice draft on their own for a team that found it had to sacrifice having a 2nd round pick to get their future QB hopeful. But there's no Gregg Williams in McDermott, that's nonsense. He doesn't brook nonsense and he will cut you if you don't meet expectations but there's nothing out there showing him as a screamer or a disciplinarian. If anything he's been shown to communicate really clearly and well. Not that that guarantees success, nothing does, really. But there's no reasonable comparison with Gregg Williams and his airhorns at 6:00 a.m.

Again, that's nonsense that we underperformed on the field last year. Complete crap, from the guy who said this about the 2017 Bills earlier in this thread: I just googled the 2017 preseason power rankings. Here are the first 20 I found: https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2017/9/5/16255238/2017-nfl-power-rankings-curated-week-1 This was the most complete one, a compendium of five and here are the five listings of where they ranked in pre-season power rankings: SB Nation 30th Yahoo 29th NFL 26th ESPN 26th CBS 27th Of the next 19 I found, https://buffalowdown.com/2017/07/12/buffalo-bills-power-rankings-not-friend/ (Mediocre, in the 5th of 6 categories: 1) Super Bowl contenders, 2) Playoff contenders, etc. And the Bills fell into the 5th of 6th tiers, Mediocre) https://thecomeback.com/nfl/2017-nfl-preseason-rankings-no-24-buffalo-bills.html (#24) http://www.sportingnews.com/ca/nfl/list/nfl-power-rankings-2017-preseason-cowboys-packers-raiders-seahawks/1plnhfw1tgz4z1dtnbqfz31qu0/slide/24 (#24) https://www.metro.us/sports/nfl-preseason-power-rankings-to-kick-2017 (#27) https://www.numberfire.com/nfl/lists/15441/2017-nfl-power-rankings-preseason-edition/16-buffalo-bills-0-45-nerd-17 (#16) https://whbl.com/blogs/sports/6680/nfl-power-rankings-2017-preseason-rank-of-all-32-nfl-teams-1/ (#27) https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2730051-nfl-power-rankings-2017-examining-pecking-order-after-week-3-of-preseason (#29) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2017/09/05/2017-nfl-power-rankings-the-new-patriots-have-lapped-the-field/?utm_term=.bef96d7bd18f (#30) https://kfgo.com/blogs/power-rankings/6680/nfl-power-rankings-2017-week-1-1/ (#27) http://blog.masslive.com/patriots/2017/09/nfl_power_rankings_which_teams.html (#27) http://theunderdogsports.com/2017-nfl-preseason-power-rankings-25-32/ (#29) https://ninernoise.com/2017/09/01/nfl-power-rankings-2017-week-1/8/ (#26) https://lastwordonprofootball.com/2017/07/21/pre-preseason-power-rankings/ (#24) https://www.ctpost.com/technology/businessinsider/article/NFL-POWER-RANKINGS-Where-all-32-teams-stand-11339889.php (#30) https://www.atlantafalcons.com/news/matt-tabeek-s-wildly-important-nfl-power-rankings-patriots-falcons-begi-19319759 (#30) https://www.betitbest.com/sportsnews/de/news/pft-preseason-power-rankings-no-23-buffalo-bills-5544830 (#23) https://www.yardbarker.com/nfl/articles/preseason_nfl_power_rankings/s1__23081 (#22) https://sconniesportstalk.com/2017/09/05/nfl-week-1-power-rankings/ (#28) https://thepowerrank.com/introducing-2017-nfl-win-totals-report/ (#28) Those were the first twenty I found. Do you notice any trends about where the Bills were ranked, Avi? For me, the words, "expected to suck" leapt to my mind. "Underperformed," my ass. Did you find, in any of those, the phrase, "good coaching and competent QB play away from being annual contenders for the playoffs" as you wrote? Or anything like that? But hey, maybe I slanted things and didn't link to all the tsunami of positive expectations you have insisted was out there. So this is my third time to challenge you to come up with all the positive expectations you referenced. Still waiting, Avi.

While I sympathize with your idea that maybe we should have picked up Mahomes, I doubt McDermott's thought was "I'm good." Probably more like, "I'm not a personnel expert. Should I stake my career on picking up a QB recommended (or not recommended - we don't know) by Doug Whaley, the guy who loved EJ Manuel? Or should I wait a year for a draft that's supposed to be loaded with QB talent when I have (hopefully) a talented GM on board to help make the call?"

Yes. $32 mill in dead cap space by trading away Dareus, Glenn, Taylor and Ragland. But you do know that we also saved us a lot of money at the same time, right? We saved around $4 mill last year and $9.9 mill this year and $40 mill over the next few years. The cap trouble we were in was going to continue to haunt us down the line unless they cleaned out a bunch of stuff, and Dareus was given a contract far too large for his contribution from around 2016 and onwards. Trading Glenn saved us $9.25 mill in salary and $2 mill in roster bonus this year, not to mention around $20 mill over the next couple of years. For a team that has a pretty good LT on a rookie contract, that's money well-saved. The $16 mill Tyrod cost us in dead cap is almost exactly what we saved ... $10 mill salary and $6 mill roster bonus, but $1 mill of the roster bonus was guaranteed. Ragland? Jeez, you're worried about the $750K he costs us in dead cap when we saved $1.7 mill last year and this year in salary and workout bonus? Please. You've just as completely missed the point with the guys you mentioned in your second paragraph. By signing and cutting Coleman they incurred $2.955 mill in dead cap ... and saved $2.955 mill in salary. Zero net cap effect. McCarron cost us $4.1 mill in dead cap but the Raiders took on his salaries of $3.9 mill over this year and next, a net cost of $200K against the cap. Newhouse also has a net cap effect of zero, and we got a draft pick for him and for McCarron. Same with Kerley, zero net cap effect. The net cap effect of those four contracts was $200K and they got draft picks in trade. None of those things makes your point. We were in serious cap trouble before those moves were made. Making those moves got us into a position where next year we're not just out of trouble, but actually in great cap shape.

Neither guy would have come here, much less for peanuts. There may be some out there who would but neither of those two. Rishard had some old conflict with one of the Bills coaches, as was commented on here ad nauseum, and Gordon wanted a place to show off for future contracts. He wouldn't have come here to be thrown to by Allen and Peterman.

Yup, a solid bridge guy. As long as you don't mind using a different scheme so Tyrod can be maximized rather than put in the scheme you hope to go with in the future so the new guy can learn it and learn how teams react on defense. And as long as you don't mind paying Tyrod $16 million when you're in a serious cap jam and have promised the owners to sort it out by the end of this season.

I'll book it: And book this: Draft day next year it's going to snow two feet in Nashville!!!!!!!! Book it!!

Yup. He engineered a rebuild, and this is what rebuilds look like this early. It is painful, but that's the way these things go. We'll see over the next few years how good a job they've done. Yeah, we've been really bad for a long time. No, the vast majority of that isn't the new regime's fault. Yes, some fans have been very patient. Of course, some have screamed, moaned and whined for the whole 18 years, but let's look past that. But no, the fact that we've been patient for a long time doesn't mean more patience isn't needed. "No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant." - Warren Buffett Rebuilds are one of those things that just take time.

40 - 60% for both. They have a lot to prove. I'm very hopeful but I'm from Missouri, though I've only been there for about 48 hours.

You sure were wrong. Why would you think things couldn't get worse at QB than having a QB who was around the 20th to 22nd best in the league. There are 10 - 12 QBs worse than that every year, and those usually include the rookies who end up starting and plenty of other very young guys. Of course it was capable of being much much worse, and it was always likely to get worse for a year or two. That was the likelihood. We had a chance if McCarron had been good, but with their Whaley-inherited salary cap woes, they weren't going to get a more expensive vet, and the flier on McCarron didn't work out. That was too bad, but bad QB play this year .... the second year of a rebuild and the year we drafted a rookie well-known to need a ton of development ... was always likely to be worse. So, no, Beane and McDermott work for an owner who understands rebuilds. In the third and fourth years, their seats will indeed become hot if things don't look up. Not this year. The Pegulas get it.

Agreed that it's not all the QB's fault. What's at fault is that it's year two of a rebuild ... of a team that has made defense the priority early. The second year of major rebuilds are painful. That's the way things go. In the third and fourth year, either things get better or you start to realize that it may be a coach issue or a GM issue or both. Right now though, it's what everyone should have expected.

Yeah, no, indeed. Our WRs were even worse than this year. Zay Jones and Benjamin have both started to look pretty decent the last two to three games. Brandon Tate, Deonte Thompson, Jordan Matthews and the rookie Zay (plus Kaelin Clay and Taiwan Jones) weren't as good. They just weren't. They did have a slightly better QB throwing to them, but that didn't make them better, just in a slightly better situation. Bwah ha ha ha ha. Oh, that's precious, Avisan, really. It's clear you didn't mean it to be, but that's hilarious. Yeah, Humber, Preston Brown and Alexander, the early starters last year, were better than Tremaine Edmunds, the second-year Matt Milano, and Alexander. Right, gotcha. Right, average defense at worst. Great, go find all the preseason forecasts that predicted that, especially the "at worst" part. Some thought we'd be average but I'd love to see all of your links to the articles predicting we'd be average at worst on defense. In the real world, the D-line looked OK but nobody expected Tre to be as good as he was so early. The D looked like it might possibly be decent but equally might be pretty bad, and the O looked like it would be sub-mediocre. Not going to bother going point by point through your nonsense, but last post you amazingly said this: ... and I challenged you to produce a few of those articles that mentioned "being annual contenders for the playoffs." Surprisingly, you didn't link to any of them in this post .... Still waiting ...

But as for high draft picks not mattering, that's utter nonsense. They're not the only thing that matters, but they matter plenty. And as for them not mattering for the Bills for the last 20 years, they are part of the reason we sucked for so long. We reloaded and reloaded and reloaded and even when we did occasionally rebuild we got unlucky and had to do it with generally lower draft picks. We had the #4 pick one year and got Dareus instead of Cam Newton. And other than that, where were all the high picks? We pretty much didn't have any. We kept being "good" enough to draft 9th, 11th ... on and on and not high enough to get real impact players.

There really is no such thing as tanking in the NFL. It's a hockey term and maybe another sport or two. In football, what they do is rebuild.

If his is revisionist, that puts it on the same footing as yours. Yeah, we backed in, but let's see some links of a bunch of forecasts mentioning "being annual contenders for the playoffs." Our recievers were worse than the ones we have now, the right side of the OL was (and is) weak, our LBs were considered very weak with Brown, Humber and Alexander as the expected starters and the safeties looked solid but not nearly as good as they ended up playing. We weren't expected to be good. Yeah, we were very lucky to sneak into the playoffs. But the defense considerably outplaying expectations absolutely came down to the new regime. And that's nonsense about identifying offensive talent. They have put their emphasis on the defense. They've used very little draft capital or FA money on the offense. But of the people they did bring in, Jones and Benjamin are finally beginning to play well, Dawkins looks like a huge success and Ducasse has been pretty solid, a significant FA bargain. The verdict is still out on Allen, of course. That could turn out to be an awful pickup. Or not. Too early to know.

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.