Thurman#1

If only what we are "willing to give it" mattered. It doesn't. Not what you are willing to give it and not what I or any other fans are willing to give it. What matters is what he gets. And that is very likely to be the rest of the year at least. One thing that is certain is that Daboll is being handicapped by the offensive personnel.

I think you're misremembering here. Plenty of people reported that Whaley was the one on the phone to Reid. Nobody reported that Whaley pulled the trigger, not that I remember.

Nonsense. Pretty much the whole league disagrees with this. McD as well, as we learned, but Allen agrees with it too, as he's said. Again, Rodgers absolutely sucked in the preseason his first three years. It really was only in his fourth year, having spent three years changing his mechanics and learning the game, that he suddenly looked very good in preseason. Pretty much the whole NFL disagrees with you. It's why some guys are considered NFL-ready and others are developmental. Some guys need to learn and some don't. And guys with mechanics issues at QB are among the neediest ones, because it's hard to work on grooving movements into muscle memory when you're spending all your time learning game plans and studying defenses to handle the team that week.

Yeah, it's sad we have a defensive guy like Belichick and Zimmer, two of the four coaches in the conference championships last year. As for McD, we'll know a few years down the road. But yeah, knee-jerk reactions are way more fun.

I guess I disagree even with that, Doc. Our offensive personnel are not NFL-quality and our QB is looking like a clueless rookie. (Understandable, as he actually is a clueless rookie.) If the rest of the season mirrors yesterday, certainly Daboll shouldn't be safe. He should be evaluated very very carefully, but I could see that evaluation going either way. They could say, "Daboll just didn't do the job," or they could say, "He put them in position to do OK but the players simply couldn't execute."

Yes, you absolutely are saying that in hindsight. Of course there were guys they should have drafted but didn't. You can say that about literally every single team in NFL history. When you're a new coach whose GM is Doug Whaley, the guy who was so convinced about EJ Manuel, you have a perfect right to think you should wait for the next year to draft a QB, particularly when it looks like that next year might be a historically good draft for QBs. "McD inherited a talented roster"? Oh, yeah, they were a juggernaut. Remember those days? When they had Tyrod ripping up the league at QB? When our top three WRs managed 613 (Woods), 431 (Goodwin) and 430 (Watkins) yards on the year? When John Miller and Jordan Mills were kicking butt all over the ... oh, wait, they're still here. Oh, for those days when we had Adolphus Washington, Preston Brown, Zach Brown and Corey Graham instilling fear all over the league. When our draftees that year - Shaq Lawson, Reggie Ragland, Adolphus Washington, Cardale Jones, Jonathan Williams, Kolby Listenbee and Kevon Seymour were showing the NFL that the new generation were here and ready to dominate? We were the monsters of the Midway that year, teams used to break out in a cold sweat at the prospect of facing those guys. It was a crime that McD sent those guys away. We were like the '27 Yankees of football back then. Puh ..................... leeze. They were mediocre at best. I wouldn't have minded keeping a few of those guys, but pretending that was a talented roster is indulging a fantasy. And again, the reason a lot of those guys had to go is that Beane and McD have publicly said that they promised the Pegulas to clean up, by the end of this year, the horrible cap situation Whaley left them in. They've done that, but it did require letting guys go they probably would rather have kept, like Gilmore and maybe Woods. They were the first regime to realize how desperate their need for a QB was and that they had to put a bunch of picks in the bank to be able to trade up and get one. And as always when you switch schemes, some old guys don't fit the new scheme, such as Darby in this instance. That's life in the NFL.

Very good with personnel evaluation. Absolutely horrible with handling the salary cap.

No, it's not a sure thing yet. Too soon to say. Remember how good Dak Prescott looked his first year? Best guess is that he's going to be a good one. It looks to me like a mistake. Not a fireable one. If every GM who passed on a very good player were fired, there'd be no GMs left.

Trading for Watkins was a horrible mistake? I agree. Giving up two firsts was .... Wait, you're arguing ... what? The pick they got for Watkins was one of the ones they gave up for Allen. They should have done that and whatever else they thought they might have to do to get a possible franchise QB on this roster. And yeah someone overpaid for Watkins. In his fifth year people are still giving him contracts based on his potential rather than his production.

It's really not. I have only watched one game on the all-22, game 2, and guys were open pretty often even and didn't get the ball. Not as open as if we had Antonio Brown or something, but someone is a bit open on most plays. Not that they're performing all that well. They're not. but it's far far more than 20% of the time that there's a good chance to hit someone. Yes, he did give up two firsts. We had 'em and after the trade we didn't. That's giving something up, when you have it and then you don't. And while picking Sammy wasn't a horrible move (though he certainly hasn't yet looked like a #4 in any way shape or form), trading up and giving up two !sts and change for anyone other than a possible franchise QB is a move with a very low chance of coming off well. Whaley was harpooned at the time, correctly, and afterwards, correctly.

"It's hard to win games with a rookie quarterback." -Baldinger That's right. And wait, you mean the Bills WR corps isn't looking all that good? Wow, this is a shock. Who saw that coming? Except, you know, everyone. It was reasonable to expect Benjamin to play at the level he's played at before in his career. He hasn't. But he still easily might. It was reasonable to hope Zay Jones would improve, but after the offseason he had, it became pretty questionable. After that, we don't have guys who you could expect much from, though hope is always reasonable. Some might improve, though they also might not Yup, the WRs aren't playing well. Neither is the QB. Neither is the OL. Even the RBs aren't playing that well this year. So, yeah, they need to bring in some WR help next season and the WRs we have have to start playing better, particularly Benjamin, who isn't playing as well as he has in the past. This is what happens early in a rebuild. This wasn't a total rebuild, but it certainly qualifies as a rebuild. So yeah, should've been expected that there will be areas on the team that are simply not there yet, and even before the season the weakest looked like WR and OL after we lost Richie and Wood, and QB after McCarron didn't prove to be of starter caliber.

Yes, the FO has to make the right decisions. Same for every team. No, it's not scary they have a poor receiving group. It was clear they needed help at WR, but they didn't spend many resources on it. That's because they had major needs nearly everywhere. If they had gone WR in the first they wouldn't have gotten one of either Edmunds or Allen. Both of whom if they work out play a position that's far more needful than WR given the defense they want to run. In this situation there was simply no way to address all of their needs. Beane has had exactly one draft. One. Not one guy he's drafted has played more than four games. The fact is that we simply don't know yet how good he is at drafting or at bringing in FAs when he has money. He has no history of either as yet. He'll either be good or bad, and we don't know which. Myself, I think he's shown himself a smart cookie with a plan. He still has to prove himself but I've got decent confidence he'll do so.

As pointed out above, money. That's what accounts for probably 95% of all player decisions regarding what team to go to. The offseason after the Browns went 0 - 16 saw them pick up some very nice FAs. Yes, the FO has to make the right decisions. No, it's not scary they have a poor receiving group. It was clear they needed help at WR, but they didn't spend many resources on it. That's because they had major needs nearly everywhere. If they had gone WR in the first they wouldn't have gotten one of either Edmunds or Allen. Both of whom if they work out play a position that's far more needful than WR given the defense they want to run. Beane has had exactly one draft. One. Not one guy he's drafted has played more than four games. The fact is that we simply don't know yet how good he is at drafting or at bringing in FAs when he has money. He has no history of either as yet. He'll either be good or bad, and we don't know which as yet. Myself, I think he's shown himself a smart cookie with a plan. He still has to prove himself but I've got decent confidence he'll do so.

I know. Good point. But just as much so, pointing out obvious cases of very bad ideas is also what we do. But yeah, you're right. It's a fair point. There's a very very reasonable argument that the reason Jared Goff got so much better in his second year is that Jared Goff got so much better in his second year. Rookie QBs often don't really know what they're doing and you often see a major leap in the second year. Looked to me like McVay has done a great job but Goff just started making better decisions. One of the main reasons McVay took that job was because they had Goff.

Yeah, we saw deer as well, but I'm jealous about the moose. Last trip (around 45 years ago) we saw a bunch of moose. Nothing this time, and my three year-old really wanted to see one. No moose and no elk this time but the grizzlies made up for it.

When people have to keep mentioning a face when they want to insult a guy, he obviously hasn't showed a lot of weaknesses. If anything that's a good sign for that QB. People are reaching and showing the main reason they don't like him is just that ... they don't happen to like him. As for your guess about Rosen's future, that's what it is, a guess. You could be right. Or just as easily wrong. Once Darnold and Mayfield were gone, I wanted Rosen over Allen though his concerns over Rosen's injuries were very reasonable. That's still my best guess, though I think Allen has a decent chance at proving me wrong. In any case Rosen sure looked good in that one game, though one game is way early to draw a conclusion either way. As is three games, really. Yup. And I'd argue the Bills have a much more threatening run game than the Cards as well, though neither team has started well running the ball. McCoy commands a lot more respect than either of the Cards RBs.

No, Roman wasn't fired after only two games. He was fired after eighteen games, two games into his second season. By a horrible head coach desperate to draw attention away from his own poor performance. Suggesting anyone do something because it's already been done by Rex Ryan while he was in charge of the Bills is not really a winning argument.

The ones who disagree with you are blowing you away? Yup, glad you can see that. Yeah, our offense sucks. No, it's not mostly on the OC, though he deserves a share probably. Just looking at the roster on the offense, this season always looked like a bad year, especially after McCarron wasn't as good as we'd hoped. The OL sucks. The receivers aren't never looked like they'd be better than a bit below mediocre and once McCarron played poorly the best likely outcome would have been Allen sitting on the bench and developing and Peterman being acceptable. We simply don't have a lot of offensive talent and what we do have is young and unproven except for the RBs. When there are problems in any system in life, here's the first reaction that generally comes up: QUICK!!! Find a scapegoat and have a knee-jerk reaction!!!! HURRY!! Don't stop to think!!!!!!! Generally unproductive and ineffective but it's the first and most common reaction you find.

If you judge by that standard, then you clearly "knew" Peyton Manning was bad by the end of his first year. "Bad. End of story," in your words, and yet, it really wasn't the end of the story for Peyton, anymore than what we've seen so far is the end of the Bills story. I'm not spinning anything. Three games simply isn't enough to know. It just isn't. Particularly not when you're judging a GM who's been on board for one draft and a half a year more, and a GM who promised his owner to clear up the horrible cap situation he'd been left by the previous GM by the end of this year.

That stat, percentage of targets that are catches, isn't a receiver stat. It's a stat that has input on both sides, receivers and QBs. And Cam Newton is not a wildly accurate QB. Not to mention that other things affect that stat. For example, if you're a WR who is targeted more on longer routes, your percentage will be lower, as completion percentages simply get lower the farther your pass is. Wouldn't be surprised if a WR who gets targeted on a lot of jump balls had lower numbers as well, though I can't say that for sure. In any case, if you do look at that stat, targets to catches, you learn that this year is an outlier for Benjamin, that he's doing much worse this year than he ever has. Could that continue? Sure, but that's not how you'd bet it.

Well, that's certainly one guess. Thing is, guesses can be wrong or right. And you have to wait to find out.

There's wifi in only a couple of places in the park, and you have to pay. Part of the time we were in those places but who wants to go to a place like that and spend time on the internet? Around half the park has cell service, but again, we didn't want to use our phones except to take pictures. Truly a glorious area and a great vacation. I've caught up with the first two games since getting back. Yikes. Watching them it was nice to know things improve a bit in week three.

I can top that from this trip. Saw three adult grizzlies, one of whom was a sow with two cubs, all wild, one a hundred yards away and the other two around forty to fifty yards away. I went to Yellowstone 45 or 50 years ago when everyone saw grizzlies because the Park had a garbage dump inside the park and there were usually half a dozen bears scavenging at that dump. I thought it would still be like that this trip but when we got there we discovered that that dump is gone and the bears aren't spotted nearly as often. On that earlier trip I saw something I've never forgotten as a result of it's being the single stupidest thing I've ever seen. In Yellowstone when you see cars lined up on the side of the road you know there are usually animals there. So we saw probably 30 cars lined up on both sides of the road and slow traffic. We just drove past and there was a massive adult grizzly within five yards of the road. And a guy had gotten out of his car, bringing his wife and son who was maybe eight years old. He had put his son on top of the grizzly to ride it, he was standing right beside it and his wife was standing two or three yards in front of him slowly lining up a picture. I asked my dad, "should we yell at him to get back in his car?" And my dad said, "No, we're not going to make any noise now, son." There were no reports of a tragedy so this moron got away with it but I'll never forget it. Whenever anyone mentions Darwin awards, that's what I think of. Oh, and one thing you learn in Yellowstone is how absolutely massive and powerful wild buffalo are. We must have seen several hundred, two big herds and maybe eight or ten solos. Man, those are some seriously huge animals.

Yeah, I also have very fond memories of Riddick as a very tough player, a guy I liked.

It may seem that way, but it's not. Last year, for instance, not one single team threw more than 63% of the time. And the top ten teams in throwing percentage, with a couple of exceptions, were throwing a lot because they sucked and were often playing catch-up. The top ten: 1) Miami 2) Detroit 3) Tampa Bay 4) NY Giants 5) Cleveland 6) SF 7) Green Bay ? Arizona 9) Oakland 10) NE