Thurman#1

That you believe there's any parallel here is, yeah, kind of sad. Thinking Allen should sit isn't saying he's going to be awful. It means he's not yet ready. There's no way to argue in any fashion that Eli is not yet ready.

Yeah, they need to stop examining what is actually happening and make up some stuff that's not happening but is earth-shattering. This is one of the two main takes on reporters: "He's saying what everyone else is saying ... boring" and "He's saying stuff that nobody else is saying, and that proves he's wrong."

SF's scored 17 and 20 offensive points in the past two games. Plus one Pick-six but the offense doesn't get credit for that, obviously. Two TDs and two INTs each of Beathard's two games. I don't think SF's compensated all that well. And yeah, the Bills offensive roster does indeed look pretty close to a total failure right now. It's hard to judge Daboll with this group. Now that they've got a defense, a QB and some salary cap space next year, I'll expect them to bring in some decent guys to surround Allen with. That and learning from this year will hopefully improve things.

1) We were terrific with Fitzy? Acceptable, maybe. Terrific? Not even close. Which year were we terrific with him? The year his TD/INTs were 9/10? The year he was 23/15? The 24/23 year? Or his last here, when he was 24/16? The year his passer rating was 69.7? Or the one after that when he was 81.8? Or the next, 79.1? Or the final one when he soared to 83.3?Terrific is way way overstating it. Yeah, having Fitzy instead of Allen is a major advantage. Hopefully as Allen improves, yeah, that changes, but right now if you someone holds a gun to your head and says, "Win the game or I shoot you," you yank Allen for Fitzy every single time. Same with Stevie Johnson. Stevie was hard to call plays for because he wanted freedom to go whichever way he wanted after his fake, but he was open a lot. So you're saying that the Fitzy-Stevie offense was decent and that proves ... what? They did have better personnel than we have now, at QB in particular. 3) Yeah, I didn't see Phillips coming either. Looks like a brilliant pick. 4) OK, I see it's a scene. But it's an obnoxious sentiment anyway.

This. And for me personally I find it hard to root for the guy. He's great on the field but off it I just don't like him. They're certainly a better team this year with him than without him. But this is a rebuild.

Hmm, how much will we save with KB over Watkins? You do the math, dude, Sammy's under contract for $48 mill over 3 years. KB's under contract for this year only for about $8 mill. The short answer? Not $4M. A ton. And the one admitting defeat is you. You couldn't even bring yourself to mention the players I listed, six or seven of whom were (lousy) starters. I mentioned Preston Brown, Zach Brown, Corey Graham, Miller, Mills, Goodwin (431 yards), Woods (613 yards) and Watkins (430 yards) and Tyrod. No wonder you couldn't answer. Makes me a bit sick to my stomach to type that wave of mediocrity. My work here is done, because you're not even giving serious replies anymore, just unsuccessfully trying to distract and save face.

Both ended up around $5 mill or less, if I remember correctly, but that's missing the point. You're not necessarily in cap trouble when you end up close to the cap for a given year. You're in cap trouble when you're running low on funds for the next year while you're still in this year. And that's how the Bills have been for the last three or four years. And thank goodness Beane and McDermott held their nose closed and swallowed their bitter medicine this year. Some of that dead money this year could've been kicked down the road. They didn't do it, for exactly the reason that they want to clear out future cap as they told the Pegulas they would do. Next year they'll be able to re-sign any players who play well enough to warrant it. They'll be able to bring in a bunch of the low- to medium-priced FAs who can fill holes at WR and OL and elsewhere with capable though not outstanding guys. And they'll be able to do that each year because with them in charge the Bills are finally treating the cap the way the Steelers, Pats, Packers, Ravens, Eagles (and, um, the Panthers) ... the best and most consistent teams ... treat it.

It's not, Scott. Not overblown one tiny little bit. They cut a number of contracts for cap reasons even under Whaley as the pressure mounted. And yeah, they could have kept going while picking up a bunch of other contracts. All they'd have had to do was keep re-negotiating contracts and kicking the can down the road, mortgaging the future and getting closer and closer to another complete purge year like the one that came about as a result of John Butler's overspending. Watkins, Dareus and Glenn would together have cost a ton more than Star and Murphy. Making that exchange would have put them yet further behind the eight ball. Watkins alone, with his 254 yards and 1 touchdown would have cost pretty much the same as Lotulelei and Murphy together over the next three years ... $48 mill over the next three years for Sammy. $22.5 mill over three for Murphy and Lotulelei averages $10 mill a year so his three year cost will be around $30 mill. And that's fine that those guys are starting on Super Bowl contending teams. First, none of those teams would NOT be Super Bowl contending teams without those players. Second and more to the point, those teams have different schemes, they have different coaches, different cultures and different salary cap situations. Know who else is on a Super Bowl contending team? Chris Hogan and Stephon Gilmore. Hell, Gillislee was there last year. Teams that use their cap intelligently can bring in guys who they think will help, as any look at the Patriots over the years will show. And as of next year, the Bills will be one of those teams because they'll have dug their way out of Whaley's overspending.

Do you not get the words "before" and "after"? Do you get confused between Beane and McDermott? Hint: Beane is the one with hair. For what is now the third time, Beane gets credit for what happened after Beane was here. Not before. This ain't long division. Don't know why you're having trouble with it. What you say here is simply butt-stupid and besides has not earthly connection to what I said. Beane wasn't there. He gets no credit. McD was there and by all accounts was in charge. He gets the responsibility, and right now that looks like credit. What? That Beane promised the Pegulas he'd clean it up by the end of this year? That's been reported several times. A super-quick google search produces this: "They fixed the salary cap by taking the dead money medicine in 2018, and are set up to make some moves in the offseason with a ton of cap space. They've also re-tooled much of the staff around the building for a less leaky, and a much more communal team. "Everything that Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane have promised owners Terry and Kim Pegula, they've made it happen." - Joe Buscaglia https://www.wkbw.com/sports/bills/at-long-last-the-buffalo-bills-rebuild-is-here and this and this "Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane told Kim and Terry Pegula that it would take a couple of years to reshape the roster and salary cap to the way it should be when he was hired to run the personnel department. Look ahead to the 2019 salary cap space available and you can see the fruits of those labors. "The Bills have shed a few massive contracts over the last two seasons, in many cases gaining assets in the process. But a lot of the corresponding cap hits have come in 2017 and 2018. The dead money on the deals - the remaining signing bonus money that hadn’t yet been accounted for in the salary cap structure - is all accelerated when the player is released or retires. In 2018, that number is almost 47 million dollars. It’s $20 million more than the next team on the list! "But in fitting with the vision for the team, with Josh Allen in place this year to learn the ropes, Buffalo will hit the ground with a ton of cap space in 2019 to surround their young quarterback with established talent. That dead cap money will all be gone. "With the yoke of dead money off the cap, Buffalo has a whopping $76 million in salary cap space for 2019, second-most in the league." https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2018/7/3/17530342/buffalo-bills-2019-salary-cap-space-is-massive-marcell-dareus-eric-wood-tyrod-taylor Took me roughly five minutes even though I knew I didn't remember which press conferences I'd heard it in. Was it really too difficult for you?

Oh, I answered that post because I thought it was Orton. If I'd realized it was you, I wouldn't have bothered answering. And you're right, your post was indeed some quality crap.

Right, those all happened with Beane. So they're on his head. But it's you who keeps screaming on about Beane and at the same time whining endlessly about Mahomes and Watson. You're the one who is screwing up the time frames here. It's real real simple. Beane is responsible for the moves after he joined us. But not for the ones before.

Oh, yeah, they had a ton of talent. Yeah, I remember those days, before Beane and McDermott came in, when this team was like a playoff juggernaut. Oh, for the good old days of 2016 when your three top receivers were frightening defenses all over the league by throwing up Madden-like stat years of production like 430 yards (Watkins), 613 yards (Woods) and 431 yards (Goodwin). Oh, and when you remember we had Percy Harvin and his hamstring on top of all those riches ... Yeah, we roamed the earth like titans back then. And all three guys have maintained their awesome levels of production on other teams as well. Oh, for the days when we had John Miller and Jordan Mills on the right side of the OL. Oh, wait. Yup, and remember that awesome defense? Wow, no telling how good we'd be if only we had starters like them ... Adolphus Washington, Preston Brown, Zach Brown, Corey Graham with Jerel Worthy and Corbin Bryant picking up DL snaps and a gimpy Aaron Williams being spelled by Ihedigbo. Dude, that team was mediocre even before you get around to mentioning Tyrod Taylor, and that mediocre team was crammed up against the salary cap like a team at the end of a Super Bowl window. That's what ended up causing them to let go some pretty good players, such as Gilmore. Throw in the fact that they wanted to keep Eric Wood and Incognito but couldn't and it's ridiculous to think that team was a few pieces away.

No, it's not on Beane's shoulders. What's on Beane's shoulders is what happened after he became GM. Many or most of the changes you're talking about happened before he got here. And no, stupid posts are absolutely NOT his fault. They are the fault of posters who don't get it. What don't they get? That we're a year and 5 weeks into a rebuild which will not be able to be judged till 3 - 5 years in. People who try to judge now are being clueless. And no, that's not Beane's fault in any way. As for the accelerated cap, yup, they're the ones who accelerated it. Precisely because they'd been told to completely clean up the cap mess by the owners. Fans love to ignore that, but GMs who enjoy their jobs can't ignore what they're told by the Pegulas of the world. They accelerated the cap hits because they'd been told to clear up the cap by the end of this year. Not before. By the end of this year. All those accelerated cap hits hurt this year but will be totally off the books by the owners deadline. Again, fans who want to make final judgments now are simply part of their own little process, in this case the process of "not getting it." And no, that's not Beane's fault.

Yup, acting like they "got it right" makes absolutely no sense ... anymore than pretending they got it wrong. What they've done is started a process. If you become a GM, great, do it your way and we'll evaluate. But in the meantime, if they don't want Dareus on their team after seeing him for months, that's not a mistake. It's a choice which has a long way to go before it will be proven correct or incorrect. If they build a terrific team, their process will have been proven successful. If their team has been proven still sucky after four or five years, their method will have been proven unsuccessful. Putting together groups like the one you have above in your third paragraph is an academic exercise at best. You can't compare a list of names to another list of names and find out if they're better than another list. It's whether that group of guys can play well ... together ... with that coach ... under the coach's system ... within that team's salary cap constrictions. We now know that Dareus can't play for McD. We also know that the owner asked our GM to get the salary cap mess cleaned up by the end of this year, impossible with your list, which is almost certainly why Woods, Watkins, Dareus, Gilmore and a few others aren't here. But arguing anyone is dead wrong at this point is ... well, it's dead wrong. We'll have a much better idea in a year or two. Now, we don't know. That draft was Tre White, Zay, Dion Dawkins, and Milano. Those are three terrific value picks even without Zay, who still might turn out to be a good one if we're lucky and he keeps developing.

I don't get the hate either. Patience is necessary. But pointing out only the better part of the season and ignoring the rest makes no more sense than hating.

It's the fault of being still early in a rebuild ... a rebuild during which the owner exacted a promise to clean up the salary cap morass by the end of this year. That dead cap space looks awful this year and terrific next year. I personally don't see a lot of gaping holes on the defense. Certainly still room for improvement, but "gaping holes"? I don't see it on defense. On offense, yeah. That tends to happen, though, that a new coach prioritizes the side of the ball that he specializes in. And yeah, Smith-Schuster would've been an improvement over Zay, or so it looks so far. But the rest of that draft looks damn good. Tre' White at #27? Dawkins in the 3rd, trading up to get him? Looks very smart in retrospect. Milano in the 5th? Even Peterman in the 5th might easily turn out to be a good pick if he ends up as a long-time backup, here or elsewhere, though it's far from sure that will happen. You can't blame them for the Zay Jones pick without also praising them for White, Dawkins and Milano. And that was all before Beane even came on board.

Easy to say that when you're not the guy managing that talent. McDermott is. That explains why Dareus is gone. The guy couldn't even be on time for buses, much less meetings. And cutting Dareus meant spending more this year and less after ... just in line with their goals, having promised the owner that they would clear up the cap situation by the end of this season.

Plenty of good coaches only pick players who fit their scheme. Belichick, for instance. And it's probably not a mistake that the team that picked up Darby fit him into a zone scheme. I certainly did see them ... try ... to refute everything. But let's face it, they're agreeing with you, and while ScottLaw and NoSaints are both good posters, the fact that they're agreeing with a prize troll on this issue means they're likely on the wrong side in this case.

Good post.

And when I want to hear nonsense, I'll seek out your posts, they're an endless source. Your last paragraph is logically the same as saying "I'll point out that oranges are fruit, yet trains are not." Both true, but having absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Maturity and readiness are two very different things. I don't have the slightest concern about Allen's maturity. I question his readiness.

Flaming out happens for lots of reasons and one of them is that the guy was ruined. See Joey Harrington and David Carr for two of many. That doesn't come even close to following logically. If anyone had said, "Absolutely every QB needs a year or two on the bench," it would be an excellent piece of evidence in attacking that argument. But that's not what people are saying. They're saying some guys need development time. And pretty much everyone says that. Including McDermott and Josh Allen himself. Yeah, some guys have tough first years and do fine. Aikman and Manning were widely considered to be NFL-ready. So, yeah, some guys, especially the ones who are NFL-ready, can have tough first years and develop. Others can't, especially the ones who are widely considered to need development time. And our guy was widely considered to need a lot of development time. I'm hoping he succeeds anyway, of course. But I fear they could have handled this a lot better and that they may be at least setting him back.

Maybe you should. They appear to have fixed ILB, CB, S, a decent DL and maybe even QB. Not that they're perfect but they've been pretty decent with obvious salary cap impediments. Too early to say we shouldn't trust them. Yikes.

It really is sad. And I'm sorry to hear about your brother. And as I look back at this thread, I'm pretty convinced Sky Diver is trolling. Which is outright sad and rude, based on what the issue is.

Frankly, you're right. I shouldn't compare Richie and Forte because Forte played much longer for the Bears and didn't show signs of mental illness at the end of his term there. The Bears had far more of a reason to be faithful to Forte than the Bills had to be faithful to Richie. And if you seriously think he would still be on this team if we'd paid him, than there is seriously something wrong with your thought process. He threatened people with gun violence and told the cops he was working for the government and yet also being surveilled and persecuted by the government. Seriously you are absolutely wrong that he'd still be playing. Totally wrong. Serious, serious problems for Richie. I wish him the best in his recovery. But at this point it's clear you're either trolling here or just wacko on this issue, so if your next reply is as bizarre as this one, I'll consider my work here done.