All_Pro_Bills

I'd say the Bengals game but you can balance that out by the win over Atlanta when that team was in a funk. I expect Baltimore to win this week, Tennessee to lose to the Rams, and the Jet to beat the Chargers at home. I hope the Bills put up a good fight against the Patriots but unless something unexpected happens, like Brady get carted off in the 1st quarter, they will likely come up short. That should set up a win and in against Miami.

The thing is its no secret what NE does on offense. They've been doing pretty much the same thing for 15 years with a few exceptions like the Ravens and the Giants in the SB games few teams have had any success. Certainly the Bills have not. You'd think after 15 years of watching your defense get run over twice a year one of the many regimes they've had would devise an effective defensive strategy and identify and acquire the necessary defensive personnel to run it. But nothing. From his first encounter with NE I get the feeling that McDermott has a pretty good handle on what it will take but at this point the Bills personnel doesn't match up well with that. Sure you need to get pressure up the middle on Brady. To me that means lining up big athletic DT's inside the guards over the center and having the DE's take an inside rush rather than get pushed around the pocket as you see all the time. And when bringing the blitz right up the middle. Force Brady off his spot, Of course since he reads 'D' well this leaves you exposed outside to run or pass action and in the middle of the field so you need fast and instinctive linebackers that can read and cover a lot of ground which the Bills don't have yet. My concern next week is the offense. The defense for its lack of match-up did a decent job against NE in the 1st game holding Brady to 3 1st half FG's and the 2 TD's in the 2nd half. It was the offense that did close to nothing.

Watching the play and the replay the blow to White's head was an obvious intent to injure. If that criteria doesn't warrant some kind of fine or suspension then what does? But through some warped logic from the officials the Bills were the team penalized for 15 yards on that play and he wasn't ejected. I'm pretty sure the league will take no action. Just amazing. Now when one of the Bills DB's blows out Gronk's knee with a low hit in the rematch you can bet it will be a different story from the league office.

A simple definition of a 'process' is a series of steps or actions that do something. In this case the process should be to build a championship caliber professional football team. So every action taken to this point by the organization should be part of the plan and not some one-off move. Ex., moving Darius should have been something on the checklist that was decided during the 'getting to know you' time before the season and when the opportunity came to make the trade with the Jags they executed that step. I expect that acquiring a QB to run the offensive should also be a step although its tough for me to see what it is at this point. As there are so few great QB's available I suspect they are in lock down mode when it comes to showing their hand. Professionally, I've worked on many large process changes and cultural transformations. Most of them make sense but very few are entirely successful. I think for a several reasons. The first is expectations and over-promising. These things take time but everyone gets impatient and wants instant results. Executives and stakeholders want to see those big cost savings and quality improvements. So they start measuring everything and driving behavior contrary to the plan. In the case of pro-ball it would be owner meddling to soon. And from a capability perspective either you know what your doing or you don't know what you are doing. A process doesn't make people smarter or more talented. Also most culture changes require a large turnover of personnel in an organization. In this case the 45 man roster. People know this and how motivated can they be expected to be knowing they are going to be replaced regardless of them 'buying in'? From my observations most cultural transformations fail because rather than adopting the new culture you get imitation of the culture and not the real thing. Based on what I've seen to this point I feel Beane and McDermott are going in the right direction while acknowledging a few gaffs along the way. Clearly we're in the turmoil phase of the transition. How they handle it is going to be important to adoption of the process. Admitting to the mistakes and doing some minor course corrections would be the best way to handle it now after 3 blowouts.

Team management and the coaching staff are at a key decision point. If you look at the next 3 games, Chargers, Chiefs, and Patriots, in the context of what we witnessed the last 2 weeks, it's hard not to conclude the Bills are going to be looking at 5-7 after that 3 game stretch. All 3 have pretty decent defenses and you can expect more of the same as the Jets and Saints defenses did to the Bills offense. 8, 9 in the box with McCoy hit 3 yard behind the line on almost every run and lots of short passes. And compounding the problem of a feeble offense, all of a sudden the Bills defense looks slow and tired. You go to Peterman now for a few reasons. 1) Let's be honest, this season is circling the drain now, 2) Tyrod is a real stand-up guy but he just doesn't have the 'it' a franchise QB needs, 3) you need to see if Peterman has 'it' or get enough good starts out of he to determine if he can develop into a franchise QB, 4) and if not you need to seriously start doing your homework on the QB draft class and understand what you have and what it will take to be/get into a position on the board to pick one.

I'm just not getting the logic of why a 5-2 team in a great position to land a playoff spot and possibly in the hunt for a division title would trade their starting left tackle and weaken the offensive line. Unless you get a player(s) back that can improve some other deficiency how will that help for 2017? Draft picks next year? No thanks. Glenn looks to be healthy now, playing well, the team has good depth for once at the position, and the offensive line is starting to gel with the new blocking schemes and line combinations. We have a good LT and they're not that easy to find and develop. When you strike gold, stop digging. Glenn at LT, Dawkins at RT.

Sounds like he might be a candidate to pick up the torch from Chris Berman. Would have really capped off the win to hear a 'nobody circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills' on the ESPN recap last night. Unfortunately with the new crew the current ESPN coverage is a shadow of its former self.

I'll admit it. Watching the game and after many seasons of futility on the road against a good opponent I expected this to be one of those 'moral victory' moments. We've seen it many times for many seasons. When the Bills play a favored opponent tough only to lose the game at the end. Followed by gratuitous praise from the home team about how the Bills gave them all they could handle. Instead, a real victory with a 'W' in the standings with a great effort and smart play all around. At this point they are definitely raising expectations.

My view is the only way to come together around these social issues is is to have a very uncomfortable and honest conversation between all sides about the concerns, behaviors, and grievances of all parties to reach a common understanding of where to go from here. That's going to take some leadership and from where I sit we have no leaders on any side of the issues capable or willing to do that.

Whether by design or not you did the right thing by letting some time pass for the alcohol to leave your system. A beer is about .02 for blood alcohol so 4 beers in an hour would put you at .08 which is the legal limit in most states. To be safe you'd need to let 4 hours pass, 1 hour per drink, to be pretty certain the alcohol has left your system. As a matter of practice the smartest thing to do is don't drink and drive. And if you do have a drink or two at a friends house, a bar after work, or at an outdoor barbeque is might make sense to invest about $75 in a pocket sized breathalyzer test that you can get online or at pharmacies like CVS. While its not totally accurate it will give you a heads up not to drive. A few dollars spent now can avoid the potential of shelling out thousands later and will make sure you do the right thing and not endanger yourself or others. As tailgating season approaches its a good reminder to make sure if your attending a game that the designated driver is sober. As for me, I don't want to climb into a car with somebody that's intoxicated and over the legal limit and I'm not going to drive if I've been drinking. In your case the officer must have decided you were sober or wouldn't have blown a reading anywhere near the legal limit once he got you to the station and went through all the protocols for performing the breathalyzer test. Or he wasn't comfortable in how he'd argue probable cause for a traffic stop. The other factor at play here is these cases are big-time money makers for cities and towns. Big revenue generators. If you get busted and convicted you'll end up spending about $2K for a decent lawyer, 1K in fines and court costs, about $3K of insurance surcharges payable to the state, and maybe have to take 'classes' which might run you another $1K. Viewed from the municipalities perspective your a living ATM machine. Don't put yourself in that position to really screw up your finances. The other thing is breathalyzer machines do not directly measure your blood alcohol level. The machine derives an estimate of your level from a sample of your breath run through a series of mathematical algorithms hardcoded for a person of 'average' physiology. I'd say it with 100% certainty a professional athlete is not physiologically average. Things like the volume of red blood cells in your bloodstream can impact the real reading. That's why the blood test is much more accurate. The laws very from state to state and as I said at the top the best thing to do is avoid the situation altogether. But it wouldn't hurt to understand the details of the specific laws in your state before you get caught up in one of these situations guilty or innocent. Even if you didn't do anything it can be a major hassle. For example, you're at a bar happy hour after work and had a few drinks. You have one of those pocket testers and find out your over the legal limit at .10. So you decide to wait it out in your car for a couple hours to do the right thing or call a car service or somebody for a ride home. If a cop approaches you and checks you for signs of intoxication (probable cause some 'suspicious person' seen sitting in the parking lot for a long time) even though you didn't drive you can still be busted for DUI if your keys are in the ignition or in the vehicle. To avoid this you need to take the keys and throw them under the car. 99 times out of 100 you won't learn that until its too late.

With several very good QB prospects expected to be available for the draft this would be the time to be measurably worse. The schedule is tough and predicting records at this point is a crapshoot. All I ask is I see a well prepared, disciplined, and big-effort team on the field week after week. There's no shame in losing to a superior foe as long as you give it you best shot and don't beat yourself like this team did during the short Rex era. Getting focused, setting a plan for getting competitive longer-term, and perhaps getting the answer at QB then going into the 2018 season with a real shot at competing for the division or minimally a wild card would be the best of all worlds for me.

So far it's encouraging but as I've seen in work life moving in a new direction is always hailed as progress and the right thing to do until the losses start piling up. However, I do get the feeling this time ownership got it right. My way of looking at it is the Ryan/Whaley regime had a ceiling of 9 wins if everything breaks their way. For the new group to be successful they need to put enough improvements in place for management, coaching, player procurement, and performance to bring that ceiling up to 12 wins over the course of the next 3 seasons. And importantly, keep it there into the future.

Trading Watkins now would be the definition of buy high and sell low. After a statistically poor season and injury rehab at present the return on any trade would be pretty poor. To me it would be better to hang on to Watkins, let him heal up, and play the season in a Bills uniform. Maybe he has a monster season? Then you go into the off season and the draft, franchise him, then either sign him long term or trade him for a lot more than you'd get now. Win/win either way. If he's a bust this year then my approach has some flaws but I'd be willing to roll the dice on the upside outcome here. I don't think the Bills will need 3 1st rounders to move into a spot to select a potential franchise QB in the 2018 draft. My expectation is their record will be bad enough for them to slide into a top 5 slot by themselves. While It would be agonizing to watch the upside to future contention would be worth it. I also think the KC 1st rounder is going to be much lower (15-18) than most experts think. Their schedule is pretty tough too and many games on the schedule could go either way.

There's no sense getting overly optimistic and setting yourself up for major disappointment. I've done that several times with the Bills and while all the moves to date this off-season are pointing in the right direction we're still at the 'planning' phase where everybody's plan looks great until they get hit with reality and the real games begin. I will say what 'feels' different is a sense of competency that this new staff is smart, motivated, and pulling in the same direction with a single vision working towards the same goal with no political BS. Time will tell whether that leads to anything to get excited about on Sundays. My gut says they're in for a rough first year this season.

So perhaps a better way to look at it is which division is most or least competitive. You can certainly argue the case the AFCE ins't expected to be much of a competition for the division title and that's been the case since around 1999 with the exception of a few good years for the Jets. With that being the case the Bills, Dolphins, and Jets are left with fighting for a Wild Card spot with the other 9 non-division winning teams every year. So I'd say the AFCE is least competitive maybe not 'worst'.

I doni't see Peterman starting. What I see is a team that will be in a position to assess some realistic options at the end of the season. In other words a plan for once vs. hope. Taylor plays well, the team improves, and he starts again 2018. Taylor falters and Peterman comes off the bench and plays well. Maybe or maybe not well enough to impact the 2018 draft approach. Neither QB plays good enough to be considered a franchise QB and the Bills are in position to get one of the top 3. Taylor or Peterman excels and the team has 2 2018 1st rounders to improve the team elsewhere. And I don't want to forget CJ.

As a matter of professional courtesy teams rarely block anyone from interviewing for a promotion with another team. A lateral move would be treated differently. Permission if given might be conditional like a draft pick or some other consideration. As for McDermott poaching Carolina's draft board I have my doubts since considerable time has passed between when he was hired by the Bills and the draft. About 4+ months. Maybe they had a hi-level view of how they wanted to approach the draft but I doubt they had any kind of firm or specific targets identified.

I like what's happening so far but fear things are happening in the wrong order. Generally, you hire a GM and that person hires a coach that aligns with the teams approach and philosophy. But we already have a HC and are looking for a GM who aligns with the HC. Will that work? It might but this could also limit the number of potential candidates willing to come into this situation. On the other hand you can always fall back on the there's only 32 jobs like this out there. Yesterday Pegula's said Whaley was being relieved of his duties but the fact is DW was relieved of those responsibilities long before being fired. McDermott has been running the FO and called the shots in the draft. So specifically what are the duties of the GM in this situation and who will be making the final decision on the 53 man roster? Please don't let me hear them say it will be a 'team' effort. If I'm a veteran GM or a high-potential candidate I would think twice on what I could be getting into here. Other than the move up for Dawkins, which might have been unnecessary, the draft was good. NE took an OT who rates well with the 21st pick and it's not clear if anybody else was thinking OT in front of the Bills in the 3rd. Not much help for the defense as those extra picks traded away could have helped. Love the extra 1st they got from KC and this season my second favorite team will be whoever the Chiefs are playing that week.

Recorded the draft today and just watched ESPN commentary. Nothing but positives about the pick. Most 'throw ready' QB in the draft I believe they said. Played in pro style offense under center. Smart, goes through progressions, accurate. Only QB to beat Cleamson and on the road putting up 33. Arm strength not optimal but has superior understanding of the game and the position. Frankly, can't wait to see if the Bills might have hit here.

From what I've read to this point there are 3 QB's to watch for 2018 that are said to be superior to any of the QB's in the 2017 class. Darnold USC, Rosen UCLA, and Allen Wyoming. Maybe others? Bundling what might be another Bills top 10 pick next year with what projects to the 24th spot for KC based on current Super Bowl odds could move the Bills up.

I expect White will be viewed as an upgrade to Gilmore after 7 or 8 games. Intelligence, tackling, effort. I never understood how Gilmore was ever considered to be a shutdown corner. Not sure what anybody saw that I missed. The consensus is KC's 1st rounder will be in the late 20's next year. But there's no guarantee of that with schedules, injuries, and unforeseen events.

They have some cap space available to match the offer if only to send a message that things will be different going forward. The front office has got to be smarter. NE is playing the Bills as a minor league farm team. 'Calling up' a player when the need to fill a spot. Improving their team while weakening a division rival. For starters they need to stop the practice of usually tendering the lowest possible offer to RFA's and offer what the player is actually worth. As events continue to expose incompetence I'm coming around to the conclusion by many here that Whaley needs to go ASAP.

Your right about defense spending and prison population. The US spends more on defense than the next 15 nations (including China and Russia) combined and about 12 of them can be considered allies. But its expensive to defend an empire with troops stationed in some 130 countries around the world. As such most of the world sees the US as the biggest threat to peace rather than the current Russian behind every bush and tree hysteria going on in the media and Congress. The US holds 25% of the world prison population against something like 5% of the total population. Chalk this up to the Federal, State, and local governments criminalizing everyday life from where you can plant a tree on your own property to the lack of proper permits for a child's lemonade stand. The latest fad among the revenue starved jurisdictions being civil forfeiture laws without due process. But regardless of all that it's still the destination of choice for the world's legal and illegal immigrants and refugees. For example, I don't hear a lot about people trying to sneak into Albania. Or the great business opportunities in Venezuela. Or quality of life in The Congo. And all these people who threatened to move to Canada. I read somewhere requests to the Canadian government totaled a whopping 25 individual requests. So no matter what anybody wants to think if you live in the US you're probably already better off than 95% of the rest of the world.

Rather than develop a complex, fact-less, conspiracy theory it's very simple. No team thinks Kap is worth all the drama that might follow him..

Your statement is insightful. But what's missing from the social debate is a level of civility that used to exist when people openly debated social issues with the goal of reaching some common understanding to move forward. Now all we get is a lot of shouting, empty symbolism, paid professional demonstrators, and rather than reaching some consensus understanding everybody competing in some winner take all conflict. Part of the problem is nobody really wants to have an open and honest discussion about race and social justice as there are many sides to the issue that as you say conflict with individual belief systems from each person's perspective. The other thing is the definition of racist has morphed over time. Before being a racist used to mean somebody who takes action against somebody that violates their civil rights because of the race. Now it includes anybody that might disagree with a certain political philosophy or 'says' something. When I was younger we used to say 'names can never hurt you' but that no longer seems to apply. As for Kap the football QB I would think that if he was worthy of picking up some other quarterback starved team would have made him an offer already.