Delete This Account
-
Posts
4,267 -
Joined
Content Type
Gallery
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by Delete This Account
-
-
On 6/2/2019 at 7:52 AM, SoTier said:
What you seem to be is a reporter whose access to the team is dependent upon putting positive spin on whatever the team does and who gets very defensive when posters here criticize your acceptance of the conditions for your access.
Another member of the "No Critiicism of the Bills Allowed" Brigade heard from!
here's two words.
bull and *****
jw
-
2
-
-
On 5/31/2019 at 12:55 PM, BADOLBILZ said:
JW I apologize if I offended you with my pretty reasonable/debatable responses.
Here's a less friendly take..........I absolutely take offense to your misuse the language to IMO slant a take from your sources.
I also understand that the landscape for journalists has been changing and there is no financial/career advantage in you giving anything less than maximum benefit of the doubt to the organization you are paid to cover.
We "couldn't afford to pay Robert Woods $8M" looks a lot better to the organization than "we were pretty certain he wasn't worth $8M" and then having him go put up 2K yards in his first two years in LA.
Originally I thought maybe you were just eased into that mindset by a very media friendly GM.............unfortunately my opinion has changed.
It's unfortunate when your local AP rep can't even be objective but I guess that's the way it is.
Good day sir!
son of a fart.
i have absolutely no f-in clue who you are, nor do i care as you hide behind your veil of anonymity in being able to call out people and their professions directly.
good for you. i'd like to have that advantage.
like the way you weave in a narrative there without the benefit of facts, in suggesting you know what i do and how i go about doing it.
i give the benefit of the doubt to all people i cover, as it is my job to be impartial. it's only when i gain enough perspective based on my own discussions, my own eyes, and the results put forth before me when i begin gaining a semblance of perspective.
you, on the other hand, have elected to place the cart directly before the horse and advance to let's move on with this crew.
you're more than free to do that.
and yet, don't project your biases on what i do and how i go about doing it.
this sycophantic narcissm of placing your values on me just because i posted something positive is your issue, but now you've made it mine by questioning my professionalism.
easy for you to attempt to put me on the defensive as i don't know who you are except for some acned-teenager with a keyboard fetish.
it's unfortunate that i have to respond like this, but you've brought it on yourself as it's been clear through the little time i've gotten to know you that i've gained a clear sense of perspective of how small-minded you are.
jw
-
2
-
1
-
3
-
4
-
-
1 hour ago, Coach Tuesday said:
Come on. There was good discourse back and forth - would hate to see it reduced to "you're not a real fan if you're critical of the product."
good discourse?
not sure about that. as all threads eventually unravel, this was expected.
i've stated my case.
not sure why this dude continued to challenge me as i've said what i've said, and gonna stick by it.
the sheer negativity from the poster leads me to question whether he's a fan. thus my question.
all that said, this whole conversation's run it's course, so let this be my final response of this thread.
jw
-
1
-
-
On 5/29/2019 at 10:54 PM, BADOLBILZ said:
Why would I assume that?
What it "seems" like is that the organization is very much behind whatever Beane and McDermott do.........whether that's because they like the moves or just "understand" why the moves were made. So the answers will all be pretty much the same regardless of the source with this regime. Which is not unexpected when everyone south of owners box was either hired by them or evaluated and allowed to stay by them.
That's why you clean house.......it buys loyalty and time to get systems in place. What it doesn't do is make Beane or McDermott stack up better against their counterparts around the league in terms of talent evaluation/cap management and strategy/gameday coaching etc...........another .000 batting average in UFA like last offseason and another stack of blowout losses and/or 2 more losses to Belichick etc.. will take a mighty bite out of that cushion created by the house cleaning regardless of the quality of lip service provided.
i'm not a fan of the team by the mere nature of my job.
what's your excuse?
jw
-
1
-
1
-
-
ok, folks, you don't need google translator for this. that said, i'm working under the belief that we all understand words, words have accepted definitions, and that we're all on board with that except, of course, with the anarchists.
i find nothing wrong with the anarchists in principle, but let's leave them out of this, because then this whole thing that i'm going to write next will go awry.
of course, many things that i've already written in this post have gone awry, so who the heck am i kidding. clearly, i'm writing this for an audience of one.
and that audience happens to be me.
so i'm going to get a kick out of this if nothing else.
because, let's face it, how often to i have to post the same words in different posts over and over again, before someone starts mentioning occam's razor. and once we reach the point of someone mentioning occam's razor, and using an example that is far more complex and speculative than occam's razor, then clearly, this is the point where all bet's are off and it's time to start babbling.
and i regret that i'm writing fairly quickly here, so those among you who are slow readers might want to take a breath.
so, where was i?
yes, google translator. sorry, i lied. you'll need google translator because, after all,
de hars hpyitparsai
and
agus tá mé tuirseach de mé féin a athráfariq kurat alqadamPhyāyām prah̄yạd ngein doy k̄hx h̄ı̂ p̄hū̂ lèn thảngān ngeindeụ̄xn h̄ım̀der Spieler akzeptierteog þá gerði hann það ekkiend of Sutōrī-
1
-
-
3 hours ago, JohnC said:
John W., I still don't understand the organization's frugality with Incognito. His contract wasn't exorbitant and he played up to it. Was he declining? Probably so, but it wasn't significant enough to alter his status as probably the best blocker on the line. He was at a sun setting stage in his career so an extended contract was not probable. The team was in a good enough cap shape so signing him at his current contract level instead of at a diminished level didn't make sense to me, especially for one of our best blockers on a mediocre line. Last year, our OL was one of the worst lines in the league. His subtraction contributed to the plummeting performance of the unit.
What I am basically asking is why did McBeane play contract hardball with RI when they didn't need to? Were there other issues going on with this player who had a history of problems?
The team at the time was doing its due diligence in trying to free up as much salary cap space as possible.
This happens more often than we know during every offseason.
I'm not aware of any "hardball" negotiations going on, and don't think Richie was going to be cut had he not accepted the restructured deal.
He certainly would've had his options, at that point, to go elsewhere and make more money had he been released at that time.
The odd thing was, Incognito accepted the paycut and announced he was happy to be coming back for that matter on the tweeter.
and then he wasn't.
jw
2 hours ago, BADOLBILZ said:3. So there was no threat of the Bills releasing Richie Incognito if he refused a pay cut? Really? My point was why did he have to take a pay cut to be retained? He was good.....the other options clearly were not. But you are saying they asked his agent if he'd LIKE a pay cut and he was like "sure, why not"? That sounds implausible.
5. I didn't ask you why they signed Star. The point is that Beane has told you they couldn't "afford" moves that they didn't make while clearly and vastly overpaying for a guy like Star Lotulelei. You take the very subjective "afford" and present it as a solid excuse, which it's CLEARLY not. Beane is very good at manipulating the media to accept the same excuse that wouldn't fly for previous GM's. I credit him for bringing basic corporate competence to the table though. I know you guys aren't used to seeing that from Bills GM's.
6. A LOT can happen over the course of 6 months or a football season. We've seen Eric Moulds go from being considered a very realistic possibility to be cut entering camp in 1998 to having the best season a WR has had in Bills history. We saw a massive attitude change from the LeSean McCoy of 2015 to the guy who came to mini-camp in 2016 with a new mindset. Knowing these things happen..........saying the Bills "would've lost Watkins for nothing in free agency" is incredibly speculative. Has it occurred to you that the same guy that tells you he can't afford things that simple calculations should tell you that he can is also telling you what he wants you to hear regarding situations like the Watkins trade? And again, with KB, they acquired a guy who they were only going to get 23-24 games out of before HE became a free agent but that was........what.......a "smart" or "efficient" move?
you seem to be assuming my only source is Brandon Beane.
well, we know what assuming leads to ...
jw
-
3
-
-
On 5/16/2019 at 10:48 PM, BADOLBILZ said:
John has it ever been explained to you by anyone in the Bills organization why the team didn't hire Beane in January of 2017???? I am sure there was a reason but there certainly wasn't a good excuse for it. The only positive out of trading away the pick that became Patrick Mahomes is that Beane isn't saddled with it on his resume. Of course.....coincidentally......all the Bills early picks in that draft(White,Jones, Dawkins) were guys who visited Beane in Carolina.
As for your numbers:
1.IMO, that's some cash-to-the-cap level nonsense if that's really how Beane rationalized the lack of attention paid to the OL. The cap is malleable. Your rookie QB's brain stem....not so much. Until Allen started running wild he had his head dribbled off the turf against Cinci in preseason and missed games to injury from unblocked pass rushers in Houston.
2.They also didn't draft a WR in either 2018 or 2019.
3. Incognito was a pro bowl guard...........why did they need him to take a pay-cut from his already cheap deal?
4. Cash-to-the-cap. An entirely self imposed limit is a choice......not a limit.
5. They could afford Star Lotulelei.......who amazingly made only ONE play behind the LOS last year....that's hard to do on that many snaps. But they couldn't "afford" Bob Woods who put up 2,000 receiving yards since he left? Here's what happened.......they determined that they DID NOT WANT to spend that. Important distinction.
6. If you recall the Eagles struggled for months to find any takers for Matthews for any kind of draft capital. The league was moving away from "lumbering" WR's as HOF WR James Lofton characterized Matthews. Beane was behind the curve on this. And the primary pick that he spent on Benjamin was just 29 picks later than the one they acquired for Watkins. So if they "didn't give up much" in acquiring KB I guess they didn't get much more for Watkins either.
They didn't hire Beane because they weren't going to fire Whaley until after the draft. They didn't want to risk losing the institutional scouting knowledge he had compiled.
1. that's your opinion. Beane decided to limit himself on how much money to spend and where to spend it last season.
2. You're right.
3. They didn't make him do anything. They offered it up and he accepted. In fact, he was happy about it initially until he wasn't.
4. yes, you've said this, i see.
5. they signed Star because he was one of the few big-name players who was interested in signing with Bills, and Bills felt he would address an important need. this, of course, was in 2018 under Beane. Woods left in 2017 before Beane arrived. this is also an important distinction.
6. sure. of course you conveniently omit the fact that the Bills would've lost Watkins for nothing in free agency the following year, while knowing they weren't going to re-sign him. so, the thought was, why not bring in someone with another year on his contract to see if he might fit. he didn't. shrug.
jw
On 5/17/2019 at 9:08 AM, SoTier said:This list smacks of simply repeating excuses circulated by the Bills FO to cover their collective backsides for making poor decisions.
Don't give me this "They never anticipated losing Wood and Incognito" BS. Yes, Wood's force retirement was an unexpected blow, but Incognito was 36 years old. A competent FO anticipates that 36 year old OLers just might not be around too much longer ... or, heaven forbid, OLers might get injured. Despite losing Incognito and with John Miller having struggled in 2017 and Vlad Ducasse being a career bottom-feeder OG, the Bills finally got around to drafting their one and only 2018 OLer at the end of the fifth round.
Technically, the Bills had Tyrod Taylor and Nathan Peterman on the payroll at the beginning of free agency, and then traded Taylor to the Browns a day after the FA began. McCarron was signed after Taylor was traded. If FA WRs chose to sign elsewhere because of the QB situation, that's on Beane/McDermott for choosing to have such inexperienced/incompetent (Peterman) QBs on the roster.
Saying that "they were committed to only spending only so much in free agency, because the objective was to free up as much room under the cap as possible" says that they -- Beane, McDermott, Pegula, all the bean-counters at OBD -- were perfectly okay with spending huge amounts of draft capital to get a first round QB but weren't really interested in seeing him succeed. How is that significantly different from the way that the Donahoe or the Brandon/Levy/Jauron or the Brandon/Nix/ Whaley regimes operated -- exciting the fan base with individual FA signings or draft picks but never building a quality team to make those signings worthwhile?
As for re-signing Woods, I doubt that the Bills ever had any expectations of doing so. Woods was simply too good to settle for whatever the Bills were willing to offer him. The last top class WR that the Bills drafted and re-signed for the current market rate for #1 WRs was Eric Moulds. While Lee Evans was also re-signed, he had never played as well as expected.
It wasn't a case of they couldn't "afford" to re-sign Stephon Gilmore, either. It's that they chose to not to do so because that's been the Bills practice for decades: draft first round DBs, develop them into top players, and let them walk away in FA rather than pay them. Only first rounder Leotis McKelvin, who was never more than a competent DB, was re-signed. Winfield, Clements, Whitner, and Gilmore all left because the Bills decided to draft their replacements rather than pay them.
One of the big reasons that I'm not sold on the Beane and McDermott regime being any more successful than their predecessors is that they've done so many things the same way they've been done in the past. They seem to be carrying on the tainted legacy of Russ Brandon of putting the making more profit ahead of winning more games. Before he was hired by the Bills, Brandon's claim to fame was gutting the Florida Marlins the year after they won the 1997 World Series (Fire Sale ). That shouldn't be surprising since they were both hired while he was in charge of the team, so it's likely they share his views about paying for players. From your post, it certainly sounds that way, which to my mind doesn't bode well for building a winning franchise on their watch. The way the entire QB situation was handled in 2018, from not providing Allen with an experienced QB coach to the get-go to keeping Peterman on the roster long after it became clear that the team wouldn't play for him to waiting a month for Anderson and to finally getting around to signing a somewhat competent backup QB only after Anderson got injured doesn't scream "this organization is going to do whatever it needs to do to win games". It says just the opposite.
I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not jumping on this bandwagon until it proves itself. I've been fooled too many times before by the Bills.
i stopped glancing through this when you wrote Incognito "was 36 years old."
he'll be 36 this July.
if you're going to make a long-winded point, trying getting your facts straight up high. otherwise, i'd like to thank you for sparing me from reading the rest, which i'm sure is error-prone.
jw
having glanced at your second-to-last paragraph, and seeing the reference to Russ Brandon, who had very little say in hiring McDermott or Beane, i'm sorry i even read any portion of this thread, as i now feel dumber.
-
4
-
2
-
3
-
2
-
-
On 5/16/2019 at 6:10 PM, Hapless Bills Fan said:
On the contrary, I appreciate the gouge. But there's a distinction - making a decision "we aren't going to get into a bidding war and tie up too much money in this guy" is not the same thing as "the Bills can't afford to keep him", right?
Sorry for late response.
They initially hoped to keep him, but when it became clear what Woods would command on the market, they knew they were out of the running.
jw
-
1
-
-
22 hours ago, PolishPrince said:
which calling about Brown is much different than what was reported.... What was reported was Brown to Buffalo was a done deal except Brown said no because "Buffalo"
Now at all what The AP reported. Or ESPN for that matter.
jw
6 hours ago, Clemfield2622 said:Right, that is negotiation.
Agents and reps are always going to do what they need to to drive up the price, that's their job.
For Beane to call out media members and go public with it all looks really petty to me.
I disagree.
jw
-
1 minute ago, ScottLaw said:
Seriously?
The Rams and Bears won 11 and 12 games in the FIRST YEAR of their respective regime changes and the Rams went to the Super Bowl this past year in the 2nd year of their regime change..... these guys didn't come in their and blow up their respective teams. They built around the talent already in place from previous regimes.
The Bills and McBeane took the opposite approach.
And that’s the plan they laid out upon their arrivals.
The Bills were a team of unmatched parts based on the various needs of previous coaches and GMs.
i see Tyrod and Dareus and Watkins have gone on to become perennial NFL All-Pros in their own rights. and we’re all mourning the loss of Zach Brown and well, whomever else was left over from the powerhouse Rex and Whaley left behind.
After all the coaching carousels, the only plan forward was to go with a clean slate.
That time has arrived.
I otherwise have no clue as to what grand solution you had in mind unless it was extend the more of the same run of fitting high-priced players with left overs and turning this average stew that was accustomed to losing into a winner.
But sure I’m a ball-washer after all.
jw
-
1
-
-
7 minutes ago, ScottLaw said:
Didnt the Bears just go from 4-12 to 11-5 in one season?
Didnt the Rams do the same thing in 2017?
The facts you present as indisputable, such as their salary cap situation, are in fact disputable which is why I quoted one of your posts.
I like a lot of what they've done which I stated in my original post, I'm also skeptical of other moves they've made.
Ah, yes, ScottLaw is one to take the narrowest view approach to support his wonderful theory of how teams go from being non-contenders to contenders virtually overnight.
of course, this effort requires ScottLaw -- who has accused me of being a "ball-washer" -- to take some convenient shortcuts in his mathamaticing by ignoring the 10 previous seasons in which the Rams won no more than seven games. somehow, this doesn't fit the equation of overnight success, so why even make note of it, ScottLaw believes.
no different than the Bears, this team that has been a juggernaut for lo all these many seasons. all the way back to, well, 2018 to be exact.
let's omit the fact Chicago won a grand total of 19 games in its previous four years, and simply note they made this jump from just one season to the next.
hey, by your math, if the Bills win their opener, next season, they'll be 100, nay, 1000 percent better than, they were a year ago.
of course, the narrow view is ScottLaw's final chance to make his point, because otherwise, he'd have to finally admit, he has none to make.
sad, ScottLaw. sad.
jw
-
1
-
-
12 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:
Thanks for your response. I agree, fewer WR questionmarks this year than years past. I actually like the Brown and Beasley signings quite a lot, and feel we have some good competition slated for training camp. We are likely to have to cut some guys we might rather keep, if they play up to their pedigrees.
I hadn't thought about "compartmentalizing" and looking at it as "$11M tied up in the Center position". If they think about dead money as still tied to a position as a sunk cost, purely from a business development perspective I wonder if a different model might be useful. I ran some back-of-the-envelopes and believe there were a couple FA OLmen, based on what they signed for, the Bills could have managed (Mike Pouncey who signed with the Chargers would be an example). He signed for 2 years/$15 but it could have been structured to be manageable. Now, maybe they tried and those guys were all "Thanks but No Thanks" in the face of interest from other teams closer to playoff contention, and we didn't have the money to set up a higher stack, could be.
I truly don't buy that the Bills couldn't have figured a way to afford Woods. If you add up the money they actually threw at other WR in the last 2 years, it's a heftier chunk of change than the production would lead one to believe. We weren't so cap limited in 2017, right? This year, we ended the season with $13.5M in dead cap tied up in WR. That's $8.4M from Benjamin, $3M from Corey Coleman, $1.5M from Holmes, and $0.7M from Jeremy Kerley. One has to think that in $13.5M dead cap, there was probably a way to pay a guy we developed who signed with another team for an average salary of $7.5M and had what, $7M last year and $8M this?
That is the reason I believe there must have been some "here's how we value Woods and the price he commands on the open market is likely to exceed that" in there, where how the Bills valued Woods and what the Rams got from Woods had a significant....gap
Now a caveat that if Beane works by ringfencing certain sums for positional spending and includes his dead money in that, my back-of-the-envelope doesn't factor that in at all. I'd like to know more about that as a team salary strategy. I'm not sure the "dead money included" is optimal way to assess what the team can afford at critical positions.
Ha! As I quoted upthread:
"Well," he stated judicially, "start awful early when yu' go to fool with him, or he'll make you feel unpunctual."
?Keep in mind, Beane wasn't making a majority of the decisions in 2017 free agency. And neither was Whaley.
McDermott was essentially serving in a stop-gap role and wasn't, at that point, going to gum up the works before the next GM arrived.
And the decision was made early on that the Bills weren't going to get into a bidding war early to tie up too much money in Woods. Of all the players McDermott didn't want to lose, it was Woods. And yet, circumstances helped dictate his departure.
Don't shoot the messenger on this one. I'm merely stating what I know of the Bills state of mind at that time.
jw
-
4
-
-
9 minutes ago, ScottLaw said:
I didn't zig zag around anything.
Simply stated facts. They inherited a less than stellar cap situation, but cap hell? Not even close.
You compared Beanes approach to Donahoes.... as if his approach was the correct way to go about things when it netted them one winning season in 5 years as GM.?
They've made their fair share of good moves and their fair share of bad ones. Year 3 is big for them. Need to see at least 9 wins and the massive amount of blow out losses needs to stop, IMO.
I'll save the ball washing for when the results are actually seen on the field.??
Oh, so that's what you think I'm doing.
Sorrrr-eeee.
I guess it's my job to always be negative, which I'm not. And heaven forbid the few times i'm actually positive, otherwise, i will bear the wrath of ScottLaw.
however, shall i now sleep now that ScottLaw has called me out as a homer.
aside from that, ScottLaw, still has difficulty explaining exactly how this "teams turn things around all the time" thing goes in light of the other indisputable facts presented.
but that would be asking way too much, because ScottLaw is more into name-calling and zigging and zagging around his own neat and compact narrative to ever suggest another just may exist.
but yes, ScottLaw now suggests Year 3 is big for them, as if he conveniently failed to read what I wrote, and instead interpreted my posts as, how did he put it? oh, right, "ball-washing" as if i somehow failed to point out this team still has to prove itself.
well, done, ScottLaw. well done.
jw
-
3
-
1
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:
It's a fine working hypothesis you've got, but in fact there were a number of moves on offense in 2017 and 2018 that appear to indicate they were trying to improve the offense with the right "pedigree" of players.
Year 1, after it was clear Watkins might not be the payday-motivated player they hoped for in training camp and after Boldin signed then retired in Aug 2017, they knew they had to take steps to bolster the WR corps. I think they honestly felt Jordan Matthews was a step up replacing Robert Woods. Matthews had better stats than Woods in a bunch of categories including catch % and YPG; if someone was just going through lists of players and not watching film, one could reach that conclusion. I think they honestly felt former #1 pick Kelvin Benjamin was an improvement on Sammy Watkins - a "big catch radius" guy more suited to the QB they planned to draft who would come in and lead the locker room. I could go on - since they moved up and drafted him, they must have believed Zay Jones was The Truth and better than Juju Smith Schuster. They may have felt Ducasse was a step up from Cog, thus the renegotiated cheapening of his contract, and that Bodine a good enough center at a bargain relative to some other guys whom they could have afforded even with our cap.
The point is, it isn't that they didn't expend resources and add guys on offense. They made a whole bunch of moves that had logic to them on paper (and I am a stats geek so I see it) and that required an expansion of resources, but who turned out to not pass the eye test or work out on the field.
Now maybe McBeane had their college scouts and pro-personnel guys working overtime on QB and defense and gave WR and OL the "bum's rush", looking more at statistical digests and less at film. I hope that's true. Or maybe they realized the needed to bolster scouting in those aspects, and they have. I hope that's true. Or maybe departed coaches influenced the decisions. Hope that too.The end result is that we replaced several OLmen and skill players, with guys who weren't as good, and who sometimes cost just as much or more.
Bottom line, we all agree let's see what we got this year. If they've fixed the OL and have a workable WR corps, it's all good.
As I've noted here and/or on the tweeter before.
The Bills, a year ago, were handcuffed in their plans to upgrade the offense for several reasons.
1. They never anticipated losing Wood and Incognito. Once both were gone, they couldn't afford spending much money on their replacements. As Beane told me, simply signing Bodine, meant the Bills had something like $11 million committed to the center position Wood/Bodine.
2. They did take a run at several receivers, including John Brown. The uncertainty at QB -- remember Bills only had Peterman and McCarron under contract at start of free agency -- led the receivers they desired to go elsewhere.
3. Redoing Incognito was part of the plan. That he went sideways after agreeing to the deal is not the Bills' fault.
4. And they were committed to only spending only so much in free agency, because the objective was to free up as much room under the cap as possible.
5. If you go all the way back to Woods, Bills were very much interested in re-signing him. The trouble began when they looked at the price-tag and determined there was no way they would be able to afford what he was going to get on the market.
6. This of course led them to acquire Jordan Matthews and Kelvin Benjamin on essential trial deals. They would've been ahead of the game had one or both worked out. Neither did and the Bills didn't give up much in acquiring either.
I agree, the WRs this year have some question marks. Fewer, however, than in years past.
We'll see.
jw
-
4
-
-
1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:
Please. Never accuse me of being sober.
My sincerest apologies.
I was terribly wrong.
jw
-
1
-
-
what about them, a prog-rock band that produced uninteresting and now overly dated self-indulgent crud for the ear-wax-infested crowd of bell-bottom shoppers.
jw
-
17 hours ago, The Bills Blog said:
19 years covering the team?
He's the curse!
Maybe his "What do you make of X" questions to every coach and player are more than they seem... ?
geez, no one has ever noted this for an easy laugh.
-
2
-
-
1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:
This thread is excellent evidence as to how difficult it is to run a pro football team. The reality is that running any large organization is a complex endeavor and cannot be reduced to a simple conclusion about anyone any aspect of the operation of the team.
The notion that the team was or was not in cap hell when Beane took over makes for an an interesting discussion, but the team's cap position at any given time is only one of many aspects of the success of the franchise. Other aspects include the quality of the coaching, the quality of the players, the conference within which you are playing, the division within which you are playing and a myriad of other factors that affect the outcomes of each game and each season.
These discussions often break down into name calling and battering of one another in an effort to establish one position or another about one of those aspects of the operation of a pro football team.
The more dug in people get on their positions about these this particular issue, the more difficult it is for them to see and evaluate the team as a whole. It is much like McDermott's approach to team football. He has said repeatedly that the game is a complementary game; it's one where the offense, defense and special teams work togethe; it's one where teams within the team such as the offensive line team, the defensive line team, the defensive backfield team all work together.
Beane and his team had many decisions to make when they took over and from day-to-day moving forward. That is the nature of the business. He has admitted frequently that not all of those decisions can be made correctly, and he has made his share of mistakes, just he has anyone else would do in that job. One major decision was the choice to gut the team and throw the team into a terrifically adverse cap situation for a relatively short period of time. That was a decision. It may have worked well it; may have worked poorly. Some other decision may have worked better and it may have worked worse. The important point is not whether the that particular decision was the best decision that could have been made. The important point is whether the decisions that he makes collectively add up to the success they are seeking to the success they are seeking to achieve.
Many of us think that Beane is on a good path toward success. Whether he is will be much clearer to all of us in November.
A sober and fair assessment, this.
jw
-
2
-
-
4 hours ago, ScottLaw said:
This has been discussed here a million times.... they didn't inherit a salary cap mess.
Did they have loads of cap to spend? Absolutely not. But were they buried over the cap? Not even close. In fact after releasing a couple veteran duds they found enough cap space to sign Jordan Poyer and Hyde McDermotts first offseason here while letting Goodwin and Woods walk.
The Saints have been salary cap restricted for YEARS. They find a way without gutting their team.
Not saying these guys are no better then the previous guys before them, but they've had their fair share of ***** ups in managing the team and I'll reserve my high praises until they actually start winning games..... considering we've been down this road with the franchise for a couple decades now.
And he failed miserably.?
It doesnt, nor should it take four years to turn a franchise around.
It’s quite evident that you missed the 17-year playoff drought in your “it’s so easy” equation.
Or did I somehow miss that in all your zigging and zagging around my points.
Admit it, this hole you’ve dug is pretty deep.
I’ll patiently await your illogical response.
jw
-
2
-
5
-
1
-
-
Just now, vincec said:
That would have been even worse!
Just now, vincec said:That would have been even worse!
well you said they did
-
For what it’s worth, the closest the Bills previously came to ending the drought, and in its early stages, was under Donahue, who followed the same path.
He purged a number of high-prices players and veterans and built through youth before complimenting roster with free agents.
It took him four seasons to get close: 2004.
jw
Just now, vincec said:I'm not sure how you can seriously argue that going with Peterman as your starting QB and having no backup plan behind him was not a major mistake. They completely botched the most critical position on the field. And bringing in CJ Anderson is not a real backup plan unless your backup plan is to try and get the #1 overall pick.
they didn’t bring in CJ Anderson.
jw
-
2
-
3
-
-
4 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:
I guess my point would be, I think it was a mistake to not continue with acquiring Anderson as the wiley experienced vet for the room full of youngsters, even with McCarron. For example, unless I'm mistaken, I believe McCarron had never played in an E-P system.
So I can't agree with you that the only mistake was not to sign Anderson immediately after the McCarron trade. Perhaps we agree that what's most important is they did learn from their mistake and move on?
Again, the thinking in a vacuum thing.
They weren't going to carry four quarterbacks. To do so would've been ludicrous.
Difficult enough to have a fair three-way competition for the starting job, while also making sure Josh Allen gets time to develop. But of course, you want to add a fourth QB in the mix. Why not a fifth?
Who, this side of Jon Gruden, wants to make it six?
my gawd.
jw
Sorry, is it me, or do people here not follow football?
Asking for a friend.
?
-
38 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:
No sale.
Why shouldn't they be judged? This is the "Not for Long". Other teams go from 5-11 to 9-7 to 12-4 in the HC 2nd year.
Why shouldn't they have been able to replace 2 starting linemen? They chose to trade their LT when they could have kept him and chosen a different path in the draft, moved Dawkins inside, then spent a bit more on FA linemen. It's not as if no linemen were out there, or that they didn't know they had to at least replace their center prior to the start of FA.
They created all the dead cap by their strategy of moving players, why shouldn't they be accountable for the result?
This is an example of the "give them a pass" mentality that frustrates me.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to throw them under the bus - I'm like most everyone else in hoping we're on the right track and the franchise is trending up. I just don't see why they get a pass for their own decisions, bad as well as good. They could have chosen to put more of the resources they had into linemen last year and this year, and if they haven't done enough to fix the line that's arguably a poor decision when trying to support a rookie QB.
@Shaw66 this is an example of what I mean.
Sonofagun.
Do you live in a vacuum in which every moment fails to follow the next, and nothing is ever connected.
They had no cap money to replace Wood and Incognito last year.
And the goal was to get out of cap jail, thus the reason they traded Glenn, in which they actually swapped first-round draft picks, which allowed them the opportunity to move up to draft Josh Allen.
They created the dead cap strategy because the players under high-priced contracts weren't performing to the value of those contracts.
You don't give them a pass, you judge them on what they did. Sure seems like they accomplished a lot.
smfh.
jw
-
1 hour ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:
I have that reaction a lot while watching games. "Dammmit if that were Allen, our guys would never catch that and announcers be saying how inaccurate he is"
Doesn't that simply beg the question, why AJ wasn't given the start? Of the 3 QB on the roster, he was the one who had actually faced live NFL action and done OK. The NFL cutting room is littered with pre-season heroes.
I guess I don't buy the "only mistake" part - wasn't it a mistake to bring in a rookie into a QB room with only a backup of limited playing experience, new to this system, and a 2nd year guy with a record-setting horrible NFL start? When they traded TT, I thought sure they were gonna sign one of the more experienced FAs. When they didn't, I thought "OK, they're gonna go after Anderson". Me being wrong on both counts doesn't mean they weren't mistaken.
Move on, obviously, but it was and still is most puzzling.AJ wasn't exactly wowing a whole bunch of folks in either training camp or preseason before he got hurt.
They did consider going after Anderson and Anderson was open to coming to Buffalo. That ended when Buffalo instead signed McCarron, who was supposed to be the place-holder.
He wasn't. In fact, in retrospect, Barkley did better with the offense than any of them.
jw
John Warrow’s High Praise For Beane & McDermott Regime
in The Stadium Wall Archives
Posted
yup.
still questioning your fandom.
it’s quite apparent you’re a poseur.
jw