Utah John

I don't think I paid that much when I BOUGHT my first car.

Pay Ngakoue and Henry. Re-sign Spain. That is all we need to do in FA. We can get by without Jordan Phillips with Horrible Harry returning and Ed Oliver progressing. It's a good draft year for WRs so take what the market is offering. Put Henry and Singletary in the backfield together -- what do defenses do? Commit to the run and open the middle of the field to Kroft and Beasley. The Bills got very lucky in FA last year, upgrading their O line with only Morse being expensive. They don't need an upgrade on the O line as much as they need upgrades elsewhere.

It's become the Hall of Fame-ous. Players people have heard of get in, and truly great players get left out. Thurman Thomas didn't get in on the first ballot, for crying out loud, and he led the league in scrimmage yards for at least four years. Thomas was a dominant player for several years, and was really the key to the Bill's great offense. If TT couldn't get in on the first ballot, a nice guy decent player like Eli sure should not.

We have a pretty good band but they keep playing the same old songs and they don't sound so good anymore. We could actually use a new PK and P. LS is fine -- I don't remember the last bad long snap. We have a Pro Bowl returner. It's the coverage and return teams I wonder about. We'll lose Lorax and probably Perry from this year's teams. Next year we'll have rookies as upgrades in many reserve positions, the very people who get put on STs. These will all be guys who were position starters in college and don't know how to tackle yet. This part is always a roll of the dice.

Oh my God. I can't even finish reading the boredpanda link, I was laughing so hard my sides hurt.

There were half a dozen good candidates. I was very impressed with the way Brian Flores got his team to improve over the course of the year. No tanking there. They started out historically bad and finished by beating NE in NE in a game NE needed desperately. McDermott has been performing at a high level and his team is beginning to reflect that. The Bills are a very good team but not quite elite. Yet. Mike Tomlin might have done the best job of all, making Pittsburgh a very tough team to play despite losing Roethlisberger, Bell, and Brown since a couple of years ago. I'm not sure Harbaugh deserves this award as much as Roman does. I'm glad to see them both recognized. I thought Roman was a good OC while he was in Buffalo but he didn't have the freedom to innovate like Harbaugh gave him. Also he didn't have Lamar Jackson. Matt LaFleur and Pete Carroll also had excellent years, getting more out of their teams than people thought possible considering some glaring areas of weakness. So fine. Good for the guys who won the awards. They should all keep in mind though that Gerard Gallant of the Vegas Golden Knights was coach of the year in the NHL just two years ago, and he got canned this week. What have you done for me lately.

Roberts fits the McDermott style perfectly. An above average talent, who seldom makes mistakes, and gives a solid result every play. That's exactly what the Bills are doing right. They have only one star (White, not Lotuleilei) on a defense that's third in the league. That's OK -- their defense was responsible for most or all of their wins this year, stars or not.

So sad for us fans not to have him on the field. What a great player.

Allen is going to make the team next year, of course. A lot of guys can't be sure they will. Those are the guys the CBA protects/limits by denying them the opportunity to interact with coaches. If I'm one of four guys on the bubble for a position, and I know two of the others are training and talking to coaches every day, then I have to do it too to protect my interests. On the flip side, a player who could benefit from a coach's guidance during the offseason can't get that assistance. My view is, these guys don't have to go back home and get regular jobs in the offseason the way players back in the 60s did. There were stories about some of the championship Bills working in hardware stores or selling carpets in the offseason, just to make ends meet. So, since players today make so much money, why not let this be a full-time job, with year-round access to coaches and trainers.

Wait till the LSU WRs have to go up against NFL CBs. Wait till the LSU WRs have to recognize NFL defenses in the blink of an eye, and make route adjustments. I'm not saying they can't do that, I'm saying that until they show what they can do against NFL competition, this is a silly comparison.

The Bills 2020 schedule will go against the AFCW and NFCW. The worst part of that for the Bills is all the travel to West Coast or at least distant cities -- the Bills have never traveled well consistently. It's hard to see which teams will improve or degrade from year to year. I don't worry so much about playing powerhouses -- it's the teams that get better all of a sudden are the problem. Finally, the Bills aren't the only AFCE team playing the two western divisions. All the AFCE teams play the two western divisions. That stuff evens out. It might be hard for the AFCE to have a Wild Card team next year, so the obvious solution is to win the division. 9-7 will probably do it. With Miami developing a culture of performance this year -- incredible job by their HC -- and Darnold not getting mono next year, both the Jets and Dolphins will be tough foes. I think the Bills go 4-2 in the division (sweeping NE) and 5-5 outside.

Romo is great. He watches the games as a QB, figuring out the defense and talking about what would work and what won't. Most color announcers are just repeating the same old information about the players that everyone knows. If ESPN got Romo and replaced Tessitore their MNF ratings would go way up. The salary cost would be budget dust for ESPN.

If Watkins was signed by Buffalo, he'd come back here and not know anyone or even recognize the facilities. It would a new team for him -- a new QB, new coaches, new everything. Whatever happened before, happened. Professional move on.

I don't think Spain got any props at all during the season. And I believe he didn't give up a sack. The Bills ran to the left more effectively than to the right. Sounds to me like Spain did well, also since we never heard his name called.

The rules apparently AREN'T the rules. The second half kickoff was, by rule, fumbled in the end zone and recovered for a TD. The correct call was made on the field, and it was overturned for no real reason at all.

After so many people moved from Buffalo to Charlotte over the past 20 years, it's nice to see some going in the other direction.

I wonder what would be viewed as success in this regard. Is there a target number of black HCs that would lead everyone to say all is well? I think the purpose of the Rooney Rule is to make sure some qualified black coaching candidates at least get into the room and have a shot at impressing the management. That's all that anyone can really ask for.

The forgotten man on this year's team is Spain. He played all the time -- maybe 100% of the snaps, I'm not sure -- and I hardly ever heard his name called, which for an O lineman means he didn't screw up. I read that he didn't give up ANY sacks this year. Isn't he good enough to get the kind of attention our other FAs get? He seems to be invisible which is amazing for such a large human. It's not really clear what will happen with Ford next year. Spain and Feliciano seem to have the starting guard positions nailed down, and Ford seems a long way from being an NFL-capable tackle. Does our second round pick become a backup player, because we got two FAs who are better than he is? It seems like he's a very good guard but could still end up looking like a bust. Or maybe either Spain or Feliciano head out, and Ford takes over.

I read an article a few weeks ago about how it's really the system that's holding back hiring more minorities. Not that anyone has that objective, but here's the theory -- Offensive coordinators get a lot of attention as prospective HCs. A lot of OCs grow up from being QB coaches, and teams have historically hired white QB coaches to work with their white QBs. So, the pipeline (if there is one) is slanted toward white QB coaches becoming white OCs and then white HCs. This can't be the whole story. A lot of HC hires aren't coming in from being an OC. Also there are a lot more black QBs than there used to be so why can't there be black QB coaches? But, to the extent that this has been true over the past decade or so, it could have skewed the statistics toward making it harder for a qualified black coach to get started. Also there are some really good black coaches. Tomlin probably should be coach of the year after the Steelers pulled it together. Unless Brian Flores gets it -- his front office raided the team of all its best players, the team started out playing miserable football, and yet he got Miami back in shape and competitive. Beating NE in NE in a game NE really wanted to win, is damned impressive. (Of course, the next week Tennessee did the very same thing, so maybe not so impressive...but the Titans were recognized as having a much better team.) I consider Miami with Flores a much bigger threat in our rear view mirror than the Jets with Gase, to challenge the Bills after the Pats finally come back to Earth.

All players miss plays, and all players have games where they don't play as well as they do in others. Poyer has been excellent and he deserves to be paid.

Why has it been so long between the previous great young core and this one? Ridiculously bad DRAFTING. Go back to the drafts of the past 10 years, and you'll see very few players that stuck around in the league very long. A couple of years ago I looked at the results of the previous five years drafts, and I think there were only three players still on the roster. Now, even the guys we cut are playing somewhere else. We're simply, finally, getting professional personnel people on board, which we haven't had since John Butler left after 2000. Look at the GMs since then: Donahoe, Levy, Brandon, Nix, Whaley, and now, finally, Beane. Also the combination of McDermott and Beane is finding players with good skills who will contribute to the team, instead of just being good on their own.

WR definitely. RB probably because I think Gore isn't coming back. QB2, yes, Barkley is a help for Allen but he can't play well enough to keep us winning consistently. Another O lineman to keep adding skill and depth to a good group. On D we need an edge rusher, 2 LBs and another starting CB. Wallace and Johnson are good but not very good, and we could lose Poyer and/or Hyde if they keep playing so well, unless we pay them (which they deserve). We're almost done building, at which point we're maintaining. It will be great. Next year's schedule will be challenging, playing the AFCW and NFCW with all that travel. But, the other AFCE teams will be doing that too so the AFCE championship is within reach. With that travel, probably won't get a first round bye, but we get a home playoff game. 2021, we win it all.

Agree about the call on Ford. He hit that guy from about 10 o'clock -- more to the side than the front, but DEFINITELY not from behind. The announcer said the block was not necessary because Allen was past him, but Ford couldn't know what was going on. The guy he hit could have ended up making a play.

The Bills played better than most of the teams they played, and they won 10 out of 15 (the last Jets game doesn't count). Going into the season we heard what sounded like the same happy talk as every year -- we've got good players to fill in the holes from last year, we have some playmakers, yada yada yada. We perpetually optimistic but toughened up fans took all that as blather. But it turned out to be right. Most of the gaps were filled by good players, and the draft worked out great. I think Ford underdelivered, Oliver eventually came on, and Knox and Singletary in the third round were steals. FAs worked out. The difference was the closeness and cohesion and focus of the team. For the whiners complaining about McDermott, go suck something. The culture this team now has is ALL about him. Are the Bills the best team in the league? The honest answer is, no NOT YET. They're in the fortunate position of having Kyle Williams and Lorax around to train up the younger guys so they'll be ready to be leaders -- and to have them retire after the year in which their skills started going down just a little, which is always the best time. If Beane keeps hitting on draft picks and good FAs, the Bills will be talented, deep, tight, and skilled. They'll have a good 3 year window to challenge for the Super Bowl, before all those contracts come due and they have to fight to retain all the good players who want to cash in.

There are a few personnel situations that have Bills fans scratching their heads. The team is doing great so no one's really complaining, but there would be more direct attacks if they were losing. Why so little Duke Williams? He sure looks better than Foster. Isn't Johnson actually better than Wallace? Does Patrick DeMarco actually ever play and accomplish anything? But I remind myself that there's a lot that goes into every play and every decision. A lot has to do with how a player integrates into the system -- do they recognize coverages and make the proper adjustments? The coaches have better eyeballs than you and I do, and they know more about football than all of us put together. And it's possible that some personnel decisions are based on how things are likely to go over the next couple of years as well as this year. If the coaches think Levi Wallace is the better choice than Johnson, that's good enough for me.