BADOLBILZ

It was "a flat out" correct call.......by the literal letter of the law. He left his feet to throw a shoulder block high into a defender. After 3 years of it being the rule we all know it's a penalty every time. That was just the first season where the league was calling it.......and as fans tend to do with new rules......Bills fans were still expecting refs to litigate intent. That isn't their job. It was just a dumb and ultimately season killing play by a player whose proven over and over to never be up to the task mentally.

Correct, he missed about 5 games worth of snaps last season going in and out of the lineup with the chronic shoulder issue. But he's not 32.........he recently turned 34.

Parrino last week. It was a bit of discouraging news that matched the scouting report from the former Tampa guy who came on Marino's podcast to talk about him right after he signed.

Don't get too excited about OJ Howard........he reportedly looked washed in OTA's. Couldn't get open. No burst out of his breaks. Which is consistent with what some of the Tampa Bay observers were saying about him.

He was good enough at LT in 2016 that a lot of people were thinking the Bills should move Cordy Glenn to RT in 2017. Really good, especially in pass pro. Kujo just couldn't play the right side because of that knee. Then he had the nervous breakdown or whatever where he was found naked on the highway. Then he got baptized in Lake Erie and he must have chosen a non-"process" denomination because the McBills cut him that day.

If Lot Lizzards looked like that we wouldn't have a national driver shortage.

Another dominating performance.........18-4 win over Cubs. Matt Carpenter has been a great addition......has looked like near-peak Cardinals version........always had a perfect Yankee stadium swing in those years. Best run differential in baseball...........almost 20% more HR than the next closes team in MLB(Atlanta)........and biggest divisional lead despite playing in toughest division. The fewest amount of runs allowed thru 60 games in Yankees team history. Next 13 games are all against the next 3 best teams in the AL.

Fortune didn't shine on Bill Belichick in his first HC job with the Browns...........he inherited a bad QB situation and didn't get any breaks to fix it...........then the organization went into complete turmoil the summer before his last season and he got fired at the end of the season. And he's arguably the greatest HC in NFL history. So some successful people aren't always lucky. Doug Whaley had similar misfortune getting a job with no QB.........having the outgoing GM pick the QB in a bad draft for QB's..........and then not being allowed any control over the 3 HC decisions and even more schemes he had to build for. Fortune was a huge boost to the McBeane regime. As for your second point..........the players that McBeane identified as the most important leaders were actually Eric Wood and LeSean McCoy. Two vocal guys who, combined, spoke to everyone in the locker room. The guys who just go about their business and the potential locker room litigators. Both got paid that summer to pimp "the process". I don't think they needed much input from players to decide who to move on from. The template they used was very clear........anyone with contractual leverage was a threat to "The Process". That's why it was all the talented young core that they let go. It wasn't about quality of character. It's just easier to get people without options to do exactly what they are asked to.

Where we differ is the idea of "having" to "move on"..........that implies that it takes some effort to let it go. And I believe him that he doesn't care about that anymore. It's not like his special teams gave up a TD. There was a miscommunication with McD but it was a coin toss of a decision either way.......at best. We have literally seen a KR TD beat this franchise on the last play of in a seemingly locked up playoff game. As fans it's easy to get caught up in this line of thinking but it was hardly the special teams fault that they lost that game.

As is NY, but insurance studies have shown that people are less likely to impulsively vandalize a car that is facing them as they approach. Front of a car looks like a face.

There is a chasm between the ability of 2020 John Brown and 2021 Emmanuel Sanders versus Jake Kumerow. Those were 45-50 yard per game receivers in those seasons. That projects to 750-850 yards of production in a 17 game season. Kumerow is a 30 year old receiver who has done nothing on offense in his career. Gabriel Davis, Brown and Sanders all had injury issues in 2020-2021.........which made it NECESSARY to have that 3rd boundary WR option. They needed 3 to get the production of 2. Davis has been a 35 yard per game receiver in his first 2 regular seasons. He will basically need to double that production........about 1200 yards........for the Bills to just be where they have been at the position. He may have the talent to be that good, but there is no safety net with Kumerow at #3.

You should probably start backing into your spot at ShopRite

I gotta' agree with Gunner here @eball. You are looking at this from a fans perspective...........fans dwell..........it's what we do. It's because as a fan we have no control over outcomes and can rarely live in the moment wrt sports. That's the exact opposite of the feeling of being a coach or a player............which is one of the reasons it's so satisfying and often less gut-wrenching to play than it is to be a fan.

For that matter........there were no bison in WNY since long before Europeans arrived. Beau Fleuve........beautiful river in french........is the origin of the city of "Buffalo" name.

What happened with Dareus is a bit more nuanced than "got paid, stopped trying" that is often uttered. Dareus was a pass rushing force and Rex came in and insisted on making him into a two gapping nose tackle. His initial drop-off coincided with his payday..........but it was as much about the perception of his play than his actual play.........he was a good NT but there weren't plays to be made there. Then he was a really good 1 tech for McDermott.........he was playing really good football for the Bills in 2017.........everything Bills fans have lamented about not having at 1T were the things he was doing. That carried over to the Jaguars where he was tremendous. He was actually really good in 2018 too but the Jags fell off a cliff. I know some people hate PFF.........but 2018 Star Lotulelei had an abysmal 55 grade while Dareus had a 78 grade(which is very good). Dareus got injured in 2019 and hasn't played since..........but the perception that he was just a bum who sucked after he got paid isn't accurate. He went from an All Pro pass rushing DT to a very good run stopper. And another perception is that the Bills saved a bunch of money getting rid of him..........in reality the base salaries on the back end of his deal were quite manageable.......in the $6M-$8M range and he actually took a pay cut with Jax after a good 2018 season. The Bills instead spent $40M+ for 3 seasons of Star Lotulelei.

The complaining about that penalty hasn't aged well. It's a penalty 100 times out of 100 now.............and had been the rule all thru the 2019 season. He left his feet to throw his shoulder high into a defenseless player who is afforded protection from that blind hit. Whether he put his full force into it or not is as relevant as whether a pass rusher who hits a QB in the head with his entire forearm did it with full force. You can assume that it's ALWAYS going to be a penalty. Referees aren't there to judge intent........players know they can't do certain things without drawing a flag and it's their responsibility to avoid certain OBVIOUS actions. All Ford had to do on that play was extend an arm to seal off the defender for a millisecond........it was questionable whether the defender gets a hand on Josh even if he didn't. His nature as an aggressive(and dumb) player got the best of him and cost the Bills a chance to reach the divisional round.

The moral of 2017 is that it really is better to be lucky than good. I'm not saying their regime certainly fails if they start out 6-10.........but squeaking into the playoffs with the worst point differential in decades......... after controversially handicapping the roster by getting rid of the entire core of good young players from the past regime......who then mostly EXCELLED for actual SB contenders........and then the whole Tyrod/Peterman debacle.........that really would have been a bad look for the new regime to a very veteran team who McD was trying to preach his message to. And if the vets don't buy in.......the young players don't either. Whether your message resonates with your team or not is very much about the optics and wins and losses. There is little questioning that McBeane had an incredibly fortuitous start. Between the one-score fortune of 2017(which 2021 took back) and getting a crack at ALL of Mahomes/Watson/Allen/Jackson in the course of 2 consecutive drafts.

In what has to be one of the worst examples of offensive execution in MLB history.........two teams were like 0-35 with runners in scoring position...........the Yanks finally get a hit from the last guy on the bench (Trevino) to walk-off the Cubs 2-1. Bullpen puts up 7 scoreless and Clay Holmes hits 103 mph with one of his sinkers.

They brought in AJ McCarron. The thought being that he was an ascending young QB who had been blocked by Andy Dalton. Remember when Cinci had a high draft pick in hand for McCarron the prior season and they didn't trade him? It was thought he might score in UFA. Instead he landed with the Bills for $5M and people thought Beane was pretty shrewd and had stolen a better QB than Tyrod. Then after Peterman looked good in the preseason.........as he tended to do in preseason and practice..........they traded McCarron. We have seen some pretty crazy miscalculations but the Peterman love was absolutely insane. The plan was NOT to have Allen in the starting lineup in week 1..........but Peterman was so awful it happened.

Nah, Ford has been awful. He was bad as a rookie and then cost the team the playoff game with that totally unnecessary dumb personal foul penalty. Cyrus actually had a really nice 2016 season.......and he started at LT for 5 games in place of Glenn and excelled. He didn't allow a QB hit that (though he was credited with allowing a sack). He could only play LT because the nerve damage in his one knee was so bad that he couldn't fire out of his stance on the right side. He was a bad draft pick but Ford has been a total bum and trading up for him was brutal........and immortalized by the inaugural "Imbedded" series.

Trolling? Dareus was tremendous at 1T for the 2017 Bills, who started out playing and winning with a stout defense. When he went from Buffalo to Jacksonville the Jaguars went from the bottom of the league in run D to the top of it. The Bills proceeded to have the worst 3 game defensive stretch in team history. The Jags then reached the AFC Championship game. Dareus had a tremendous playoffs.......especially dominant in their win at Pittsburgh. And yes, in a matchup league.......3 players can be the difference between winning and losing games.

No this is him losing a bet.........on himself!

They ended up winning 9 games.........but with 6-10 metrics. Basically the OPPOSITE of what they were in 2021 where they had 14-15 win/NFL best metrics..........but just an 11-6 record. 2018 ended up being a reset year..........but it wasn't by design. They mostly just misplayed it that way. They spent a ton in UFA and got nothing for it. Prior decisions like Kelvin Benjamin in 2017 and others backfired. People act like they knew they were going to stink in 2018........it was the outcome, but not by design.

Love it!

The Bills took a 10 win roster to training camp in 2017. The .500 Rex teams should have won 12 or more games in both years. They had been pretty stacked and were a top 5 roster. Losing Gilmore and Woods certainly hurt but Hyde and Poyer were big additions to a team whose biggest weakness might have been the safety position. The Bills were still positioned to be good going into TC, regardless of what the mostly horrific talent evaluators on TBD/TSW believed. McBeane then subtracted Watkins and Dareus in the coming months....annihilating first their passing game and then their solid run defense..........and by midseason their roster had been transformed into a below average one and their OC made it much worse by being awful at his job. The new regime didn't work miracles with a bad roster.........they made it into a bad roster with their choices. They simply got lucky reaching the playoffs with the worst point differential of any team to do so in 30 years. Then their relatively strong offensive line group.......who had lead an NFL best rushing attack in 2015-2016.........was decimated in the 2018 offseason.........and they had a truly franchise-worst-ever kinda' free agency period........officially cementing them as a bad roster. But it's important to note that the difference between good and bad rosters now can be just 2-3 players. Free agency has leveled the overall playing field considerably. Good draft picks in 2017 and good first rounders in 2018-2019 turned into very productive players and the roster got back in the black in 2019.