BADOLBILZ

"It all depends on Allen" playing at what level? Tom Brady? There is a reason that teams that have had success with young QB's in recent years have gone out and streamlined their cart to make it very easy for said young QB to pull.........that whole "sink or swim" old school approach to developing a QB is no longer the working model of how it's done in the NFL. The Bills have given Allen some *better* targets but it's still one of the least imposing groups of skill players in the entire NFL. That context matters.

I think it's actually Byron. But it should be Bryron. That would be awesome.

No they inherited the best offense the team had since the SB era. Thru 2016 Bills were 7th in the NFL in scoring and had turned the ball over less than any team ever thru 15 games and for the second straight season they lead the NFL in rushing by a wide margin. And did all of that with their top WR Watkins missing much of the season and hampered for all of it. They also set the franchise single game offensive yardage record in week 15 against the Dolphins........a game lost by a terrible Dan Carpenter miss. It was most certainly not a dismal offense that Lynn left behind. McDermott came in and canned the Roman/Lynn scheme........they didn't retain Woods but Watkins was coming back healthy so there wasn't really any good excuse for the massive drop-off other than incompetence.......but poor decisions were made.........they added zero offensive talent(Zay was a bad draft pick) and then tried to fix the loss of Watkins by trading for KB(massive fail) and Rico tried to force his system on an OL that couldn't execute it. It was very much the offensive equivalent of what Rex did to the Schwartz defense.

They could be looking at him as a MorAx replacement too. Maurice has been trending down for a couple years.........a bit surprised he made the initial 53.

And unfortunately the other part of the desperation to feel that everything is NOW good is the need to diminish the work of everyone that came before the current regime. The Bills problem hasn't been utter incompetence across the board the past 20 years..........its been: A) No QB(mostly due to poor effort and evaluation) B) FO and coaching that don't evaluate and coach BOTH sides of the ball well........though most have done well with at least the offense OR the defense. Right now McBeane still fall into that category. Their offenses have been reprehensible. Hopefully Allen is the guy and hopefully if he is they don't make the mistake of short changing him at the skill positions the way their previous employer did with Cam Newton for the first 5 years of his career.

It is a great piece......thanks @PirateHookerMD? I think it's pertinent with what happened here with Sammy Watkins too. When Sammy suffered his foot problem Rex was very frustrated with him because he felt that he caused it by over training..........working hard instead of smart. Sometimes dudes like Watkins and Treadwell dominate the guy in front of them growing up and they can get hard to coach and that costs them later on when they get challenged at the next level. Ignorance gets you beaten in the pros........you gotta' be both willing to learn and know how to learn by then. When the Bills drafted Sammy I was all about bringing in then FA Anquan Boldin to mentor him right then............it needed to be a guy he could both relate to and respect.........but instead the Bills went with an all-young guy WR corps under Marrone/Whaley and by the time McBeane wisely brought Boldin in they quickly determined, much to my disagreement still today, that it was too little too late.

It's actually OK to give credit where it's due. I was no Rex fan but bringing in Roman and Lynn gave us the best offense we've seen since the SB era...........they will never have a running game like that again, IMO.........that was a thing of beauty. Didn't like Marrone either but bringing in Pettine in Schwartz was good..........they went from unfathomably bad at times on defense under Chan to a very fun and effective defense that excelled at hitting the QB under Marrone. And Chan himself brought some offensive competence to the mess that Jauron left..........and so forth. I've given credit to McBeane when due........but some people like yourself are all-in or all-hate..........if McBeane fail and get fired after this year then two years from now you will be crediting them for nothing they've done and they will have surely done some things well.

2016 was either the best season of his career or the second best depending on how much you value the volume of carries. Things haven't been so good for him under McDermott but he's handled it well after the humbling of the offseason following 2015. Can't imagine the 2015 McCoy being traded to the McDennison offense and not going ballistic by midseason.

Vividly. It wasn't always easy being a huge Bruce Smith fan.............he required a lot of defending.

Where McDermott can win me over is by proving he is much more BB than Ron Rivera. What I like about "The Process" is that it's the right mindset for a game where you have to grind week to week to win consistently. Other than Tom Brady that's maybe the other greatest distinction between the Pats and most teams that have excelled since the era of free agency........they rarely fail to show up to play..........which as the early 90's Bills proved is not an easy task. This isn't the willy-nilly NFC South where the title changes hands every year or 2 and you can always count on the top dog coming back to the pack.........there is a clear ruling team here and it just so happens to be that they sit atop the NFL as a whole............you can't get away with the mediocrity in the FO and on the sideline that they have been able to at the Panthers. To pull it off the coach ultimately has to prove to the locker room that he can beat the coach across from him and the organization needs to instill trust in the players that they will be put in position to win so that they can just focus on doing their jobs. In the first two seasons McBeane clearly haven't been living up to that standard...........but they had excuses...........now those excuses are gone and everyone still appears to be down with the grind so that's why I feel like we are finally going to see what they really have this year without the excuses. If it doesn't go well.........if McD keeps struggling with in-game decisions for instance or the KB and Peterman type personnel moves keep happening..........then we are just Carolina 2.0 and that won't win in this division.

I think the "patriot way"and how they do business matters to McDermott and Beane. He might not be as willing to cheat but remember we have a horrible punter on the roster mainly because he's left footed(a BB preference) and because he was poached from BB. Same with Conor McDermott...........the Pats reportedly wanted badly to keep him on their PS after they cut him.........Bills snapped him up and despite looking bad at every opportunity since he is still on the initial 53 man roster for a 3rd season.

Neal is one option...........Coleman and/or MorAx are easy to envision being cut in favor of Jones as well.

I haven't been following twitter or anything but it wouldn't surprise me if they told Murphy to stay around town. He's what I would imagine is the sweet spot kinda' player to do that with...........too experienced for PS and not good enough to draw attention from the rest of the league........but proven decent here and knows the system. Maybe PSE has a job for him. In the old days they would have a couple guys like that and they would tell to get jobs and wait for the call back when the inevitable injuries hit............I remember former TE Sheldon Jackson pumping gas in OP waiting for the call back in the day.

I think JoGo is a UFA after this season.........if he can actually accrue the season...........it would be a great story if he can get his addiction and mental health under control and though I hate that he is with the Pats that dude is one tremendously entertaining football player to watch..........the league is more fun with talent like that on the field.

I thought they might have found something with Yarbrough a couple seasons ago. It's been a great story.......this dude was on a practice squad in the CFL in 2016...........I really thought that he must be improving by leaps and bounds if he went from not being CFL-worthy to what he looked like in 2017...........but he just hasn't improved from there.....it's all the same.......serviceable but he gets engulfed too much and can't get off blocks quick enough to make plays. I hope he hangs around on the PS because you know that he can give you some capable snaps and if he does I figure he will get back on the 53 at some point.

Man........all these visits.? I thought the Bills roster was SO DEEP that their only problem was trying to protect what they had from the rest of the league. Since 2014 or so I think this is the 4th preseason where there was major drama with numerous vigil threads among the fanbase about cutting players for fear of them doing well elsewhere.........and I'm not including last year because it was only Rod Streater and maybe a couple others..........not like the 5-6 players that people were sweating the loss of this year. The reality is that the Bills don't treat the 53 man roster the way fans assume they will................they don't just keep the best 53.......it's more like they keep the top 47 or so and the rest they keep for a variety of reasons.......they keep tradeable assets(see the 10th OL)........they keep veterans who they have gone to battle with or who they talked off of the couch or a ST guy they think they NEED out of fear that the ST's will be sloppy in the first couple weeks. The first two weeks of the season you should not need 53 to field a healthy active roster...........so expect a lot of wheeling and maybe some dealing with those inactive spots every year.......this is the new norm. I love the idea of bringing in some of these big talent guys that didn't fit elsewhere...........nothing may come of it but at least it's fun to project a guy like Jones or Spence playing to their perceived potential in this defense.

Thank you to baseball for helping the NFL get some talent that can physically play the QB position. I shudder to think of some of the QB prospects I "evaluated" back in the 1990's...........it was disgusting. We have a faction of folks on here who think baseball is a dying sport but in reality enrollment in youth baseball is growing rapidly (LL enrollment alone is up around 2.7 million kids since 2014.....which is an incredible amount.....and doesn't account for competing leagues like Cal Ripken and travel ball). With more players and the ability to learn how to play the game quickly thanks to newly available technology the skill at the top levels of baseball has increased more over the past 25 years than any of the other big 4 sports.........even basketball. And ultimately it's a great sport to develop physical skills at a young age without causing much wear and tear. But with international markets also expanding there is a bottleneck at the process of getting into and developing in pro baseball. That's where football and the QB position come in............high paying job, lot's of glory and no excess of supply. It's only fitting that the NFL has yet again found another partner to develop it's talent for free.

Maybe somebody loses an OT in week one and Beane gets a 7th for him.........I am sure they won't keep 10 for very long but week 1 and 2 hopefully you don't need 53 to field a healthy 47. What keeping 10 OL around just to hopefully trade one for a very late pick says is that they were not nearly as conflicted about the cut down to 53 as much of the fanbase.

This much I know..........you can't tell the story of the NFL from 2011-2014 without Marshawn Lynch. He was the actual identity of those dominant Seahawks...........the numbers were incredible............there was "beast quake" and the slugfest with the Niners to get to their first SB and the incredible comeback against GB with him Nestea plunging into the end zone to go to their second SB...........and there was the decision NOT to give him the ball. He is a real big part of NFL history during this period and he meets the statistical minimums. If Lynn Swann is in then Beast Mode should be. Shady McCoy? He was a dude with a funny name who played RB well in the regular season at around the same time. That's his impact on the NFL so he needs all the yards he can get and maybe he gets a chance to make a play in the playoffs or something.

Yeah I feel silly for making fun of all those roster vigil threads on TSW for Ryan Lewis and Deon Lacy.........you all were 100% right................and now two AFC rivals have them and they both have franchise tags at their disposal so it could be years before McBeane can get them back. And GG.......I just get loose with the draft capital when it comes to punters..........if Tunsil is worth 2 1sts and a 2nd can't Colquitt be worth at least ONE 4th if not a 1st and a 4th?........I just want to feel safe on 4th down......ya' know? Anyway........thanks to you and GG for setting me straight.........I'll try to do better with my observations and not to make fun of you and GG not being able to use a search engine.......it's just in my nature to mock those who argue vehemently without being willing to do even the simplest of research. It's not fair to harass the willfully ignorant. So sorry.☹️

It's a safer bet that he will first drop one that hits him right in his hands and that the Panthers will then collectively have their "Ohhh.....that's why" moment. Good chance this could end up being a reverse Kaelin Clay situation. Great practice squad player because he can simulate a good WR in practice.

Stop right there........ How about because the 2015 and 2016 rosters(and maybe 2014 as well) were better and that was pretty recent actually, Gerry. There were actual, established top 100 players and All Pros on those rosters. And this 2019 roster is still the 6th oldest in the NFL............so the perceived depth is not necessarily even a sign of something sustainable. They have an excess of fringy players simply because they signed 18 veteran free agents this spring............and as evidenced by that list of guys who are only in the NFL because the Bills kept them they valued fringy NFL experience over youth/potential at the back end of the roster on cut down day.

Actually GG the Bills have at least 4 players on their 53 right now that they could cut and nobody would pick up. Bojorquez(obvious) Dean Marlowe MorAx Curt Coleman And then there is the dynamic Capn' Munnerlyn waiting in the wings to be brought in once they don't have to guarantee his contract. Those guys were fringy NFL players a year or 2 ago...........they'd all be jobless if it weren't for McBeane. I said it during the preseason.........the anguish at cut down day that many assumed would happen with all of this young talent wasn't going to be the case.........and it WAS NOT. They can afford to keep 10 OL on the roster and hope that another team has an injury and needs to trade for one of them because the guys they cut they didn't value as much as a 7th round pick.

Or maybe you create a lot of false narratives that you then plant goal posts on. You know like me making fun of people who were sweating the loss of a bunch of guys that touched the ball a lot in preseason and then you crowing when a kick coverage ST'er and a forgotten reserve CB are picked up off of waivers. Or like in the Colquitt thread where you literally said that I thought that Beane should have traded a 4th round pick for him(where did that come from?)..........when all I said was if Beane thought he was the only good option he would have most likely tried to trade for him and that there are still A BUNCH of better punters than Bojorquez available. It's been a long time since you were worth a damn as a poster but at this point you are just seeing ghosts.

Read the post I was responding to. That usually helps with context. But by all means proceed with the hyperbole...........everybody loves a good " but we would have had to trade a 4th rounder" on cut down weekend for a guy who was getting cut. Why did you stop at round 4? How about a 1st rounder? That would make a trade sound totally irrational! Thank GOD Beane didn't make a trade!