BADOLBILZ

The chances are that in order for the 2019 Bills offense to be successful it will be all about running the ball and big plays. If you are expecting Josh Allen to be a 65% passer I don't think that's a reasonable expectation. He's a $1,000 Uber ride from that zip code. I'm looking forward to Josh Allen being a guy who can rally his team from behind to victory................the most common complaint with Tyrod, who "needed defenses to respect the run" for him to play at his best..........but it's not like Allen was about late game heroics last year. Chance to bring the Bills back in the final drive on the road against the Dolphins...........throws a surprisingly short pass to Clay.........excuses were made but that was shocking.........and it was a loss. Chance to bring the Bills to victory on the final drive against his rival Sam Darnold at home.........fail. I'm by no means ascribing a lack of clutch gene to Allen the way fans did with Tyrod........but perhaps we should see it once before we feel assured about it?

Yeah there is this "I don't follow the NFL but Tyrod must have been the worst" narrative among some of our dimmer bulbs here on TSW. In 29 games over 2015-2016 Tyrod accounted for 47 TD's. The quintessential "game manager" Alex Smith produced 42 TD's.....in 31 games played....on a team that won 11 games both years. Tyrod was plenty good enough in that offense to win a lot of games with a good defense..........they just didn't have one.

Like I said.........the 2016 Bills were 7th in the NFL in scoring with the fewest turnovers ever thru 15 games........and lead the NFL in rushing AND "big plays"(for the second straight season). By any measure that is excellent performance. All accomplished with Watkins injured and mostly unavailable until his Nov 27 return and Woods constantly in and out of the lineup with an assortment of injuries. We got a lot of Robert Tate and even a desperation mid-week Percy Harvin signing and immediate insertion into the lineup in Seattle. The WR corps was a sh*t show. Big plays are runs over 10 yards and pass plays over 25..........in 2015 the Bills had A LOT more big pass plays because the receivers were healthier.......remember the deep tosses to Watkins in the Chiefs game and a few to Hogan, Harvin etc...........but either way they ended up with an almost identical amount in both years and were the only team over with 100 both times. Here is a nugget of football knowledge I've learned.........it might even be axiom worthy............you can't throw a TD pass if you've already run the ball into the end zone. There is this alternating possession thing, you know. As for your take on the Marrone offense...........there was much consternation about Marrone plowing CJ Spiller up the middle over and over in 2013............but CJ did average 4.6 ypa that season.........the running game ranked very highly for attempts and total yardage. They were not good but they were almost competent. Last season was impressively bad offense for the first two months........by any Billsy standard ever. The lone bright spot was Josh Allen running for 90-100 yards for a number of games........which is of course unsustainable over the course of a season. And the last two years under McDermott LeSean McCoy has run for well below the league average per attempt(which is 4.2) and Ivory and Tolbert have provided 3.7 and 3.2 respectively so yeah the production and efficiency of the Bills run game has fallen off a cliff from the days of McCoy and Gillislee running for 5.4 and 5.7 respectively and piling up TD's. Now as far as Leonard Hankerson goes................like I told folks when the Bills got him.............his arms are too long..........so his hands are too far from his brain. Not unlike a lot of posters on this site.

As myself and most of the other renowned "pessimists" on this board will surely say............the best thing about McDermott and Beane is that they have shown an ability to pivot off of their mistakes and not double down on them. That and of course being the first Bills regime since 1960 to ever be all-in on a college QB on draft day. LOVE that. I'm not giving up on them but so far just about everything they've done that I didn't like at the time has proven to be a mistake........and that has never worked out well wrt the management groups of any of the teams that I've followed. Pleasant surprises typically abound with championship level management in place.

I am sure he meant it in the "you guys are idiots if you think AJ McCarron will do better in Buffalo than Tyrod Taylor did" kinda' sense.? Lest we forget there were a lot of those folks too. I guess my point is that McBeane have made A TON of errors while other "2016 mediocre/bad" teams have had huge tangible success using other approaches. The only reason the torches and pitchforks aren't outside heading into 2019 season is Josh Allen. That dude is a beacon of hope that is covering up a whole lotta' growing pains for a first time HC/GM combo.

They were 7th in the NFL in scoring with the fewest turnovers ever thru 15 games in 2016. And they had just produced a franchise record for offensive yardage in a game. They were in the process of completing their second season of leading the NFL in rushing and also in big plays.......with over 100 both years. The Bills have been notoriously awful on offense for most of a couple decades now.........a situation that's only worsened so far under McDermott........at points they were "the worst NFL offense since the merger" thru that time of the 2018 season in certain categories. The Lynn offense in 2016 was the Bills most productive offense since the middle of the SB era..............not the greatest show on turf.........but very productive. The defense was brutal.......ranking near the bottom in DVOA both of RR's seasons.

Well Scott wasn't one of those, which is what you implied. Citing "I'd rather not get rid of a good rotational RB or a bridge QB" as egregious judgement mistakes only emphasizes how little has gone right to date. As for the ring point I was just short-cutting to the fact that they were excellent players for SB winning teams........which you know.

The fact that those are at all considered "hindsight wins" from an apologist perspective really speaks more to how effective Anthony Lynn was with a banged up WR corps in 2016 than anything. I don't think there was ANYONE here who thought that Taylor was a long term QB solution or that Gillislee was an every down force waiting to happen. The bottom line is that Bills offense has gone from excellent to gawd-awful under McDermott. Mike Tolbert and Chris Ivory were laughingstock level producing #2 RB's.......McCoy has been way under league average per carry for two years after averaging 5.4 under Lynn.......Dennison and Castillo got canned already and Culley nudged out the door.....and when McD replaced Taylor with Peterman.........wha' happint?? KTFO. Oh and AJ McCarron! Suffice to say large mistakes have been made on that side of the football by McD and Beane. The tangible success of the McDermott regime has been almost entirely on the defensive side of the ball so far. So maybe look up the people who were outraged at the Zach Brown departure? Gilmore and Darby got rings now so probably don't want to go down that hole. Though I like Harrison Phillips(who Bills got with Darby pick) and hope he steps up and pushes Lotulelei(another Whaley gem?) to the curb.

Signing Taylor and Lorax for like $1M each were INCREDIBLE values too.

It was bad value but you have to remember that the Browns had stacked so many picks that they didn't know how they were going to fit them all on their 53 man roster. Everyone was praising them for accumulating a ton of draft picks but that's not really the way to build a roster..........it needs to be a combination of rookies, young vets and experienced vets..........timing is very important.......you don't want a bunch of star young talents hitting free agency just as they are learning how to win games. Taylor was supposed to come in and help them become a .500 team so Mayfield had something to build on. Taylor had proven he could protect the football and be a catalyst for a strong running game. He wasn't great in Buffalo in 2017 but I think his play clearly fell off drastically with the Browns. The deep ball was entirely gone and his accuracy had worsened and he was not as elusive/explosive running the ball. In any event the Bills were the beneficiary of the Browns imbalanced-toward-picks roster build. But the Browns now have one of the most talented rosters in football.

I used to believe that you couldn't go broke making a profit on draft day back in the 1990's...........but in truth that only applies if you already have the studs in place. The Bills were lucky that they got so much mileage out of guys like Bruce and Andre and Thurman........that allowed them to take a few lower ceiling impact guys and sustain their competitiveness and finish the 1990's as the winningest team of the decade. The current Bills gotta' find those 10-15 year guys. Hopefully we have a 15-20 year guy in Allen.

Yeah 4 years of mediocrity would be a failure exceeding all in the 2000's save for the Jauron regime(on par). Especially considering that's where they started(and only did so because they felt the roster was BETTER than that and the coaching was suspect).

I don't disagree with anything you said here. But keep in mind that "1940's beat journalists" are mostly remembered for forging mutual back-washing relationships with those that they covered and often hiding some seriously messed up sh*t from the public. I certainly don't think that about JW. Here's the reality though..........when you create a thread on TSW to present an opinion..........you are going to get asked questions from whoever shows up and if you are evasive or condescending the line of questioning will reflect that. JW presented the opinions of those he covers as if they were facts and refused to admit that he was giving them a benefit of the doubt. Why? I don't know. Maybe he didn't want to look like any other Joe hot-take. Only after he resorted to the "fan forum N word" did this thread get ugly in the opinion of some(though to me it's just colorful banter). Once JW got the reverse treatment.......after some outrage.......he fessed up that "he gives everyone he covers the benefit of the doubt"............though I am unsure if that's actually the case this deep into a regime...........I don't remember a universal BOD given to Rex when he was 15-15 and entering a must win game versus the Dolphins. If anyone thinks I am going out of my way to attack JW........please..........the only sustained timeout I've ever received on TSW(1 week?) was for defending JW against a moderator here who I felt was badgering him. I believe it was over his defense of his friends/colleagues in the media regarding their aggressive line of questioning of Doug Whaley after the Rex firing.........which I find rather amusing in light of Jdub's handling of questions in this thread. Bottom line...........it's all good. So Tier isn't throwing himself either. The people losing their minds are the low hanging fruit(as a mod once called them)...........the easily outraged........or at least the few that I can actually see on my screen since I don't pick the particularly moldy peaches anymore. In short, it took some effort but JW finally answered the question he didn't want to. At the risk of further exposing my chronic narcissism let me say that "I" actually hold no personal grudge against anyone in this thread......not even the powdery peaches(I just have to block you for moderation purposes)....."I" bust balls for a cause but it's all entertainment and "I" have nothin' but love for my fellow Bills fans even if that thought offends you.

Like most shy people I know you'd cringe to be called an introvert.........but it's that ability to reach deep inside that makes your words so poignant. Distilled waters run deep. You are a credit to your peace-loving, conflict averse Apache namesake...........let this be the first step toward peace among our tribes.

That's it! That's ***** it! All these years I've been on the Pulitzer Board trying to get support for you and Dana's like "if you don't stop pushing your Buffalo-buddy's work we are going to have to ask you to re-consider your membership" and I'm like "he doesn't even know or care who I am!" and then you do this to me?? TWICE! That hurts. That's $15K you are NEVER gonna' see now!

1. Yep........that was our tailgate........the ***** at Pole Six........until they painted a 5 on the pole and ruined it. 2. You guys and your fandom enjoying are so EXCLUSIVE. It's like a clique. So mean.

1. Which is why I question why you are always bringing up the fact that you worked in the ticket office in the first place. If you don't know sh*t and never did then stop implying you do. 2. When you tell someone three times that "you don't know who they are and don't care"..........you probably care too much who they are. In the way that going on Facebook and announcing that people's insults don't hurt you.........in fact, really hurts you. Either that or you are just tryna' be a haughty jerk but not very good at executing it. We literally exchanged PM's 3 months ago when I was supporting him in a thread and he has my info in his mailbox. 3. I LOVE this tact. It's how I got Yolo to start adding opinions to his links(you're welcome) and how I intend to get eball off of the booze........or onto something more manly than boxed wine. But it falls short when you say the game needs work..........how you gonna' get better without practice K-9? As for you.........YOU stick with being a savage critic of the Buffalo Sabres. Funny how unforgiving you are there. I guess you didn't work will-call for the Sabres but in case you hadn't heard the same people that do the hiring there do it for the Bills too.

You and JW should get together and tell each other that you know something and how.......but aren't going to disclose it. That makes for entertaining conversation. aaaaannnnd the Creep is back.

Ohhhhhhh..........I thought you were out of this thread when you questioned my fandom. That's kinda' the nuke button on a fan website JW..........but you aren't a fan so I guess you didn't know(or maybe just wouldn't understand us pleebs). But that's how it works here JW.........you go full ah*le you are going to get feedback...........and all I know about you is you report stuff and are otherwise a snob on TSW who likes to tell people that HE doesn't know that HE doesn't care who they are. I guess because you CLEARLY think the feeling isn't mutual? How could it be, right? I've defended Tim Graham here a lot because people went out of their way to attack him. And some of those royal A-holes are in this thread. That wasn't the case here. You just went full snob when I asked you to expand upon your choice of words. You could have just said, "hey I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt" and diffused it.........but that was beneath you until "I questioned your professionalism". It's a good thing you aren't writing opinion pieces because your online skin makes TG's look downright leathery. And as I've told you before, my "anonymity" is not a thing. I've had the same name here since 1998 and before that at this board's predecessor. You know Lori Chase........she is a good friend of mine and tailgates with me every game. She speaks highly of you (even though none of the other 30 or so people there but her and I know who the hell she is talking about.) Dozens of people on this board know me personally. I tailgate in the same place every game every week. Missed only two tailgates since 1994 and co-hosted the unofficial TBD tailgate for years. We are all registered here in our names with Scott(and some of the out of towners that don't come to games are probably also registered with their local law enforcement) so I guess we are certified consumers of entertainment. I'm a real person right here in good Ol' WNY like you JW. Or wait.......maybe I'm not a REAL person........perhaps you can be the judge of that too Jdub.

Yeah when did it not become common knowledge in sports that that was Seaver's nickname??

Nobody can make you unhappy but you, Gug. But an otherwise unusually reasonable response. I mean other than jumping on the Mets when they got Strawberry. Front runner.

Here is the thing...........the choices could all have been wrong and it could STILL work out better. It may not be likely...........but even though I am skeptical of the moves stranger things have happened. K-9 and I were talking old 80's Bills.............letting Chuck Knox get away was INCREDIBLY stupid in the short term............Ground Chuck was a great head coach.........the best in Bills history, IMO. But in about 5 years(a short period of time by NFL standards then) the Bills were playing in the AFC Championship game and had an amazing defense and a franchise QB.........a lot happened and a good deal of it was by accident and some of it was even enhanced by dumb things like @K-9 telling Jim Kelly's agent that he had a call on line 1 when they were negotiating his contract! Even when it's BAD there is always light at the end of the tunnel..........that's what's great about the NFL.........turnarounds are never far out of reach.

Dude, you've gotten so dark with the dehumanizing labels. WTH you weren't even in the discussion but you dropped the white N word on it. I thought @Royale with Cheese returning would get you out of your dark place but I guess not.

You have the patience of Job with some of these knuckleheads. I mean if the organization decided to not hold training camp they'd use THAT as an EXCUSE for the organization for getting off to a bad start...........there is just no acceptance or understanding of the basic concept of accountability for actions and decisions.

Oh the old "he wouldn't have done well in Buffalo" take while at the same time defending the coaches who supposedly would have held him back.