BADOLBILZ

McD and Beane thought they were being very clever by having Beane stay in Carolina and siphon their draft prep info........from scouts whom they trusted. Whaley had limited input that offseason. He was literally moving his family out of town prior to the draft. It wasn't a professional courtesy...........he just figured he'd gather info from 2 sets of scouts and make his own decisions. Unfortunately for us, the Panthers weren't scouting first round QB's. They did so many things wrong early on that it kinda' boggles the mind.

I don't think I'd give Rex and Whaley that much credit.😂 Rex saw a shiny toy and they made an impulse buy. Then when McCoy expressed his disgust at the trade and threatened not to report they had to re-do his deal.........greatly devaluing the exchange because his then Eagles contract ran thru 2017 already........which would eventually turn out to be the end of his usefulness as an NFL player(and a year past his "star" days). I think alcohol on the Pegula yacht contributed more to that snap decision as some model for success.

When league average is 4.2 and your last 400 carries are below that..........that blows. Like I said, the far-too-modest 4.4 was a bad year in context. Everyone else was running for 5.5 yards in that offense. When he finally went out for the season Karlos and Gillislee ATE in his absence. He was holding them back. He admitted as much that offseason as well. Hugely disappointing first year in Buffalo and 2 low production years to finish. Imagine signing a 27 year old RB to a big contract now. It wasn't any less stupid then.....but that's how dysfunctional the Bills were. It's funny hearing the nuanced complaints about the team now being treated like they are absolute travesties when they were doing dumb sh!t like paying a veteran RB top dollar back then and some of you were eating it up.

I was floored by the Haley trade. My faith in Polian dropped like a rock that day. It proved that he was half-stepping when the SB was right there to be had. One thing I will say about Beane is that he hasn't let his ego get in the way of making moves. Polian kept Norwood in 1991 just to prove that they didn't lose because he hadn't replaced Norwood in 1990. And Norwood was then terrible in the 1991 season. Same sh!t with Kelso. Soon as the media got critical of a Polian personnel decision that stubborn bastard doubled down on it. Polian should have won at least 5 SB's with Kelly and Manning. Great roster starter, terrible finisher. Beane isn't nearly the pure scout that Polian was but he never had #1 overall and/or top 5 picks at his disposal either(as he reminded us when Jamar Chase at up our secondary in the playoffs).

One outstanding year.........rest of his time in Buffalo averaged 3.9 yards per carry. League average per carry was 4.2. His first year, which I assume you consider good, was a disaster that started with him refusing to report unless his recently signed and already fat contract was re-worked and extended. Then he had a bunch of injuries and per carry production a full yard less than the other 2 active RB's on the roster. He embarrassed himself in a critical loss to Philly where Chip Kelly comically showed everyone why he traded him(because of his undisciplined, side-line dash style of running). Season culminated in him finishing the year on IR. He got his act together after the nightclub brawl with off-duty cops and admitted he wasn't following the design of Roman's run game and came back and had his one excellent season but the following season his production dropped like a rock, proving that his good prior year was mostly the product of the system. When he got to Buffalo he was hitting the wall, not the same player he had been in Philly.

Not the same situations, so not much insight to our present situation, IMO. Those Bills were the most talented roster in the league for 4-5 years and had no real competition to their dominance in the AFC. These Bills are good but decades of free agency have leveled the playing field a lot more. Case in point.......those Bills had the league's greatest ever pass rusher in HOF'er Bruce Smith and another DPOY in Cornelius Bennett. The Bills best defender during their current run is who? Jordan Poyer? 😂 These Bills COULD have won a SB. THOSE Bills SHOULD have won a SB. And don't let Polian off the hook for losing that game. He was a hardhead. He chose Levy and wouldn't fire him but he also neglected to add to those early 90's rosters in order to finish the deal. He was determined to prove critics of his player choices wrong. And specifically with regard to the Cowboys........he let Charles Haley get traded to the Cowboys. There is no team the Niners hate or hated more than Dallas so they were desperate to unload him. Haley would have been a game changer for the Bills and his arrival changed everything for Dallas.

Most overrated Bill ever. "he's smart" 😂 Just one outstanding season in 4 years with the Bills and that was in an offense where the other Bills RB's produced big in 2015 and 2016. Because Greg Roman is a great run game designer. His other 3 seasons in Buffalo he was a below average RB statistically. The attention desperate, celebrity knob-polishing of Bills fans loved Shady though.

I don't think you make the decision about whether to use the franchise tag on a player based on whether you think that player will report to camp or not. It's generally proven to be a terrible decision for the player to not to be out there opening day. There is enough data on it and players generally just roll with it and take that big guaranteed paycheck. Worked past couple times Bengals did it. Letting a valuable asset like that walk for nothing when you have plenty of immediate cap space to tie them up would be malpractice, IMO.

I don't need to watch it, I knew they dropped the ball by not selecting Mahomes in 2017. THAT team and THIS franchise passing on a QB in that draft was preposterous. The excuse that they needed more than 4 months to evaluate a QB class() was the first of many ridiculous excuses made by McBeane. The Mahomes hype in summer of 2017 was huge.....his lone start backed up the hype......and by the time he went off in the opener of the 2018 season I could already envision our new young QB perennially being 2 steps behind even if he turned out to be as great as his athletic ceiling. The reason I thought that far ahead was because the Chiefs had been eating the Bills lunch since Reid arrived. They dealt some critical blows to the playoff hopes of Marrone and Rex teams that were about equally talented. They outmaneuvered the Bills for Alex Smith. They were a problem and as big a rival to me as anyone outside of NE. But for most Bills fans they were just another team on the schedule. I was very irritated to hand them a QB........with a below market value trade no less........when we were so desperate for our own QB. When Allen was just playing like a wild man with mixed results in 2018 and Mahomes was being the most prolific passing first year QB I was already figuring "best case" scenario was that Allen could be Jim Kelly to Mahomes' Dan Marino. Marino had excellent individual and team success at the beginning but 5-6 years in Kelly started winning the majority of their matchups because of a better roster and the Bills team surpassed Miami. Allen held up his part of the bargain by improving quickly............Beane just proved to be to much of a work in progress as a GM and never was able to out-personnel the Chiefs. As I've said before though.........it was wishful thinking that the Bills organization could go from decades of dysfunction and terrible stewardship and suddenly hit on the perfect GM and HC and QB combination all at once. I like Beane and think he could actually eventually live up to the BS "wizard" hype he got early on.........but it's entirely possible that his best work won't line up perfect with the prime of JA17. The lesson is that sometimes the initial moves a regime makes can be the most impactful.

I've assumed that the Bengals would just use the franchise tag on him. They are one of the few teams that has used it regularly in recent years. They used it on AJ Green in 2020 and Jessie Bates in 2022 and avoided long term commitments to either. Green never bounced back from injury but Bates was very good for that 1 year and bought them time to draft and develop a replacement. I know the Bengals can be cheap but this seems like an easy decision.........dump Boyd........get one more year of Higgins........draft his replacement this spring and allow that player to develop as WR3 in place of Boyd.

Yeah but they can't run him 9 times per game all season like they just did under Brady. 200 carries needed to win a SB isn't feasible. They have had the right idea early in seasons........save Josh's running for late season/playoffs.........but they just haven't been able to execute it like they did in 2020 because they haven't had the playmakers around him to do so. The Bills need to invest in the talent around him. Instead of hoping to find their WR2(Davis) and WR3(Shakir) in the 4th and 5th rounds they need to find equivalent defensive players in those rounds instead.

Yeah that's about what we were discussing in the stands during the 2 minute warning. Seemed like a pretty obvious strategy. Especially with a QB who set the NFL record for rushing TD's in a season and 2 TO's. But your 5 plays doesn't include the extra point conversion and 2-4 plays of pass defense. Which is why I say about 10 "executable" plays. Nothing spectacular was needed. We are in alignment but the last 3-5 plays of regulation aren't a given..........as 13 seconds and HR throwback taught us in prior playoff games.

He stood out in the Missouri games I watched. But not late first round type, IMO. I was thinking more 3rd-4th round during the season. But some guys move up and edge players who have good workouts always get overdrafted. Not a very good DL class in general. I see lot's of rotational players, not many guys you want on the field 70-80% of the snaps. The people who would consider Sweat in round 1 probably would have been happy with Mazi Smith in round 1. And then were unaware he was on the field for Dallas when the Bills ran for like 300 yards against that front.

Not that I recall. But the Shakir TD catch had to be single digit catch probability. As with his catch/conversion near the goal line on that low throw. And another bullet behind the LOS he caught reaching back was incredible. They executed a lot of plays to get where they were despite only gaining 4 yards per play on offense. The 2 deep incompletions to Sherfield were just cases of throwing the ball to a bad player who hadn't caught those type of passes all season. The Diggs deep drop actually may have worked to their advantage by forcing them to work the clock and execute 14 plays and have 2nd and 9 deep in Chiefs territory with just 2 minutes left. The good players on the offense ultimately didn't leave much on the table, relatively speaking.

I will say I think the 13 seconds game was a closer fight. Coin luck gave KC two extra possessions in that game. That mattered more than the missed 4 points off of kicks(which happened early enough to perhaps change the Bills offensive strategy in the 3rd quarter, which is where they really lost that game). But your point stands though, IMO. The Bills haven't been the better team in any of the 3 playoff losses to KC. And as closely as the teams are matched, you'd think that once in 3 times the lesser team would win. That's how the NFL works and when you see such a game the clock was quite often a big ally of the team that springs the upset. The Bills had it in their hand but they only proved less competent in defeat because of it, IMO. I'm still aghast at 2nd and 9. That's the same as 13 seconds to me.

I'd say they were about 10 executable plays away from winning that game. It was do-able and it was the route to victory. But 2-3 is seriously downplaying it. But OK, if 1 was the TD to Shakir.......the other 2 were what? A sack that they have never had in 3 playoff games against Mahomes? An interception when they hadn't turned the ball over offensively and his receivers were largely running wide open all day?

Yeah I miss those 50 years between franchise QB's in KC. Those were the days.

IDK he's done well for himself. He married Stiffler's mom for money and was last seen vacationing in Sicily at the White Lotus. Can't see him moving to Buffalo to work for assistants pay for a lame duck regime.

That reaction would sum up why I stopped doing full-on draft analysis. After about 10 years of my 1st round board being consistently better than John Butler and Tom Donahoe's......and watching players I had first round grades on for the Bills still passed over in subsequent rounds.........Donahoe broke me with his foolishness. But I think I have agreed with more of Beane's 1st round picks than I did any of the prior 30 years of #1 picks combined.

@thebandit27 was also the first guy on TSW on the "we need Patrick Mahomes he is going to be great" bandwagon back in spring of 2016. And another truth is that Josh Allen was already being whispered up as the potential #1 pick in the 2018 draft in the middle of his 2016 season..........at a time when Mahomes was not really even getting any 1st round buzz for the coming 2017 draft.

In fairness, the Bills were outplayed on their home field, got the biggest bounce of the game to even keep them in it (benefiting from a nonsensical rule that probably won't exist next year) and probably needed to execute about 10 more plays somewhat successfully to kill the clock, score a TD, burn KC's timeouts and stop them on their subsequent drive in order to win that game in regulation. Looking forward to next year(as always) but that season was just ugly for a team that showed such promise in September. The ending was very appropriate.

Yeah Babich isn't even young for a first time DC. I was more referring to all the young coaches moving up in general. I don't know if McD will let him call the defense but if he doesn't do well it won't be because he's too young or inexperienced.

They are getting pushed up the ladder quickly.........but too quick? I would say *probably* not? These young coaches are a lot more familiar with advanced X's and O's at much younger ages than those of the same age in decades past. It's sort of like the young QB's and WR's entering the league...........they are far more advanced entering the league than they have ever been. Except with coaches, you aren't contending with "planet theory". The idea that there are only a very limited amount of humans with the right combination of athletic traits to even qualify. With coaches the only real qualification to this point is that you still need to be an adult male.

That was actually my first thought. I think Johnson is a little hotter of a candidate but if the Lions regress next year those flames can cool.

Yeah now is certainly the time to throw some picks at the position. Going to be one of the best WR drafts ever and they should come out of it with 3, IMO. 2 early picks. Get these guys in........get 4 productive seasons out of them........replenish in 2027 when the next super-draft of WR's hits. Might be 3 guys better than Marvin Harrison Jr in that one and tons of depth.