hondo in seattle

You have it backwards: We have no good players because we're in cap trouble. According to Over-the-Cap, we still have about $8 million in available cap space. We also have $54 million in dead money. So we're spending $62 million less on our current roster than the cap allows. In fact, this year's Bills are the lowest paid team in the NFL. It's hard to win that way. Beane has been offloading bloated salaries and acquiring draft picks. So we'll have about $90 million in cap space next year (4th highest in the league) and 10 draft picks. And as things stand right now, we're looking at the most - by far - cap space in the NFL in 2020. Beane's going to have enough money and picks to build a great roster over the next couple years. Let's see if he can do it. https://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space/ https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2018/9/2/17810772/buffalo-bills-have-10-draft-picks-in-2019-aj-mccarron-ej-manuel-josh-allen-nathan-peterman

I watched that vid and had no clue what was happening or why people were excited. The AFL is an unsolved mystery to me.

I'm not sure I agree 100% but this is a valid point.

I read what Daboll said but I'm still negative on this line. Sure, Allen hangs on to the ball too long. That's not debatable. And sometimes he does get a nice pocket. But there have been too many pass-pro breakdowns on the line as well. And they're not opening holes for runners. Overall, I think "disaster" isn't a terribly inaccurate work for the performance of our OL.

I get the impression that Beane is mostly a build-thru-the-draft kind of guy. I expect he'll overpay for one or two FAs - like most GMs do. When you want something bad enough, you have to be the high bidder. But I think he's going to focus on undervalued players and "B" players who can be signed affordably and not "A" players who will demand record-setting contracts. $80,000,000 just doesn't go as far as it used to.

Beane came here and started jettisoning overpaid and prima donna players. As much as he could, he put the dead cap money into 2018 with the clear intention of making this a rebuilding year. I certainly don't agree with every decision but you can easily see the logic at work. He's collecting draft capital and building up free cap space to make 2019 and 2020 good years. If Beane does a credible job executing his plan, we'll be back in the playoffs in 2020. McD is James Bowie being outnumbered 15-1 at the Battle of the Alamo. He's capable enough and his guys have good esprit d'corps. But they're outgunned and have no realistic chance. The Vikes, for example, are spending nearly 50% more on their roster this year than the Bills are ($183,000,000 vs. 125,000,000). The best leaders and tacticians in the world can't overcome those numbers.

Sorry if this sounds negative but I'm honestly wondering how many people picking the Bills seriously believe the Bills will win? With that in mind, my prediction is that Josh Allen has a breakout game and the Bills win 28-27!

Not only wasn't Sammy particularly productive here but his attitude sucked. Remember the story of Shady giving him an envelope of 'targets' because Sammy kept clamoring for more targets? Sammy wasn't respected by his teammates and even Sammy admitted somewhere that he was more interested in his stat line than the final score. Sammy claims to have grown up since. But while here he just wasn't the kind of guy you wanted around. We didn't end the drought last year so much by talent but by effort. Now Beane is trying to acquire guys who are big on both effort and talent. Personally, I'm choosing to give Beane some time before judging 'the process.'

I don't care much about the media headlines - though I thought the 'Buffalo Baby' story was kind of funny. I'm not even stressed about winning and losing - I know we're not returning to the playoffs this year. I'll watch the games to see how our young players are developing because I'm hoping 2019 will be better.

This is what happens when the 3rd highest paid roster in the NFL plays the 32nd highest. https://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space/

I'm a Bills fan. I root for Josh Allen and anyone else in a Bills uni. But I'm not a NFL fan. I rarely watch games that don't involve the Bills. I don't play fantasy football. There are too many other things that interest me. And I don't even care much what the media says about the Bills. I have my own two eyes and my brethren fans here will point out the stuff I miss. That's good enough for me. Beuerlein is a little more interesting than most because he played Josh Allen's position. So I'm a little encouraged that he generally has a positive opinion about Allen's future. But in the end, he doesn't actually know what the future holds for JA anymore than we do. Beane took a legit stab at a QB and I'm content to let this thing play out.

I’m glad you can read minds. Personally I’m going to take Davis at his word: he quit because he wasn’t physically right.

Last year he ended the drought. This year he’s fielding the lowest paid roster in the NFL. The guy deserves a fighting chance. He doesn’t deserve to be fired and he's not going to be fired.

It's not coincidence that it's younger, less experienced players on the top of this list. Let's hope it's something he can correct.

Combined with a rising Edmunds and Allen, that could be the core of an awesome team!

As Shakespeare once wrote... "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;For he today who sheds shared tears of Bills fandom with meShall be my brother."

I don't remember the exact words but during the broadcast Steve Beurelein said something like, "Beane told me that AJ McCarron wasn't who they thought he was." So I wonder if Beane planned for AJ to both start for a while and mentor Josh - and it didn't work out?

Lots of people think poorly of the Bills. And lots of people kill, maim, rape, and injure other people. I have both more pleasant things and more important things to worry about than Max Kellerman. His opinions mean no more to me than the football opinions of a Burmese fisherman.

Accuracy as "aim" is a genetic thing and probably doesn't improve much (if at all) over time. Accuracy as "completion percentage" can improve a lot. Lots of things go into completion percentage: scheme, WR route running/separation, WR hands, QB ability to read defense and go throw progressions, biomechanics, etc. There are lots of QBs who improved their accuracy/completion percentage over the years. Steve Deberg only completed 45% of his passes in his first season but later developed into a serviceable starter who was never that inaccurate again. Closer to home, Joe Ferguson only completed 44% of his passes his rookie season but never again produced a season that bad. It's debatable whether Allen has bad aim on his errant passes or is just being a rookie.

When we made the playoffs last year, I naively thought this may be the beginning of a playoff streak. Then Wood retired and Incognito did whatever he did. Then I looked at our remaining roster. Then I looked at our dead cap money. Then I looked at how little we're spending on this year's players. And then, finally, I embraced more realistic expectations. If Edmunds and Allen both look like emerging stars by the end of this season, I'll be happy regardless of the win total.

well thanks for the encouragement and intelligent counter argument

Forget stats. Eye test matters. My eyes say our OL sucks in both the passing and running game. Our WRs have trouble gaining separation. And there were times Josh Allen looked like a real NFL QB. Other times he looked panicky and/or threw errant balls. His mistakes/flaws could be correctable rookie stuff, but I'm not sure. And I like my uncertainty. It means I think there's a chance Allen evolves into something good. I have hope - the life blood of fans.

Everyone looking at our personnel moves and/or our cap situation knew this was a rebuilding year. I can't imagine Terry and Kim saw anything different. This season - with $50 million in dead cap - we have the lowest paid roster in the NFL. We're simply not spending enough to field a competitive team. Next year, we'll have $80 million or so in cap space. Who knows the year after that but if Beane manages the cap astutely, we'll again be active players in free agency. If Beane drafts well and spends wisely, 2020 will be a very good year. All indications say that's the plan, like it or not.

Can you imagine Beane telling McD, "We're going to have the lowest paid roster in the NFL this season. I need you to win the Super Bowl anyway!"? Can you imagine succeeding on a project in your own job if you had $25 million (on average) less to spend than your competitors? If Allen and Edmunds advance their skills this year, it's a good season. The best part about this season will be the shedding of dead cap money.

The Bills drafted okay. I don't where to begin with that statement. Whaley was pretty good at identifying FA talent. He was poor at the draft. Cap Hell. I said we're currently in draft hell (partly due to Beane jettisoning some of Whaley's players/contracts). It's simply a fact. We have far more dead money this year ($53 million) than any team in the NFL. We pay less this year ($126 million) than any team in the NFL on current player salaries. Based on payroll, we have the worst roster in the NFL. We simply don't have enough money this year to field a competitive football team. https://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space/ There's no doubt Beane has made mistakes and Cordy may have been one of them. Even good personnel guys make mistakes. Hell, Bill Walsh famously told Marv Levy he needed to draft Trent Edwards. But what we want to know is if Beane's overall team-building strategy will work. And it's obvious both from his interviews and his actions that he's trying to spend cap space wisely by first jettisoning the overpaid players. And he's trying to acquire draft picks because he has faith in his ability to draft well. Whether his efforts succeed in the end remains to be seen. It's still early in the process. But Beane is not a short-term guy. None of his actions so far suggested that he was aiming to make 2018 a good year. He's looking at 2019 and beyond.