Forward Progress

I agree. The best way to improve our defense is to have an offense that can sustain drives to keep our defense fresh.

Me too. We need more guys with the heart of Freddie. I think Kyle Williams has it... anyone else who brings a full competitive effort for every play? Tre White? Jerry Hughes?

I agree with the path chosen by McDermott and Beane to shed overpriced contracts, eat all of the dead cap in one year and grow from there. It's too early, even for me, to say they have done a great job. I am optimistic, but can't declare this process a success until a consistently winning team takes the field each week. That won't be this year, but should be to expectation of the 2020 Bills. In response to your successes... 1) McDermott did a great job last year and the team outperformed their talent level. In hindsite, this playoff birth probably hurt us as we needed multiple picks to draft Allen, instead of just one and applying the other picks to fill the other holes on the team. I still enjoyed ending the drought, so I'm not complaining. 2) I like Allen, but other than a couple of great throws in the preseason and some athletic drive sustaining runs in the regular season, he hasn't shown to be ready today. It is too soon to give him the Franchise QB designation. I do believe he has the intelligence, work ethic and determination to improve. I'm looking forward to next year's version of Josh Allen. 3) When the defense is good it is really good. When it is gassed from being on the field too much, it isn't good at all. If our offense can be average, our defense can be great. 4) I agree that the bad contracts are gone. It may take more than one off-season to allocate that cap space to talented players who make our team better.

The OP could be on to something. Our offensive linemen look like they’ve mastered the swinging gate manoeuvre to me.

I'd like Savior Peterman to weigh in on this...

So I agree that the dead cap of about $50M less to spend on talent relative to your opponents is a sizable disadvantage this year. Whether you like it or not, this is the rebuild plan - trade away big salaries for draft picks, find foundational players in the draft (Allen, Edmunds, White) to build your team and absorb the dead cap this year. McBeane even admitted to a reporter that he proposed this plan during the interview process. We are not a contender this year, but will will have better talent next year and should be better again in 2020. I don't enjoy watching our team handcuffed by a lack of talent, but I accept that this is the right process.

This is the point I was about to make. If the offense could sustain drives some drives, our defensive stats would be even better.

If Shady will be traded, I think the deal is already done and expect an announcement on Monday. There wasn't time this week for Shady to be ready to play for the Eagles on Thursday night, so it made sense for the Bills to benefit from one more week where he can help us win an important game before he goes. Pure speculation on my part, but I think this is Shady's last game as a Bill.

I will meet you half way. I promise not get too low when our rookie QB makes rookie mistakes, even when they cost us wins. However... When Josh Allen lights it up and carries our team on his back to victory, I am going to lose my s#!+ with joy and declare Josh the saviour that the prophets have talked about.

The Eagles have two second round picks. The other is from the Ravens - also looking like a pick late in the round.

I hate tie-breakers that are not based on the same rules as the game. I hate shoot-outs as a method to break ties in soccer and hockey. I think the NFL tie-breaker rules are pretty good right now.

I'm just excited when we throw the ball more than 7 yards on 3rd and 7. We've had too many checkdown quaterbacks through the drought who threw the easy 3-yard pass on 3rd and long, logged a completion, boosted their QB rating and hurried to the sideline to get a good view of the All-Pro Punter in action.

It’s interesting how closely the QB’s that you have been listing aligns with the top QB’s for 4th quarter comebacks. These are the QB’s who have made clutch plays to carry their teams into victory. Rank Player 4QC Years Tm Link 1 Peyton Manning 43 1998-2015 2TM View Comebacks 2 Tom Brady 34 2000-2018 nwe View Comebacks Johnny Unitas+ 34 1956-1973 2TM View Comebacks 4 Dan Marino+ 33 1983-1999 mia View Comebacks 5 John Elway+ 31 1983-1998 den View Comebacks 6 Ben Roethlisberger 29 2004-2018 pit View Comebacks Fran Tarkenton+ 29 1961-1978 2TM View Comebacks Vinny Testaverde 29 1987-2007 7TM View Comebacks 9 Drew Brees 28 2001-2018 2TM View Comebacks Brett Favre+ 28 1991-2010 4TM View Comebacks 11 Eli Manning 26 2004-2018 nyg View Comebacks Joe Montana+ 26 1979-1994 2TM View Comebacks Matt Ryan 26 2008-2018 atl View Comebacks Matthew Stafford 26 2009-2018 det View Comebacks 15 Warren Moon+ 25 1984-2000 4TM View Comebacks 16 Drew Bledsoe 24 1993-2006 3TM View Comebacks Tony Romo 24 2004-2016 dal View Comebacks Y.A. Tittle+ 24 1948-1964 3TM View Comebacks 19 Jay Cutler 23 2006-2017 3TM View Comebacks Dave Krieg 23 1980-1998 6TM View Comebacks Show hidden rows 21 to 273

Jim Kelly Jack Kemp Joe Ferguson Josh Allen Doug Flutie

Probably not as good, as it means the QB wasn't expected to start and didn't get as many reps with the starters.

I can't imagine anything hurting Allen's confidence more than remaining the back-up to Peterman, wondering why Nate is playing while you hold the clipboard.

I could see value bringing Allen in for a Hail Mary situation, since he has the arm strength. He could be our Hail Mary specialist in the same way that EJ was used as the Hard Count specialist.

You've made a few points that have you concerned. Let me try to make you feel better... 1. It doesn't really matter what the media is saying today about Josh Allen as it relates to Nate Peterman winning the QB competition. If Peterman can play as efficiently in real games as he did in the pre-season, then that story line will go away. If Peterman throws 5 INT's in a half again, then Allen will take the field and write his own story. The truth about Allen will reveal itself over time. As Bill's fans, we got to see every Josh Allen throw in his first pre-season and there was a lot to like. I'm looking forward to the Josh Allen era, but will cheer for Peterman while he's wearing the Bill's uniform. 2. The supporting cast on offense is not strong... I want to make you feel better, but it's true that we have limited talent on offence. Hopefully, Daboll is talented enough to compensate for that. 3. The low financial commitments to rookies these days actually works in Allen's favor. Because he is relatively cheap, the ideal scenario is to surround Allen with tremendous talent during his rookie contract (after wiping the Salary Cap slate clean after this year), like the Seahawks did with Russell Wilson. I don't see how the limited investment in rookies reduces the commitment by the Bills in Allen. There's no point worrying about what the media has to say. They are paid to say something every day whether or not there is anything to say. Our coach and GM have a plan that feels like a real rebuild. We traded players for picks, and bundled picks to get Allen. We sacrificed this year to clean up our salary cap mess, so that next season we have a franchise QB and a supporting cast to match. Let the story play out and enjoy the ride.

Without trading Glenn, we don't have the equity to trade up for Josh Allen. Trading Glenn was the right choice and I believe it was worth giving up Glenn to acquire Allen.

I use DAZN.com in Canada which lets me stream every game for $20 per month, plus some other sports in Europe that I don’t follow. I know this won’t work in the USA, but it might with an IP address mask like IP Vanish, choosing a non-American address.

It feels like Carter watched one highlight throw of Allen’s and assumed every throw was like that. He spent more time talking about Allen than he did watching Allen to form a meaningful opinion. I have probably spent more time watching and re-watching Allen’s throws from college and this preseason than doing my job. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m doing my job more poorly than Carter is doing his job while doing Carter’s job better than him for free.

Each QB gets only one path through their career. They either start early, backup early or toggle back and forth. When they succeed, we get to see the entire path of their success, but when they fail, we are forced to speculate on whether a different developmental path could have resulted in success. We all got to watch the EJ path, where he hasn't developed into an NFL starter. Did his path take away from his success or did he not have the right set of skills, including his mindset to succeed? We never get to know for sure, but we can see that EJ faced some early adversity and never bounced back. NFL QB's who can't bounce back from adversity aren't likely to succeed, so my opinion is that EJ would never have succeeded, regardless of the path given to him. This is just one guy's opinion - you are welcome to your own. Even though Josh Allen has a long way to go to become an NFL starting QB, I am more hopeful. Allen has overcome adversity at every level just to become a college QB and first round NFL prospect. Allen has an elite arm, but he has many skills that need to develop to be the NFL QB we all want him to become. I am sure he will face more adversity in the next few seasons, but I think that Josh will respond constructively when the going gets tough and draw upon his own determination to overcome the challenges. If you haven't read the back story on Allen yet, you should. These links are pretty good. https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/sports/football/nfl/bills/2018/07/19/josh-allen-buffalo-bills-quarterback-first-round-nfl-draft-pick-university-wyoming-firebaugh-farm/783231002/ https://blogs.usafootball.com/blog/6207/how-josh-allen-s-perseverance-earned-him-a-spot-in-the-nfl

So there's this guy... on TwoBillsDrive... with the user name SaviourPeterman!

... and free health care.