The Frankish Reich

Exactly. You take a team that's needs to make a bold move - a high risk, high upside move - if there's going to be any value at all in keeping high salary players like Dareus/Hughes/Glenn/McCoy/Taylor around, and you make a low risk, low reward trade/pick. Not irrational in the abstract, but a total mess of "we're trying to win now; no, we're trying to win in 2019."

I have to admit there's a certain appeal to this long cycle argument ...

Well, that's what I'm talking about ... there are precisely 4 players on this 2017 roster who played in the pre-Rex defense! I don't care how well they communicate with each other. There's absolutely nothing relevant about the fact that our defense was really good before Rex. And why would you think that? Even if there's nothing else changed, Dareus and Kyle are 3 years older (and Kyle will be 34), and Mario had a fantastic season (his last one) under Schwartz, so even if Shaq is very good there's no reason to think he'll be prime Mario good. And add to that that the depth is gone. This is wishful thinking, not analysis.

Could be, but only in the sense that there's nowhere for him to go but up. Even taking away the suspension and injury (and commitment?) issues, the aging curve for DTs is not very encouraging, and he is 3 years older than he was in his last highly productive season.

I still keep seeing those references to how Rex wrecked the Bills defense, and how a new coach can get us back to where we were under Schwartz. But take a look at who the actual players were and how many are left: DL: 3 holdovers, but only one still performing at the same level Mario - GONE Kyle - old, and maybe gone Dareus - "uninspired" to put it kindly. Dimished skills and uninspired to put it bluntly (hah!) Hughes - still there, the only one still around playing at anything resembling his 2014 form Depth/Rotation Guys (all of whom played a lot under Schwartz's rotation) : Wynn/Charles/Bryant/Lawson - all GONE LB then: only 1 holdover Bradham/Spikes/Ty Powell/Rivers - all GONE (yeah, even Randell Johnson and Larry Dean, guys I'd completely forgotten existed) Preston Brown - still there, but exposed in subsequent years as a very limited player DB: all GONE Gilmore, Leodis, Searcy, Aaron Williams, Graham, Duke Williams, Cockrell, Robey, Brooks, Rambo So there's exactly 4 players left from that defense, and that includes the depth guys. And the ones that are left are 3 years older (and a few suspensions later). Please, no more talk about how a different scheme will return the defense to its glory days of 2014.

And I am not so secretly hoping that they do tank this year. It wouldn't take much - Tyrod missing a chunk of games would for sure do it. Probably McCoy too. It's not that I want them to lose any given game; I'll be watching and rooting like hell for them. But the objective side of me sees the value in a 2-14 end ..

My baseball team is the Rockies. (Yeah, I'm a glutton for punishment.) And they've specialized in the Half Assed Rebuild. Every year they have some good talent, but every year it's clear that they project as a 73-78 win team. And every year some projected 73-78 win team makes the playoffs. So every offseason it's the same: let's tinker with this or that. Let's get marginally better in some phase of the game. But heaven forbid we do what the Astros or Cubs did and take it completely apart and start from scratch. The fans would revolt! That's what disappoints me about this offseason. I saw two defensible paths to take. One was to go all in for 2017. They really aren't far from a playoff team, if by playoff team we mean Dolphins or Texans quality playoff team. I think there's enough talent on this roster to have done that. I advocated restructuring Tyrod's deal and bringing him back, and so when I did that, that's what I thought would happen in the draft - try to get a major impact player at 10. In fact, starting EJ in that last game vs. the Jets for draft position (and to avoid an injury to Tyrod) suggested the same to me. This is the path I preferred. One last shot. All in, and if it doesn't work, full tank in 2018 with an eye toward doing a Cleveland rebuild. The other defensible path was to start the rebuild now. That would've meant handing it over to Cardale or a rookie draft pick and looking for the best value you could get in a trade for Sammy and/or McCoy. You certainly could've made the draft trade with KC in this scenario, but then you'd want to do what Cleveland did and stockpile even more 2018 draft picks for leverage to trade up. And you'd probably go 3-13 or 2-14 and 2018 would be a new beginning. But they steered the middle course, the Rockies Half Assed model. At the trading deadline in 2015 the Rockies traded formerly great SS (and huge contract) Troy Tulowitzki for prospects. Here's the rebuild! Then in the offseason they signed mediocre outfielder Gerardo Parra to a 4 year, $9 million/year contract, and signed/traded for a few aging relievers for a combined $15 million or so. Hey, we're gonna double down on going .500 after all! Crap or get off the pot. For the Bills, it's now a little bit of looking past 2017 to the longer range future, a little bit of trying to field a competitive team in 2017. Trying to please everyone and pleasing no one. Spinning their wheels. Praying that for once half a dozen things break their way and they go 9-7 and get in the playoffs while all the while trying to get better by, say, 2019. Let me just say that this usually doesn't end well, not in the current year, and not in future years.

It might not have worked, but had they taken Howard I would've had the opposite reaction. Something like, I guess Bills management is going to take one (or two) last big shots at making a run while they still have all these (ostensibly) high-caliber players (McCoy, Dareus, Hughes, Glenn, Richie, Clay, even Tyrod) still under contract and still (arguably) in the latter part of their prime years. Because if Howard is everything his proponents think he is, that's something that makes the team immediately much better. Likewise, if they had traded up (no, I don't think this would have been a good idea!) I would be of the same mind. Look, everyone's so sensitive here. This post is about what Bills management (really McD at this point, since Whaley seems at least somewhat marginalized) is thinking about their prospects over the next 1-4 years. Moving up for Sammy in 2014 said "we're trying to make a run right now." Moving down in 2017 says "we're unlikely to make a run right now, let's reload an aim for a future year."

If I may decipher: I think he's saying: 1. Even when you hit on a 1st round corner, it's proven to be insufficient to get you over the 8-8 hump. 2. But there's no guarantee that you'll hit on a 1st round corner, so if you swing and miss it just makes it all the more likely that you'll stay in that 6-10 Jauronland.

I think maybe this is a difference in how we perceive the bolded phrase. Yes, they definitely CAN make the playoffs. Every year some darkhorse team sneaks in. There's really not a whole lot to be said for why the Dolphins are superior to the Bills. But that's not building a team that (if everything plays out as expected) should make the playoffs. We've been living in that "if the ball bounces our way in a few key situations and we stay healthy and other teams that are more talented than us have flukey bad seasons we can sneak in" world for what now? A dozen years? 17 years? That's not what I mean by building a team with the talent to expect a playoff appearance.

Not at all. I think it would be nuts to assume that he will be as good as Gilmore in his rookie season. Overall the talent of the losses is going to exceed the talent of the additions, at least in 2017. And since some of the additions are now going to be deferred to 2018, I think it only makes sense to assume - and for the record, I agree with this assumption, and am glad the Bills (new) management has made it! - that this team knows 2017 and 2018 are, at best, transitional years.

It's kind of time we stopped talking about that. Schwartz's 2014 defense is gone! Literally gone as in Gilmore and Mario. Figuratively gone as in Dareus is not the player he was, Kyle is at the very end of the line if he even does come back, and a whole lot of their replacements are not of the same quality as the players Schwartz had back then. (And that is why McD is trying to rebuild from scratch with young players, and lots of them) You can blame Rex for ruining 2015, and maybe even for making 2016 worse than it should have been, but 2014 is way, way over....

I start from the premise that the Bills obviously need to get better than they were last year to realistically compete this year, and there's really no sane argument that that is going to happen when the draft is all done. I continue with the premise that adding rookie talent in 2018 isn't a recipe for immediate success. And I conclude with the premise that Bills management must, therefore, realistically (even if they can't say it for PR/Pegula reasons) think that 2019 at the earliest is the target.

So ... the answer to my question is? 2019?

Explain please. If you're Whaley/McD and you think you're on the verge of winning now, why do you trade down to add another 1st rounder next year? I guess you could say "because we're so good right now we don't need that #10 overall to put us over the top" ...

Anyone out there want to argue for 2018? 2019? Come on, convince me that I'm wrong!

After the trade down yesterday, I think it's clear that Bills management doesn't think it'll happen in 2017. If they'd thought this team was close, they'd have used that #10 overall to find a clear upgrade at an obvious position of need. So what is the target year now? When could the Bills reasonably project as a 9.5 win (or so) team; that is, a team that is expected/is more likely than not to be in the playoffs? Not as in, "we project as a 7-9 team, but if a bunch of bounces go our way we could sneak into the playoffs at 9-7." 2018: they've pretty much signaled that Tyrod is a one year bridge (again) in 2017, and there'll be a new QB in 2018. You wouldn't be stockpiling picks for 2018 expecting to win with rookies right away. Plus you've got some big contracts for aging players in their decline phases still on the books. So ... no. Not yet. 2019? I'd guess that McD (not Whaley) thinks this is when he'll have to start showing results. Start showing results, as in "got out from under some of the bad decisions of the Whaley era, and started showing a new core of players that's ready to take the next step." That brings me to 2020 ... I guess all of that could change if we somehow grab a Garoppolo or Cousins and he turns out to be the QB of our dreams, but that seems unlikely. 2020 it is! EDIT: maybe this has something to do with how long they think Brady will last? The recent moves strike me as going into full rebuild mode but being afraid to admit it.

Using a high pick on a CB is generally smart because good free agent CBs are ridiculously expensive (see Gilmore). Safeties? Not so much.

Well ... I know posters on this forum have had a lot of QB ideas, some that turned out good, some that turned out bad. But just by throwing a dart at the "available QB" board you'd probably have to do better than Losman, Edwards, Fitz, EJ, Orton, Tyrod ... even though the last two have been, well, adequate, there's an awful lot of ground to make up for after the first 4 ...

I pretty much agree. But here's where we are these days with all this draft talk: - Analyst (or GM) A: "2017 is a really deep draft. I don't see a great talent gap between the 10th best player and the 27th best player. Therefore, it makes sense to trade down since you're not giving up much immediately for the benefit of getting another 1st round pick next year." - Analyst (or GM) B: "2017 is not as good a draft class as 2018. Better not to waste the 10th pick on a player that isn't really rated as a Pro Bowl talent. Stockpile picks in that next draft, which is looking like it's going to be really good." Two diametrically opposed arguments, both in favor of doing exactly what the Bills did. And there's equally good arguments against what the Bills did. To me it all comes down to not what the quality/depth of the 2017 vs. 2018 draft class is, but on where the Bills are in their (apparent) goal to build a Super Bowl contender. And to me, that's why this trade - following the re-signing of Tyrod and the other off season roster moves - makes no sense.

And unfortunately accurate?

I don't see that as White hate. I see it as Whaley/McD/ownership hate. Nobody is saying that White is not worthy of the 27th overall pick. They're saying that the Bills made a mistake passing over potential impact players to trade down to take a 27th overall talent.

Actually, the internet age and the age of freely available video and all of these mock drafts (by the way, the dumbest and most boring thing ever in sports talk; how many of these have ever been correct past the first 3 or 4 picks?), the likelihood of a team making a truly controversial/highly-criticized pick is pretty minimal. For example, Mayock's Round 1 capsule assessments: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000803412/article/mike-mayocks-pickbypick-draft-analysis The same bland assessments you'll see everywhere. Every guy is a fine player, either a "day one starter" or a "guy with incredible athleticism and a high upside" or a "solid college player with great intangibles." I dare you to find a pick that is excoriated as idiotic. (I kind of miss those old days.) And it's even more unlikely for anyone to find a hidden gem; everyone's got video, no small college guy flies under the radar in the later rounds. It's gotten to what economists would call an efficient market. That's why the focus turns to things like the trades - the focus is on GMs and their plans, on competition windows and salary caps, all that kind of stuff instead of the absolute value (or lack thereof) of an individual player.

So you're saying there is a well thought out plan!

I'm not seeing any White hate. Where are you seeing that? I'm seeing critics (myself included) saying that from all we know and hear he seems to be a useful player, not destined for stardom but destined to be a solid starting CB. The criticism is about Bills' management and what the plan is - assuming there is a plan? - for how they're either going to get better in 2017, or get good enough to be a real SB competitor in the foreseeable future. Besides, in the battle of the unnecessary apostrophes, I prefer Adoree' to Tre'Davious (understanding that the former is really just a transliteration of the French accent aigu)