BillsFan4

Well, for Anderson’s first drive in 2 years, I’ll take it...

Damn, they blew that run play up immediately.

Nice pass to Holmes.

I don’t know what happened in that specific practice - if housley stopped it and laid into them or if he actually thought they practiced well. I believe Okposo that they didn’t practice well. But, in general, I take what Housley says to the media with a grain of salt. I don’t really expect him to say “yeah we practiced terribly”. I remember seeing a lot of People who got mad about that last year. He would say they did some things well after a bad loss. He would be generally positive with the media, etc. and it pissed people off. But the players appreciated him not throwing them under the bus to the media. But he is MUCH different behind closed doors. He doesn’t hesitate to lay into the players. He can be heard yelling right through the concrete walls of the locker room after a bad game. As far as what Okposo said, it was one practice. I am not going to read too much into comments on one practice. I’ve heard the players say multiple times that they had great, crisp, up-tempo practices too. Even Okposo said in his quote that they’ve usually been much better in practice this season. Here’s the quote - https://www.nhl.com/sabres/news/sabres-colorado-avalanche-recap-highlights/c-300873908 I would be a be a lot quicker to blame Housley if we didn’t have so many of the same problems under Bylsma. I truly worry about some of the core players we have being uncoachable. Like Ristolainen, Reinhart. I used to worry about Eichel too, but I am truly seeing progress from him. I think its telling that our 4th line has been our best in numerous games this year. They actually do what the coaches tell them to do, and it works. Personally, I think the problems with this team run a LOT deeper than coaching. I think It’s a culture that has been established through the tank years. I think there hasn’t been any accountability from the players for years (up until this season). I think young guys were handed roles without having to earn them. They fired Bylsma when the players decided they didn’t want to listen to him. They haven’t had the depth to be able to sit some of these guys to make a point, or to make them actually compete to earn their roster spots. And The list goes on...

Agree. It’s very clear that the Sabres are lacking talent, and the talent we do have isn’t playing up to par. Our best players aren’t playing like our best players... And when their effort/battle/compete level is also lacking in any given period it’s a recipe for disaster. I know everyone likes to blame housley, but the thing is we had most of these same problems under Bylsma and I heard all the same stuff about how it was Bylsma’s fault. When does the blame get put on the players for refusing to accept the coaching? And for lack of executing on stuff the coach goes over constantly? I know for a fact Housley drills this stuff in practice all the time. He’s a lot tougher on them than people realize. He is constantly working on the stuff they do wrong in games, and (from what I hear) they will execute it well in practice, then come game time you will see them play the right way for brief periods of time and revert right back to doing whatever they feel like. All I head with Bylsma is how we HAD to get rid of him to fix our problems. They couldn’t make tape to tape passes. They weren’t battling hard enough. They weren’t prepared to start games. They were playing too safe. He wasn’t preparing them well enough. He had lost the room. His system didn’t work. I heard how how they needed a coach who would let them play a fast north south game and open up the offense. The safe defensive game was killing them. Let the players make mistakes..... Now it’s “they need to play safer and make less mistakes”. I am not saying housley is the answer. I don’t know yet. But you don’t hire a rookie head coach and franchise legend, then run him out of town a year later. The Sabres aren’t going to have any alumni left st this rate... lol. (j/k) I will say that I have been consistently impressed with Housley’s knowledge for the game. It is second to none. He knows exactly what they did wrong after every game. We don’t hear any of that “I need to review the tape” stuff we heard from Bylsma. He can tell you exactly what they need to do better the minute the game is over (which tells me he is also telling the players that stuff during the game). And again, I know he drills that stuff hard in practice. He will stop the whole practice if guys aren’t executing or doing what they’re told. But he can’t do that in games. It’s on the players...

Its friendlier than it looks because Oakland will assume some dead cap. Like when Dareus went to Jacksonville, his cap hit wasn’t $16M like in Buffalo. It was $10M for Jax. Just about $48M of Carr’s $125M was paid out already. That would leave just over $77M over 4 years. I am not sure on this, but I think that would make his cap hit $19.33M at most. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/oakland-raiders/derek-carr-14445/ Does anyone know know for sure how you figure out what his cap hit would be if traded? I took $125M. Subtracted the $47,675,000 already paid, then divided the remaining money ($77,325,000) by 4 (yrs).

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/oakland-raiders/derek-carr-14445/ His cap hit is only around $21-$22M in 2019 and beyond. I believe it would be even less to the team acquiring him because of the money the raiders already paid (like Dareus in Jacksonville). Plua, the dead cap hit isn’t bad at all if you do eventually move on from him ($7.5M in 2019, $5M in 2020, $2.5M in 2021). If I were running the Bills, I’d be all over this. And I would keep Josh Allen, too. #1) it gives Allen the time he needs to develop. He was always more of a long term project anyway, IMO. #2) it creates competition at the most important position in football. McDermott is all about competition for spots. If Allen ever does legitimately earn the spot,you can trade Carr and his cap hit will be even more appealing at that time. Or if Carr shows he is the legit franchise QB we’ve been searching for since Kelly, then you can trade Allen. Fitting his cap cap hit in this season would be a problem, but I’m sure they can find a way to make it work. I sont see see this happening, but I wish it would...

WTF was the point in trading Khalil Mack if they aren’t going to keep Derek Carr? I thought the Raiders felt that they could pay both Carr + Mack and still build a solid team. This is not very good asset management by Gruden if they really do trade Carr...

Glad they signed him to the practice squad. We’ve already put this much time into his development, and we had an opening on the PS so why not? I don’t know if he will ever turn into anything, but it seems at least worth the shot (for now...).

Well.... I like that buffalo hasn’t just collapsed (so far) after going down by 2.

He looked like he had a serious Vegas hangover... he was half dead during that game. I remember At. Louis fans saying he had a reputation as a bit of a party boy, so it wouldn’t surprise me if that were indeed the case. I know Berglund missed practice after the LV game. Housley said he was banged up. So it could also be in part due to injury.

Daboll. There’s more of an unknown factor with him, having seen Hackett’s offense for 2yrs and Daboll’s for less than 1/2 a year. I just remember how predictable Hackett’s offense was here. It got to the point where the TV announcers were predicting the next play (it made it easier to predict since they brought Lee Smith in a TE on most run plays, and IIRC Chandler on most passing plays). Run, run, pass on 3rd down. Repeat endlessly... lol. But it’s honestly hard to truly judge eitherwith the talent they’ve both had to work with at QB... Daboll has been severely limited in what plays he can call this season. Allen isn’t seeing his open receivers a lot of times, either. I’ve watched enough all-22 film breakdowns now, where Daboll calls the right play to beat the defense, guys get open and Allen just isn’t seeing them or even looking in their direction. I’d like to see what Daboll can do with a more experienced Allen. Hopefully in the mean time Derek Anderson will afford him the opportunity to better execute his offense (once he shakes off the rust, anyway...). Hackett was limited in a similar way in his time here. I think both are better OCs than what they showed in their time in buffalo. But I’d go with Daboll off of what I know right now.

I like this move. Congrats Cam! Now make something of this big opportunity! I wonder if if they will try to add Foster to the practice squad? Wish him all the best, wherever he ends up.

The way I understand it is that he was allowed to own an NBA team in Portland because there is no NFL team there. If there was, he’d have been forced to divest interest in one or the other. Yes, they could because both teams were in the same city/market. I believe the rule only applied to owning 2 teams in cities/states that have NFL teams, which is why Jacobs would’ve had to divest interest (because of the Patriots). https://theathletic.com/596437/2018/10/17/nfl-owners-meetings-seattle-seahawks-future-paul-allen-death/ (sub required)

I has that problem the other day on this site (it happens from time to time for me) but today it’s loading fast.

Yeah, I heard it reported yesterday (can’t remember where) that once he was the 3rd string QB he had no interest in sticking around anymore.

Tasker said that Derek Anderson did not want to go through a training camp at 35yrs old, and he wanted to spend time with his family. And it was reported that Josh McCown’s preference was to stay with the Jets and wanted to be promised the starting role (which the Jets did do initially).

According to reports today, they had actually been trying to sign Anderson for quite some time - going all the way back to when free agency opened in the spring. I guess Anderson just wasn’t ready to sign anywhere at the time.

There are rumors out there that he may be turning down workouts is because his arm is done.

Actually, Tasker said that they tried to sign Anderson and ended up with McCarron (after Anderson turned them down). So yes, they did try to sign him before the draft. They tried to sign Josh McCown too (peter king was actually the one to first report it), but he chose the Jets.

Steve Tasker said today on One Bills Live that the Bills have been trying to bring Derek Anderson in since free agency opened up. Tasker said that he thought Anderson didn’t want to go through training camp and gave another reason why it took so long but I can’t remember what it was... lol. I fully agree on Brigewater though. Especially when I saw what he signed with the Jets for. There were numerous QB needy teams that didn’t even try to pursue him. The Jets are the only team I know of to even offer him a deal, so it’s not like the Bills were the only ones. But man, I wish we would have signed him... Maybe his knee injury scared teams off? I don’t know.

The Pegulas have poured more money into the Bills/Sabres in their brief ownership than we have ever seen in the history of both franchises. We are small market teams and they are spending right up there with the big boys -on everything from the facilities to the front office to the coaching staffs. The Bills and Sabres are now actually willing to pay to attract coaching talent. There was a story this offseason about how both teams were offering some of the top salaries in the NFL/NHL. It was why the Sabres were able to keep Steve Greeley as their asst. GM. The pegulas were paying him more as an AGM than what the Carolina Hurricanes offered him to be their actual GM. They offered Mike Babcock a record breaking contract that would have completely reset the pay scale for NHL coaches. He ended up using it as leverage to sign in Toronto, but that’s not really the point. They have done done nothing but continue to pour money into both teams and the city of Buffalo. They’ve already made upgrades at both the arena and stadium and continue to do so. They are currently building an $18 million dollar state of the art training facility, all out of their own pocket, for the Bills - both for their own players and to help attract free agents. And they already built a state of the art 2 rink training facility for the Sabres, and as a long term investment to help develop hockey in the Buffalo area. They were willing to go through the pain of a rebuild with both teams (even knowing that it could hurt their bottom line as they go through the difficult seasons) because they wanted to build teams that could consistently compete for championships, instead of just trying to sneak into the playoffs each year. That, to me, speaks loudly. IMO, icing/fielding and being content with a mediocre .500 team (like the Sabres did for years) would be more disrespectful to fans. Like Golisano and Wilson - they were perfectly content being a mediocre team year in and out and trying to maximize profits.

I loved this hire (and still do). I thought he did a great job in Houston and felt he was an upgrade over Gill Byrd (who I was somewhat surprised to see land in the college ranks and not the NFL).

It doesn’t always work out that way though (that a defensive/offensive coach has a good defense/offense). Look at Bill O’Brien for example. He’s supposed to be an offensive guru and his defense has carried him almost his entire time in Houston. Or Doug Marrone, who’s defense carried him in buffalo and now (mostly) in Jacksonville. Or Rex Ryan in his time here... Id be a lot more worried If McDermott’s defense stunk. That would be highly concerning because that’s his area of expertise. I don’t think you have to discard McDermott just because he is a defensive minded coach though. It can take time for both sides of the ball to come together. Look around the NFL. How many teams are great on both sides of the ball? I totally get that people want a top tier offense. I do too. I get jealous watching these exciting offenses around the NFL. And offense is obviously a concern so far in McD’s tenure. But I feel like they really haven’t gotten around to building up the offensive side of the ball yet. McDermott obviously focused on building his defense first. Now that they have their (developmental) QB, I fully expect the offensive side of the ball to be the focus this coming offseason. So I am trying to at least reserve my judgement until then. And until Josh doesn’t look like he’s drowning anymore... which is probably my biggest concern at the moment (but I put drafting Allen more on Beane than McDermott. I am more concerned about our GM than I am about our head coach).