BillsFan4

http://buffalonews.com/2017/11/27/sean-mcdermott-refutes-report-that-kelvin-benjamin-has-torn-meniscus/ Yeah, as Art said and the article above explains, he does indeed have a torn meniscus. The Bills confirmed it. McDermott thought they said torn ligament, which is why he refuted it.

He did quit, there's really no other way to describe using the out clause on your contract to quit your job as head coach of the Bills. It also happened after the Pegulas had bought the team and declared that they were staying in Buffalo forever. It took him 2 years to get in that "better position", too. He had to take a job as an offensive line coach because he couldn't get a better job elsewhere. It's not like he just walked away right into that job or something. I'm not sure I'd call being an offensive line coach the last 2 years for a team that perennially finished in the bottom of the league better than being a head coach (which he could have been during that same 2 year stretch). Or say someone was a fool if they didn't do the same thing....

3 of those names on your list were not shipped out. Woods, Gilmore and Gillislee. It was feporter ling before McDermott got here that Whaley and co. were not willing to go above $11.5M per year on Gilmore. Whaley had 2 years to sign him and didn't. McDermott was here for what, 2 months? Beane wasn't even here yet. It was also reporter long before McDermott got here and Whaley and Woods were not even attempting to negotiate a new contract. It was later said that Woods wanted to test free agency, and after signing in LA he said that he was looking to go back to the west coast to play, preferably to his home state of California. Whaley also had a year to sign Woods. Gillislee was was given a 2 year offer sheet by the Patriots, with a $4M salary/cap hit this year. They did this purposely because the Bills didn't have a whole lot of cap space at that time. IIRC I believe they only had around $6M when that offer sheet was given. Plus they had McCoy already making $8+M. They also got a draft pick for him, and when you're trying to transition a team to a new scheme, those picks are valuable. Whaley was also here at that time, and you can say it was all McDermott deciding to give him the original raround tender and not match the offer, but we don't really know that for sure. Whaley did the exact same thing with Hogan the year prior, so it's not like that would have been an out of character move for him... and I would guess that he was telling McDermott at the time that Jonathan Williams could take Gillislee's spot. Remember, McDermott hasn't been here long, so he really hadn't had a chance to get to know all the players well and probably had mostly only evaluated players on tape at that point. Also, I have no idea what you are saying about Kailen Clay... He had 1 reception for 28 yards here, plus 2 punt returns for 2 yards. Hes had 1 reception for 5 yards in Carolina, plus 6 punt returns for 24 yards. 29 total yards in Carolina. 30 total yards in Buffalo. How exactly are they getting more production out of him? And what peoduction are are you talking about from players that have left? Woods, Gilmore, Gillislee were never here with McDermott, Dennison, Frazier. Clay was arguably more productive here. Seymour was here for a second, but hurt most of the time and hasn't been all that productive in Carolina yet. Actually, I believe he was more productive in Buffalo last year than he has been so far in Carolina (but nothing really worth mentioning, production wise in either place). Jonathan Williams hasn't played a game for anyone else yet. Dareus has performed almost exactly the same for Jacksonville as he did here under McDermott. Almost identical stats, except he had 1 sack here and 0 so far in Jacksonville. As for Miller, he hasn't performed in this new scheme, that's true. Tyrod has been very similar to his past 2 seasons so far. Many/most of his stats are very close to what they were last year. And id say the new defense is getting more out of the players that are still here than Rex got the last 2 years, except for Lorenzo Alexander maybe. Outside of those 3 bad games, the defense has actually been pretty damn good. The offense isn't scoring as many points as last year and the O line is struggling more in the run game. Some of that's on Dennison and Juan Castillo. Some is on the players. I dont think they are just scapegoating players either. They are getting rid of players they don't think fit, or are not on board, and keeping the players that fit/are on board. Theres still quite a few players here that were acquired by the previous regime... so we will agree to disagree there.

Love seeing the post game victory speeches. Can't wait until they come much more frequently... lol. But I am bummed that Kelvin Benjamin wasn't there to experience the Bills sideline and locker room during a good performance & win by the team. They had him stay back in Buffalo.

Damn. I thought all the negative posters would disappear for a week. Geez, I guess some Bills fans can't even enjoy a win anymore. Moat rational fans know that the Bills have a long ways to go yet. They are rebuilding and lack talent at many positions. But it's ok to enjoy the win anyway.

Great win today! They just saved their season season with a HUGE win. I'm pumped up! Now, I fully expect a loss next week. But if we can pull out 3 wins against Miami and Indy we got a damn good shot! And a bonus - this message board should actually be tolerable for a week! lol It was getting to the point that I didn't even bother posting here anymore. Hopefully all the talk of the team quitting and McDermott losing the locker will stop now.

HUGE WIN guys! They looked SO much better today. So glad they rebounded. If we can get 2 wins against Miami and a win against Indy, we got a damn good chance at the wild card.

Playoff hopes saved baby! F U referees! Couldn't hand KC the game, despite your best try. Jerks.

Come on defense. Shove it down the refs threat.

TOTAL BS FLAG!!!!

I hope playing it ultra safe doesn't bite them in the arse. I freaking hated that last series. You knew it was coming even before the first play. They'd run it 3 times and punt it away. Im nervous now, guys. A field goal would have been HUGE there.

http://www.wgr550.com/articles/news/sabres-waive-griffith Sabres waive Seth Griffith. I'm hoping that this means Bogosian is ready to come back... Also hoping that Griffith makes it through waivers. He's always been a very good goal scorer at the AHL level, so he could be a nice boost for a Rochester team already playing well.

Oh, ok. I get what you're saying now. Fair enough. I thought you were saying that Tyrod would choose to leave.

We have an entirely new GM, personnel and scouting staff from top to bottom since that 2017 draft. They fired every single scout and personnel man. So you can't compare any previous draft to what we will see in 2018. We have no clue how the Bills are going to draft yet... but Beane hired some top end people to run things so my hopes are much higher than they've been in years, as far as drafts go. Also, it's a bit early to lament passing on Mahomes, no? He hasn't even played a regular season snap yet. Even on Watson. Yes he's looked good but we've seen plenty of players flame out after good starts. The league catches up quickly. Let's see if Watson is able to keep playing at a high level in years 2 and 3, as game plans are made specifically to exploit his weaknesses. I think it has to be taken into account that McDermott was clearly working with a GM, personnel and scouting staff that he did not trust. I can see why a rookie HC wouldn't want to bet his career on a QB drafted by a staff he had no faith in, especially when I'm sure he knew that a new staff would be brought in after the draft, that would have two 1sts the following year (that was supposed to be a very strong year for QBs). I don't even think he used Whaley's draft board from what has been said. Sounds like they used Carolina's more than Buffalo's, and Carolina wasn't in the market for a QB, so... We we don't know where they will be picking yet either. But I definitely get your point on that, as historically we've missed out on some good QBs by being mediocre.

Thing is, he is under contract for next year. Tyrod can't leave next season unless he is cut or traded. I definitely don't think he is the type to demand a trade just because he was benched for a game. He was benched for the the last game of last season, and that was right after he had played the best game of his career against Miami. He still chose to take a big pay cut to stay here. He could have refused and become a free agent. But he didn't. He said a lot of the same things in interviews that he's saying now, and he chose to come back here. This time he was benched after the worst game of his career. Then they went right back to him 1/2 a game later. I don't see an issue keeping Tyrod if the Bills choose to do so.

Both McDermott and Beane were on that NFL advisory panel's short list of recommended coaching/GM candidates (the committee Bill Polian, Charley Casserly, Ernie Accorsi etc. is on). So they definitely weren't just throwing darts at a board. I know it was written that Doug Whaley helped assemble the list of coaching candidates. But the rumor was that Bill Polian was in Pegula's ear and highly recommended McDermott to him. Not sure if it's true or not though.

So, who higher on the food chain told Beane to get rid of Sammy, Marcell etc? Are you saying that was a Russ Brandon decision? Or Overdorf (who gave Marcell that contract)? Thst doesnt make make any sense to me. Why would Russ Brandon want to trade away so much talent and rebuild the team? How do any of these recent decisions seem like marketing ones? I don't see it at all. Why would Overdorf want to get rid of the Marcell contract, which he just recently wrote (and will cost the Pegulas a bunch of money still, for a guy who isn't even here)? Wouldn't that make him look incompetent? And you think they are the ones deciding which players to play? Like who, Peterman? You are saying Russ Brandon said "hey we are currently in a playoff position, bench our starting QB for marketing reasons!"? I have no no idea where you are getting this stuff from... are you just making assumptions without any proof? If you were talking about the past, I'd agree. But where do you see the same old same old with this new regime? If you have anything to actually back up your opinion, please post it. I think this new regime is clearly in the drivers seat as far as decision making goes. The Bills seem to be running in a much different way than in the past. Look at everything that's happened. They just about totally cleaned house. When has that EVER happened in the past 20 years? They'd scapegoat a coach or GM but never came anywhere close to cleaning house. They are trading away bunches of talented and recently drafted players to collect bunches of draft picks to build the team through the draft. When has that happened during the drought? McDermott and Beane are clearly in charge IMO.

Highlights from the Rochester game last night - https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=czTTQnsAGHk Rochester won 10-4 last night. They haven't scored 10 goals in a game since 2006 IIRC. Nice to see them playing better. Funny, Tim Murray couldn't turn that team around in 3 years despite trying. Botterill seems to have come in and done it in a matter of months (I hope...). Great win by the Sabres last night, too. They all worked their arse off and played a pretty complete, 60 minute game. Well, maybe more like 52 mins, as I thought they kind of went too much into defensive mode the last 7-8 mins. But I'm not complaining! It hasn't really shown up in the win-loss column yet but I see this team improving, especially the last few games. They are playing better, smarter hockey and have stepped up their compete level which is very nice to see. I honestly have have faith that Housley is going to get this team turned around. I mean, he needs more talent to work with first and foremost, especially on the blue line. But I really do think that ultimately he will get the job done. He has such a great mind for the game. Its actually very impressive IMO.

The problem with trading up is that we need talent on the field to surround a QB with, and especially a rookie QB. This team has been stripped down. I know many people seem to think that the Bills front office collected all these picks just to trade up for a QB. But I don't think that's the case At All... I think they collected all these picks to rebuild the whole team, not just the QB position. I want a great QB as much as all of you do. But I just don't think we are in a position to give away a draft (or two) for a single position. The Bills need talent at sooooo many other positions too. If you stick a rookie QB on this current Bills team, you are just asking for him to fail. Id like to see them use their own 1st on a QB and the rest to help fill out the Bills roster. IMO you can't just trade away a draft and stick a 1st or 2nd overall pick on a team that's void of talent. That is setting him up to fail. We are not the Eagles when they traded for Wentz, or the Rams when they traded for Goff. We dont have that type of talent right now to surround a rookie QB with and give him a chance at success. Adtually using all of our draft picks on a bunch of players could go a long way to adding the talent that the Bills need to be successful. Using all those picks on 1 guy doesn't IMO. We are at the start of a rebuild. If you trade away our stockpile of picks, how do you get the draft capital to rebuild the team?

Yeah I remember some analysts saying Watson was Whaley's type of QB and someone else saying that Whaley was "in love" with him or something like that. But then there were people here saying that the QB he actually wanted to draft was Mahomes. And others said the only QB the Bills truly had interest in was Trubisky (if he made it to #10). So who knows... there's a whole lot of misdirection that goes on around draft time. I dont really like getting into "what if's" because you can drive yourself crazy doing that. We have McDermott and Beane. They've collected a bunch of draft picks and plan to build through the draft, which is something that hasn't been done here in a while. I'm excited to see how it turns out. But McDermott was the coach I wanted in the offseason so I'm nowhere near ready to give up on him yet.

Wins against the Giants, Oakland, Denver, Buffalo and Dallas... all struggling teams currently. 4 straight losses to start the year against Denver, Miami, KC and Philly (who were both playing great). Like I said, he may end up being a great head coach. But I'm not ready to say he is yet.

If we kept Lynn, that means Whaley is most likely still the GM. Remember he benched Tyrod at the end of the year and by most accounts he was ready to move on from him. Aaron Kromer's contract was up, too. So even if Lynn was hired he still may have left (as it was said the Bills did try to keep him but he chose to work with McVay in LA). So who knows what our offense would look like. Personally, I'd take McDermott over Lynn. Chargers are playing well the past 2 games. They should be with the top D line in the league, a true franchise QB (who is one of the better QBs in the NFL) and talent on both sides of the ball. But they didn't look all that good for most of the year. The past 2 weeks they beat a struggling Bills team with a putrid offensive line and rookie QB throwing 5 picks. Then they played the Cowboys without Ezekiel Elliott, who had really struggled and gone 0-2 leading up to today's game. Who knows, Lynn may end up being the better coach but I'm sure not ready to crown him yet or say that the Bills made a mistake not hiring him (and it has to be mentioned that he was trained/mentored the last 10 years by Rex Ryan, who the Bills were obviously looking to distance themselves from after the clown show he put on here). I sill think we have the right head head coach and GM combo to have a good chance at success in the coming years. I'm excited to see what they do these next couple/few drafts. I have hope that they will build a sustained winner.

Thats not quite true on Beane or McDermott. Brane he was named asst. GM before the 2015 season, so he spent 2 years as asst. GM. But before aghast he was the director of football operations for 7 years. He climed the football operations and personnel ranks for many many years. He's held scouting responsibilities, put together draft boards, done player evaluations for both college and pro, made NFL trades, negotiated contracts, developed budgets, done CBA compliance and has basically been trained in almost every area of running an NFL team. To me that's a great quality for a GM to have. A GM is usually the guy who runs the entire organization. Sometimes a guy coming from just a scouting background or just a money management background don't have the proper skills necessary to run an entire organization. That is not the case with Beane. He knows every aspect of running an NFL team. He also seemed to recognize that he doesn't have as strong a scouting background as guy's who have spent their entire career in scouting, so he put an excellent, very experienced front office, personnel and scouting staff around him that should give him every chance to succeed. McDermott has also worked his way up for almost 20 years. He played football in college, then worked as a graduate assistant to the head coach. He then moved to the NFL, starting in scouting. Until Andy Reid got to know him and took a special interest. He named him his assistant to the head coach, where Reid began training him in every aspect of being a head coach. He then worked his way up the ranks on the defensive side of the ball for 8 years, holding positions as quality control, defensive assistant, defensive backs, secondary, linebackers and finally defensive coordinator. He was a D.C. for 8 years (where he had a top 10 defense in 4 of the last 5 years) before finally getting his shot as a head coach. Both guys have spent their entire lives/careers in football, working their way up from the bottom with hard work and dedication. Neither were just handed jobs because of nepotism. They've earned everything they got.

Jordan Nolan's comments after the game were dead on IMO. Obviously I'm not in the locker room, but you can almost see that this is a problem. This seems to be be a common theme we've been hearing for years now. There defrinitelt seems to be a culture/leadership/accountability problem with the Sabres. Ennis and Foligno's both mentioned in their comments how losing wasn't acceptable in Minnesota, which wasn't the case in Buffalo. They also said they've had to learn a lot of the small details it takes to win and how the veteran players have really been the ones helping the most in that area. I think this is one of the dangers of complete tear down rebuilds like the Sabres. They got rid of all their good veteran players all at once, which I am sure left a huge void in leadership and accountability in the locker room. Com in that with the players knowing that the expectation is to lose probably allows this type of losing culture to develop and then fester. Theyve ve tried to bring in veterans, but I'd imagine it's pretty hard for most veterans to come in and make a meaningful,change to the culture on their own. There aren't too many Chris Drury type players that can come in and command the respect of the whole locker room - a guy that just know how to win and how to lead. We are currently asking a 20yr old with no experience winning in the NHL to lead our franchise. Problem is that he's one of the main culprits as far as not working hard every shift and making bad turn overs. Is there a player currently on this team that can really put him in check? Is there anyone who he can really look up to and who'll help him to learn the proper ways? I'm not so sure there is... hopefully Housley is on his ass about it. But I think it also takes teammates asdrsssing it, too. I think sometimes it's just different, and more meaningful, when coming from a teammate. Especially a well established, well respected NHL veteran. Thats why I'm really hoping that we can somehow land a good veteran player that can perform at a high level on the ice (because as Eichel said "who's going to follow you if you're not performing on thr ice?") and be a mentor to Eichel. Someone Eichel will respect and listen to. Someone who DNA put Eichel in his place when necessary. My dream is somehow landing John Tavares. Out of everyone possibly available this offseason I can't imagine a better mentor for Eichel, and the entire team, than Tavares. I doubt it's actually an option but until he signs that extension I can dream! lol One way or another I'd love for Botterill to find some type of veteran leadership that can help change the culture here.

Well, damn. They came close. As as much as it stings to lose the 6th or 7th game in a row tonight, they at least made a game of it... I still hate losing but I can at least live with losses like tonight. They played hard + gave a real effort, won their puck battles, created scoring chances and generally looked like a pretty good hockey team for much of the game. If they continue to play like they did tonight, wins will come much more frequently.