BillsFan4

He really seems to be trying to build an entire cohesive organization with a single vision from top to bottom. I think that is something the Bills have truly been missing for a long, LONG time. It's been the higher ups (aka old Ralph Wilson cronies) vs the coaching staff (and even the GM) for what seems like forever. Something starts going wrong and the scapegoating would begin. Players weren't always acquired for the right reasons either IMO. We had marketing with their hands in the pie, trying to sell tickets (etc). Now all of that seems to be different, and it's what gives me the most hope. It's a very refreshing change from what has been the normal operating procedure at OBD for decades.

IMO Spikes is about as good a fit as Ragland was in this defense. May as well just have kept Ragland then, as he has more upside.

https://www.sbnation.com/2016/12/18/13351854/vontaze-burfict-history-cincinnati-bengals-asu-personal-fouls Some history on Burfict's dirty play

Are you normally a good, responsible employee and this was more/less an out of the ordinary one time thing? Or are you late often and considered a bit of a habitual offender? And are you normally pretty attentive during these meetings or do you occasionally fall asleep during them? (although I don't know if the report/rumors of Dareus napping are actually true) If it was my first offense, I'd expect some leniency. But if it is something I had a bit of a history of doing, it would be understandable if my employer sent me home for the day (and I've actually seen that happen before - someone get sent home without pay (which probably didn't even happen to Dareus)).

Yup, cause the Bills have been such a threat over the last 17 years that they needed someone from the outside to come in and sabotage them...lol. If the other owners really wanted to sabotage the Bills, they would have just tried to talk Pegula into leaving all of Ralph Wilson's old cronies in place... Is this actually a serious thread? If it is, there are some thoughts that really should just be kept to yourself!

I think it was just a joke. Look at the twitter handle - @CrazyGuyNotReallyOnTwitter. It doesn't actually exist. I think that poster was just having some fun.

He wasn't under contract for 2017 though. He signed a 2 year contract with Buffalo in 2015. While he was still technically under contract, it was set to expire. I guess they could have forced him to stay for a few more weeks (or a month or whatever it was) until his contract officially expired but they still would have had to sign him to a new contract for 2017 to keep him on staff. If they did offer him a job and he wanted to go elsewhere, there wasn't really anything Buffalo could do about it.

Ian Rapoport @RapSheet Teams knew early on in the summer that #Bills LB Reggie Ragland would be available. Buffalo was patient, waiting for the right value. Yup. It appears that most teams knew that Ragland wouldn't be a fit in this new defense. He seems like a very specific scheme fit, in a 3-4 like Rex ran and like they run in KC where the DC (Bob Sutton) was a long time Rex Ryan assistant. Sutton worked under Rex in NY for 8 years as a LB coach and defensive coordinator.

Good post. It also has to be said that Murray wasn't a Pegula hire. He was brought in by Lafontaine to be more/less a glorified scout, while LaFontaine ran the organization. Murray was never hired to be the one running everything. I think he also put himself on the hot seat, to a degree. He came in and said "rebuilds don't need to take years, give me 2 drafts", then he proceeded to trade away much of the draft capital that Regier had stockpiled. I think Pegula was sold on the patient approach and building through the draft by Regier, and when the results weren't there after Murray tried to speed things up, combined with his terrible asset management in trades and his gruff personality plus his end of the year meeting where he supposedly didn't have any real answers on how to fix all the problems the 2016 season showed, it ended up causing Pegula to move on.

Kyle and his family have a house in Louisiana that they spend the offseason at. My guess is that maybe his house had some damage from the hurricane.

This was a good read. http://buffalonews.com/2017/08/29/inside-bills-gm-brandon-beane-assistant-gm-joe-schoen-ready-chaotic-24-hours/ Inside the Bills: Beane, Schoen ready for a chaotic 24 hours. 'During the team’s mandatory minicamp in June, Beane had the whole personnel department, both college and pro scouts, get together. The goal was to make sure that the entire group was unified. “I've seen it where college staffs and pro staffs aren't gelled for various reasons – sometimes there's fingers pointing of, ‘you know, you pay these free agents or you guys aren't drafting well’ – things like that. We've had them cross looking at things. We'll involve our pro guys after free agency in the draft process just like we included the college guys in this part. I think it's important so that everybody sees everybody's work and understands everybody's pitching in.” That continued during training camp at St. John Fisher College, where the personnel department had a room to just “hang out, talk, B.S. about life,” Beane said. “We played hoops together. People saw the competitive side of guys. There were some moments when it got a little heated. But that's cool because everybody says 'man, if this guy wants it here, he's going to want it out there on the road. He wants to win. He'll do anything.' I really felt a great bond and the feedback we got back from the college guys as they left was super excited. So I feel great where we're at.”

http://buffalonews.com/2017/08/29/marty-biron-joins-sabres-broadcast-team/ Marty Biron joins Sabres broadcast team. Brad May out.

Burfict is a POS and quite possibly the dirtiest player in the entire NFL (and that's saying something). He has a loonnngggg history of dirty plays and trying to purposely injure opponents. I have zero pity for this guy.

Doesn't he have a home in Louisiana and wasn't that area hit by the hurricane?

I don't get why some put All the blame on McDermott for this anyway. A brand new HC. Whaley had at least a year, and in Gilmore's case 2 years, to sign these guys to deals. It was reported long before McDermott was even hired that Whaley was only willing to pay Gilmore $11.5M and that he wasn't even negotiating with a Robert Woods. He also put the original round tender on Hogan the year before (just like Gillislee got) and didn't match the Pats offer sheet. Very similar to what happened with MG... The cap situation and amount of free agents the Bills had Has To be taken into account too. They entered the offseason with $-9M in cap space and 26 free agents to sign IIRC. I believe they had the most free agents in the NFL. If you sign Gilmore for $13M and Woods for $7M, that's $20M in cap space right there...

There were posters here (and I'm still relatively new but I'm told that they are reliable and usually right) saying that McDermott tried to keep Kromer. He wanted him to stay. LA offered him a raise and Buffalo matched but Kromer wanted to go somewhere he had a chance at being an OC again and I guess he was told that was a possibility in LA. So once Krmoer chose LA, McDermott moved on to Castillo. I don't know if this is true or not, but it would make sense.

The Bills stand zero chance at winning the division. So the Patriots beating the Chiefs could potentially help the Bills in 2 ways - 1) higher draft pick from them, 2) they're in the AFC, we could potentially be competing against them for a wild card spot (unlikely though). So as much as I hate it, I'll be rooting for the Pats this one time as I just want whatever outcome is best for the Bills and the Pats losing seems to be it.

Wow. I like Stafford, but highest paid player in the NFL? Damn, that seems crazy to me. I'll be very curious to see the structure of the contract and guaranteed money. These QB contracts are getting to be insane. I can only imagine what someone will pay Cousins as a free agent, or even Brees (on a shorter term) if he makes it to FA. Edit - I just looked. $27M per year cap hit and $92M guaranteed! Wow!

They brought in a guy who will have all of 2 days to prepare for a (mostly meaningless) 4th preseason game, and someone who they will almost surely drop as soon as a Tyrod and Yates are better. You don't think it makes sense to bring in a QB who already knows how to run the system when they have 2 days to prepare him to play?

They are looking for a guy who can come in an play in this scheme 3 days from now. They are not practicing today, so this QB has Tuesday and Wednesday to prepare for Thursday's game. He will likely be cut as soon as Tyrod and Yates are healthy. This makes perfect sense.

It's still a 4th round pick, so the odds of hitting on it are that of a typical 4th round pick. Just because people say that it's equivalent in value to a 5th round pick this year doesn't make it a 5th round pick in the actual draft.

Murray kind of did that to himself IMO. He traded away a ton of good, high draft picks to speed up the rebuild and flat out said as much. He said rebuilds don't have to take years. He said "give me 2 drafts". Had he just been more patient and used all those 1st and 2nd round picks he traded away, Pegula probably would have been more patient IMO. Plus, him being such a jerk didn't help I don't think, especially since LaFontaine hired him, not Pegula.

Huh. I actually think it's pretty impressive that he got a 4th for a guy coming off a major knee injury that probably won't be fully healthy until next season. We don't know what the conditions of the pick are yet, though. Maybe the pick moves up a round if Ragland does well, or maybe the pick is conditional on him making the team... I also think it was amazing to get Anything for Cardale! Even if te only a 7th. He's a practice squad QB at best. And getting a 3rd plus Matthews (who was drafted in the 2nd in the strongest WR draft class in a Long time), for a guy drafted in the 2nd was also great value IMO. I'd have liked a 1st for Sammy, but with his injury history and being a free agent at year's end it just wasn't realistic. But I think Beane has traded pretty well so far, as far as value goes.

That made me actually lol

Who? lol Just an arm for preseason game 4. They're not looking for a new #1 or #2. Tyrod's the starter, Peterman's the backup.