BillsFan4

Im taking it as encouraging that Miller was the first guy in and REALLY hoping that means he is the leasing candidate to start.

Peterman to Reilly! I'm really pulling for this kid to make the roster.

It's great to see Glenn out there. The o line looks so much better with him out there, even with all backup O linemen. Maybe all is not lost... lol

Beautiful pass break up by EJ Gaines! He played that perfectly.

Did you hear him talking about Peterman? I thought he made it sound like Peterman has the #2 spot locked up. Also pretty much confirmed that Peterman would be starting if a Tyrod can't go.

I have seen this going around the boards for a while now. But I just don't get how you can blame McDermott for Gilmore, Woods, Goodwin and other free agents. First, we don't even know if those guys wanted to be here. Gilmore seemed to want to go somewhere where he'd get more national coverage and it was reported Woods wanted to go home to Cali. But assuming they did want to be here - Whaley was still here at the time, but if people want to say McDermott had 100% decision making power, ok fine. I disagree but we have no way of knowing for sure. I think at the very least he had to lean heavily on Whaley and his staff to help evaluate players McDermott had yet to even coach (or maybe even meet in some circumstances) . Either way... Whaley still had 2 years to sign Gilmore and a year to sign Woods, Goodwin etc. but he didn't. He could have given Gilmore a new contract any time in his 4th and 5th year here. Could have given Woods, Goodwin (etc) a contract any time over the last year. It was reported long before McDermott was hired that the Bills were not willing to go above $11.5M on Gilmore and that they weren't even negotiating with Robert Woods. Plus the Bills only had $19M in cap space entering the offseason with something like 26 free agents to sign. If they had signed Gilmore at $13M and Woods at $7M that's $20M in cap space right there... Putting all the blame on him for Gillislee is a stretch IMO. People like to pretend that Whaley had nothing to do with that but Whaley used the same original round tender on Hogan the year before and chose not to match the Pats offer. It was a very similar scenario and you can see how it fit whaley's m.o. Also, the contract and cap hit of McCoy has to be taken into account as well as the overall cap of the team plus how the organization felt about J. Williams (which I would assume Whaley felt strongly about Williams ability to replace Gillislee). I just don't see how you put all the blame on McDermott for this. He had hardly been here a couple months at the time. I doubt he was making every decision all on his own without any input from Whaley or others.

At least he's being reasonable with what the loss of Watkins's will do to the amount of wins/losses.

I don't usually start new threads but I felt like we could use a positive thread on this new regime/coach and thought this article was worth sharing. I, for one, really like Sean McDermott. I've been a fan of his since 2012, really. What he did with that Carolina defense was very impressive IMO. They went from 28th ranked in his 1st year, to 10th ranked in his 2nd year (after struggling to start the season). Then they finished the 2013 season as the #2 ranked defense and they were top 2-5 in many defensive categories for much of the season. They were simply dominant that year. McDermott had a top 10 defense 4 of the past 5 years in Carolina and has earned this chance IMO. Anyway here's the article and a few excerpts from it - There's no keeping him down:How Sean McDermott ascended to coach of the Bills. http://buffalonews.com/2017/08/31/theres-no-keeping-sean-mcdermott-ascended-coach-bills/

-RT would be very high on my list, and RG too if they insist on trying to start Ducasse. I really don't want to go through another season with Jordan Mills as our starting RT, and I Definitely don't want to go through a season with Vlad Ducasse at RG. Miller or Groy need to step up and take that spot, or they need to try and address it from outside the organization. -CB would be another position high on my list. I'm hoping someone can step up and take that CB#2 spot, but as of now I'm not really comfortable with anyone as the #2 yet. Probably best hope is EJ Gaines returning to his rookie year form but I wouldn't be banking on it. So if they can find any upgrades over what's on the roster, I'd love to see it. Possibly an upgrade at nickel CB too. -At least 1 WR, maybe 2 (especially if they cut Holmes for the comp pick, but I'm not sure they will. It may very well depend on what type of replacement they can find first). -Depth at LB, with an eye open for potential upgrades on some of our starting or 2nd string LB's as well (depending on fit and price). -S depth would be nice. Poyer and Hyde look good as the starters but it'd be nice to have more behind them. -Any other spot at the bottom of the roster that could be improved. The quality of depth players on this team is an area that is definitely lacking. Injuries happen. Any upgrade at any depth position would be welcome!

Hey, I like this trade by them! If they actually play him it could help push that 1st that they sent us a bit higher in the draft. lol

Does anyone know what the conditions on that 4th round pick are yet? I'm still hoping it can move up to a 3rd if Ragland plays a certain number of snaps this year and/or next year or something along those lines.

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?