BillsFan4

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.

It's actually a favor to Ragland too, if you think about it. From all accounts, this kid was working his tail off to fit in this 4-3 but it just wasn't working out for him and it really seemed to bother him (from what I read/heard). Now this gives him a chance to catch on in a scheme that he fits in much better. Should give his confidence level a shot in the arm too. He should have a much better idea of how to run KC's scheme.

I loved his potential coming out of college too, and had he been able to play last year I wonder if he would have been able to realize some of that potential. Rex called him the best player on the field (but Rex tends to exaggerate). He sure hasn't shown anything this year though, outside of a couple nice run stuffs. I could see him doing much better in KC though. That scheme is much closer to what he ran in college. I wish him the best there, just not this year. Although I don't have much hope of KC's 1st being too high anyway. It's most likely going to be a late round pick (with or without Ragland).

I'd be good with extending Brown. He has actually looked pretty darn good in this scheme.

Yup, exactly. I said this in the other Ragland thread. This is why it sucks changing schemes every couple of years and why I want McDermott to be here for at least 4-5 years. I want to actually see the Bills be able to build something for once, without changing visions 2-3 years in...

At least they got something for Ragland. Definitely better than just cutting him. I'd have preferred to be patient with him, or at least to trade him anywhere but KC. They probably couldn't get anything from him from another team though.

Yeah you could be right. Or maybe they're just unsure because if the injury and don't know what type of impact he will have this year. I want Ragland to be successful there, but starting next Year! lol.

Not surprised. He really doesn't fit the new scheme. This is what sucks about switching schemes every couple years... I hate helping KC this season though. He fits great into their scheme and could be a difference maker.

I hadn't heard that he was interested in coming here as Tyrod's backup. That would have been great, if true. Id love him as our backup.

http://www.buffalobills.com/video/videos/Brandon-Beane-We-Have-Expectations-We-Have-Standards/919148f5-1933-4fa5-803a-a54e30599a03 Brandon Beane addressed the McCoy trade rumors (right at the end of the video, roughly the last 30-45 seconds) - He said that there was no trade activity regarding McCoy. He doesn't know where the rumors came from but they are totally false. He then said "Lesean McCoy is going to be a Buffalo Bill."

Edit - this was meant as a reply to dezertbill. I know you were speaking about the players and coaches. Like I said, I just don't think it can be solved overnight. It's a problem that's plagued the Bills for years now. It may have more to do with the type of players (and their personality/IQ) that Whaley acquired than the coaching at this point, I don't know. Or it may just be something that is going to take more than 3 preseason games to fix... (Danny Crossman may have to go, too. And I'm not real sure on Castillo at this point either). I think that's a big reason why this new regime wants to build through the draft, too. Then they can bring in their specific types of players and mould them the way they want. Sometimes veterans are just too set in their ways to change... I'm not sure on this, but it also seemed to me that more of the stupid penalties were against players that have been here as opposed to players the new regime brought in (I know Dawkins had 1 illegal formation flag, but he's a rookie). I'd have to pay closer attention though, to know for sure. I'm with you though. I want to see this problem fixed, and I want to see the offense playing better. I'm still holding out hope that the offense will be better in the regular season though. As others have mentioned here, it looks like they are working on specific things each game and only running a very small handful of plays. I read that they still didn't even game plan for yesterday's game. They appear to be using the preseason to work on specific plays during live game action. It's still worrying though. Like many others, I'm worried that this will be one of those typical years where they're only good on 1 side of the ball. The defense is looking better and now the offense may regress... but I'm not ready to make any real judgements until I see what they look like at least 4 games into the season. By then we should have a better idea of what this team will really be like this year. I like this new regime so far, and I am sooo sick of the constant turnover. I'm just ready to give a new GM+ coaching staff some time. I just want to see some continuity and what can be built when you're not changing visions every other year. Some seem like they've already given up on this new regime though (not you specifically) and that kind of bothers me. We haven't even seen how this new GM and scouting staff will draft. If they do well in this 2018 draft with the abundance of top 100 picks, it could really make a huge difference next year and the years after. I also think that McDermott will get this right if he's given the time. He seems smart and willing to learn. He doesn't seem so stubbornly set in his ways like some coaches are. I just don't think it's realistic to expect it to happen overnight.

It has to be either Petty or McCown starting... I can't see any way that they can actually start Hackenburg... WTF were they thinking taking him early in the 2nd?! Yikes! If they start him, I feel like it sends a pretty clear message that they're trying to lose games. It's be so great if he flashed enough potential for the Jets to pass on drafting a QB in 2018 though. I don't see any chance of that happening, but it'd be great for Buffalo! I think the Jets are going hard after a 2018 QB though.

I'm not really sure how he blew up the offense. Woods left in FA and Sammy was traded. They improved the WR corps overall though from what they had last year (especially without Sammy in the field). Its not like McDermott came in and fired Lynn either, like Rex did with Schwartz. I don't really see any way they could have kept Anthony Lynn as OC. He left to be a head coach. So what do you do, try and find someone to come in that will run Lynn's/Roman's offense? I'm not sure of the quality of OC you are going to get if you are hiring with the provision that they can't run their own offense and must run Roman's. It's likely not going to be a guy that has many other options. I get what you're saying though. The offense was good last year. Hopefully they keep some of the concepts that worked well from the previous 2 seasons. We will know if they did once regular season stats. Supposedly they were keeping the run concepts that worked best last year. I want the Bills to be good on both sides of the ball in the same season too. But I understand why McDermott brought in an OC with a proven scheme, especially when he didn't have the choice to keep the OC who had been running last year's offense. That Kubiak offense has been pretty successful in the NFL over the years. Hopefully in the long run it will be successful here too.

I thought the refs were going overboard with some of those illegal formation calls. Even the announcers said that the refs must have got some memo on those calls. The Ravens were getting called for it too. I don't think 8 game sis nearly enough to judge this new regime. They are clearly planning on building this team through the draft. So how can we fully judge them before they've even had a chance to put together a couple of drafts? I want to see signs that things are moving in the right direction. But when I am really expecting the big gains is year 3. That's what happened in Carolina. In year 3 the defense took a huge step forward, to the #2 defense in the NFL (IIRC). IMO this is a transition year while the coaches impliment new schemes and figure out who fits. Then year 2 they start filling in with more of their guys and ditching more guys who don't fit, while bringing in a bunch of rookies from the draft. Year 3 their 2nd draft will be joining the team and we should really get s good idea of the type of team that they will be. I'm sick to death of the constant turn over of the coaching staffs. It never allows anyone time to actually build their vision. I truly believe that bad teams stay bad by constantly firing coaches/GMs and starting over with a new vision. We've seen it first hand - a bunch of good players leave because they no longer fit. I want to see what a coach can do if given 4 or preferably 5 years. Obviously if McD looks like a total disaster my opinion will probably change. But so far I think he's done a good job. I like his approach and I was a big fan of what he was able to do in Carolina.

But it's a totally new owner and management team. I mean, Pegula was here with Schwartz but I'm not sure how much blame I lay on a brand new owner who was blindsided by his coach opting out of his contract. Those are pretty unusual circumstances. Isn't it a bit too early to say that they're not trying to make things look respectable and they're losing games? It's preseason, where it's very typical for teams not to show much of anything. People are acting like we're half way through the season and we're 0-8 or something...