BillsFan4

Which I am sure plays into the reason why the entire scouting and personnel staff was just fired... Hopefully the new staff being out together will do a much better job at evaluating QBs. If they plan to focus on accuracy, ability to read defenses, find open receivers and throw with anticipation (as the Peterman pick, and what McDermott said afterwards seems to suggest), I already like our chances a LOT better than under the old staff.

Dorsey worked for the Packers the entire time Reid was there from '92-'98.

Andy Reid and John Dorsey both worked together in Green Bay for years. Reid was hired 1st, and then Dorsey a few weeks later. It was said that Andy Reid specifically requested John Dorsey for the GM role.

No, I'm not saying we shouldn't take a QB next year. And I honestly don't know if we have someone to develop a QB yet or not. Do you? We haven't seen these coaches in camp or on the sidelines yet. I definitely hope that McDermott, Dennison and his staff can develop a QB, but I have no way of knowing at this point in time. Seeing what they do with Tyrod, Cardale and Peterman this year should hopefully start to give us at least some idea. I was just saying that KC and Buffalo were in completely different positions for this past draft. KC was in a position that they could take a shot on a developmental/project QB in the 1st round, and that even if Mahomes is successful in KC that doesn't necessarily mean that he would have had that same level of success here. Personally, I think taking Mahomes was a reach at #10. But again, I feel KC was in a much better position to where they could take that shot on a high risk type of QB (and he's also going to a great spot where he can sit and develop, then eventually step in with a strong team to surround him). Buffalo wasn't in that same spot. They only had 6 picks and a ton of holes + a rookie HC who can't necessarily afford to blow his very first 1st round pick. As far as next year, if Buffalo identifies a QB that they feel could be our franchise guy, I say take a shot with one of our two 1st round picks. We are in a better shot to take that chance next year, with two 1sts.

I don't know that even if Mahomes turns out to be a good starting NFL QB that you can say the Bills screwed up. First - Andy Reid is definitely among the best coaches in the NFL, and I agree as others have said in this thread that he can be viewed as one of the better coaches at getting the most from his QBs. But that also makes it plausible to say that if Mahomes is developed into a good starting QB in KC, that it might not have happened had Buffalo drafted him. Obviously part of developing a QB is his God given talent, but then another, maybe equally important part, is how that QB is developed, the team that he has around him and being put in a position to succeed. KC was just in a different position than Buffalo. They have a very well established coach and GM who both have a ton of job security. They've spent YEARS slowly building that team up. They have an excellent and very strong team all around, that's had some sustained success. They had very few holes to fill on that team and actually still had a bunch of draft picks left even after trading their 1st and 3rd. They were in a position to take a shot on a rookie QB who they can slowly develop and eventually plug into a strong team with a strong supporting cast. They spent the time building and improving all areas of that team over the years that they're now in a position where the only thing that is holding them back from being perennial Super Bowl champs (or at least contenders) is a better QB. They didn't attempt to draft a 1st round QB in their first years with the team. Buffalo is not in that same position.

http://www.catscratchreader.com/2017/1/6/14189536/sean-mcdermott-and-brandon-beane-interviewing-for-head-coach-general-manager-promotions Interesting that Beane and McDermott seem to have been considered a package deal when Beane interviewed in SF. I read in another article that also said Beane wanted to bring McDermott with him if and when he got a GM job. So it sounds like Sean was Beane's first choice and vise versa.

If that were truly the case, then what stops them from doing that already? Pot is readily available everywhere. Players are obviously smoking already. So, why isn't that happening now? Or are you saying that it is? Why don't they show up to games drunk right now? It's legal.

Ah, that explains it. Thanks. So does that mean I am not allowed to post any BR links at all? Or just that they won't function by clicking on them?

NFLPA files grievance over pain pill policies in NFL. Says they are violating policies and even federal law with blatant over prescription of pain pills - http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2708636-nflpa-files-cba-violation-grievance-against-nfl-over-use-of-painkillers (if anyone can tell me why bleacher report links never work, or how to get them to work, I'd be grateful. I only have this problem with BR links...) 'Offensive lineman Kyle Turley, who played nearly a decade in the NFL before retiring in 2007, spoke with Vice Sports about "playing numb" because of painkillers: 'Meanwhile, a group called the Gridiron Cannabis Coalition is working to advocate marijuana as a "safer and more effective treatment" than prescription drugs to handle the day-to-day pain that comes from playing professional football.' Here is another related link on prescription painkiller abuse problems in the NFL. It's a good read for anyone interested - https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/nfl-abuse-of-painkillers-and-other-drugs-described-in-court-filings/2017/03/09/be1a71d8-035a-11e7-ad5b-d22680e18d10_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.feaa1cd87d73

Good to hear. If Pegula got these hires right, the Bills could be set for a long time. They are both very young and on the job for the 1st time, so I think people need to expect some mistakes. But by all accounts, both seem to be very smart and very well regarded around the NFL. I think they now need to be given some time... I'd like to see both get their full 5 year contracts, and let's see what we can build here.

Yup. The thing is, It's so readily available anyway, and yet guys aren't getting high before games. from what I understand players are only tested like once a year or something like that, unless they are in the drug program. So I am sure plenty of guys are smoking it already. I've seen estimates of 50% or more of NFL players smoke. So the only real difference I see with it being legal is that 1) guys wouldn't be getting suspended for an entire year for a more/less harmless substance with many therapeutic effects. And 2) it would be able to help cut down on the amount of opiates given out in the NFL, which is a fantastic thing. Opiates are much much much more dangerous than pot is. It's not even close. Opiates are one of the most addictive substances on the planet. Oh, and they can get you much "higher" than pot can, too. They can have an extremely strong narcotic effect, to the point where you literally can't even keep your eyes open (aka "nodding"). They can make it so you can hardly function. In fact, they can make you stop breathing and die, from repressing your nervous system so much.

It can be detected in a drug test for up to 1 month after use, depending on the person. Just because they failed a drug test doesn't mean that they were getting high before games. Players show up to games hours early. They'd basically have to be using it right in the locker room to actually be "high" during a game. I can't imagine that would ever happen. Look, alcohol is legal and lots of players drink in their free time, yet they don't get drunk before games.

Nice! Thanks for sharing this.

I think they will do their best to sign Sammy if he has a great season, or just tag him. I was a bit upset that they didn't pick up his 5th year option at first. I felt like Sammy has so much potential that has yet to be realized. Plus the Bills gave up so much to get him, and I also kinda felt like they were betting on him failing. But then I started thinking more about it, and about what McDermott has been saying about every single person EARNING everything, and nothing just being given. McDermott is trying to change the losing culture here, and the players are only going to take him seriously if he actually does the things he talks about. As much potential as Sammy has, it's kind of hard to say that he has legitimately earned more than double his current salary at this point. So, making even your most talented player go out on the field and legitimately EARN his next contract sends a pretty loud and clear message to the entire locker room, IMO.

Agreed. And like I said I honestly don't know enough about Beane to have much of an opinion on how qualified he is for the job. I know he's been being groomed in Carolina for years, and that Carolina fans are somewhat upset at possibly losing him. I just wish we had done an exhaustive search and found the absolute best candidate for the job. But maybe Beane really is the best man for the job. I guess I just don't like that It seems like this was Beane's job from day 1. I kind of feel like this search was more/less just a sham. But Beane hasn't been hired yet, so I am a little early saying this... Who knows what will happen though. Maybe they will hire some top end personnel men and scouts (or other front office exec types) to help them. Or maybe they won't even need to. Don't get me wrong, I will still be optimistic if Beane gets hired. I will give them the benefit of the doubt from day 1 and wait to see what they do over time. I do think it's very important that you have a coach and GM who trust each other and work very well together, and McDermott doesn't seem the type that would want an unqualified guy in the GM role. If he wants Beane that badly, there has to be a good reason for it.

There is absolutely no proof that it was McDermott. I have not even heard anyone speculate that it was him, besides you. He had been hired less than 2 months before Gillislee was tendered. You seem to be assuming that he was running everything inside OBD from the day he was hired, but I don't think that was the case at all. All the reports have said that his power has Slowly grown inside OBD. Plus, if you look at past RFA tenders, it fits Whaley and Overdorf's MO. There's honestly no point in discussing this RFA tender any further though, I am clearly not going to change your mind and you are not going to change my mind unless you have some actual proof and not just your assumption that since Whaley was fired McDermott must have been making every decision... And as far as the free agents, there's plenty of proof that was Whaley and Overdorf, as I mentioned in my last post, and you completely ignored and just went on with this RFA tender thing. If it clearly was, you should have some proof then, right? Please post a link or any type of proof besides just your opinion.

I still feel like it's just a foregone conclusion that it's Brandon Beane's job. I am very glad to see them interviewing Brian Gutekunst, but if it's true that they already have a 2nd interview set up with Beane, I am not sure how seriously they are actually considering him. The Bills and Sabres MO under Pegula has been that any time a guy gets a 2nd interview, he gets the job. I feel like it's been a poorly kept secret for quite a while now anyway that it's Brandon Beane's job. I honestly don't know enough about Beane to make any real judgements on him. I just hope he's truly the best man for the job, if he is our next GM. They better hire some very very good personnel men and scouts though. I don't think Beane has a scouting background, does he?

No. There's no reason to think McDermott was assigning RFA tenders and negotiating with free agents just because of what happened after the draft... I don't know for sure that it was Whaley and Overdorf, but that is their job as GM + guy in charge of contracts & cap. That is something they've always done in the past, and the Gillislee move fits their MO with the way RFA tenders have been handled in previous years. Everything I seen written said it was Whaley and Overdorf's decision, too. (Here's just one example - http://buffalonews.com/2017/04/19/analysis-mike-gillislee-dilemma-starts-jim-overdorfs-mismanagement-salary-cap/ Call me crazy for blaming the GM and contract guy for the stuff that falls under their job description - responsibilities that they have always been in charge of in the past... We also seen reports long before McDermott was hired that the team wasn't willing to pay Gilmore more than $11.5M, and that they weren't even really negotiating with Robert Woods. Those guys could have been signed long before McDermott got here. The Bills had a long time to get them signed. They could start negotiating a year ago with Woods, or (I believe) two years ago, with Gilmore. Obviously Whaley felt that they were not worth the contracts they got in FA, since he didn't offer anything close to those contracts from what was reported. Also, I never said that the a Bills could not have given Gillislee the 2nd round tender. I just said not doing that was most likely a Whaley/Overdorf move. I was addressing your post that said the a Bills should have kept Gilmore, Woods and matched Gillislee's offer. That was not realistic. I actually don't know how realistic tagging Gilmore was, alone. The Bills had the 7th or 8th least cap space in the NFL heading into 2017. They only had roughly $24M in cap space, with only 49 players under contract and 24+ free agents. Tagging Gilmore would have eaten more than half that cap space. Signing Poyer and Ducasse took what, about $4M? Those are normal depth signing every team makes. Again, it wasn't McDermotts fault the Bills cap was so mismanaged... Like I said in my previous post - there are a lot of different things to factor in to why those free agents were not signed. Blaming it all on McDermott is just silly. He probably deserves the smallest share of the blame IMO.

Prayers for Kason and his family! So sad to hear this.

Just because 1 team was willi to pay Robert Woods $8M does not mean he was not overpriced. Same with Gilmore. Chicago was after him hard, and he priced himself out of there, too. Teams overpay free agents every single year, and it blows up in their face much of the time. Maybe if Whaley hadn't mismanaged the cap so much, the Bills would have been able to think about offering more money to those guys. You can't keep every free agent, though. Paying Woods $8M and Gilmore $13.5M, or tagging him would have had the Bills right near, or over the cap. They'd have had no room to fill any holes or attempt to sign the other 20+ fee agents they had. Keeping those 2 at the money they got was just not realistic with the situation the Bills cap is/was in. Getting our cap situation back under control is going to take some painful moves. But it's not McD's fault the Bills were put in that position. He just got here. Also, pretty sure that MG tender was Whaley/Overdorf, not McDermott. And you can put some blame on that huge McCoy extension for not being able to match, among other reasons. It also has to be taken into account whether or not Woods and Gilmore wanted to be here (IMO neither wanted to), and whether or not they fit the new scheme, especially when you're talking about trying to match the monster deals they got. It's hard to keep guys who don't want to be here (if that was the case. It appears to me Gilmore wanted to play for a bigger market team and Woods wanted to go home, but that's just my opinion).

lol 👍

I think it also had a lot to do with the Bills needing a QB. Doug Whaley said a few times before the draft that he had to add a QB, "just by a sheer numbers perspective", and I believe he had decided before the draft that he was taking a QB at some point. From what we can gather, they had a number of QBs higher on their board than Cardale. Then all of those QBs went off the board before Whaley drafted one in the 4th. Had Oakland not traded up for Cook, Dallas would have taken him, likely leaving Dak there for Buffalo. But Cook went off the board in the 3rd and Dallas then grabbed Dak in the 4th, and Cardale was basically the highest QB left on the Bills board, so I think that's a big reason why they took him.

So, is this the 3rd GM candidate the Bills have interviewed now? Him, Beane and Gaine are the only 3 I've heard of. Wonder if they will interview that Bret Veach from KC. I kind of feel like it's a foregone conclusion that Brandon Beane is our next GM though.

I didn't mean to sound like I was totally discounting YAC. I really wasn't saying anything at all about YAC except that just don't like looking at total passing yards statistics because, for one, they include YAC. And also, like you said, passing yards are not strongly correlated to wins. Passing yards are simply a poor way to evaluate a QB. I'm not all that fond of air yards either, but they at least only show the actual yards a QB threw for himself. But Yards per Attempt correlates strongly to winning. I've seen statisticsl breakdowns that show the team that won the YPA battle also won the game almost 75% of the time in certain NFL seasons. Usually the best QBs in the NFL are also near the top in YPA. Here's a pretty decent article on the different metrics for evaluating QBs, for anyone interested. I don't agree with everything they say, but they do a pret good job of breaking down each metric. I would recommend giving it a read for anyone interested. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1691533-which-metric-matters-most-when-evaluating-nfl-quarterbacks Here's a few articles on YPA's importance. They have a lot of good break downs of YPA on that football nation site if you read around a bit. http://www.footballnation.net/content/pigskin-prophet-commands-sports-media-to-act/6947/ http://bleacherreport.com/articles/261433-nfl-stat-analysis-yards-per-attempt-more-important-than-you-think http://www.behindthesteelcurtain.com/2013/7/8/4501716/nfl-statistics-yards-per-attempt Edit - I have no idea why the 2 bleacher report links don't work. I tried to fix them twice now. You will have to copy and paste them if interested. Sorry. Does anyone know, do bleacher report links just not work on this site or something?

That might be some of it, but I think it also had a lot to do with the Bills salary cap situation that Whaley out this team in, and the offers those players got on the open market. IMO Robert Woods is not worth the (roughly) $8M a year he is getting. I'm not sure Gilmore is worth the $13.5M he's getting (especially since the Bills will be running a zone coverage scheme), and even if he is the Bills couldn't afford it due to their cap situation and the large contracts handed out by the previous regime. Gillislee may or may not be worth the $4M he's getting this year. They probably should have just put the 2nd round tender on him and been done with it. Who's decision that was, I do not know. It doesn't seem like Gilmore and Woods had much of any desire to stay in Buffalo, either.