BillsFan4

Good points. I hadn't thought about 2011 falling off. I just thought it seemed kind of strange for a team to fall 15+ spots in a single season. It wasn't just the Bills. There were a number of teams like that. If a team is truly good at drafting, I don't see how that can change so drastically in a single season, with the same scouts and GMs running the team (in most cases).

The Seahawks believed that Russel Wilson had franchise potential and waited until the 3rd to draft him. There were even those stories about how they were sweating bullets that the Bills would take him ahead of their pick in the 3rd. Oakland thought Carr had franchise potential and waited until the 2nd to draft him. There are plenty of stories like this throughout the years. Teams want players to meet the draft pick value. Teams talk about this often. They weigh the potential of that player not succeeding with the value of the pick and pull the trigger when they think it's right.

That's what I like to hear! This is what the a Bills should be trying to do. We have way too many roster spots left to fill yet, and id sure be nice to be able to fill some of those spots with a few extra draft picks. We will still have to sign a bunch of undrafted players after the draft, and probably some vet minimum signings too. But if the Bills can pick up an extra 2nd and/or 3rd (etc) I'd say that gives them a better shot at landing some quality players to fill some of those roster spots.

How is that a regurgitated statement when that was the first time he ever said it? It was at Bills camp in August 2015. He said it to WGR Radio and it was a BIG story. There were like 15 articles written about it the same day. Everyone was taking it out of context (like some still are today). Whaley took a ton of heat for that statement. That was the first and last time he ever said anything about QB purgatory.... lol There were even a couple of threads posted here about it - http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/179641-85-doug-whaley-on-wgr/ http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/179652-whaley-admits-what-weve-suspected-bills-in-qb-purgatory/ I never said any of that stuff. You have me confused with someone else. That was a poster named YattaOkasan. I was just pointing out that in your original post you did in fact say that Tyrod got the coaching staff fired, and you didn't mention anything about the D or coaching. You only blamed Tyrod.

Dude, you literally just said it 30 minutes ago in this same thread...

He actually said this in 2015, and since you literally say this All the time, I thought maybe you'd want to read the actual quote in full - "We are almost in quarterback purgatory. We're good enough that we're not going to have the first or second [overall] pick," Whaley told WGR 550 on Wednesday. "We hope we're not in that position. Hopefully now we're drafting in the teens and the 20s and the 30s. So you're not going to get those college guys that are coming out. "Franchise quarterbacks hit the free-agent market? Name one. Unless they have an injury. So it's going to be an onus on our scouting staff to find a guy in the lower first round, second or third round. We accept that challenge. It's where we are, and it's been good that we have enough talent around that we're in that situation, but it's not an easy answer. There isn't [one]." http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/13382343/buffalo-bills-almost-quarterback-purgatory-gm-doug-whaley-says

This same article the last 2 years had the Bills ranked 9th. http://nypost.com/2016/04/24/ranking-from-1-32-the-nfls-best-teams-at-drafting/ http://nypost.com/2015/04/25/an-exhaustive-ranking-of-every-nfl-teams-draft-haul-since-2010/ How can a team go from 9th best drafting team to 25th best drafting team in a single year, especially when the article claims to be looking at the past 5 seasons and their own rankings had the Bills 9th in the 2 previous seasons...? Seems to me that they are mainly basing their rankings on how many games the Bills most recent draft picks played last season, and with the injuries to our top 2 picks that number is obviously very low.

Yeah, probably. Went a little overboard making my point I guess... lol But there was an actual quote from Ernie Accorsi shortly after the trade where he said something like that. It was something to the effect of "trading for a QB like Eli doesn't really ever happen and you only get a chance to trade for a QB like him maybe once in a lifetime, so I couldn't pass it up". I just read it in an article (from 2004) yesterday, but of course now I can't find the article anywhere (and I just cleared my browser history this morning...).

I would absolutely LOVE Rick Dudley as team president or even GM. Paul Fenton would also be good though. Both Dudley and Fenton would be amazing. We did try to get Rick Dudley last time though, and he decided to stay in Montreal. They even gave him a raise (and a promotion?) too, because they didn't want him going anywhere. Maybe things have changed in the past few years, who knows. We can hope, right? He does still have a house here IIRC.

Oh wow, I guess he didn't take a dive. It was legit. The replay I saw didn't show niskanin in it. It was the clip they showed on NBC after the game, where they paused it just as Ovi was tapping Kadri on the arm, and then it showed what looked like Kadri taking a ridiculous dive. I stand corrected though. Kadri has definitely taken some dives (or at least 1 that I seen) earlier in this series though, and with the type of player he is, I can see why a lot of people immediately assumed it was a dive.

I agree with much of what you are saying. As far as not having a plan - From most accounts, it seems like Tolbert was brought in to be one of "McDermott's guys". He's been with SM in Carolina for years, and McDermott loves his personality and work ethic. He's one of those guys a new coach brings in too help establish the new culture he's trying to bring with him. It's very common. A single, $1M signing should not prevent most teams from tendering a guy at a certain level. But our cap has been so mismanaged that it probably does here, which seems pretty ridiculous when you think about it, especially for a 7-9 team that hasn't sniffed the playoffs in forever.

What?! That's not how you scout a QB! Watching entire games. Ha. You watch a bunch of highlight videos, duh.

I think the circumstances of that trade have to be taken into account. I don't think it's beside the point at all. Eli saying after he was picked that he would literally quit playing football and go into a career in Law is the reason the trade happened. The Chargers had no choice. Period. That matters. If they had a choice, they keep Eli and that trade doesn't happen at all. Eli was looked at as a can't miss, only comes along very rarely type of QB before the draft. The Chargers wanted him badly, which is why they drafted him even though he had been saying for months that he wouldn't play for them even if they drafted him. If Trubisky was looked at as anywhere even close to an Eli Manning level prospect, he'd go 1st overall and there'd be no talk of the Browns trading that pick or passing up on drafting him. As far as the Eagles - again, as I said in my original post, time will tell. We have to wait and see. Wentz looked good for a few games, and then struggled pretty badly for much of the rest of the season. And Goff looked absolutely horrible. They both have a Long way to go yet to ever be worth the price.

As I said in my original post, I don't consider Eli a trade up. The Chargers picked him 1st overall and the Giants drafted Rivers 4th overall, then they were traded for each other afterwards. So that's a draft day trade IMO, not technically a trade up. Plus, that trade never happens if Eli doesn't absolutely refuse to play for SD (he said after he was drafted that he was planning to pursue a career in Law instead of football) and it also doesn't happen if the Giants didn't have Philip Rivers to trade to San Diego. So that's a pretty unique scenario, and one that isn't likely to be repeated.

Anyone see that ridiculous dive by Kadri tonight? The one where Ovechkin barely taps him on the arm and he like flails his whole body, falls to the ice and grabs his leg/ankle (which wasn't even touched)? That's at least the 2nd (or 3rd) dive like that I've seen from Kadri this playoff series, where he barely gets touched and acts like someone just shot him or something. The guys should have been an actor. He may have missed his calling there... lol.

Eh, we heard similar stuff last year - that they were in discussions with the Browns about trading up for Wentz and how much they loved him etc. BTW Who said this? If this is actually true, I hope we don't trade up for Trubisky. Trade up's into the top 10 for a QB have almost never worked out. There was a good write up on it at Buffalo Rumblings just the other day. I believe Mike Vick was about the only successful trade up into the top 10, and that was before mobile QBs were popular in the NFL. That trade may not even happen today. Other than that, there's no success story to point to that I could think of unless Goff or Wentz work out (I don't think Eli counts because it was t a trade up and he demanded the trade, otherwise it never happens). How can you trade up into the top 5 for (and go All In on) a QB who started a total of 13 college games, and not until his senior year? If they do it, they better be damn sure about him and it better work out for sure, otherwise whoever's idea it was is definitely toast, not to mention it setting the Bills back years.

This is good news. Antipin had a fantastic playoff run, was name MVP defenseman. He had a darn good regular season too, by all accounts. He is still pretty young (26?), is a LHD and Buffalo needs blue line help desperately. So I definitely hope this does still get done.

Honest question - why does it seem like many Bills fans are so thoroughly convinced the Browns are going to blow us out of the water just because they have a bunch of draft picks? The Browns have had plenty of extra draft picks in the past and it led to nothing. They also had a bunch of draft picks last year, and I really wasn't overly impressed with many of them. Maybe they improve this season, I don't know. The Browns could very well end up being good/great. But they have to actually hit on a majority of their draft picks first, which is far from a sure thing (especially with the Browns and Haslam meddling).

Sorry if I don't take everything La Canfora says as gospel... If the Browns actually draft Trubisky #1 overall, I will completely agree with the OP. But until then, I am taking this as just more untrue garbage being spewed on Twitter (a very common thing these days).

You repeat this all the time, but I just don't see it. He wasn't like that in Philly or Carolina IMO. His defense in Philly was aggressive. His defense in Carolina was aggressive in attacking the ball and creating turn overs (his defense was top 5 in interceptions 3 of the last 4 years). He's a Jim Johnson disciple, who was as aggressive as they come. McDermott himself said he will be aggressive. So can we wait until he coaches a few games and see if he actually shows a "bland, boring, play not to lose" style before labeling him with it? Because as of now I haven't seen it in his career. And FYI Keeping Tyrod does not prove it. It proves that he wants to try and win right away, that's all. Also, playing a more simple defensive scheme that allows players to play fast and not have to overthink doesn't mean "boring, play not to lose" either.

LOL! Great movie (and book).

We don't yet know if the run blocking scheme will be completely/drastically changed yet either. Is it possible that he wouldn't fit as well into a new run blocking scheme and be unable to repeat last season's performance anyway? I'd say yes.

I think we can also put to bed the rumors of Pegula hiring Dan Bylsma. He specifically said that he didn't have much involvement in hiring the GM or the coach and he really regrets that. So I think it's safe to say that Bylsma was indeed a Tim Murray hire. (and we all know Murray was a LaFontaine hire, obviously).

Absolutely agree. They drool all over Cleveland's "rebuild", but Buffalo tanked... Can't have it both ways, like Pegula said. If Buffalo tanked, Cleveland absolutely tanked. They released a ton of good players last year. Funny thing is there were some Buffalo News writer(s) calling for the Sabres to rebuild/tank before it happened, and then when it does happen they change their tune and criticize it. You know, I still blame the Buffalo News to this day about a lot of the terrible, negative publicity the Sabres rebuild/tank got. So many things became a national headline/punchline because of stories written by TBN that would get picked up by the national media. IMO that was one of the main differences between the Sabres "tank" and Toronto's "rebuild". Both teams tanked, but Toronto's media was on board and did nothing but praise it and Buffalo's media did nothing but slam it. I think the Buffalo News was definitely a factor in turning the Sabres rebuild into such a big story at times.