transplantbillsfan

Absolutely not!!! One friggin game and you do something stupid like bench him? No, once Allen is inserted, he will be allowed the rest of the season to play and won't be benched for any reason other than injury. However, I'm still not sure Allen even plays week 12 against the Jags. McDermott said Allen will start against Jacksonvill "if healthy." That "if healthy" part is key. Barkley could very well still start in a week and a half. And if he plays the way he did the last game, I could see Allen's injury and health continually being cited as the reason Barkley continues to start. But no, once Allen plays, he's the starter.

Win. Period. Draft position doesn't matter if we have our QB. Winning matters. Even if it doesn't mean a miracle playoff run--which is incredibly and highly doubtful--it will attract Free Agents in the offseason and show this team is on the brink. And we have lots of money to spend, so we could very easily be serious contenders next season.

I've never been so confident a 54 yard FG would be good as when he kicks one. Kinda crazy.

I disagree with you. Money isn't necessarily the most important thing once you've reached a certain threshold of how much you make. Where you live, who you work with and work conditions are hugely important. I'm a public school teacher in the state of Hawai'i. When you factor in cost of living, we are some of the lowest paid teachers in the country. But I love my life where I live, where I work, and who I work with. If a school in North Dakota offered me 10 times more than what I currently make, I wouldn't accept. I think NFL players put a lot of thought into what teams they're going to play for, and when they end up on teams or in places that surprise people, you discover it's because they were offered SIGNIFICANTLY more by that unexpected team.

Starting Allen doesn't mean we're trying to lose and it doesn't mean we will. We're 2-2 in games Allen's started and finished. It just means we want to keep developing him and maybe show those FAs we have a solid young guy at QB.

It does, but the next 6 Sundays (we play) are very much intertwined with that long term vision. I wanted to mention both Phillips because I think #97 has been a great acquisition... I just wonder if he sticks. The worse your team, the more money you need to throw at Free Agents. Sure, they'll still come, but the better your team looks, the better your negotiating stance financially.

It should be pretty clear winning is at least priority 1B. Priority 1A is clearly development of young players. But development of young players isn't mutually exclusive from winning. I proposed starting Peterman weeks ago to get a higher draft pick. It's pretty clear McBeane don't care how high their draft pick is, they care about Ws, even if they're fumbling their way through the season trying to get them. But in this process, they're finding a core group of players--mostly on defense--who will make up the nucleus of this team for years to come: Hughes (I think he's resigned) Lawson (I think he's resigned) Harrison Phillips Star Edmunds Milano Tre Hyde Poyer Zay Jones Dawkins Wyatt Teller Josh Allen (we hope) Now we go into an offseason with massive amounts of money to spend in Free Agency for the next couple of years. The problem is that you need to attract Free Agents with the team situation along with the finances. If Peterman started the entire year and we ended up with the #1 draft pick, that's one excellent non-QB we get, or maybe a couple after trading down. But Beane has proven to be pretty capable at finding gems later in the draft, so is the difference that great? But if we started Peterman and just absolutely sucked the rest of the year without showing any promise, who would we draw in at Free Agency? Obviously development is priority #1A, otherwise I believe Barkley would start against the Jags (and he still might). But with the benching and cutting of Peterman (FINALLY!!!), I think there's a clear signal that Beane and McDermott never wanted to tank and aren't trying to right now, they just SERIOUSLY screwed up the QB position. But in the end, I think our 6-10 to 8-8 record we'll end the season with will be enough to draw in some of the prized Free Agents this offseason at positions of need that we'll be looking for. And I suspect Kyle and Lorax are convinced to come back for one more run at something... But this time, a real run at something.

Here's a good compilation of him. Good stuff. Don't know why it took so long.

Interesting.

Very nice. Love the post. Love the optimism. I think we win several more games and go somewhere between 6-10 and 8-8. I need to see us beat the Patriots at Foxborough in order to believe it. But I'm excited to watch the last 6 games purely from the perspective of watching Allen (hopefully) develop

Not tanking, clearly. But Ws are also not our #1 priority. Developing our young talent is our #1 priority. But not tanking.

And so with the Peterman release, Buffalo now only has the one QB remaining on the roster who obviously should have been named starter, at latest, early in Training Camp. Way to go, McDermott

You forgot the "if healthy" part, which is pretty critical.

Let the conjecture continue. Next Monday when they practice is when we get the first legitimate clue as to whether Allen or Barkley starts against the Jags. I don't know why everyone doesn't take every single thing McDermott says with a grain of salt. Remember last year after the Saints game when McDermott said "Tyrod's our starter," only to stupidly bench him for the same guy that McDermott today said he was "still confident in" hours before cutting him? Yeah, I like McDermott. But I believe very little of what he says.