Shaw66

I haven't read the list, and I don't need to. But I absolutely love "the desolation." That's what it was. Not the drought, it was the desolation. Perfect.

Think about it from the players' point of view. All those years, the players set for themselves a goal - win the Super Bowl - knowing that Fitz and Fred and Mario all have to have career years, plus Brady has to fall off, plus, plus, plus. Still the goal is to win the Super Bowl. Now, same goal, but they're all thinking, "If we all do what we're supposed to do, we actually can win the Super Bowl." Wonderful new time to be a Bills fan.

Well, yes, there's still plenty that could be discussed, but they're pretty small details, or they're speculative, like how long will Hughes play at a high level, what kind of impact can Rousseau or Basham have this season, etc. But that's different from obvious holes left over from last season that needed to be filled. That's what people in the past spent a lot of time talking about, but there are no holes like that this year. There's TE, of course, but everyone already knows the answer to that question - Knox will take a step up, or he won't. There's not much discussion because everyone already knows the answer or it's speculative and not worth discussing until we see them on the field in September. It's just a different attitude on the part of the fans here, and that different attitude is directly related to how the team has been built and how well they played last season.

I agree. My post was optimistic, too. I look around the lineup and dont see problems. Is it perfect? No. But we're seeing McDermott do exactly what he said he would do. Quality players and position competition.

Wow. May as well buy those Super Bowl tickets today. Everyone else is playing for second place.

This is a really good point. I say all the time that McDermott believes he can do it with coaching and organization, and so he doesn't need more high end talent. I don't know if he's right, but he thinks coaching and teamwork and intense commitment to improvement and to team will win the day. We'll see. If McDermott is right, some guys will emerge as bigger factors that we expect today. Epenesa, one the rookie DEs, Breida, Sanders, Ford, or someone else on the Oline. But he may be wrong - he may just need a little more standout talent.

That's an optimistic outlook. No problems anywhere. That's what he's seeing.

Has anyone else noticed how little Bills football actually is being discussed on this forum, several days into the opening of training camp? Look at the topics: financing the stadium, Stidham injury, charges dropped against Kraft, the Patriots QB's, Sunday ticket. Even the threads actually about players and the team are about roster bubble players, like Kumerow. There's a little free agent or trade talk - Ertz has been hammered to death, and there was something about Corey Peters. Why is no one talking about the team, the heart of the team, the challenges the team faces? Why is no one talking about it? Because there's nothing much to say. The starters are solid (TE is really the only position where it's possible the Bills won't be solid). If the Bills have one or two or three young guys unexpectedly pop into the starting lineup, it will mean that a good player got beaten out by a better one. No one is even talking about the perennially favorite topic - what backup QB can the Bills pick up when final cuts happen? Got that covered. Kicker? Covered. The only question is whether they, 65 or so players and the coaches, collectively, can make themselves as good as they know they can be. Bills fans haven't been so calm for training camp since the Super Bowl years. It's a strange feeling.

Allen is simply out of a story book. Not just a wave, but an enthusiastic wave that said, "Hi, kid! Yeah, you! HI!" Great stuff.

Personally, I think this is a non-issue from a fan perspective. As someone said, when you have a guy who appears to be the best or the second best QB in the league, fretting over his weaknesses seems kind of silly. Yes, maybe Allen has said it's something he wants to work on. So what? A guy with a continuous improvement mentality ALWAYS has something he's focused on improving. Tom Brady has something he's focused on this summer, too, but nobody's worrying about whether he's actually going to improve in whatever area that is. Allen took, and I do mean took, his team to the AFC championship game, where he had a relatively weak performance, ON THE ROAD, not at home. This is like the discussions people used to have about Tyrod Taylor needing to improve at throwing the ball over the middle, because statistically he was in the bottom quarter of the league in completions in that area of the field. Sure, it would have been nice if he completed more balls there, but to get to above average, all he needed was something like 10 more completions over the middle in the season. Just like this home-and-away record thing, these are tiny statistical issues that are not major flaws. I'm sure that if you took the time to study the stats in detail, you could find some area of the passing game where Mahomes is in the bottom quarter of the league. I'd laugh pretty hard if I heard a Chiefs fan moaning about how Mahomes has to pick it up in that area. Allen is coming into only his fourth season playing the most difficult position in all of professional sports. He's developed magnificently, and he has more development ahead of him, just like Mayfield and every QB who ever developed into elite status in the league. In three years, he will be better at a lot things than he was last season. I'm just sitting back and enjoying it. I loved having Jim Kelly as the QB of my team. Loved it. But Allen is a whole level above Jim.

Exactly

This is an issue I always have trouble with, and I think a lot of fans are like me. We get attached to players and their stories, like Fromm in this case, and we develop angst, as you say, as we look at the possibility that the Bills may lose him. I think it's part of fans' excessive focus on talent. The fact is that if the coaches and front office are evaluating talent properly, a guy on the 53-man bubble isn't ever likely to make or break your season. Sure, there's always the story about some guy who came off the practice squad and really lit it up, but those stories are few and far between, and usually they guy flashes and disappears. Who was that safety who had two INTs for the Bills in one game late in the season? Someone will remember his name - I don't. Yes, the GM and HC are looking for the best talent they can find, but the reality of how teams are built is that they're looking for a core group of talent, and they will plug in good athletes with the right attitude to cover the rest of the lineup spots. Those good athletes are coming and going all the time, and every once in a while one of them climbs into the core group, like Milano did. Every once in a while one of those good athletes gets cut or traded and develops into a core player somewhere else, like Teller did. I've found myself finally not worrying so much about those guys. The GM is going to do the best he can making those decisions, and Beane has had a pretty good track record. So, when I see a thread about whether the Bills maybe should keep Kumerow, I might read it to learn something about Kumerow, but I don't feel like what happens to Kumerow is a life-and-death question. Kumerow has already demonstrated in the NFL that he isn't Stefon Diggs, so he's just another plug-and-player who may have a role in the fall, or he may not. As for Fromm, I think he's a guy who will grow into a better version of Barkley. He's a proven winner, he is high character, and as he continues to learn, he'll probably be a big asset in the QB room. He's a potential coach. He may already recognize that his isn't starter material, so he may not be anxious to leave. He's the kind of guy who, in another couple of years, will be able to come in when the starter goes down, execute the offense and, most importantly, play mistake-free football. He's not going to turn the ball over, he's not going freak out on the field. So, I could see a role for him longer-term, because a dream-backup like Trubisky simply isn't a realistic possibility as a three- to five-year solution at backup. But I'm not getting attached to Fromm. Those guys come and go all the time. In fact, if the Bills are looking for a long-term backup who's going to be supportive of Allen in the long-term, Fromm has competition for that spot from Webb. As between Fromm and Webb, the one who has the best working relationship, maybe the closest relationship off the field, with Allen is the guy the Bills will want to hold on to. Exactly. It was the same as picking a guy like Brady that deep in the draft.

Thanks. I still have to watch the full thing. Of course, the Broncos weren't telling the Bills who the Broncos wanted, so it I suppose it could have been Josh. Beane had to wonder, and that's why he would have been interested in the Browns' pick. I simply don't understand the Giants or the Broncos. They clearly didn't do their homework. Sanders is far from the first person in the NFL who has said "I've never seen anyone in the NFL throw a ball like that." Everyone knew Josh had supreme physical skills; how those teams didn't do the homework to find out that he had the other stuff too is beyond me. The empty stadium thing is a good point. It came at a perfect time in his career. Frankly, I think he has another year of growth ahead of him. In two or three seasons he will be elite. Nothing will faze him, he will lead the team with precision, and he will slice and dice opponents with his arm.

Hard to imagine Browns would have talked about #1. Jets were certainly taking a qb, so the Browns would have ended up with their third choice QB. Hard to imagine the Bill's would talk about the 4th because the 7th was all they needed.

Good stuff - this and your other response. I wasn't hoping Levi would be the starter. I've been very content the entire off season to just let things play out. I'm sure if there had been an appropriate guy in free agency, the Bills would have gone after him to challenge for the CB2. They did it with Norman and this did with the guy who quit. I suspect this off-season they didn't find an appropriate guy in part because Levi go better (at least in their eyes) last season. As you say, the whole KC thing is simply the fact that they're the current perfect storm in the NFL - superstar QB, lights out #1 wideout, good complementary wideouts, All-Pro TE, and an outstanding offensive coach. Brutal to prepare for them, in part because Reid always has prepared his team with an answer. So, as you say, he can find a way to get Hill on Wallace. As I said and you agree, it's unrealistic to think the Bills can find a guy to put over there who's good enough to handle Hill. Sure, maybe you can upgrade a bit, but unless you upgrade to a top-10 corner, to another White, Hill is going to eat him up. Hill eats up everyone but the very best. I don't know who the Bucs had at corner, but I don't think they shut down the Chiefs with corners. They did it with pass rush. Pass rush is, frankly, always the answer. If you can't pressure Brady, he's tough to beat. If you can't pressure Mahomes, he's tough to beat. If you can't pressure Allen, or Rodgers, they're tough to beat. I think the plan to beat the Chiefs in the playoffs is to develop Rousseau, Basham, Epenesa, and maybe one or two others so that when that game happens next January, Mahomes is running for his life. (And, by the way, the plan on offense is to develop Ford and one or two of the rookies and the returning veterans so that Allen is NOT running for his life.) What's so encouraging is that the Bills look like they should be much better in 2021. That sounds stupid - how can they be much better when they already were pretty clearly a top 5 team by the end of the season? But look at it - because of experience alone, they should be better at every position group - safeties, corners, linebacker, DL, OL, RB, receiver, QB, TE. Every position group. On top of that, they have three new guys who should contribute on the Dline, maybe one who can contribute at linebacker, better depth at defensive back, Ford returning plus three rookies with at least the size and talent to compete to start on the OL, a better backup QB, a starting QB who's still learning, another RB to challenge for playing time, Sanders plus Davis coming off a good rookie season. There's reason to be optimistic all over the team. Quite amazing.

Well, ask McDermott, and I'm sure he'd say he wants a CB2 who is more athletic and can and run with whoever he's line up with. Unfortunately, that's the definition of a CB1. Unless you get lucky and find a CB1-caliber player on a rookie contract, you aren't going to have a guy like that playing CB2 - prudent salary cap management precludes it. Because McDermott doesn't plan his defense with the expectation that he will have a CB1-talent playing CB2, he designs the defense to succeed with CB2 talent at CB2. That's exactly why Wallace plays to keep the play in front of him as opposed to preventing the first down. So, what you say would be nice, but I don't expect it to happen. Now, if one the rookies turns out to be a sleeper CB1, great, then your wish will be granted. When his contract is up, the Bills might actually pay him CB1 money to get him to stay, but if they do, it will be with the expectation that White won't be renewed when his current contract is up. When that happens, that rookie will become the CB1, and McDermott will once again be faced with the problem of building a defense with CB2 filled by a guy with CB2 talent. The point is that the process they're following is not predicated on the idea that the Bills will play with two corners who are CB1 talents. It's an unreasonable expectation, so they aren't building with that in mind. The process dictates that McDermott look at stopping WR1 as primarily a personnel problem, but stopping WR2 is primarily a scheme and coaching problem.

McBeane (and plenty of others who have had success in the NFL) have been clear that they do NOT build their team to beat one opponent. They don't build their team in response to what the current best team in the league is doing. They build their team to be the best team in the league and let other teams respond to them. Sure, KC comes at you with an awesome array of talent, good scheme, and a superstar QB. The philosophy McBeane are following is to build a team with an awesome array of talent, good scheme, and a superstar QB. How do I know that that is the philosophy? Because McBeane didn't make wholesale changes in the team, and in particular didn't make changes to counter what KC does best. They didn't go after a safety or MLB to stop Kelce, and they didn't go after a CB2 to stop whichever speedster KC puts on the field opposite Hill. Yes, they got good young talent at DE, pass rush talent, and you can make the argument that the Bucs showed that the way to neutralize Mahomes was with relentless pass rush, but EVERY team knows that their team will be better with relentless pass rush. Rousseau and Basham weren't a response so much to KC as they were a response to a general team need. Beyond that, McDermott was startlingly clear after the season ended that he was ready to play 2021 with the same personnel he had in 2020. He believed that because, having watched his team lose to the Chiefs in the Championship game, he knew that his team, with the current personnel, could be prepared to win games against KC. He didn't need more talent. If he believed that KC's #2 receiver would dominate Wallace, no matter what the coaches did to prepare Wallace or to help him, then any GM, including Beane, would have gone out to get McDermott help.

Some of you are really dissing Wallace, and I'd guess you're off base. I say guess, but it's only a guess. I evaluate players by what I see, by looking at stats, and by watching the player personnel decisions the Bills make. I watch the decisions, because they are some evidence of the positions where the Bills are getting the kind of play they want and the positions where they think the incumbent wasn't doing enough. Based on what I see, I'd agree with NewEra - although Wallace plays solid, he rarely seems to make the positive play that leads to a stopped drive. He's around the play, but he rarely seems to make the play. If you look at his stats, he had 8 passes defended and 2 INTs in 12 games. White had 11 and 3 in 14 games. So, what's wrong with that? Of course, White may have been target less often, so his success rate may have been better, but still, the raw numbers for Wallace are far from embarrassing. Most important, however, for three off seasons now the Bills have shown no desperation to replace Wallace. They signed that guy from the Colts, who quit after one half of the first game. They signed Josh Norman. They went after no veteran this season. They haven't used a quality draft pick for a corner. All of that suggests that Wallace is doing what the Bills want from him, despite how it may look to us fans. Yes, they have brought in a couple of rookies who are showing well and may be threats to make the team, and yes, they have Dane Jackson competing for time, but that's all in the ordinary course of how McDermott keep strengthening the team - bring in young talent, coach 'em up, and let them compete. At other positions, if the Bills think they have a hole, they fill it with a veteran. For a few seasons now, they have not done that CB2. That tells me that Wallace is not the problem that many of us tend to think he is. Could someone play better at CB2? Sure, and maybe one of the young players will emerge. But like very other team, the Bills can't afford to pay two #1 corners so, so long as White is a consensus star at #1 and paid like one, the Bills aren't going to spend big a CB#.

I haven't been following the reports from camp, until I began skipping through this thread. I get one overwhelming impression, and that is the process at work. Bring in the right new talent, keep the right old talent, expect players to learn more each day. Who really knows, but it seems like there's serious competition at corner, on the d line, on the o line, at wideout, at running back, and (in a sense) even at QB. Trubisky isn't taking Allen's job, but he's probably showing Allen how to do some things that Trubisky learned in his days starting in the NFL.

Oh, my goodness. That's breathtaking.

Got you. Glad we clarified it.

I wouldn't call it petty at all. JW said those who think this issue isn't important don't listen and instead say "lalalalala." Not wanting to argue the point, but wanting to be clear that I was one of those who doesn't think the issue is important, I simply repeated JW's words. It was just a way to say which side I was on. Remember, JW's original complaint about what I said wasn't about the importance of COVID, it was about some things I said about how journalism. Until I posted by lala, I hadn't entered the fray on the question of how important reporting on COVID is.

Thanks. What's unlike me? That I have a point of view? Do you find that difficult to accept? I ALWAYS have a point of view. My point of view is that the NFL will have rules about COVID, the teams and the players will follow them or not, and they'll all live with the consequences. I don't need to hear any discussion whatsoever in July about those rules. When I show up at the stadium on opening day, the Bills and the Steelers will play a football game. 65,000 people will make a lot of noise. One team will win, the other will lose. The game will be all about the 106 players on the two teams, and their coaches. Some players we might have expected to be in that game won't be in it, because of injury, arrest, personal matters, or COVID. I don't really care. I, and the 65,000 other people, and the coaches, will be focused completely on the 106 who are there, and no one will be worrying about who isn't there or why. When the Bills took the field to start the 2020 season, we watched the players and what they did. We didn't moan and groan because Star wasn't there. 40 guys who came to training camp weren't there, either. I'm a football fan. I see no point in my football life in getting excited about COVID. If you have a point of view that's different, fine. I get it. But dismissing my point of view because you disagree with it is ignorant. So, lalalalalala.

lalalalalala

Am I'm with you on Mayfield. Mayfield was my choice, and I can see why the Browns went that way. And I give the Browns a pass because apparently it was a close call for them, Mayfield or Allen. And frankly, I can understand liking Darnold, too. What I really can't understand is New York and Denver, both with obvious QB needs on the near horizon, leaving Allen on the table. (Denver took Bradley Chubb, not the Browns.)