Shaw66

Absolutely. There is nothing to talk about, at all. I just want to see this team on the field!

Here's what the Colts GM said about home games: On Sundays, the fans are there to watch the Colts compete. But just as much, they are coming to make connections and build bonds with family, friends and fellow fans, and experience special memories that you can’t get anywhere else. Football has the power to bring people together, and game day can be transformational. Every team in the league has stories about how their games make a difference in others’ lives. NFL games give fans a chance to disappear from their everyday problems and enjoy the game. It’s more than the game that brings us all together. We’re all there to celebrate, watch, and play football. — Chris Ballard, Colts GM

We need to hear more about you and the grandma.

I know Greg Pipes pretty well. Greg was a Kodak All-American in 1967, despite playing on a 1-8-1 Baylor team. The Bills drafted him, but he wanted to go to law school, so he played in Canada, where the schedule would permit him to go to law school in the off-season. One year in Canada he was the top defensive lineman in his conference. That's a pretty obscure Bill.

Roger Kochman wasn't exactly obscure, because he made a splash for a couple of games before he destroyed his knee. I met him after the injury.

Not many Allen fans in Connecticut. Everyone here loves Brady or Darnold. (Giants fans are in hiding.)

I try to be realistic. I mean, the uniforms suck, the team rarely wins, and the food in the stadium is pretty bad. Even the name is stupid. Buffalo Bills? Buffalo Bill didn't have anything to do with Buffalo. And the logo is just as bad - those are bison, not buffalo, and there weren't any bison in Buffalo. The whole thing is stupid if you ask me. The quarterback was awful last season and hasn't shown me a thing yet this season. EJ manual and JP Losman were exactly the same story. The running backs are ridiculous. I mean, why not sign Franco Harris and Crazy Legs Hirsch (or is he dead?)? The Bills have no pass receivers who have led the league in either (1) receptions, (2) yards, (3) TDs or (4) sideline shouting matches with coaches and quarterbacks. On defense, no one compares with Bruce Smith, Cornelius Bennett or Butch Byrd. The whole thing is just pointless. Like I said, I'm just being realistic. I can't deal with the knee-jerk negativity we see around here some of the time. And the optimists? What's with THOSE people?

it takes all kinds, as Gunner was just saying.

It is a good thread. It's marred by combative attitudes, but there a lot posters in this thread who know football and know the Bills.

In the case of Watkins, having kept him wouldn't have worked out, at least based one what we've seen out of him. He just hasn't become the performer everyone expected. But the fact that he wouldn't have worked out doesn't change my mind about what to do with talent. I think coaching is more important talent, but that doesn't mean talent is unimportant. Especially top talent. It's hard to duplicate. So I think when you have a guy who has special talent, a Watkins or a Dareus) but who hasn't accomplished what you want, especially when he's in his early 20s, the smart move is to keep him too long rather give up on him too early. Marshawn Lynch is a perfect example. You hate to have had a talent like that on your roster and have let him go, only to watch him be a true star someplace else. It's worth to keep four guys like Lynch and Watkins for a year or two longer than you might keep someone else, because one of those guys is going to turn out to be someone really special. The three who don't work are only going to be taking up the roster of some journeyman, so it doesn't cost much to keep them. It costs a lot to lose a Lynch. So I would have kept Watkins. McDermott did that with Dareus, although not for very long. He kept him because Dareus was such a special talent that McDermott had to find out whether he could get Dareus to be the kind of team player and leader McDermott wanted. When he was sure Dareus wasn't going to be that guy, McD let him go. I would have done the same thing, with Watkins for a full season.

It's also about all the data posters use to back up their opinions here. Some of our opinions are correct, some aren't, but the data doesn't prove the case one way or the other. We tend to remember and repeat the data that supports our opinions. Like, I think Andy Reid is a great football coach, and this article cites a bunch of facts that would support that. I'll remember those facts. Do they prove that Reid is a great coach? NO! There's a different set of facts that supports the notion that he isn't a good coach at all.

I wasn't as deeply into the Bills in those days as I am now, but I remember reaching this conclusion, too. Flutie was exciting, and I liked the idea that he could emerge into something like Mahomes - an unconventional guy who is just such a good athlete and such a winner that he's going to make plays for you. But when I left that dreamworld, Johnson was the obvious choice. Just doing my part to get to 100.

This thread is crazy. We've talked about all kinds of things. I find it interesting that according to some people McBeane got BOTH of these things wrong: They didn't pay Watkins $14 million or more (SEVENTH IN THE LEAGUE) for mediocre receiver performance and lousy locker room presence. They did pay Lotulelei $10 million (13th in the league and $4 million less than Dareus) for mediocre defensive tackle performance and good locker room presence.

You didn't ask me, but I never understood it. I try to understand the logic in movies that they make, and one reason I like McBeane is that they seem to have good reasons for doing things. This one I never understood. Watkins may have been less than a great team player, but he wasn't a cancer. He just seemed not to realize his potential. I always say it's better to keep good talent a year too long than to give up on talent a year too early, so I would have exercised the option and tried to get him to be the guy we all hoped he would be. Turns out that wouldn't have helped much, because he wasn't stellar for either of the next two years and would have left in free agency. Still, I thought he was worth the continuing investment.

Well sure. We can always bring it down to one play like that. I'm sure you understand the point.

I agree it's a pretty good discussion. I've said that in a couple posts. That doesn't change the fact that some people in the discussion steadfastly refuse to give McBeane positive grades for anything. This current discussion that trading Sammy was some kind of calamitous mistake is a good example. There were perfectly good reasons why that happened, and there is no evidence that having kept Sammy would have changed the fortunes of the Bills in any material way, and yet some people continue to point to it as some major failing. You want to argue about a player who has had success, like Mahomes, fine. I get that. But arguing that McBeane are failing because of Watkins is stubborn or stupid. I will listen to that argument when Sammy has a legitimate 1000 yard season, not before. I dont think there is even a 5% chance McBeane are in trouble if the Bill's are 8-8 this year. They have been completely clear that they're building for the long term and there's no evidence that the Pegulas aren't on board with that. The Pegs could grow impatient, for sure, but I think that happens only at 6-10 or worse.

Some people aren't looking for that evidence very hard, because they won't acknowledge the evidence all over the place. Still, you're right about the QB. Do everything else right and get the QB wrong, you're nowhere.

It's what happens when some people can't understand that it's possible to be doing a good job at a task without yet having a lot to show for it.

I have referred often to what Ernie Accorsi says in his book GM. It's something like "you cannot win with three prima donnas on your team, it's possible but not likely with two prima donnas, and it's possible with one." The evidence of that is on view year after year in the NFL. Who trades an OBJ? A coach and a GM who understand that they need to build a team, and guy with OBJ's attitude makes it very difficult. Th stories earlier this year about Aaron Rodgers and Mike McCarthy are another example. Rodgers has made it very difficult to win in Green Bay. So bashing McBeane for unloading Watkins and Dareus, particularly, doesn't make sense to me. It's bad for the team to ask the coach to focus his attention on the personal wants and needs of individual players. Coaches need those players to show everyone else how to behave. Those have both to be the MOST talented and have the best work ethics, not the worst.

I think it's kind of funny that people don't see this simple fact. Sammy was one of the most coveted receivers in the draft in the last 20 years. He was as much of a can't-miss receiver prospect as the league sees. Other than an occasional flash, he hasn't performed. Robert Foster's occasional flashes in 2018 were as good and as numerous as Sammy's. The problem with the NFL, something some fans have trouble recognizing, is that the NFL doesn't give you anything as a player - you have to earn everything you get. And it doesn't matter how good you were in college, you have to earn it in the NFL. Sammy never earned it. He had the talent, but he never did the work to be as good as he could have been. He admitted it a year after he left Buffalo. People are still in love with the IDEA of Sammy. Sammy the guy with speed, great moves, punt-returner type elusiveness, excellent hands, tackle breaking ability. He had it all. He just never put in the work to be what he could have been. Now, like a lot of guys after five years in the league, those really top-end attributes have been muted by age and injury. He still has enough to be a really valuable receiver, if the work-ethic and commitment to team and excellence finally emerge. I can understand the logic of complaining when you trade away a high pick, an identifiable talent who later becomes a star elsewhere, like a Marshawn Lynch. There reasons he had to go, but maybe he could have been salvaged in Buffalo. But I just scratch my head when people try to prove that a coach and a GM are doing a bad job when they give up on a failed superstar who can't become a consistent starting receiver for the best QBs in the league. Do we think Julio Jones would be the number 3 guy in Kansas City? The simple fact is that through this point in his career, Sammy has underperformed his promise - badly - and has done nothing more than dozens of journeymen NFL receivers. He just happens to get paid more than those others.

Absolutely. They don't have to be media darlings. But they need to be able to stand up there and handle the questions that legitimately must be answered by the CEO. They fell down badly in those couple of months.

I dont remember all these details bit it sou.ds mostly correct. As I wrote yesterday, I think McD essentially had an option to pull the trigger on Whaley. McD worked with him for a while and decided he wanted a new guy. Also decided he would wait to get a QB. I think you're absolutely correct about Terry not getting out in front of the entire mess surrounding the.coaching change. I think the Pegulas got their PR education during that month. I think they saw how important PR is to maintaining an environment within which the coach and GM can do their jobs. So they put on their big boy pants and straightened things out, including going to the Buffalo News and telling them they'd had enough. McDermott obviously worked hard to develop relationships with the press and Beane did, too, when he arrived. And the Pegulas became more visible as the people in charge. It all seemed to me to be a good example of the Pegs growing into their jobs.

Well, I've never bought this theory about Beane calling any shots on the Bills 2017 draft. I just don't think the Pegulas would risk tampering claims, or whatever the charge would have been. And if you believe the way the Beane hire was reported, when the Bills DID approach Beane, McD was part of a sales pitch that suggests that Beane didn't have moving to Buffalo as his priority. McD had to convince him to take a shot. So, if he was on the fence AFTER the draft, he certainly wouldn't have been feeding draft information to the Bills before the draft. But, the timing of it all IS intriguing, so if when the history is written ten years from now it comes out that Beane was in on the 2017 draft, well, that will be very interesting. And that, my friend, describes the ideal way for those changes to have come to pass - the three of them talking about what they can do and the three of coming up with this. If that happened, and if it continues to happen, that's simply ideal.

Belichick is a football savant, yes, but he's a football student, as well. He spent his most important years in his coaching development strictly on defense. He hadn't yet brought his football mind to bear on the offense until he became a head coach. His study of the offense may have begun when he was young, but his mastery didn't arise until several years of success in New England. Not arguing, just thinking through who he is and how he got there. I think you're right about how the decision was made. Not unliike the decision about how to use Lorenzo Alexander in 2018. The coaches went to him and asked him, and they worked out a better way to take advantage of his talents on the field. I hope it was Daboll who noticed. It IS part of his job, a key part of his job, but that doesn't mean he thought of it. For all we know Allen went to him and asked for more speed at wideout. Still, as I think you suggested earlier, at this point I don't care where offensive inspiration comes from this year, so long as it comes.

This, but it's pretty good evidence that McD simply was not prepared to pull the trigger on a QB in 2017. You know Reid wants to make a big move, so you know it's almost certainly for a QB. Everyone knew that both Watson and Mahomes had talent (along with some questions), mid to high first round talent. Same thing Allen had the following year - talent and questions. Why did McD trade away from one opportunity and trade up into another? It means he had the courage to make the call; he just wasn't prepared to make it in 2017. Now, you can argue that he just misevaluated Watson and Mahomes but (1) that would have been pretty hard to do and (2) that would have been Whaley's call, in all likelihood. Much more likely that McD wasn't ready to pull that trigger because he wanted a new GM there to make the decision - he didn't trust Whaley. As I've speculated before, I think McD had kind of an option on Whaley - I think when he was hired, the Pegulas asked him about Whaley and McDermott said he wanted to work with him through the draft and then he'd tell them. Then, probably sometime before the draft, he told the Pegulas that he wanted a new GM after the draft.