Shaw66

It sounds like he already has it together. He turned over a new leaf after Auburn incident, and he's been a model citizen since then. There's a great interview somewhere with his coach in Canada. I can't quote it, but he said something like he's the hardest working, toughest, most dedicated player on the team. Coach raved about him. All I could think is that this guy is perfect for McDermott. He and McD will have frank conversations about his past and what he's doing to become the kind of player he wants to be. McD will be an ideal mentor for him. Frankly, I'll be surprised if he isn't the Bills' best receiver next season, and if the Bills also find a starting receiver in the draft or free agency, the receiving corps should be fine. If, for example, Williams starts with Zay and the Bills find a tight end in the draft, they have a receiving corps that won't be a liability.

Figgy - Very interesting you should say that about the Super Bowl. I think it's the kind of D McD fully intends to bring. My view of the Pats defense, every season and especially in the Super Bowl this year, is that they are always in position, they always are very physical, and they always tackle soundly. My view of the Bills defense now is they are almost always in position (they know what they're supposed to do and they do it), and McDermott has said more than once that they intend to be known around the league as as physical as any team. He's also said he expects better tackling. So, yeah, I think we're looking at an elite defense, year after year, in the making. Imagine a defense as fundamentally sound as the Pats with Edmunds roaming the middle of the field! I agree about Allen, too, except it's going to take him a few years to get there. We could see the inexperience hurting Goff, and it will hurt Allen over the next few years, too. He's going to see things where he just doesn't know what to do. Only experience can solve that problem. On the other hand, I think he's already ahead of Goff in a different sense. Watching Gilmore's INT in the fourth quarter, I thought immediately that Allen throws a touchdown or an incompletion on that play, because Allen has the arm to deliver that ball where it needed to be. We've already seen it. Not to mention the TD Goff missed because he was so late delivering the ball to the end zone. I think Allen is already better than that - Allen could have been just as late throwing, but because of his arm strength the ball would have arrived before the defender. Good enough to beat Belichick and Brady in the playoffs next season? Almost certainly not, but time will tell. I think if things go well, we're looking ahead to a solid to spectacular defense every season and outstanding quarterbacking. The Bills should be a real handful.

I don't think this is correct. I'd guess that half the starters in the NFL came from outside the top 3 picks. 84 of the guys drafted in the top 3 rounds five years ago are still in the league. 77 of the guys drafted the year before that. Only 13 of the guys drafted ten years ago are still in the league. So that suggests that in the last 10 years of drafts, something like 600 of the guys drafted in the first three rounds are still in the league. More than 100 of them aren't starters, maybe as many as 200, because a lot of the high-round draftees don't start in their rookie seasons. So that means that only 400-500 of the guys drafted in the first three rounds are starting, and there are 700 starting jobs in the NFL. That means 200-300 starters come from outside the first three rounds. On top of that, everyone platoons, and there are injuries, so you need more than just your 22 starters, and most of those guys behind your starting 22 come from outside the first three rounds. Those people are very important to your team. It isn't so much about "decent NFL careers." It's about having the talent on your team to win, and that talent runs through all 60-70 players on your team and practice squad. Finding a guy like Robey-Coleman in May is very important to how your team plays in the fall.

That's correct. 7-9 to 9-7 are all the same, all mediocre. 10-6 and 6-10 barely above and below. 11-5 and 5-11 are when you can say a team is actually good or actually bad. My point is that when you play the Pats twice in the season, 10-6 is difficult to achieve. 10-6 for the Jets, phins and Bills is like 11-5 in any other division, because you start every season with two more or less automatic losses. It's as though those teams are looking at going 10-4 just to get to barely above mediocre, and 11-3 to be actually good. Going 11-3 against any NFL schedule is pretty difficult. That's 7-0 at home and 4-3 on the road. You gotta be good to do that.

Thanks Vladi - Good thoughts. Here's what I think: McBeane are on the hot seat this season. They sold the Pegulas on the process, and 2019 is when the process has to show some results. Don't have to win the Super Bowl, but there has to be serious improvement in the team. In terms of record, 8-8 may be enough to show progress (if there are some extenuating circumstances, like injuries to key players). I think progress translates to 9-7, minimum. At the end of the season, McBeane will have a sit down with the owners and make their case for the progress they've made, and it's going to require some fast talking if they're 7-9 or worse. Why this season? Because they've cleaned out just about all the dead wood, and they've brought in players they want. They have their QB and their MLB, and 2019 is when those guys should improve and show they're for real. 2018 got them acquainted to the league; now they have to show they can be players in it. McBeane have a decent number of draft picks and all that cap room. So going into the 2019 season they should have a roster full of their kind of players, and a lot of them have now spent two years in the process. 2019 is the time to begin to deliver. Having said that, they won't get all the players they want this season. They'll be upgrading the roster for another couple of seasons, at least. In terms of what they need, minimum, for 2019. Two offensive linemen, minimum, one of whom pretty much has to be a free agent veteran. They need an anchor, and they don't have him. The other is either a free agent of a high pick who can be expected to start day one. I think they need only two because (1) they want some continuity and (2) if they upgrade two positions, people around them will play better. They need a pass receiving threat somewhere. Logic's theory makes sense to me - draft a couple of good tight ends, and you can make do the receivers you have on board. I'd be surprised if the Bills go three rounds into the draft without taking either a wideout or a TE. Actually, that's all I think the Bills ABSOLUTELY need. Of course, upgrades all around the roster would be great. They need a running back, they need a linebacker, they always need defensive linemen. They need DBs. But if they add a serious receiving threat and two starting offensive linemen, with some other new starters sprinkled in, they should have enough talent for McDermott to show he can win in the league.

Here's my thought: You can talk about this kind of free agent activity all you want. I don't expect to see anything like it. This is what I expect: 1. The only reason the Bills will sign anyone older than a guy coming off his rookie contract is because they want veteran leadership at the position. In other words, the only reason they would sign Kyle Rudolph would be if they thought he was a top-notch character guy who is 100% believer in "the process" and is willing to play out the rest of his career building a winner in Buffalo, even if the team doesn't win until after he retires. If Rudolph is that kind of guy, Beane will go after him. If he's just a really talented tight end, which is what I think he is, Beane won't bother with him. I'd love to see him with the Bills, but I doubt it's happening. 2. The players the Bills will go after are high character guys coming off their rookie contracts. They don't want older guys, because they're trying to build a particular kind of culture, and the Bills don't want to try to teach the culture to old guys. By the time the old guys get it, they retire. 3. Believe it when Beane says they high character guys who are great competitors. That's what they want. That's what the Patriots win with, and the Bills are trying to do the same thing. They look all over for those guys, and they find some of them in the later rounds, some in undrafted free agents, and some off the practice squads of other teams. As someone said in another thread, they're looking for Milanos. So I'm guessing that anyone who hopes the Bills sign this or that big-name free agent is going to be disappointed. What we're all going to be saying as they sign free agents is the Bills signed "WHO?" And in November, when WHO is making plays on the field, we're all going to be saying "where did WHO come from?"

Huh? How could Beane have sent the letter to you figuratively? You asked "Why not send this letter to all fans?" How were we supposed to read that question other than literally? You asked a literal question. Several people, including me, responded to your literal question, pointing how stupid it your question was. Then you get all upset and defensive and tells us you didn't mean it literally. Please tell us what you DID mean, because we all seem to have missed the point.

Exactly. Or the picks you throw in to move up to get an Edmunds. To your point, people lose track of the numbers. 53 players on the roster, average player career is five years. That means every year you have to add 10 players to your roster. Include practice squad and guys you pick up during the season, it means you need a dozen or more players every season. Even if you hit on 100% of your picks, most of your players would be coming from later round picks and undrafted free agents. To be successful in the draft and undrafted free agency, you need to (1) not miss on picks in the first three rounds and (2) find some good players in the later rounds. Having extra picks in the later rounds increases your chances of getting guys who contribute to your team.

Buddy - In the first place, how are the Bills going to have a mailing list for the entire fan base? The only addresses they have, residence, business or email, are only for the season ticket holders and a few other people who bought tickets or wrote them a letter. In the second place, the Bills, like any business, are going to try to treat their customers specially. You want special treatment, be a season ticket holder. In the third place, there's nothing in this letter that hasn't been said before or that isn't completely obvious. If you send me your address, I'll pull my copy of Beane's letter out of the trash and mail it to you. Having said that, I do want to thank you for having provided an excellent example of the 21st Century American it's-all-about-me attitude.

I don't know why it is that everyone misperceives the AFC East. The Jets and Dolphins were .500 teams against the rest of the league over the past 15 seasons, putting aside their games against the Pats. All three teams have been regularly in the middle of the pack in the league. So the Bills didn't fatten their record against the Jets and phins.

Pure speculation, but as good as any other wild-ass guess. I think your take on he Bills has a good chance of being right on the money. I think their defense is going to terrorize the league for years.

I'm not going to sit here and argue that the Bills Jets and Dolphins were good competition for the Patriots - those three teams haven't put many competitive teams on the field. But you have to understand that what you just said sounds great, but it isn't. When you have the Pats in you division, it means you effectively start the season 0-2, because almost ANY TEAM in the league will go 0-2 against the Pats if they have to play them twice. I don't think any of the three has beaten the Pats twice in a season, and all three usually get swept. Since you start 0-2, it means to get 10 wins you have to go 10-4 against the rest of the league, and that's really hard to do. So it isn't surprising that the AFCE hasn't had many teams other than the Pats winning 10 games. It's true, as someone said, that the Bills Dolphins and Jets haven't acquired good QBs for a decade. But it's also true they haven't had good continuity in the front office and the HC position. Why? A lot of reasons, but one of them is that it's hard to win 10 games if you're in the Pats' division, and if you can't win 10 games, you don't keep your GM or HC job very long. It's very much a chicken or the egg thing. Only one McVay has come along in the last 10 years, and he happened not to take a job in the AFCE. Almost every other new coach in the league over the last 10 years wouldn't have done any better playing the Pats twice a season. The Pats beat EVERYBODY, and it's a huge disadvantage to play them twice a year.

It's not so much that the three teams have been crummy - it's that they've been pretty consistently mediocre. Over the Pats' reign, and excluding their games against the Pats, all three teams are just under .500, and they haven't had prolonged stretches of really, really inept play like the Browns did. Over the past 20 years it's reasonable to assume that one of those teams would have had a stretch where they were good. Jets have been the best, winning 10 or 11 five times in the new centuries. But they didn't put together a prolonged run. 2008-2011 wasn't bad, 9, 9 , 11 and 8 wins. That's pretty good, given that they had to play the Pats twice each season. 2000 to 2003 Dolphins won 11, 11, 9 and 10, but that was just at the beginning of the Pats' run. Since then they've been regularly mediocre. It's true the AFCE east didn't put together another premier team over the period of Pats dominance, but the Steelers only had the Ravens occasionally and the Bengals to worry about. The Colts had more or less no one. The fact is that the Pats, Colts and Steelers are the only AFC teams who were more or less consistent winners. Chiefs and Chargers rarely were horrible, but they generally haven't been scaring anyone. So, yeah, although it's true the three AFCE teams didn't mount much of a threat to the Pats, that's not very surprising. I'll say it again - the Pats' success is about the Pats.

I understand that. That means that of ten games outside the division, two are against playoff teams from the season before that the Jets, phins and Bill's don't have to play. So 20% of their schedule is tougher, and they win more against that schedule than they win against the AFCE.

Here are some facts for you to consider: Since about 2002, the Patriots have a BETTER record against the rest of the league than against the AFC east teams. Put another way, the Bills, Jets and Dolphins beat the Pats MORE than the rest of the league. And because the Pats win the AFCE every year, it means they play some of the best teams in the league in the regular season. What the Pats have done is about the Pats, not about the AFCE.

Thurm, thanks for the kind words. The feeling is mutual. I'll give you three pieces of evidence as to why I think I'm correct about this. And, of course, we can't ever know, because we won't ever see Brady play for other teams. 1. We've seen through the Pats' run of excellence that ordinary players play better for the Pats. Bruschi and Vrabel to name a couple, just weren't all that good, but they made big plays consistently for the Pats. It's true about their DBs year after year. And players who look like stars never look so good when they leave New England. Players play better in New England, and that's coaching. It makes sense that his QBs play better, too. And, in fact, Cassel did. 2. I heard a guy a year or two ago on the radio. He was a retired player, had played for several teams, including the Pats. I missed the introduction, so I never heard who it was. He said that every week the Pats coaches would give him three or four or five keys to watch for against particular players who would line up across for him, keys that would provide valuable information about what play was coming. Sometimes just run or pass or inside or outside, but valuable information. He said the information was always correct, and that no coaches on any other team that for him. 3. There was a time about 6 or 7 years ago when Brady started the first seven or eight games of the season completely mediocre. He was, truly, at the Fitzpatrick level. Then about the beginning of November, he caught fire and all through November he became the GOAT Brady again. I heard him interviewed about it. Someone asked him how he turned it around. He said something like this: "It's simple. Bill and I have a routine. Every Wednesday after practice we spend two hours watching film, talking about the game plan, talking about what I need to do in this or that situation. As you know, this year we had a lot of young, new guys on defense, and our defense needed a lot of work. Bill didn't have time to meet with me, because he needed to spend time on the defense. So by about the end of October, the defense was in better shape, and Bill and I started meeting again." He was completely clear that in order to play like the Brady we know, he needed his weekly download from Belichick. As I said, Brady is the only great quarterback who has no great physical skills. Except his short-range accuracy, which I think is amazing, but even that was learned as a Patriot. What makes Brady great is his brain. But I think what's great about Brady is that he's smart enough and disciplined enough to absorb Belichick's brilliance and reflect it on the field. And, as you've said, I agree that they needed each other. Belichick would never have won like this without Brady, because Brady is perfect for him. But as I said, I think if they hadn't found each other, Belichick would still be in the Hall, and Brady wouldn't.

I agree you may be correct and that I may be guilty as charged. However I think they really valued Murphy and Star for their intensity and leadership. I'd guess they would tell you they got what they paid for. I think people haven't paid attention when McBeane talk about what they are doing. Their free agents are character and leadership guys. They're signing those guys to teach the youngsters. Pretty sure it was Mcdermott's first season. surprised me when he said it. But he was serious about it. I think he thinks strong faith is an indicator of the kind of commitment he wants from players.

McDermott has talked about this. He values people with strong faith. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm saying that's what McDermott said.

Actually, I think the first step in becoming good is beating the teams you should beat, so, yes, I'll be happy when the Bills go 11-5 with 5 losses to playoff teams. Gotta get there before you become the team that beats good teams.

Read much? I didn't say they are requiring people to be religious. I'm saying that IF they're religious, McBeane like them to be serious about it. They've said that.

You're right, they want what you might call blue collar players. They have a very clear set of criteria in mind. And I get that you may disagree, as do a lot of fans. My point is that with this GM and coach, the things the article talks about are largely irrelevant. Players for whom those things are important are not the guys McBeane want. Maybe that means that the Bills won't succeed, because maybe their view of the world can't produce winners. All I'm saying is that the Bills currently are at no competitive disadvantage in free agency currently, because the things that create the "disadvantage" are not important to the players that McBeane want.

Apologies to all who've posted here. I haven't read any posts; just read the article. When Logic posts, I have to listen, and he's right on the money, so to speak, with this article. In many respects I think what's said in this article is irrelevant. True, but irrelevant. I'll get to that in a minute. First, Nix's comments are interesting. We've heard about the taxes before, but the article makes it very clear. The agents are doing these calculations, and I would guess that there are times in the past when the Bills have had to raise an offer simply to cover the tax differential with the team they're competing with to get a player. Second, Nix's point about the players making decisions based on things that seem trivial. I'm sure that happens. Third, wives definitely can have an impact. Here's why I think the article is largely irrelevant: McBeane have made it very clear that they only want players who are buying what they are selling. They are selling a team concept that is ALL IN - truly ALL IN - with team, competition, hard work, continuous improvement. They are looking for guys who are maniacal about contributing to a team that wins football games. So when you read what Jared Cook says in the article, about how the city has to be interesting, what that tells you is that Jared Cook isn't going to be a Buffalo Bill. For McDermott only two two or three things are important: (1) Are you the kind of player who is looking for this team environment, (2) Is family the only other thing you care about as deeply as winning in a team environment and (3), if you're religious, is your religion up there with 1 and 2? That's it. The minute McDermott understands that local entertainment options is a consideration for a player, that player is off the list. The only thing that's relevant about the city of Buffalo, so far as McDermott is concerned, is that it is a city whose fans are as passionate as they could possibly be about the team. The guys McBeane want are guys who view fan passion as a plus. Those guys don't care how many malls there are, how many night clubs there are, but they are in love with the idea that the fans are over the top. Look at the Patriots. I like Boston, but it's kind of an acquired taste. Young football players who are looking for nightlife can find plenty of activity in Boston, but the whole vibe is intellectual. It isn't about partying. Does New England have trouble signing free agents? I'm sure there are some free agents who say they don't want to live in Boston (which, by the way, has some of the same tax problems New York does). Yes, for that reason, and because Belichick simply will not pay top dollar for the big names, the Pats have trouble signing free agents. But guess what - Belichick, like McBeane, doesn't want guys who make their decisions about where to play based on money or night life. Bottom line is that the pool from which McBeane select free agents doesn't include guys who find Buffalo unattractive, for tax reasons or lifestyle reasons. The minute those guys say they need more money because the city is a problem, McBeane stop wasting their time on them. They don't want guys who think differences in the money are important, and they don't want guys who think the city is important. Don't want them. Al of that works for McBeane, of course, only if they're winning, because the guys they want only want to commit to a process that gets results. So it's a bit of chicken or the egg. That's why, as the article points out, Josh Allen is important. Allen makes McBeane more credible when they say this team will win.

Wow! Bart Starr! Gotta say you're right in the comparison insofar as a QB executing his coach's genius. But the game was so simple then that it isn't easy to compare. Hard to know whether Lombardi coulooks game plan with Belichick and whether Starr could execute it. Plus, Lombardi stockpiled talent in Green Bay in a way that no one can do now. As you say, it makes sense to talk only about the modern era. One other thing about Brady. If it were legal to hit QBs the way Kelly and his era got hit, we wouldnt be having this discussion. Brady would be working on Wall Street today.

I was right with you until this post. Belichick was going to be a Hall of Fame coach with or without Brady. Brady just made him better, because Brady was a perfect fit for Belichick - really smart, maniacal hard worker, intensely competitive. Exactly, by the way, what McBeane say they're looking for in their players. But Brady needed a Hall of Fame coach to make it in the league. He can't win games with any physical skills. He cant throw like Brees or Peyton or Favre. He cant run like Wilson or Elway or some others. He can beat you only with his brain processing a complex offense that precisely targets weaknesses in the defense. Brady succeeded because Belichick always figures out how to attack a defense, Belichick always adjusts the offense to attack successfully, and Brady understands both the theory and the execution. Belichick would have won with Ryan Fitzpatrick - not as much as with Brady because Brady is more accurate - but he would have won. A young Brady in Buffalo wouldnt have been as good as Fitzpatrick was. Brady and Sean Payton maybe. Brady and Andy Reid maybe. Brady would have been a journeyman with most other coaches.

Yeah, there's been a serious QB drought in the AFCE. That's true. But if the Pats were just NORMAL and had been just DECENT, they would have won 5 AFCE titles instead of twelve or whatever they won, and some other AFCE teams would at least have gone to the playoffs, bad QBs or not. As good as the Pats are, it's almost impossible for another AFCE team to make it to the playoffs, because you're always playing for the wildcard, and you start the season 0-2.