BigDingus

Movin' on up! Going to the XFL is probably an upgrade over being the Bills GM at this point

Uh, Poyer's contract was for 4 years and only $13 million (so $3.25 million a year), and Hyde's contract was 5 years for $30 million, with his 2017 salary only being $2.3 million. He got a $1.6 million signing bonus, but we were able to sign him for cheap up front by back loading the contract. Those aren't monster contracts. The league average for FS (which includes rookies) is $2.8 million a year, and $2.6 million for SS. The average salary of the top 30 safeties in the league is $7.5 million. The cap was a huge issue going into the 2017 offseason. Remember, they had only 49 players under contract heading into it, with 34 players becoming free agents (23 unrestricted). They only had $2.8 million to roll over towards the next season (compare that to this year, they'll roll over an additional $10 million into 2019), and only were left with about $24 million to spend on 41 players going into the draft & training camp. To think having only $24 million to sign quality free agents, pay rookies, and make deals with wasn't a problem is crazy, especially when the Bills were getting crap production out of all that money. And because of those poor contracts & paying crappy players, we were backed into a situation where we had to just bite the bullet & destroy our cap this year with dead money. The Bills are dead last in spending for ALL TEAMS on active salaries this year with only $125 million. Yet due to poor cap management in the past, the Bills entered the season with only $8.5 million in cap space! Thankfully next year will be a completely different story, with upwards of $90 million in cap space available, but that's because the cap WAS a problem in the past, but management decided to just take the L this year in hopes of fixing it in the long run.

Ok, I'm all for using numbers to backup an argument, but that's the stupidest "correlation equals causation" example I've ever seen. We'd have to be idiots to ignore: Rams: 1. Significant leap in Jared Goff's play his sophomore year + 2. Lost Jeff Fisher + 3. Gained Sean McVay + 4. Got Cooper Kupp (who was far more impactful than Watkins) + Chiefs: 1. Patrick Mahomes instead of Alex Smith (He's on pace to throw for 5,155 yards...compared to Smith's best year EVER 4,042 last season) + . . . . . 2. Andy Reid having someone capable of running the offense he's always wanted to run + 3. Duo of Hunt & Hill being even better their 2nd & 3rd years + 4. Patrick Mahomes....again, this matters the most. Also, let's make it more clear how goofy your example is. What if I say: Sammy Pre-Rams: 53.75 yards per game in 2016 Sammy with Rams: 39.53 yards per game in 2017 Whelp, guess the 2016 Bills > 2017 Rams, and Tyrod Taylor > Jared Goff Sammy in 2015: 80.53 yards per game Sammy in 2018: 57.22 yards per game Again, 2015 Bills > 2018 Chiefs, and Tyrod Taylor > Patrick Mahomes Not trying to be rude, but your numbers don't at all reflect some hidden Watkins-effect. He does not account for an extra TD+FG per game for the Chiefs this year, nor did he account for an extra 2 TD's per game for the Rams in 2017. I'm not even suggesting you mean he literally is responsible for those points, only that his existence on those teams did not open up an additional 10-14 points of offense every single game directly or indirectly.

I also live in Dallas and flew to games there. Let me tell you one thing though, disregard #2. You won't get a good feeling of the atmosphere that far into a Bills season, especially THIS season. The Bills don't have to be good for the fans to support them, but they have to at least be watchable. I went to a game end of November back in 2008, and we weren't half as bad as this team but weren't looking likely to make the playoffs either. We were 6-5 going into that game, and there were plenty of empty seats. Though many of the diehard fans may enjoy the cold, it's clear regular Buffalonians who aren't enamored with it dislike wasting time in the weather to watch a poor team play. My game wasn't even bad, just a tiny bit of mist in the cold, but it was clear fans weren't willing to come out. To top it off, normally nice Buffalonians are usually beaten down by this team by that point & are much more apathetic, cynical & not as cheery. I almost got in a fight in the stands, and it takes a LOT to piss me off. Thankfully I put the fear of god into that dude and he opted to just bail, but man...complete opposite atmosphere of what every other Bills game I've gone to was like. Key thing there is every other game I've gone to has been in September or October, usually the earlier in the season the better. Still, the tailgaiting was fun, and I love the city's architecture & less-modern look (compared to Dallas at least). We of course lost to the lowly 49ers, with our reliable kicker somehow missing several field goals, but it was still a decent time. I'm just saying whatever happens, don't judge the atmosphere based off of a late game this season. Come back pretty much any other time, and you'll see how awesome Bills fan really can be.

Unfortunately, I don't think this is even close to the worst place scenario. Worst case would be McDermott doubling down on a failed QB feeling the pressure to win and pulling a Sammy Watkins-esque deal where they trade 2020's 1st round pick to move back up in the draft & grab a high profile player. Then that doesn't pan out, the next regime takes over without a 1st round pick, and also starts the typical "throw out all the old regime's personnel and replace them with mine" shtick. Then any talent we invested heavily in gets gutted, opening more holes & leads to us spinning our wheels spending picks & money replacing holes we made ourselves. And with all that cap space you mentioned, they could feel compelled to overpay for players just to get them here, leaving us with massive contracts that'll put us in cap hell for years. On top of that, it won't be long for some of that other talent to hit FA, and the Bills will look like the NFL's farm league once again watching guys we drafted & developed leave for greener pastures once their deals are up. With poor management, coaching and lack of talent, we could go in circles for years to come leading to another decade or 2 of futility. Now THAT is the worst case scenario We should just alternate between WR's & O-linemen. The more O-linemen the merrier. Whether it's for depth or competition, let's get as many bodies in there and allow the cream to rise to the top. And hopefully we don't just scout the undrafted FA WR's for camp bodies as usual.

I swear Jihad on you in the name of the all-holy Ralph Wilson!

McDermott wants to stop those Muslims hiding in the Migrant Caravan, Abdullah & Allah included!

What people need to realize (myself included) is that Peterman has been yanked around worse than any QB I've ever seen in my life. Think of all the times we've seen him play. Now think about how many times the coaches have ACTUALLY stuck by him and allowed him to develop in any way, not just in words or a roster spot, but in actions. 2017: 1. Got cleanup duty in the Saints game last year when Tyrod had thrown for a whopping 56 yards through 3 quarters. Came in, went 7/10 with 1 TD. (1 Total Quarter) 2. Because in 1 quarter he did more than Tyrod did in 3, he gets the nod to start against San Diego, on the road, against a monster pass rush. First 2 INT's not his fault, but panics & tries to do too much, leading to his infamous 5 INT's in 1 half. Gets yanked. (2 Total Quarters) 3. Tyrod playing miserably again, throwing for 65 yards & 1 INT through 3 quarters against the Patriots. Tyrod gets injured in the 4th, Peterman comes in & posts a better Passer Rating and no INT's to close out the game. (1 Total Quarter) 4. Starts a couple weeks later in the Blizzard Bowl vs the Colts due to Tyrod's injury. Somehow throws a TD in that mess to put us in the lead. No INT's in those conditions, but goes down in the 3rd quarter due to injury. (2.5 Total Quarters) So for year 1, he didn't play a single full game, and had a combined 6.5 quarters of playing time. Only 1 bad game, 1 pretty good game, and 2 solid closings of games where he out performed our starter's entire game in 1 quarter (I know, cleanup duty, just saying ). 2018: ***Prologue*** Gets the "Earned the starting job" acknowledgement from coaching staff & is projected to be our season-long starter at the position while Allen gets up to speed & has time to develop. Team even trades away offseason signing McCarron to publicly show how supposedly "confident" they are in him. Coach says it's the right move for the team. All the while, analysts, "experts," and unbiased fans point out the horrendous line & WR corps that was painfully neglected, and worry that it won't matter who's behind center as they're likely to get crushed & have little help. 1. Starts against a very good Ravens defense on the road (as of right now, Ravens are #6 overall in defense, #7 in passing defense). Ravens stuff the running & passing game, Peterman can't move the ball, throwing 1 INT in the first half. WR's dropping balls, O-line getting sliced & giving up 3 sacks to that point, 6 for the game, special teams giving up big plays & punter fumbling balls, defense not stopping anything. 3rd quarter starts & Peterman throws another INT trying to get the ball to Benjamin (who barely even attempts to catch the ball). Yanked. (2 Total Quarters) ***Game 1 Epilogue*** McDermott names Allen the starter for week 2 against the Chargers. Why? "It's the right move." He elaborated by saying "It's the right move for the team," and "It's the right move at the right time." When pressed further, he detailed "It's the right move." Later, when asked how he came to that decision, he explained "It's the right move." Though just a week prior, naming Peterman the starter was the right move & what was best for the team. Now, a week later, he made another "right move," like coaches often do swapping QB's week to week. Full interview here - https://www.buffalobills.com/video/sean-mcdermott-it-s-the-right-move-for-our-team 2. Playing on the road in Houston, Allen looking bad all game having thrown for only 45 yards, but defense keeping it close. Allen gets off 1 good deep pass for 39 yards, then goes down with injury on the next play. Peterman comes in with only a couple mins left, get within FG range & cuts their lead to 6-10. 4th quarter starts, defense recovers a fumble, Peterman throws our only TD of the game, finally giving us the lead at 13-10. Get the ball back with 1:34 left to play in the game on our own 25. Just have to protect the lead. Ravens have 3 timeouts, time to make em burn them. Nope. Throw the ball, pass incomplete. Follow up throw, pick-6. Now we have to throw, only 1:16 left to drive the field. Then with only 35 seconds left, throws 2nd INT (with 35 secs game was lost anyway). Combination of crappy play calling, poor Allen play, Peterman INT's, and Special Teams lost us the game. Still had better QBR than Allen. (1 Total Quarter) 3. Derek Anderson starts vs the Patriots. Defense keeping it reasonable, Offense looks as miserable as ever. Anderson fumbles, Pats go up 12-6. We punt, Pats drive the field & score first TD, going up 18-6. Two score game, Anderson throws pick-6. Last drive of the game, Peterman comes in with 1:20 left in the 4th, with the Bills facing 3rd & 32. Throws 2 completions, game over. (1 Total Minute) 4. Gets the start against Chicago by default. Allen injured, not-even-on-the-team-for-1-month Anderson injured, our only other previous option traded before the season for a 5th round pick (who would need a 3rd QB when you have to incumbent stars already?), so Peterman unceremoniously shoved back into action. He's playing fine, rushing game getting destroyed, defense & ST blowing plays, then throws pass to Terrelle Pryor who juggles the ball & practically hands it to Chicago for an INT. Next possession pass to Jones who gets hit early (appears to be PI), tipped ball INT returned for TD. Bills down 21-0. Another blown ST play on punt the next drive, leads to a TD with 44 secs left in half. Down 28-0 going into 3rd. Benjamin & Co. dropping more passes including a TD pass right in the hands. Eventually throws 3rd INT attempted to get the ball to Benjamin (common theme on many of his INT's). Game well out of hand, but defense holds them to 3 points. Peterman scores lone TD of the game, ends the game as our rushing leader (never a good sign) with 46 yards & 1 TD. (4 Total Quarters) So for year 2, he finally got ONE full game in just this past week, with a total of 7 quarters for the season. As much as we may feel like we've seen too much of him, the guy only had his first full game 3 days ago. In his 1 & a half seasons here, he has played a combined 13.5 quarters spread out over 8 games. Now if you saw that without even looking at stats or performance, would you HONESTLY believe that anyone, let alone Peterman, was being given a fair shake or proper development? If you were told the Bills would draft a 1st round rookie QB, and that they'd evaluate his worth over 13 quarters spread over 8 games in 2 seasons, would you think the coaching staff & management were putting them in a position to succeed? Hell no. And this is coming from a guy who does not think Peterman is the answer in any way, nor do I believe he's some underappreciated player who would've been great had he not been yanked around. All I'm doing is laying out the facts, and showing this coaching staff doesn't understand the position. They preach "trust the process," yet the way the QB situation has been handled, Nathan Peterman aside, shows they don't even stand by this process. To see them make such glaring mistakes and obvious blunders makes it seem like the only tape they're watching is "The How-To on How-Not-To Handle the QB Position." Step by step, from early this offseason up through now, they're committing every cardinal sin in ruining young QB's. And considering this is the same guy who was THAT confident in Peterman & his abilities, do you really, honestly trust that he's a good judge to evaluate talent at the QB position? If not, what does that say about his endorsement & confidence in Allen, someone who was known to be the most risky prospect & who needed extensive development to actually translate his athletic talent into pro-worthy skills? I'm not saying Allen CAN'T be a franchise QB, only do you trust McDermott & Co. to be the ones to get that out of him? I know I don't.

He wanted to sign with CLEVELAND, but they opted not to. Ridiculous...

If he ends up proving everyone wrong, I'm going to be bitter. Yes, none of our QBs will ever compare to Brees, but a talented WR still playing well, one that was available all offseason and through the regular season, and us not grabbing him when we're trotting out the worst WR corps in the league would be upsetting.

Wasn't that defense just FUN to watch though? I mean, even when they allowed a decent amount of points, you knew they'd come back out there & put the fear of god into those QB's. Whether it was turnovers galore or racking up sack after sack, they were a unit that made you smile.

As much as I think Allen should sit the year, it's almost too late for that unless he's really hurt. For Allen to be shelved permanently without hurting his confidence & ruining him permanently, it would've been better had we not played him at all. We should've had Anderson in the offseason & hung on to McCarron so we had a reasonable excuse to keep Allen benched. Now it'd look like the team doesn't have faith in him, and after everything else we've done wrong. I don't know anymore honestly, he never seemed like a great pick in the first place. On top of that, our coaching staff has made every bad decision in the "ruin rookie QB forever" playbook, so salvaging this mess is going to be hard to do.

I wouldn't say "mastermind." When I hear that word, I think of what Schwartz was able to do with our defense. Now THAT was a fun defense to watch, even when our offense look anemic.

That reminds me... I met Taron Johnson's parents at the Dallas Airport heading to Houston for the game. They saw my Bills Jersey & yelled out "Hey Bills!" to me. I turned around and said hi, and his father asked me who "Dingus" was. Told them it was my last name, and that my wife got it for me for our anniversary. I asked how long he had been a Bills fan, and he said "my son plays for them." I kind of just ignored that, as I was so tired. Just said "cool," made some small talk, and walked away. Then my wife was like "YOU DIDN'T EVEN ASK ABOUT WHO HIS SON WAS?!" and I was like what, his son? Was just so out of it. Eventually saw him having drinks at an airport bar, decided to say hi again and ask about his son. He said Taron Johnson, and acted shocked when I said "Really? He's playing great!" Seemed like he didn't believe that I knew who that was, so I said "number 24 right?" and he perked up lol. They were both super nice. Sorry, I just remembered that happened 0_0

Oh! Oh! I did! Pick me!

Firing him won't change anything. Everything you see now was a result of decisions from well before the season, as it was obvious to any non-biased observer this is exactly what we'd look like since before training camp. 1. Lose your 3 best linemen (including 1 you traded away) 2. Draft the riskiest, project QB in the draft 3. Sign no veteran QB to give risky rookie QB time/mentor him 4. Invest nothing in your already miserable WR group 5. Hire an OC in Daboll that hasn't ever proven much 6. Trade away your most experienced QB (with a whopping 4 starts) before the season starts 7a) Tell everyone your starter EARNED his spot 7b) Tell everyone "nvm," and yank starter half way into game 1 & replace with risky, project rookie QB GREAT SUCCESS!

Also, he wasn't fired. He quit.

Oddly enough, Hue Jackson being fired after 1 year with the Raiders. He actually had that team moving in the right direction, but the Davis family likes those splashy guys.

Judging from your other recent posts, it seems you'll just defend & excuse anyone & everything related to the Bills.

Or, even easier, we could've just drafted Mahomes and played out the season the exact same way. Then come the offseason, we don't have to trade Glenn, lose a bunch of picks to move up to draft a QB, and already have a QB who sat a year while learning the pro game. But you said makes sense too

You should checkout this article which shows historically how bad we are - http://www.footballperspective.com/week-6-passing-stats-the-bills-are-above-average-at-passing-for-1941/ "In 1941, the league average completion percentage was 44.3%; the 2018 Bills are completing passes at a 50.6% clip" "In 1941, the average NFL team gained 122 passing yards per game; the 2018 Bills are gaining 123 passing yards per game." "If you want to use yards per attempt, you have to go back to 1935 to find a season where Buffalo’s current 5.39 Y/A average would be above average. The last time the league average ANY/A was below 2.0 was in 1938, and the NFL has never had a NY/A average as poor as the 2018 Bills." There's more, but those just excerpts really paint enough of a picture on their own...

Well last I saw he was listed as Questionable, so I guess I missed something today. Oh well, may God have mercy on Peterman's soul.

However, Chicago's defense is good at stopping the run, so I expect McDermott & Daboll to start calling more & more pass plays which will inevitably lead to more INT's.

I'm expecting Anderson to be miraculously cleared in time to play If not, I expect him to put up more points for the Bills. Unless you're counting any turnovers that lead to points as points he scored for Chicago, I think he'll have more points for us.

My idea situation is that Anderson finally gets a firm grasp of the playbook, ends up playing great, and we ride him out until the end of the season without hurting Allen's confidence. Hopefully he wouldn't feel so much pressure to produce & would actually learn something the remainder of the year & through the offseason. While he's been out there, it doesn't seem like he's actually getting GOOD experience & learning much.