SoTier

I don't think it's about the Bills failing to be "proactive". I think that it was a corporate policy under Wilson's ownership and even into Pegula's tenure when Russ Brandon was running the ball. From the late 1990s through 2017, the Bills frequently drafted DBs in the first or second rounds, traded/let the best ones walk in FA, and replaced them with more first or second rounders. They also drafted and then disposed of RBs similarly (Travis Henry (2002), Willis McGahee (2003), Marshawn Lynch (2007), and CJ Spiller (2010)).

There have been 11 win teams that have missed the playoffs. In 2008, the 11-5 Pats lost the division to Miami and the final WC to the Ravens on tie-breakers.

That "possible connection" is the HC sharing the same fundamental football philosophy as in 2008 with a defensive minded HC who values JAGs who totally buy into his system over more talented players who may not. That describes both Jauron and McDermott. Jauron considered offense a necessary evil, but McDermott isn't as radical. Unfortunately, the league emphasizes offense much more now that it did a decade ago, so the Bills offense remains very poor compared to the rest of the league. Because both teams had easy early schedules, they appeared to be much better teams than they actually were/are. I think that the 2019 Bills are at least significantly better on defense than the 2008 squad, and McDermott is a better coach than Jauron. The 2008 Bills started 5-2 and went 2-7 the rest of the way. The 2019 Bills should be better than that, but I think that they have to improve significantly on offense to get to 10 wins. They could easily lose all of the late season gauntlet of Dallas, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and NE.

Fans are divided on what needs to be done about the offense, but they recognize that the offense needs some kind of change because it's ineffective at best and sometimes worse. Do the Bills FO/CS even acknowledge that? I'm not sure that they do. Many fans are calling for more running plays because it's widely accepted that a strong running game is a big help to any QB but especially a young one. It takes a lot of pressure off him. It also expands the play book to include play action passing which is very effective in slowing down the pass rush. Gore hasn't had that many carries before or since. Most good RBs tend to run better as they get more carries because they get into a rhythm -- as does their OL. A team can't have a good running game if their RBs frequently rush the ball 20 or fewer times a game and/or fail to rack up considerably more than 100+ yards with regularity. Part of it is on the OL but part of it is simply not running enough. Even without Allen's yards, the RBs' average per carry is decent. That says that the coaches aren't calling enough run plays rather than the RBs aren't moving the ball.

LOL. See above. I'll stand by what I wrote. The Bills didn't even run for 100 yards (actually 98) total against the Eagles. They piled up all of 102 rushing yards against the Titans (a good defensive team). If not for Allen's rushing production, the Bills wouldn't be ranked anywhere near the top ten in rushing.

No, the Bills ran for 135 yards and 1 TD in 22 attempts against the Pats, 26 of those yards and the TD coming from 5 Allen runs. That means that the RBs -- ie, Frank Gore -- ran for 109 yards in 17 attempts. Even a blind squirrel can find a nut now and again. Gore hasn't come close to that production before or since the Pats game.

Whoopty-doo. The Bills run game is good against bottom feeders, but it's not all that good against respectable, middle of the pack teams like the Eagles, and lousy against serious defenses. The Bills didn't lose by a FG to a great team. They got drubbed and exposed by a decent Eagles team, not a Super Bowl contending Eagles team, losing by 18 points.

I whole heartedly agree it's a matter of philosophy. They are trying to turn a gunslinger QB prospect into a game manager because they play not to lose on offense. It's depressingly reminiscent of the Jauron era where the Bills took another first round gunslinger propspect with ball security issues, JP Losman, and tried to turn him into a game manager.

The lack of 300 games isn't on Allen as much as it's on the coaching staff and the front office. Except for Allen, most of the resources have gone to the defense, and the crows are coming home to roost. If you want a good offense, you have to have good/great skill players to execute it. You have to have imaginative play design. You have to have a philosophy that expects a TD on every drive. Most of the players around Allen aren't good enough. The offensive coaching isn't good enough. The philosophy of playing offense not to lose isn't good enough. How much better would Allen be if he could depend upon Robert Woods, Marquise Goodwin, and Sammy Watkins to get open and catch anything he threw in their vicinity? TBH, the Bills offense looks much like it has in the past under previous regimes -- just not good enough.

McDermott being a defensive coach is not an excuse for the team's poor offensive performance three years into his coaching tenure. A head coach is responsible for all three phases of the game: defense, offense, and special teams. Sean McVay and Matt LaFleur, both young offensive coaches, recognized that their defensive limitations upon being hired. McVay went out and hired the venerable defensive genius Wade Phillips and LaFleur retained Mike Pettine from Mike McCarthy's staff. The Rams D has been great, and with the addition of some serious defensive talent, the Packers D under Pettine looks ready to take on anybody. McDermott's on his second generation of coaches at most of the offensive and ST coaching positions, and the improvement in performance has been modest at best. While McDermott's choices for offensive coordinators and position coaches have been poor to mediocre, his failure to bring in an experienced QB coach for Josh Allen last season is probably his most egregious mishandling of the offense to date. Now, to be fair, if McDermott actually wanted to bring in a QB coach last season and that was nixed by Beane or someone higher up the corporate food chain at OBD, then it's not on McDermott. It's entirely possible that part of McDermott's problems with hiring offensive coaches is simply money: that the amount of money that the Bills have budgeted for coaches is simply too small to enable the HC to bring in top assistants. In previous regimes, especially when Russ Brandon ruled the roost, the Bills were notoriously cheap when it came to paying coaches. Under Brandon, the Bills HCs were Jauron, Gailey, and Marrone, none of them top rate, and their assistants were nothing special. I do believe that Perry Fewell was the only one who went on to bigger and better, winning a SB with the Giants as their DC. Pegula obviously changed that with the hiring of Ryan and his entourage, but Ryan's failure opened the door for Brandon to assert his "money ball" tactics. Since Beane was hired on Brandon's watch, he could very well be of the same mind as his former boss. I don't know because I'm not privy to anything that goes on at OBD, but usually execs hire top assistants who share their business philosophies. Unfortunately, whether it's his inability/disinterest in the offense or front office policies that limit his options, the poor offensive performances are going to land on McDermott sooner or later. It's plausible that the Bills go 4-5 down the stretch, wind up 9-7, and miss the playoffs since they have to play Dallas, Baltimore, and New England plus they face two teams with strong running attacks, Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

Other teams didn't trade up to take Zay Jones though. Passing on a prospect is one thing. Trading up to take a lesser prospect at the same position is another but continue to make excuses.

Allen's rushes and attempts make the Bills rushing game look much better statistically than it actually is. If you take out Allen's attempts and yards, the Bills would be #32 in attempts with 17.9 and #24 in yards per game at 91.3, so opponents aren't particularly worried about the Bills RBs. Consequently, opponents aren't going to regularly sell out to stop the Bills running backs, and play action can't be a viable passing option in that situation.

Maybe you need to pay some attention to what's going on around the league. These coaches all managed to "assemble enough talent" to be more than "effective" in their first or second years as HC: Andy Reid in KC. Doug Pederson in Philadelphia. Sean McVay with the LA Rams. Anthony Lynn with the LA Chargers. Frank Reich in Indy. Matt LaFleur in Green Bay. McDermott is in his third year, and his team doesn't look much better than a 7-9 win team that might benefit from an easy schedule.

Allen will be stunted in this offense because this offense doesn't have enough talent to compete with quality teams like the Pats or the Eagles. He gets no help from the running game, so running play action isn't a realistic option. He's got a couple of decent WRs, intermittent decent play from other WRs and TEs, no reliable pass catching RB. Actually, he made the playoffs with a decent roster that he inherited and began dismantling. He and Beane finished the job in 2018, so I suppose that they deserve medals if the team manages to win 9 or 10 games with a schedule filled with tankers and bottom feeders?

Who hired "that waste of space OC" AFTER he hired the previous "waste of space OC"?

Yes, Beane's personnel evaluation skills are legendary ... at least in the minds of some.

The Bills will never be a 13-15 win team under McDermott and Beane because they are not built to compete with the superpowers of the NFL. Their model of relying on the defense to hold the oppositon to fewer than 3 TDs a game isn't realistic when the rules favor offense. Jeez maree -- KC can score 3+ TDs with a backup QB who wasn't even in the league last season; Carolina has gone 4-1 with a backup QB in his second season (who was an UDFA I think); and NO lost their future HOF QB for 5 weeks and STILL went undefeated during that span. Teams like the Saints and Chiefs have backups on offense who are considerably better than ANY offensive starter the Bills have. Teams like San Francisco and New England have backups on defense who could easily put a number of the Bills starters on the bench. More importantly, though, I think that McDermott is a HC who values talent less than scheme and "culture" while Beane puts the bottom line before winning. He wouldn't have been hired unless he shared Russ Brandon's philosophy on "money ball". So many of the moves that the Bills made in 2017 and 2018 were done to save on actual salary expense without regard to how it impacted the team on the field, including the huge amount of "dead cap" space it created against the salary cap. So far in the McDermott/Beane regime, talent has been sacrificed for $$$ and for "culture" --- and it's impacted the offense far more than the defense because lack of talent can't be hidden by schemes on the offensive side of the ball. I have said in the past and I'll say it again: the Bills have treated the offense like a redheaded stepchild. They spent a fortune in talent and draft capital on a first round QB prospect to whom they gave no support as a rookie because they didn't have an NFL caliber OL or receiving corps. Even today, those units are functional but still below average, and the lack of a solid run game makes things harder for Allen than maybe they should be. Hell, last season, they didn't even bother to hire an experienced QB coach to help Allen; their QB coach last season had one year of professional experience as a QB coach back in the 1980s at some small college program. "So many changes had to be made" is a false narrative. It was McDermott and Beane's choice to gut the team instead of building on what they had, especially on the offensive side of the ball. Too many of the players that they didn't think were "good enough" have gone on to play well on other teams throughout the league, and too many of their own choices haven't played up to expectations when they were signed/traded for or drafted.

Well, the Bills don't have the talent to be a 15 win team, sir. They have a few really good pieces, some good pieces, some prospects, and a lot of JAGs on their starting rosters. Get past the starters, and this team is full of 6th and 7th rounders and UDFAs. Some of their starters on both sides of the ball are at the ends of their careers. I think that their current talent level is about that of an 8 or 9 win team. Because of their schedule, they should be able to win 9 games this season, and they seem more likely to make the playoffs than in any season in the last decade but they are going to need significant improvement on the offensive side of the ball to win 10 or 11 games. They cannot continue to turn the ball over to the opposition and squander opportunities with stupid pre-snap penalties.

This is disingenuous comparison unless you think that Allen is a bust like Manuel. If that is the case, then why are you good with the Bills going DE instead of QB????? I totally agree. All QBs -- even the great ones -- need protection and targets to be successful. The Bills have a functional OL that could be improved. They have functional receiving corps that could use some significant improvement. They need a true #1 WR who is sure-handed and fast enough to stretch the field. He needs to be a good route runner in order to get open. IMO, the Bills are probably going to be drafting in the bottom half of the 2020 draft, so it's a perfect place to pick up top notch guard or center. A lot of top OLers, especially interior OLers, come out of the bottom half of the first round like Pouncey and DeCastro for the Steelers. Interior OL would be my first priority in the draft, especially with Morse seemingly being concussion prone. I would like to see the Bills either trade for a top WR by tomorrow or sign one in FA rather than take one in the first round. It's going to take a couple of years for a young WR to hit his stride -- if he ever does. First round WRs, especially in the lower half of the first round, are very risky picks in that they seem to be either stars or busts. If the Bills are honestly trying to build a winning team around Josh Allen then he's going to need somebody of the caliber of AJ Green or Julio Jones (two marquee WRs mentioned to be available). A top notch WR can indeed make a mediocre QB look pretty good and he can make a talented QB great. The Bills need to get Allen at least one.

McDermott ran the 2017 draft. Beane ran the 2018 and 2019 drafts. That's three drafts, and the hallmark of those three drafts is that the Bills consistently spent draft capital to move up in the draft order -- Jones, Dawkins, Allen, Edmunds, Ford. Trading up for a first round QB is one thing, but continually spending picks to trade up for other positions isn't a very smart use of draft resources, particularly when the prospects drafted don't appear to be anything special while other players at the same positions taken later have turned out as good or better than the players the Bills traded up to get. The most egregious example is trading up to take Zay Jones with JuJu Smith-Schuster available.

I don't think that the Bills coaching staff can change their style because "play it close to the vest and between the 20s" is simply McDermott's mindset. His coaches on both sides of the ball reflect the HC's philosophy.

Is the Bills defense truly an elite defense? They're good but they haven't shown that they're on the same level as the Pats or Niners, both of which dominate games.

Not only are the Bills not "engineered" to blow out teams, but as you noted, McDermott doesn't seem interested in doing that, even if his team had an offense that could put up points at will. IMO, the Bills probably aren't quite ready to go up against the NFL "super powers" because their offense isn't good enough to go toe to toe with the big boys when those offensive machines are on a roll and seem virtually unstoppable but they certainly are legitimate playoff contenders at this point in the season, more so than the Eagles.

The results weren't all that pretty in the past, either. We all remember that Elway, Kelly, and Marino came out of the historic 1983 draft as well as Ken O'Brien. But Todd Blackledge (#7) and Tony Eason (#15) were sandwiched between Elway (#1) and Marino (#27). Three QBs were taken in first round of the 1987 draft, but only Vinnie Testaverde was a successful NFL QB. The 1990 draft had 2 first rounders, Jeff George and Andre Ware, and 1991 also had 2 more first rounders: Dan McGwire and Todd Marinovich. The #1 pick in 1997 draft was Jim Druckenmiller who was a major bust who lasted only 3 seasons in the NFL while 2nd rounder Jake Plummer had a successful NFL career. Selecting and developing successful NFL QBs doesn't seems to have improved much over the last 40 or so years. It was as hit or miss 30 plus years as it is today.

I think that the real problem with picking QBs is that the evaluators seem to put way too much emphasis on arm strength and size to the neglect of other qualities that are much more important to NFL success. I think the most glaring -- and embarrassing -- example is the prejudice against shorter QBs. Two of the very best NFL QBs in the NFL -- Drew Brees and Russell Wilson -- weren't drafted in the first round because they were considered "too short". One of the biggest busts in NFL history was overall first draft pick in the 2007 draft, 6 foot, 6 inch JaMarcus Russell. The real key to a QB's success is what's between his ears. There are lots of tall QBs. There are lots of big throwers. There are lots of athletic runners. What there's not a lot of is guys who can almost instantly assess what they see on the football field, make the right decision of about how to react to that situation, and then execute whatever action they need to do to be successful. NFL professionals don't seem to be able to identify collegiate QB with these abilities with any kind of consistency, which is why selecting QBs seems to be such a hit or miss proposition.