SoTier

^^^ This is what makes this NOT "a non issue". If your favorite team, ie Bills, play a team that's considered a local team, you lose that game. For Nick, it's NOT just the first 2 games of the season but also the second Bills-Jets game -- and potentially the Bills game when the Jets have a bye unless both teams have their byes during the same week. There's a lesser chance that another Bills game might also be lost if the Bills played one of the other NFL East teams during the Giants' bye week and the local FOX affiliate picked up that game. IIRC, the local stations in the Binghamton area where Beast lives also consider the Jets and Giants as their "local teams".

The possibility that Allen isn't "the real deal franchise QB" is very real. About half of all first round QBs who aren't taken first overall fail. The list is voted on by the players, not by "national media types", so Buffalo being a small market is irrelevant. The Bills being a team that only won 6 games with an inept offense and a defense that couldn't stop the run too often, especially in the Red Zone, probably had something to do with it. Outside of White, who exactly on the Bills roster was an outstanding talent for most of 2018?

Actually, Miami has Rosen, the Skins have Haskins, and the Ravens have Jackson, all first round QBs in 2018 or 2019, so they have QBs with "legitimate expections that they will be very good" just as much as the Bills and the Jets. In fact, Jackson took the Ravens to the playoffs with a 10-6 record in 2018, and the Ravens appear to have retooled their offense to take advantage of his unique abilities and help him succeed. Tennessee is the only one of the teams that you named that doesn't have a proven starter -- unless you're still waiting on Mariota -- or a promising youngster. I think you missed that Tampa is still waiting on Winston to play like the #1 overall pick he was several years ago as he hasn't played better than or as consistently as his QB classmate, Mariota.

Taylor is competent which isn't the same as being a starting caliber QB, and I never said he was starting caliber. He can come into a game or he can start one -- or more -- and at least give a team a chance to win. On occasion, he can make some plays that could win games. We don't know at this point is Allen can do as well. Taylor played pretty well as a first year starter, but at some point in his second season as one (2016) he hit the proverbial wall that marked the upper limits of his ability. That could happen to Allen, too. I remember that Mark Sanchez looked like he was going to become the Jests' "guy" for the next decade early in his second season, but about midway through, he just stopped developing and never got any better. This is frequently what happens to first round and second round QBs who play well in their first seasons as starters but never develop into franchise QBs.

Excuse me, but how do we know that the Bills aren't STILL "missing the most important piece"? Allen hasn't proven that he's can even be a low level competent NFL QB at this point. Taylor was at least that.

The OP was talking about the Bills' WR corps not individuals. He ignored the fact that in 2016 the Bills had 3 good NFL WRs on the roster who were significantly better individually and collectively than the Bills current WRs. As other posters mentioned, in 2015, the Bills had an even better WR corps because they also had Hogan.

ROTFLMAO!!! These guys are nothing special, individually or together, except in the minds of ignorant and/or delusional Bills fans. Zay Jones is barely an NFL caliber WR who wouldn't be anything more than a fourth or fifth WR on most NFL teams. Brown and Beasley are competent. Foster is promising. I suppose you conveniently "forgot" that the Bills had Sammy Watkins, Robert Woods, and Marquise Goodwin in 2016 before McDermott and Beane decided that none of them was worth keeping around.

I'm sorry for your loss, Gug. I lost my beloved Standard Poodle Tucker very suddenly in February. Don't be too proud to grieve. The unconditional love of pets is a priceless gift.

The Bills traded away the opportunity to draft Patrick Mahomes. That will haunt the 2017 draft unless Allen turns into a HOF QB because that looks like where Mahomes is heading. Trading away the opportunity to draft a franchise QB in order to take a DB, no matter how good, is a mistake. Great DBs are a dime a dozen compared to great QBs, and the difference in importance between the two positions is immeasurable. The Bills wasted a pick in trading up to take Zay Jones, who has only been a starter because the Bills don't have anybody better -- while JuJu Smith-Schuster was still on the board. The Bills traded up to take Dion Dawkins. That might or might not be a worthwhile pick but Dawkins has to step up and not be a starter simply because -- again -- there's nobody better. Milano is a good pick for a fifth round pick. A good draft produces players who can start on most teams in the NFL. The 2017 draft produced 1 player, White, and maybe another in Milano. Jones wouldn't start on most NFL teams, and Dawkins wouldn't be good enough to start on many. A great draft produces elite and excellent players, and the Bills passed on one when they had the opportunity.

No, that's NOT what I call Jauron-ball at all. Playing not to lose is Jauron ball or Fox ball or Fisher ball. It discounts offensive football and relies on the defense to keep the score low and force the opposition to make mistakes. Belichick never plays not to lose, and a good running game is still offensive football.

Really? Marrone is better on paper and on the field. Marrone's Jags won 10 games in 2017, something the Bills haven't done in this century. They not only beat the Bills in the WC game, they went into Pittsburgh and beat the Steelers 45-42 before losing to the Pats in Gillette when the Pats came back from a 10 point second half deficit to win 20-24.

Get back to me when McDermott actually proves he's better than Mularkey or Marrone, both of whom have won playoff games.

Other teams manage to find them ... the Eagles, the Colts, the Rams, the Bears ... Hell, the Chargers hired former Bills assistant and interim HC Anthony Lynn whom the Bills inteviewed but rejected for McDermott. I suppose doing well in shorts and tshirts is better than stinking it up, but as Nathan Peterman demonstrated, doing well in practice means squat. Performing in games is what matters, and Allen has to prove that he can do that in the chaos of game time. It's easier said than done.

Excuses should be hard to come by, but I guarantee you that if the Bills suck again, the McDermott-Beane worshippers will have a semi-truck full of them. They've convinced themselves that the "cause" of the Bills last twenty years of mediocrity is a) not hiring a GM/HC with "a plan" and b) not allowing that plan enough time to "develop" even if it shows no signs of progress.

Well, maybe the Bills should have hired their own "QB whisperer" rather than a guy from the Dick Jauron/John Fox/Jeff Fisher play not to lose coaching frat.

^^^ The Bills have lost 8 times by 20 or more points in 32 games under McDermott. That's 1 out of every 4 games or 25% of games over 2 years. 2017: Saints, 47-10 Chargers, 54-24 Pats, 23-3 Pats, 37-16 2018: Ravens, 47-3 Packers, 22-0 Colts, 37-5 Bears, 41-9 The Bills have also been uncompetitive in at least 3 games under McDermott. In 2017 the Bills lost to the Jets by 13 points, losing 34-21, but they scored 2 TDs in the last 4 minutes. In 2018, the Bills lost to the Chargers 31-20 when the Chargers coasted in the 2nd half after building a 28-6 lead at half time early in the season and in the last game of the season, the Bills lost to the Pats 24-12 but they scored their only TD in the last minute of the game. Try to spin it however you want, but the Bills have not been truly competitive in 11 of their 32 games under McDermott. That's almost 1 in 3 games. I don't think that many of the other teams that made the playoffs in the last 3 years have played so many uncompetitive games. It's not a good sign if it continues.

I like Allen better, too, but only because I have never liked Darnold. Darnold reminds me of other over-hyped USC QBs like Sanchez and Leinart. He does have better passing skills at present than Allen, so it's possible that he might put up better stats as a sophomore. Allen has a longer way to go mechanically but I think if he can learn to make better decisions, he can have a better long term NFL career. This. I have a set of criteria that I would consider indicate significant progress this season: (without significant injuries, especially to Allen) 8 wins with fewer losses by 2+ TDs (they had 5 in 2018) ; Allen showing significant improvement as a passer, especially in his decision making; the defense improving both their run and Red Zone defense. Gunner is pretty dead on about the Patriots' problems with the Fins. For whatever reason, it seems that the Patriots are most likely to have a collective brain fart and lose to the Carp, especially in Miami, than to any other team. Fifteen years ago, the Pats came storming into Miami after Wannstadt was fired and lost 29-28 on a last minute TD from AJ Feeley to Derrius Thomas. The mistake wasn't keeping Anderson, it was signing him at all -- and waiting almost a month to do it. They should have signed Barkley immediately after the season opener. They likely would have won the Houston game with Barkley but they lost all chance when Peterman threw his patented pick six.

If you want to blindly buy what Pegula, Beane, and McDermott are selling, knock yourself out excusing their moves. As I've posted several times on this board already, I'll be happy to eat crow if the Bills are successful, but I'll remain skeptical until they actually do win. ROTFLMAO. None of the 2018 first round rookie QBs has proven he's likely to be a successful NFL QB except for maybe Mayfield. Darnold, Allen, Rosen and Jackson all have to improve their games significantly just to get to be "competent NFL QBs", and there's no guarantees that any of the five will be still be NFL starting QBs in five years.

Cry me a river for the Bills cap situation in 2018. If the Bills organization -- from Pegula to Beane to McDermott -- was truly dedicated to building a winning team, they wouldn't have traded cap space for short term salary savings at the expense of wins, which is what they did in 2018. Fifty million dollars in dead cap money means millions of dollars that the Bills didn't pay in actual salaries in 2018 -- and the Bills had one of the lowest actual team salary total in the league in 2018 because they traded away/released most of their higher paid players and filled their roster with too many non-NFL caliber players, many of them on rookie contracts so they were being paid peanuts. The entire mess at QB last season was the result of the Bills trying to pinch pennies. Tyrod Taylor isn't a starting caliber QB but he's more than adequate as a backup. AJ McCarron didn't have Taylor's experience but he had shown himself decently in his limited regular season opportunities, which is much more than could ever been said for Nate Peterman. Taylor's salary for 2018 was probably about $10 million, McCarron's about $3 million, and Peterman's about $700k. The Bills took cap hits for trading away both Taylor and McCarron but saved millions in actual dollars by keeping Peterman. This team is being built to play Jauron ball or Fox ball or Fisher ball -- play not to lose football -- featuring boring offenses and non-clutch defenses. When the planets align perfectly, they have a winning season or even a playoff game but mostly they have excuses, even when they have good young QBs like Fox and Fisher had in Chicago and the Rams. Yeah, somebody obviously forgot to tell that to Howie Roseman and Les Snead. I don't expect a Super Bowl from Pegula, Beane, and McDermott at all. I'm not sure how Pegula made his billions, but it doesn't seem likely that it was because he could identify people with "the right stuff". In his 7 full years as Sabres owner, his teams have been sucked. In his 5 full years as Bills owner, his teams have sucked except for one lucky season where the Bills squeaked into the playoffs before returning to their bottom-feeder ways. Promoting Russ Brandon to head up both the Sabres and Bills sure paid off big in 2018. Beane is a refugee from the Dave Gettleman regime in Carolina. Gettleman does not seem to be a shining star among NFL GMs. He inherited a decent Carolina team that he did get to the Super Bowl, but Carolina remains a feast or famine type team. McDermott is a defensive minded HC who doesn't know/care much about the offensive side of the ball, and that style is passe in today's NFL because it's not a formula for winning consistently in today's NFL. Too many teams have high powered offenses that can score on almost any defense, and good enough defenses to easily stop mediocre offenses that aren't good in the Red Zone.

Who's fault is that???? The Bills traded away Taylor and then AJ McCarron in order to start Nate Peterman. Then they wasted a month of the regular season waiting for Anderson to finish up his golf tournament after it became clear to just about everybody but McDermott -- as early as the first half of the season opener -- that Peterman wasn't an NFL QB.

McDermott's teams haven't even been competitive with the Patriots. In 2017, they were blown out 23-3 and 37-16. In 2018 they lost the first game 25-6, and the second game, a deceiving 24-6, but NE was up 24-6 before the Bills scored a late TD with the game already decided. That's a point differential of -72 with 3 of the losses by 19, 20, and 21 points. What about this record suggests this team is likely to develop into a "Patriot killer" until Brady and Belichick ride off into the sunset?

Right-o. 0-4 against Brady and Belichick just screams 'a Patriot killer'.

I've been a Bills fan since 1963 when my dad took me to a Bills game in the Old Rockpile. I was a season ticket holder for a while --- until the Bills gave Dick Jauron an extension for 2009. Watching the team I love suck for the last twenty years while so many other teams have won big time, slid down down, and re-emerged as winners again -- sometimes doing this process more than once -- over the last twenty years has made me very skeptical of the motivation of the Bills owners and the competence of the "football people" they hire.

Oh, don't be such a hater!!! Of course the Bills are going to win 10 games ... the true Billievers on TSW guarantee it because McDermott and Beane walk on water .... and Brady and NE have to start demonstrating their incompetence some season.

As someone who loves both history and science (my careers included teaching and IT), I am in absolute awe at the accomplishment of Apollo 11. In 1903, the Wright Brothers made the first motorized air flight. In 1969, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. The technological innovations that went into going from a bi-plane to a lunar lander probably exceeded all the technological innovations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Much of the technology we take for granted today has its roots the Apollo program.