SoTier

Agreed. There's absolutely no proof that Anderson did more than offer some advice to Allen. More than likely what led to Allen's improvement was his forced seat on the bench because of injury. The crew on GMFB discussed how sitting and observing for several games after having started a few games significantly helped Sam Darnold with his understanding of what was happening on the field. That both rookies looked a lot better -- seemed to actually have a better idea of what they should do -- after they came back from warming the bench and just watching for a while suggests that was the real reason for improvement. When you think about it, that's probably why most young QBs tend to improve at least marginally as second year starters: they've had a baptism of fire as it were, and then have an off-season to think about what they did/try to improve their skills/better understand what they're watching on film, and then they go back out to try again -- and most of them have figured out enough to play better while the good ones play a whole lot better.

Thanks for the article. I find it incredible how so many people can forgive/dismiss Rigas for the misery his and his sons' crimes caused so many people while at the same time condemning some stupid/addicted guy robbing a convenience store or stealing a car.

Why do you assume that Anderson would make a good QB coach? Because he gave Allen some pointers last season when the Bills had a QB coach who wasn't qualified to be one? They have a real QB coach in Dorsey, so they don't need an apprentice QB coach. Since the Bills went into last year's regular season with 3 QBs with 5 total NFL starts among them, I doubt that the Bills are all that consumed with adding a third experienced QB since Josh Allen already has 11 starts and Matt Barkley's had 7 starts over 5 years. Moreover, as last year's TC and preseason amply demonstrated, preseason "competition" is a joke when the HC's favored candidate is incompetent. If you think that McCarron made a stink just because he was an idiot, guess again. He complained because he wasn't given a fair shot at becoming the starter -- and the team knew it. That the team instantly played better when the completely inexperienced Allen took over in the 2nd half of the season opener for Peterman proves that. I'll take a "rookie QB with mechancial issues", which described Josh Allen last season and describes Tyree Jackson this season, over a QB whose only positives are knowing the playbook and trying hard. Learning the playbook and trying hard isn't only the province of veterans.

That so many fans don't watch much NFL football outside of the Bills has been my point throughout McDermott's tenure as head coach. The teams he's put on the field are clearly no where near as good as they need to be on the field on both sides of the ball in order to seriously compete for the playoffs rather than luck into them because other teams making freak plays, but especially on the offense. If any other team that won 6 games last season added the players the Bills have in 2019, none of these Bills cheerleaders would be picking them to make the playoffs at this point. It's time for Bills fans to expect better from their team -- and don't give me the Bills "not being able to afford players" or "don't want to be stuck in 'Cap Hell' BS. Other teams somehow manage to build great teams, even dynasties, with the same cap and roster restrictions as the Bills. Bills apologists have been spreading this BS for twenty years while teams like Seattle, Pittsburgh, Green Bay, Philadelphia, and Baltimore have at least as many Super Bowls wins as the Bills have playoff appearances. I don't want "2 Robert Foster's [sic] and 5 Dion Dawkins" because those guys are JAGs. I at least want 2 Robert Woods and 5 Cordy Glenns because those guys are actually good NFL players at their positions but I'd prefer to have 2 Andre Reeds and 5 Jason Peters because one is HOFer and the other is a future HOFer.

The Bills defensive rankings were very deceptive. The team was not nearly as dominant as some of its rankings suggest as evidenced by the fact that they were middle of the pack in other defensive measures. They weren't very good in stopping teams from scoring last season, especially in the Red Zone, and they frequently gave opponents short fields because of offensive turn overs. That so many opponents got up early on the Bills meant that teams could afford to be conservative late in the game. Those factors contributed significantly to that #2 ranking in yards. A major contribution to the #1 pass defense was the fact that the Bills defense too often couldn't stop the run as well as opponents' big early leads in several games enabled teams to run more. The Bills OL could improve 100% and still be too poor to give Allen enough pass pro or the RBs holes ... that's how bad it was last season. The Bills added 1 decent player, Morse, to their OL. The other FAs are either older or weren't good enough to start on their previous teams except for injury. Hopefully one or more proves to be a quality starter, but there's no guarantee of anything. Ford may be a starter from Day 1 but probably he'll take at least a few games to be good enough to be a starter. Dawkins looks to be the best of the returning OLers from last season, but do we get Dawkins from 2017 or from 2018? The OL has the potential to be average but as somebody said once said, "potential only means you ain't done **** yet". They gotta prove it.

I think that either the Browns or Steelers have to be considered a "strong contender" simply because somebody has to win the AFCN.

It would only be about $30 a ticket in US dollars.

I don't think anybody can realistically "expect" anything specific from the passing game as there are so many unknowns. Fans can be hopeful but that's based on they're being fans. Can Josh Allen improve his accuracy enough to become a proficient NFL passer? Can he master the nuances of the mental game and recognize when to take a chance and when to throw the ball away? Will the new OL be good enough in pass protection to give Allen the time he needs to make pass plays or will he be running for his life too frequently? Can the Bills WRs get separation and make clutch catches? Will Daboll's game plans and play calling give the Bills a respectable NFL passing game?

This seems to be what most of the posters here ignore. The Bills aren't the only team that improved -- and some of those teams that got better were already better than the Bills last season. I see a lot of posters on TSW snickering at predictions that the Browns may make the playoffs this season, but they obviously haven't looked at the Browns' roster recently. If Freddie Kitchens can manage the personalities Dorsey's acquired for him, barring significant injuries, that team is going to be an offensive powerhouse with an improved defense. It's entirely possible that if Mayfield had started from Opening Day that the Browns would have had 9 wins and maybe a playoff berth. That's nonsense. TSW had a new thread just about every day on some variation of the theme that the Bills were tanking in 2017. It was even discussed numerous times in the Buffalo sports media.

I think I read maybe two or three posts in this thread that countered Cowherd's reasons for his prediction rather than simply insulting him for not embracing the Bills. Of course, fans wearing their Bills-colored glasses have been attacking the messengers for two decades because the Bills have been a crappy team for that long. Until the Bills actually do something on the field to demonstrate that they've become a significantly better team than they've been for the last two decades -- a team that's had all of three winning seasons since 2000 -- why should anybody -- fan or sports commentator alike -- realistically think the Bills are going to be good this season when the team's actual play proves that the naysayers are right far more often they are wrong?

Both Green Bay and Pittsburgh are notable for winning with homegrown talent. Baltimore under Ozzie Newsome also had considerable success with heavy doses of drafted players who stayed through most of their careers. I think the key to success with "your own" players is good drafting. The Packers, Steelers, and Ravens have been good at drafting so that they have had lots of talent worth re-signing. Cinci hasn't been as good at drafting as the other three teams, so their pool of homegrown talent isn't as good. The Bills have been, at best, mediocre at drafting. They have compounded their less than stellar drafting by failing to re-sign most of their best draftees or the UDFA players that they developed. I disagree that regime change is primary reason for this constant regime change. The Bills have had two owners since their inception: Ralph Wilson and the Pegulas. They actually had only three different control regimes since Bill Polian left in 1993: John Butler, 1994-2000; Tom Donahoe, 2001-2005; Russ Brandon, 2006-2017. Butler and Donahoe were traditional CEO/GMs. Brandon was the "power behind the throne" who was second only to the owners in creating and implementing the team's philosophy since he essentially took over the team. Dick Jauron (Marv Levy was a figurehead), Buddy Nix, Doug Whaley, and Sean McDermott were essentially talent scouts who marched to Brandon's orders. The only big name HC that the Bills hired since the 1980s when Chuck Knox left was Rex Ryan. All the others, including Marv Levy, were first time HCs or mediocre former HCs looking for new gigs. The swapping out of players every time a new HC was hired really didn't start in earnest until Brandon took over the team ... about the time that the Bills totally embraced putting profit ahead of winning. The best move that the Pegulas have made towards building a winning team is getting rid of Brandon IMO. I think the 2017 draft was clearly a draft with Brandon's imprint on it (passing on a QB to take a DB to replace the top notch DB the Bills allowed to leave in FA). 2018 and 2019 were both significantly different which is a hopeful sign going forward.

The Bills have improved on paper but they have to demonstrate that improvement on the field. I'm not sure that they are good enough to win 9 games much less more. The Bills had to essentially start from scratch with both the OL and the WRs because those units were so lacking in talent in 2018, and the FA signings for both units were decent but not exceptional. Morse is the best FA signing. The success of the Bills offense entirely hinges on how much progress Josh Allen makes. He will undoubted make some progress but will that progress be Jared Goff-2017-like or Mitch Trubisky-2018-like or Ryan Tannehill-2012-like? I think that the Bills only hope for winning 9 or more games is for Allen to have a Goff-like improvement. More likely, he won't reach that level in 2019 -- he has a lot to master because he was pretty raw last season. While the Bills defense was statistically impressive last season, on the field, they were actually much less so. They didn't seem to be particularly good at stopping teams inside the Red Zone, and as another poster noted, they seemed to get pushed around in the run game. They also weren't all that effective in harassing passers. They have to do better. McDermott did a barely adequate job as HC in 2018 but I'm not sure that he and his staff is good enough. The handling of the QB situation last season was simply awful. It endangered the Bills big investment in Allen, and it probably cost the Bills a couple of wins. In McDermott's first season, I criticized him because he seemed to value demeanor and attitude more than talent, and my view of him hasn't changed. Just because a player doesn't fit a particular mold doesn't mean that he isn't dedicated to football and winning, and just because a player tries hard doesn't mean he can be successful in the NFL as Nathan Peterman demonstrated. I also have not been impressed with McDermott's assistant coaches, particularly on the offensive side.

Fans have been saying this early in the tenure of every regime since John Butler, AJ Smith, et al departed for San Diego in the 2001 off season -- until the regime fails to deliver real improvement and settles for their usual 6-8 wins/season. I'll remain skeptical that the team is actually improving until they demonstrate it by winning football games with some regularity. That needs to be a minimum of 9 wins, but I'm not expecting that many.

How long before the Air Raid Offense gets figured out by NFL DCs? The last time a collegiate coaching "genius" brought his offense to the NFL, it took NFL DCs only about a season or so to figure out Chip Kelly. Is the Air Raid Offense all that different from the Run and Gun that Gerry Glanville ran back in the 1990s?

OP, just because you picked Murray doesn't mean that the Cardinals "needed" to do that. What does it matter if they picked him #1 if he busts? What if Murray never gets much better than Mark Sanchez while Rosen goes on become a true franchise QB? Nobody can claim to have "won" a draft until the guys taken in that draft prove themselves, which generally comes 3-5 years after the draft.

Totally agree. Booth had a broken leg, an injured thumb, and the entire Union Army after him, so he wouldn't have gotten very far without help, which few Southerners were in any kind of position to offer even if they were so inclined. People love fantasies about people who were supposed to have died but really didn't. Probably the biggest such "mystery" in the 20th century was that Grand Duchess of Russia, Anastasia, somehow escaped execution at the hand of the Bolsheviks. Anastasia Romanov Then there's always the tales of Elvis being alive and well and living somewhere incognito. John Wilkes Booth was probably as well known at the time of his death as Elvis.

Even very modestly talented LTs who can do a credible job as starters are probably going to command $7 million.

And I'm saying that deciding to move on from Rosen is more an indication of the incompetence of the Cards organization than an honest evaluation of Rosen himself. Instead of taking Murray with the first overall pick, they could have picked somebody like Bosa or better yet, traded back and gotten more picks as well as a top five or ten pick because they could certainly use a major infusion of talent. Their new QB is going to be hampered by poor talent just as Rosen was. Allen and Rosen had similar passing stats last season, and the Bills had only 6 wins with some of their losses being embarrassing blow outs and most of their wins being struggles. Pegula/Beane didn't fire the entire coaching staff, bring in a new coach without NFL HC experience, and waste their first round pick on another QB after investing so much draft capital in Allen. Instead, they took steps to put better offensive talent around him and hired a better QB coach to give him a better chance at success. That's what a competent organization does. PS - my comment about some posters calling other posters trolls wasn't meant for you personally but for another poster.

Dawkins may very well be better suited to be a guard. It may be a contributing factor to his struggles last season. As for the expertise of the Bills OL talent evaluators, I'll reserve judgement until I see them actually make some astute moves. Last year, Beane and/or McDermott didn't seem to realize that in order to have even a mediocre OL, a team needs to at least have some NFL caliber talent to work with. I didn't like Castillo but in his defense, he had very little to work with; Beane just collected some bodies and inserted their names on the offensive line depth charge.

Aside from Morse, most of the FAs were second tier guys, most not starters on their previous teams unless due to injury. Dawkins has to regain some of his rookie season form to be average, and Ford is a rookie himself so he may not even be good enough to start early on. Until this unit plays in real games, it's way to early to assume anything except that they'll be better than last season's group -- but then, that wouldn't be too hard to do. Let's see what they can do in games that count before making predictions about their ranking vis-a-vis other NFL OLs.

This might be it. His release and/or throwing motion might also be an issue. I think even before the draft, he wasn't ever considered discussed among the prospects likely to go before the sixth or seventh round. I think I saw one article somewhere calling him a "sleeper pick" or something.

Ford was drafted to play RT because that was his position in college but many experts think he's physically better suited to be a guard. My point was that it's a pretty common thing for collegiate OTs to move inside when they get to the pros. It's not like they would be trying to convert a 2nd round WR to DB, which is rare.

No, you don't get anything. I don't like some TSW posters attempting to intimidate posters with opinions they don't like by calling them "trolls". I also don't think that any rookie QB can be blamed for being stuck in a situation beyond his control. Furthermore, it's extreme homerism for Bills fans to make excuses for Allen not putting up passing numbers similar to Mayfield's while dissing Rosen who not only faced the same kinds of problems (poor protection, ineffective receivers, poor running game) but also had to deal with a coaching staff that was in disarray almost from opening day as the Cards OC was fired early in the season. Allen's big advantage over Rosen last season was his mobility and his running ability. Without that, he would have looked as miserable as Rosen because their passing stats are comparable. At this point in their careers, there is absolutely no guarantee that any of the 2018 QBs are going to make great QBs, including Mayfield. It's simply too early to determine how much progress any of them can achieve, and if that progress is enough to move them forward. Moreover, of the 2018 first round QBs, Allen probably has the most room for improvement and the Bills didn't help him a lot by managing (or mismanaging) his rookie season the way that they did. Given that he didn't suffer permanent injury, his elbow injury was probably a blessing in disguise because it gave him some time to sit and learn.

Another instance of TSW's homer patrol attempting to intimidate anybody who doesn't toe the homer line du jour. The last time I looked, neither Josh lit up the NFL with his passing stats in 2018, and neither is guaranteed to do so in 2019, either. Really? I disagree. What it does is make Arizona's ownership/GM look even more incompetent than they had proven themselves to be the past few years. Only an incompetent organization would trade up to get a first round QB and then throw him away after a single season where he struggled on a team that was a dumpster fire to draft another first round QB on the say-so of a mediocre collegiate coach who has never coached in the NFL before.

Exactly this. Dawkins played well for a rookie LT but he wasn't anywhere near a top NFL LT. Playing beside Incognito with Wood at C making the line calls really helped him. Dawkins' play certainly didn't make Cordy Glenn "expendable" -- Beane's determination to move up in the draft to take a QB made Glenn "expendable". Without help from his LG and C, Dawkins struggled as a sophomore, but while whoever the Bills have a LG isn't likely to be as good as Incognito, he shouldn't be as bad as the scrubs that played LG last season. Morse is probably as good as Wood, at least in making line calls. So, Dawkins should play better than last season and keep his starting LT position but he's unlikely to become a top NFL LT in 2019. Ummm ... no. While the Bills brought in FA OLers who were significantly better than what was on the team in 2018, most of them weren't starters on their previous teams or were starters because of injuries to other OLers. Some of the guys listed in your post were only on the Bills roster because the Bills needed bodies in 2018. Because college coaches tend to play their best OLers at OT, especially LT, regardless of how their skillsets translate into the NFL game which requires more speed and strength, and better footwork from its OTs, especially LTs, than collegiate ball does. That's why many college OTs move to OG in the pros, and why it's not uncommon for collegiate LTs to move over to the right side. McDermott is not an OL expert, and I seriously doubt that he's solely responsible for making draft picks, so we don't know if Ford was actually drafted to be a RT or if the Bills intend move him to OG. The Bills will try Ford at RT but they may eventually move him inside, especially if they acquire a better RT. What is better? A poor OT or a good/excellent OG?