SoTier

^^^ This is probably the most common type of "sophomore slump" for QBs -- and it's not a good sign, especially if the QB, like Allen, didn't have a particularly good rookie season. The more a sophomore QB improves over his rookie season, the more likely he is to have long-term success. Off hand, the only recent first round QB I can think of who improved significantly in his second over his first and then crashed and burned was Josh Freeman whose failure, according to rumor, was due to drug use.

This. Rookie QBs who are mediocre, even less than mediocre, are one thing. Many of these guys come back to shine like Goff or Mahomes. Sophomore QBs who don't get demonstratively better almost always fail. IIRC Drew Brees is the only great QB in the last 20 years who didn't play as well as a second year starter as he did as a rookie, but he had a pretty good rookie season.

Whether it was Pegula, Brandon, and/or McDermott in any combination who decided to trade out of the #10 spot in 2017, he/they screwed up by passing on two excellent collegiate QBs when they needed a young QB. Two of the most likely reasons why they did this was that they needed a DB to replace Gilmore or that KC made them an offer they couldn't refuse. Claiming that the Bills passed on Mahomes or Watson because they were "waiting" for Allen is simply nonsense. There is absolutely no evidence that anyone with the power to make personnel decisions on the Bills at the time of the 2017 draft (ie, not Whaley and not the scouts) had enough knowledge of the college players who weren't in the current draft to have more than a vague knowledge of who they were. Furthermore, Allen's best season, 2016, was unimpressive compared to Mahomes and Watson's seasons, especially since they put up much better numbers while playing at major programs compared to Allen who played at Wyomfing which is, at best, a modest regional program. Actually, your example is irrelevant to this discussion. You're describing the idea of a team making a safe pick versus gambling on a player with much more potential but more risk (say from an injury or coming from a smaller program). That situation is not necessarily related to team need. Need vs BPA is based on passing on one or more better prospects in order to draft a lesser prospect primarily because the lesser prospect happens to play a position of "need".

I agree. I think need is always a consideration (or if you've just drafted your QB, lack of need) but it shouldn't be the driving force -- that's when teams end up with Donte Whitner rather than Hali Ngata or Aaron Maybin rather than anybody or Tre White rather than Patrick Mahomes. I think need comes into play when players of about equal talent are available. A lot of media types and posters are on Gettleman for taking Barkley over "a QB" but it's entirely possible that the Giants didn't like any of the 2018 QBs all that well or only liked Mayfield better or as well as Barkley. Historically, over the last twenty years, QBs who aren't clearly the #1 consensus pick in the draft tend to bust about half the time and most drafts produce only 1 franchise QB (and some none), so taking a RB who's considered a generational talent rather than grabbing a lesser QB just because the team needs a young QB makes a lot of sense.

I agree. Winning teams trade or sign FAs to acquire outstanding talent or fill key personnel needs. Perennial bottom feeder teams like the Bills too often make trades (especially during the draft) or sign big-name FAs in order to put butts in the seats by exciting their fan bases or to shuffle personnel like playing cards. The Bills have done both over the last twenty years, and almost always they've come out the loser. It's too early to judge the McDermott/Beane regime's success or failure but it is fair to say that unless Allen has a HOF quality career, McDermott/Beane will be judged a failure. Being a decent franchise QB (like Matthew Stafford, Cam Newton or Joe Flacco) isn't going to be good enough given that the Bills passed on Mahomes in 2017 and spent a fortune in talent and picks in 2018 to move up to get Allen.

If you re-read my post, you will find that I also included Russ Brandon in the supposed "brain trust" that lead the Bills in 2017 and 2018. McDermott was here in 2017 and 2018, and like everyone else, I don't know who exactly was responsible for the personnel moves while Brandon was the head honcho. Whaley had never really been in control of deciding which players the Bills would let walk in FA; that tended to be Brandon. Whaley was responsible for finding talent and evaluating it once it was on the team. He had input into the decisions about which players were re-signed, but he didn't make the final decision -- just as he didn't decide on HCs. I would guess that Beane was hired to fill that same role. How his role changed after Brandon was fired is unknown. I don't believe that the Pegulas hired anyone to fill the same role as Brandon did, but does that mean that they gave Beane more responsibility or has he remained subordinate to McDermott as he appeared to be in 2017? I don't know, and you don't either. The Bills have always kept their inner workings very private. I never said ANYTHING about Beane or McDermott not owning up to his/their mistakes. I said that you and some other posters refuse to recognize that serious personnel mistakes were made in 2017 and 2018, and I'll stand by my statement. Your last paragraph is a perfect example. Trading Watkins compounded by Beane trading for Matthews, who also couldn't "stay healthy" and for Benjamin, who wasn't healthy when he came to the Bills and seems to have not had a great attitude to boot. If you "believe" that Woods had no interest in having Taylor as his QB, then why would he have signed with the Rams with Jared Goff as their QB? Goff had a miserable rookie season on a miserable team in 2016 and many people were already penciling him in as a bust. However, keep up your excuse making. Furthermore, you conveniently ignored my example of how the QB situation was handled in 2018. That, to me, is far worse than whatever happened in 2017. At best, it hints that Beane was undergoing OTJ training and learned from his mistakes (ie, an offense without decent WRs and OLers is gonna suck). At worst, it suggests that the Bills are continuing the same philosophy under Pegula/McDermott/Beane that was prevalent under Wilson/Brandon: maximizing profits trump winning football games. If you don't like my opinions, feel free to put me on "ignore" so that my "cluelessness" won't impinge on your fantasies of an inevitable Bills Super Bowl under the current regime.

All FOs/HCs make mistakes. What is clueless is pretending that Brandon/Beane/McDermott didn't make mistakes and attempting to defend those mistakes as "they got rid of guys that were not performing or do not have the attitude they want". They allowed always productive, always hard-working WR Robert Woods leave in FA and then traded away Sammy Watkins. They replaced them with Jordan Matthews and Kelvin Benjamin. They not only wasted a draft pick on Nathan Peterman, they compounded their error by trading away Taylor and naming Peterman the starter even though his play as a rookie was awful. Then they kept Peterman as the backup to Allen for a month before they brought in another QB after Peterman demonstrated his incompetence yet again in the season opener. While what you said is true comparing last year and this year's rosters, that's only because last year's was so bad. At present, we can all hope that the roster will improve on paper with the draft but it's no guarantee that the Bills will be a better team on Opening Day 2019 than it was on Opening Day 2018 except that they'll be better at QB without Nathan Peterman on the roster.

Their criteria/methodology is flawed plain and simple. How can they realistically evaluate rookies who have not played even 1 complete NFL season against + veterans who have 3 or 4 seasons of experience? Rookies shouldn't be included, plain and simply. The history of the NFL is littered with great looking rookies who crashed and burned in subsequent seasons as well as rookies who sucked in their first season and turned into All Stars -- or like Brady and Mahomes, barely played but had extraordinary success as sophomores.

When an anomaly like Levi Wallace turning out to be "the best" when he played less than a full season --all of 7 games -- I have to question what criteria/methodology PFF used. It seems to me that a lot of their ratings tend to favor pretty average players over better players.

I was really po'd that the Bills didn't take Wilson. He was clearly a first round talent -- probably a top 5 pick -- if there hadn't been so much prejudice against short QBs at the time. Wilson was the reason that Mayfield was taken #1 rather than on Day 2. I don't think that Jones will ever be a top NFL WR although he could develop into a solid one. A lot of the Bills "misses" have been of that kind -- spending more to get a solid player rather than taking an excellent player.

You missed the gem of taking Aaron Maybin instead of Brian Orakpo at #9 in 2009, probably the perfect example of why a team shouldn't draft for need and also why a HC shouldn't be given control of personnel unless his name is Belichick.

I would guess that your definition of "good players" = "guys I like who play for the Bills" as opposed to "good players" = "starters on most NFL teams". I think that Brandon/Beane/McDermott have actually thrown away spectacular in pursuit of less than solid in several instances. I see a roster with too many bottom end players who would not be good enough to make most teams in the NFL. If the Bills are serious about building a real playoff team, the 2019 draft would be a good time to start. Even if Allen develops into a true franchise QB, he can't do everything himself.

That's as bad as the Bills having three or four Williams a few years ago.

Excellent post. IIRC Knox quit the Bills after the 1981 season because he wanted to acquire some better players but Wilson nixed that. Like Lou Saban in the 1960s and then the early 1970s, Knox had control of personnel but he was still subject to interference from Wilson and Wilson's advisors, several of whom were hired only because they were Wilson's pals. An interesting book on the 1980 Bills-- the team that ended zero-for-the-seventies against Miami -- is "Talking Proud - Rediscovering the Magical Season of the 1980 Buffalo Bills" by Rich Blake.

Where did I say that the Bills are doomed? I didn't. I said it's way too soon to figure out if the Beane regime is better, the same or worse than its predecessors. At this time into most of the previous regimes since 2000 (< 2 years) most fans thought those regimes were better than their predecessors, too. What do you know about Josh Rosen except having watched him a few times play on the train wreck that was the 2018 Cards and read articles/tweets/posts by authors who may very well have their own agendas, including stirring controversy to boost their readership. following or clicks? Have you met him? Have you played with him? Have you coached him? My guess is your answer to all of these questions would be "no". Furthermore, you can believe whatever you want but that doesn't make it true. Nobody knows if any of the 2018 QBs will actually become franchise QBs. Certainly Mayfield's rookie performance makes him the most promising of the lot but it's no guarantee that he doesn't crash and burn this season or next. The poster to whom I responded assumes that when Brady retires, the Patriots are going to instantly and permanently become cellar dwellers and that the Bills will then take their place as the dominant team in the AFCE. Aside from nobody knowing the future, the Bills being a good or bad team is entirely independent of whether NE is a good or bad team. For a lot of years in the last 20 years, Pittsburgh and Baltimore have frequently been among the class of the AFC during the same seasons. No, it's a function of the quality of the teams and coaches their organizations have put around them and any untimely injuries they've suffered. The same with Peyton Manning and Drew Brees -- and especially Phillip Rivers, Matthew Stafford, and probably Matt Ryan too. It has nothing to do with whether or not a QB expresses opinions or not.

You are very right. Until very recently, society considered child abuse as "strict discipline" and spousal abuse as "a man's right" (no man would have admitted to being abused by his wife). Society has changed -- for the better. What hasn't is the attitudes/actions of people who abuse children, spouses, and/or the elderly. Long before drugs that people ingested as pills, smoked or injected became prevalent in society, there was alcohol. The temperance movement began in the 1830s in the US not because reformers were opposed to people having wine with dinner or imbibing at a party but because so many people -- especially women and children in a male dominated society -- suffered because of the violence and poverty that resulted from excessive alcohol use.

Actually, all of the 2018 first round QBs could still succeed or fail -- and it's likely that at least 3 or 4 probably will fail by the time they play out their rookie contracts. In 2011, four QBs were taken in the first 12 picks but only one who had long term success was Cam Newton. The other decent QBs in that draft were 2nd rounder Andy Dalton and 6th rounder Tyrod Taylor. The 2012 draft also featured 4 QBs taken in the first round (3 in the first 8 picks) but only Andrew Luck was a keeper while the most successful QB from that draft is Russell Wilson and 2nd rounder Nick Foles and 4th round Kirk Cousins have done well. Drafts rarely produce more than 1 true franchise QBs (see 1983 and 2004) while a "good draft" will produce 1 franchise guy and 1 or 2 QBs who are "decent". What makes you think that Belichick wouldn't mold Rosen into another Brady? Belichick made Bernie Kosar into a very good QB back in his days in Cleveland. He made Matt Cassel look like a good NFL QB for one season in 2008. SF gave up a 2nd rounder for backup QB Jimmy Garoppollo because of how good he looked in his limited stints as a starter under Belichick. Moreover, Belichick and Brady have NOT been the reason that the Bills have stunk it up since 2000. The Bills organization has been incompetent during most, if not all, of that time, and it's way to early to decide if the current regime is truly any better than all the others. I think you would be wrong. If the Bills had taken Rosen instead of Allen, you and numerous others on TSW would be finding positives in Rosen and dissing Allen. Look at all the Bills fans who repeatedly claim that they'd rather have Allen than Mahomes when they could have had a QB with just as much leadership and "it" factor as Allen with better passing ability as well as all the additional talent they either gave up or passed on in order to get Allen. Look at all the Bills fans who keep pretending that the Bills didn't screw the pooch by drafting Zay Jones rather than Juju Smith-Schuster. Oh, yeah, and how about all the Bills fans who insist that Tre White is as good a CB as Stephon Gilmore? Most Bills fans are always "all in" on whatever regime the owners install -- and the players they select -- until that regime gets the axe and/or the players go elsewhere. Then they're all trash in the eyes of the Bills true believers.

The Bills have demonstrated an almost magical ability to trade up to take the wrong player, which is an indictment of how bad their scouting and personnel decision making have been over the decades -- and that seems to regardless of the regime. Their more recent trade up faux pas include trading back into the 1st in 2004 to draft JP Losman when they could have taken Matt Schaub in the 2nd or even maybe the third and gotten a significantly better QB -- or they could have simply waited until 2005 to take Aaron Rodgers with their #18 pick. Russ Brandon and Dick Jauron traded back into the first round in 2006 to take John McCargo who barely played because of injury issues so just about anybody else would have been a better pick. In 2012 Buddy Nix traded up in the third round to take forgettable WR TJ Graham instead of taking QB Russell Wilson. In 2014, the Bills traded their 2014 and 2015 first round picks to draft WR Sammy Watkins rather than Odell Beckham Jr or Mike Evans. Finally, Brandon and McDermott traded up in the 2nd round in 2017 to take Zay Jones rather than JuJu Smith-Schuster. Hopefully, Beane breaks the pattern because he traded up twice in the first round of the 2018 draft to take Josh Allen and/or Tremaine Edmunds.

I agree that a better OL should help Allen, and hopefully, the Bills put enough good pieces around him so that he doesn't have to realize he doesn't have to do it all himself. That may be a challenge for Allen, as it seems to be for Newton, because it doesn't seem to fit their temperaments. My main point in that post though was aimed at the posters complaining about the refs not protecting some QBs while protecting others. I think it's pretty obvious that nobody is too worried about either Tom Brady's or Eli Manning's running ability, so if they get hit, it's almost always going to be in/near the pocket. QBs like Newton, Allen, Wilson, and Rodgers are definitely capable of using their mobility to make plays, either by running or by extending plays by running outside the pocket, so they're much more likely to be outside the pocket -- and therefore subject to hard hits -- than other QBs.

When QBs run the ball, especially on designed QB runs, they're no longer protected by the rules that protect QBs that stay in the pocket like Brady or the Mannings. If Allen wants to have a long NFL career, he's going to have to learn to get some yards and then run out of bounds ala Russell Wilson not challenge defenders to get a few extra yards like Cam Newton.

I totally agree, and I imagine that many if not most of the NFL personnel guys figure exactly the same. Giving up on any first round pick (barring catastrophic injury) after a single rookie labels him an epic "bust", and that probably goes double for QBs. In the last dozen years, I can think of only 3 first round QBs who weren't given at least 3 years to prove themselves with their original teams: Ja'Marcus Russell, Johnny Manziel, and Paxton Lynch -- and all of them got at least a second year with their original team. Nobody is giving up a day one or day two pick for Rosen at this point even if they think that the Cards organization is totally incompetent and that Rosen might have chance to become a decent QB. They'll low ball the Cards by offering a 5th or 6th rounder.

I second that. I would not be surprised at all to see Murray last until the second half of the first round, and only mildly surprised if he wasn't taken in the first round at all.

I got pretty sick of watching Beast Mode tear up the NFL when he was with the Seahawks ... and he never got in any trouble there, either, despite all the Bills fans' predictions to the contrary. In his 5 full seasons in Seattle, he played in 70 games, started 66 and ran for 5774 yards and 51 rushing TDs as well as adding 8 more receiving TDs. In his part season with the Hawks, he started 11 games and ran for 573 yards and 6 TDs in 12 games. He was a Pro Bowler 4 times and once All Pro with Seattle. Boy, were the Bills geniuses to con the Hawks into giving up a fourth round pick for him!

He wouldn't be my HC. Any GM with the power to hire/fire HCs who hired a newbie HC who couldn't work with the former first round pick taken just the year before deserves to be fired himself ... and if the HC had lied in his interviews and now changed his tune after he got the job, then he deserves to have his ass fired ASAP. Kingsbury isn't Bill Belichick or Andy Reid or Pete Carroll with a proven track record in the NFL; he's a college coach who's more likely to crash and burn in the NFL than a first round QB (who crash and burn about half the time).

I watched quite a bit of Mayfield last season, and he was infinitely better than either Griffin or Prescott. Mayfield sparked that Cleveland team much like Allen sparked the Bills -- and he's way ahead of Allen as an NFL passer. They also don't have Ozzie Newsome as their GM any more (he retired). That may be their biggest loss. And Bills fans who think the Bills are likely to make the playoffs are any different? Cleveland was a better team last season even with all the turmoil on the coaching staff. With better coaching early on, they probably would have won 9 games. As it was they finished 7-8-1 with 2 or 3 heart breaking losses IIRC. How many times have we heard this line since 2000? It only happened twice -- in 2002 and in 2008. Along with the annual predictions that "this will be the year Brady crashes and burns", I'll believe it when it actually happens.