SoTier

The truth hurts for cheerleaders like yourself.

Who's fault is it that the team is "undertalented"???? It's McDermott who was in charge of personnel decisions since some time before the 2017 draft, so the reason the team is so lacking in NFL talent is squarely on him. He ran the 2017 draft. He decided that he didn't need/want Watkins or Dareus or Taylor or Brown or Glenn. He decided to pass on Patrick Mahomes and DeShaun Watson and he had to had have Zay Jones and Tremaine Edmunds so much that he traded up for them while players like JuJu Smith-Schuster, Leighton Vander Esche, and Darius Leonard were all available when the Bills original trade spot came up. Aside from Tre White and Matt Milano, none of the 2017 draft class have been NFL starting caliber players by the end of their second year. The only reason that Jones and Dawkins are starting for the Bills is because the Bills do not have NFL caliber talent on offense except for RB (McCoy and Ivory), TE (Clay), and QB (Allen). While Allen has looked promising as a rookie, the rest of the 2018 draft class so far has been unimpressive, including the much-touted Edmunds. The team's lack of talent, which is squarely McDermott's fault for a string of poor personnel decisions, simply obscures McDermott's incompetence. First and foremost, he doesn't recognize the importance of natural talent and is unwilling to accommodate it (as in the cases of Watkins and Dareus, and possibly Incognito). He also rigidly attempts to fit square pegs in round holes. Both Dawkins and Edmunds have struggled because they may not be physically suited to play the positions McDermott wants them to play. The entire debacle with the blocking schemes for the OL in 2017 and the entire Nathan Peterman saga were both examples of McDermott's philosophy over reality. Training and hard work can not overcome all physical and/or mental limitations. Second, McDermott's teams have appeared to be too unprepared and too undisciplined too often over the last two seasons. They have been blown out much too often, and in several games, the final score doesn't reflect how badly the team was out played from the opening kickoff. It has come out "flat" on numerous occasions. Third, the handling of the QB situation in 2018 should get both Beane and McDermott fired. Why is a WR coach "coaching" a supposed future franchise QB? Why the hell does Matt Barkley merit being given a two year extension to "mentor" Allen? Allen needs a real QB coach not a confident. The Bills need a solid backup QB not a street FA turned backup QB/pseudo-coach! Then there's the whole stupid Peterman and Anderson comedy act. But, hey, John, keep those convenient excuses for McDermott (and his henchman Beane) coming, although you might want to come up with some new ones for 2019 when your boys continue their pursuit of making the Bills even more irrelevant than they've been for the last two decades.

I seriously doubt it. Philosophically, McDermott's much more a defensive HC like Dick Jauron than Bill Belichick or Pete Carroll -- even Ron Rivera.

Keep telling yourself that. Too many current Bills players, especially on offense and including some starters, don't belong on an NFL roster -- and won't be on one unless the Bills bring them back.

I got a better idea ... fire McDermott and his crew, especially QB David Culley, and hire an experienced NFL HCfor 2019 rather than waste another year of Allen's career ... and pack Beane off, too.

Succinct ... and absolutely correct. My guess is that many of the Bills offensive players, including some that are starters, probably won't be in the league in 2019.

The offense is putrid and has been putrid in the past. Nothing new there. What is so discouraging, this year and for the future, is that so many key players on so many playoff teams are former Bills who were sent packing by the current regime or were available for the current regime to draft and the Bills passed on them for lesser players. I'm not going to list them all but one of them is a leading candidate for league MVP. Moreover, the team is so talent deprived and lacking in the ability to evaluate talent, most especially on offense, that they simply aren't going to be able to acquire enough good talent to compete with the best of the NFL in the foreseeable future despite having a pretty good looking QB prospect in Josh Allen.

I totally agree. Fans whining about good Bills players being "ignored" by the Pro Bowl selectors obviously don't watch other teams. The best players on the 2018 would likely be JAGs on any of the current playoff teams in either conferences. Fans expecting the Bills to become real contenders for the playoffs in 2019 are in for a rude awakening. Talent counts, and McDermott/Beane haven't shown that they can recognize talent, much less figure out how to acquire it to build a successful NFL roster. Bull manure. The Bills that made the Pro Bowl for the Bills last season are either not on the roster or didn't have good years.

The Pouncey twins both made the Pro Bowl, too. DeCastro suffered a knee injury in a preseason against the Bills IIRC, so he missed his entire rookie season, but he's been better than any guard the Bills have had during that period except for Incognito.

I'm not sure what some fans expected. The offense is filled with non-NFL caliber players -- even before injuries. Allen, McCoy, Ivory, Clay, Jones, Dawkins, and maybe Bodine are probably the only bonafide NFLers on offense, and most wouldn't be starters. Defense has better talent but no truly outstanding much less dominating players. Except for Hauschka -- who didn't get an opportunity to play in a significant game -- most of the Bills ST shouldn't even be on any NFL roster.

I bought it in 1963, which was the year it came out I think. Of course it was mono because I was thirteen and all I had was a "record player" to play mostly 45s (as opposed to a "stereo" which back in that day was an expensive piece of furniture like a TV).

I voted for "Meet the Beatles" ... I think it was the first record album I bought ... and I wore the vinyl out and eventually had to buy a new copy several years later.

I think the poster was referring to Allen's elbow injury, which could have truly been a career-ending injury. Luckily, it wasn't as serious as it could have been and doesn't seem to have resulted in permanent damage.

Famous last words. Rookie QBs tend to be all over the place, and some of those who don't look very good as rookies (like Goff) go on to develop into excellent NFL QBs when some of those who look like great early on never develop into real franchise QBs. Mark Sanchez and Blake Bortles are good examples of guys who never developed after some early success. It's simply too early to say much about the 2018 rookie QBs except to say that Mayfield looks like the real deal, Allen and Jackson have played much better than just about anybody expected them to play, and that both Darnold and Rosen seem to have been underwhelming compared to the expectations for them. That may be the result of the situation they're in. Goff and Trubisky looked pretty mediocre as rookies but blossomed under new and better coaches. Of course, how a rookie QB plays doesn't matter much if he develops into a bonafide NFL QB (as both Goff and Trubisky have) -- or doesn't.

He's the best WR on the Rams, too -- and about as reliable and durable as any WR can be -- even if he wasn't Goff's favorite receiver when Kupp was healthy.

Ah, the King of the TSW Thought Police has spoken! All hail King DaBillsFanSince1973! For the record, Sean McDermott won't be fired but he surely deserves it ... just like Dick Jauron after the 2008 season.

The sad state of the current Bills roster is the result of McDermott's belief that attitude trumps talent. Combined with Pegula embracing of money ball, McDermott/Beane's "rebuild" is guarantees the Bills aren't even going to be a "perennial pretender" for as long as they're in control.

I was willing to give McDermott the benefit of the doubt after last season, but looking at this season objectively, he deserves to be fired: the Bills were butt-whipped 47-3 by the Ravens in the season opener; shut out 22-0 by the Packers; blown out by the Colts 37-5; drubbed by the Pats 25-6; and mauled by the Bears 41-9; they only lost by 11 to the Chargers because Anthony Lynn pulled his starters in the second half; the Bills beat Tennessee with Titans' QB Marcus Mariotta playing with a bad elbow; they were competitive with the Texans only because Deshaun Watson was playing with a partially collapsed lung; the Bills' biggest win came because they caught the Jets with Darnold still injured; they beat the Vikings in a classic trap game and caught the Jags in disarray. IMO, Josh Allen's surprisingly decent play for a rookie QB has been all that's saved McDermott's butt, although McDermott deserves little credit for that. McDermott didn't even bring in a bonafide QB coach for the supposedly prize rookie. What the hell does that say about how much the current regime values Allen no matter the propaganda line the Bills spin? The entire handling of the QB situation, which I've complained about repeatedly all season, simply underscores the McDermott/Beane regime's incompetence for building a winning NFL team. I will also add that I thought that McDermott's insistence on keeping Peterman on the roster for so long while they dithered about getting a competent backup QB was needlessly cruel. Peterman was definitely not a NFL caliber player but there was no excuse for continually putting him in situations where his lack of talent constantly exposed him to national public ridicule.

I would agree if I thought that the Bills would actually be in a big game at some point under McDermott but I just don't see that happening. LOL. McDermott has nobody to blame for that except the guy staring back at him in the bathroom mirror every morning. Maybe he should bring back the one player on the Bills THIS YEAR that he did trust: Nate Peterman.

Facts are that Sean McDermott ran the 2017 draft. My guess is that he likely ran the 2018 draft, too. IOW, McDermott has control of personnel with Beane being the guy who takes care of the details. I don't think it was Beane who decided that Watkins wasn't a player the Bills needed or that Dareus had to go.

What a crock! All you're doing is attempting to defend a questionable move the Bills FO by dissing another team for being successful, partly because they picked a player who has blossomed as a rookie while the player the Bills traded up to get continues to struggle. The Cowboys made THEMSELVES "relevant" by winning their last five games in a row, and Vander Eshe has become a key player on a dominant defense that has led the Cowboys' resurgence. Edmunds makes occasional good plays on a statistically good defense that fails to play clutch when it needs to do so -- and some of that is because Edmunds has struggled as the MLB. I have no opinion on whether the Bills should have taken Vander Eshe rather than Edmunds because Vander Eshe may not be suited to play in the Bills defensive system, but the big knock on Edmunds in the draft was that he didn't seem to have the "instincts" to make a great MLB because he wasn't particularly good at anticipating/diagnosing plays. That's been borne out in his play this this season. He's still having trouble anticipating/diagnosing plays, and consequently, still making mistakes. Edmunds' skill set seems better suited to his being an OLB rather than MLB, and maybe both he and the Bills would be better served by switching him to a more natural position for him. Forcing a square peg into a round hole seldom works out well in the long run, but keep on chanting "trust the process" in your blind allegiance to the current Bills regime.

I thought he was suppose to be the second coming of Reggie McKenzie of Electric Company fame ... oops.

An under appreciated performance in that one fer sure! ?

To a significant number of posters on TSW, if one dares to criticize the Bills, you are simply "being negative to be negative" despite the team only having 3 winning seasons in this century, and the 2018 squad looking like one of the poorest of that miserable collection. How could professionals NOT expect the debacle when the "veteran QBs" they started the season with were a sophomore QB whose 1 NFL start was an historic disaster and a former backup QB anxious to get an opportunity to be a starter? How could professionals wait a month to bring in another veteran QB -- a retired QB who hadn't played in a couple of seasons no less -- after Peterman predictably pooped the bed in the season opener? The handling of the backup QB situation, from trading away Taylor to signing Anderson, was unforgivable. Either McDermott/Beane are totally incompetent to handle player personnel or their primary aim was to spend as few actual dollars as possible on the QB position rather than to win football games or even provide some veteran support for Allen -- classic moneyball. This excuse just doesn't fly because the Bills alleged "money problems" are the result of this FO's own decisions. By wasting draft capital with trade-ups in 2017 (they traded up for both Jones and Dawkins), they gave up two additional prospects. They also shed competent NFL caliber players without regard to the cap implications, most notably Dareus, Glenn, and Taylor (those three players account for more than $30 million in dead cap space). In the case of Dareus, they replaced him with a competent DT but at a big price. They replaced Glenn with a much cheaper -- and much less effective --- Dawkins whose poor play as a sophomore LT has contributed to the OL's failures. They failed to replace Taylor with a competent NFL veteran at all. Incognito was 34 years old in 2017. The Bills should have had a younger LG prospect on the roster in 2017, acquired either through the draft or through bringing in FAs. Instead, they moved career backup RG Ducasse to the left side and pretended all was good when it wasn't. OL seems to be the one unit where investing in low round draft picks/UDFAs is most likely to pay some dividends. No one, especially McDermott/Beane apologists, wants to talk about THAT.

When most of your starters aren't NFL caliber starters, chances are most of your ST team players shouldn't even be on an NFL roster. Talent counts.