SoTier

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.

Daring to criticize the current Bills -- unless it's one of the "designated scapegoat" players or coaches -- makes you either a newbie or a troll around here as far as the numerous "true believers" are concerned. After you've created a few more posts, you'll graduate to being a "troll" if you continue to look at the team without Bills-colored glasses.

Having the resources doesn't mean that the Bills will actually use them. More than anything, the Bills need a commitment to building a winning team by the owner, and I haven't seen anything recently that Pegula has that. When he first bought the team, it seemed that he did have that commitment but after the Rex Ryan debacle, Pegula seems to have bought into Russ Brandon's "money ball" which has been continued by Beane.

Since McDermott is largely responsible for the lack of talent on the current Bills, he can't use it as an excuse. He wanted these players because of their supposed commitment to "the process" and sent more talented players packing who allegedly didn't buy into his "vision". I don't know exactly what the hell McDermott means by "the process", but it seems to me to include putting loyalty to "family and friends" ahead of objective talent evaluation of both assistant coaches and players.

Because the LTs the Bills currently have suck, and it's not uncommon for poor OTs to play significantly better at OG. LT is a position that generally requires an OLer who is quick/nimble/agile for a big man. Usually good LTs are rangier than other OLers. Dawkins apparently lacks the quickness/agility required to be a good LT, but has the strength which might enable him to become a good LG. Of course, the Bills are in this situation because they were in such a hurry to shed Cordy Glenn's contract that they traded him away simply because Dawkins played decently as a rookie LT. The Bills sign bottom feeder FA OLers who have few real options. They were one of the few if not the only team willing to take a chance on Incognito after his suspension, for example. The last/only time they paid top dollar for a FA OLer was back in 2007 or 2008 when they signed Derrick Dockery at LG. The Bills have twice traded away good young LTs that they've developed rather than pay them market value: Jason Peters in 2009 and Cordy Glenn in 2018. Since the Bills don't value OLers, I doubt they're real players for the top FA OLers. That's a pipe dream.

How is being a "playoff contender" in 2019 all that different from all the other years in the last 20 that the Bills have been "playoff contenders"? The Bills have had 8 or 9 win seasons in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2014, 2015, and 2017 -- when they finally actually made the playoffs. They were even "in the playoff hunt" in a few of their 7-9 seasons before coming up short late in the season, so I'm a bit tired of the "making the Bills a playoff contender" hype. Bills fans were fed this same bull manure under Wilson/Brandon regime, and it's simply continuing under Pegula/Beane. I want to see a team that's good enough to win 10 games a season with regularity, and this team isn't that now, and isn't likely to be one in the foreseeable future. The team is so talent deprived, especially on offense, that there's not enough talent in the 2019 draft and FA market to fill even most of the holes -- and that presumes that Pegula and Beane are actually interested in building a real winning team rather than continuing to play "money ball", something I'll believe when I actually see it. Until the owner commits to building a winning team, there's no real chance of building one.

Another day, another round of excuses for Pegula and his minions. You can pretend that the Bills are "on the right track", but it took Pegula seven years to rebuild the Sabres into a competitive squad after he dismantled the playoff team he purchased in 2011 in a league where it takes real incompetence to NOT make the playoffs. Thinking the Bills are going to turn into a perennial playoff team any time in the near future seems like a real long-shot, even if Allen turns out to be a good NFL QB.

Guys have been beating women for all of human history. Check out the Old Testament if you don't believe me. It's just that American society is finally acknowledging it's wrong -- and in some other societies, abusing women is still accepted.

Excellent post! The OP reminds me of a relative of mine who drives a giant gas-guzzling Buick land yacht, runs around town paying her bills in person, doesn't own a computer, and constantly complains that she can't find business phone numbers in the print phone book. Get with the program. The hallmark of the human condition -- indeed, the reason that we aren't still wandering naked on the African plains scrounging for fruits and nuts -- is that those who embrace innovation and adapt to changing conditions flourish and those who cling to "the old ways" get left behind. I'm sure there were football Luddites back in the day who whined about how allowing the forward pass was going to "ruin" the NFL.

Oh, yes, because Cam Newton has taken his team to so many Super Bowls -- and Super Bowl wins. Exactly this. I think I read exactly 1 "negative" post in this thread ... and that poster counted himself "mildly pessimistic". The idea of a "Allen is a bust CROWD" is a figment of Allen fans' imaginations. Since both Brady and Rodgers rode the pine and didn't even get into games when it counted as rookies, that's not saying much. He's also looked better so far than Patrick Mahomes did last season, too. I think this is the most realistic post in this thread. It's way to early to have a real clue in how he'll turn out long term. Lots of good looking rookies/first year starting QBs have come out and done much more than Allen has done ... and crashed and burned. Others have done less and blossomed into good/great QBs. The reverse is also true. Rookie seasons/first year starting seasons aren't good indicators. I think that next season will be much more telling for Allen's future. If he comes out and demonstrates that he's significantly better as a sophomore than he was this year, then fans and skeptics alike can realistically be optimistic that he can become a good NFL starter. If he doesn't make those improvements, he's probably going to be another Losman or Manuel. My concern about Allen is two fold. The first is that I continue to be concerned that the Bills will put the pieces around Allen to enable him to have success, starting with a real QB coach rather than a former WR coach, but including adding OL, receivers, and RBs. If the Bills don't put better coaching and on-field talent around Allen, nobody is going to be able to evaluate him correctly. Secondly, I'm concerned that Allen's just good enough with a poor supporting cast that the Bills keep him when maybe they would be better off moving on. I'm thinking of QBs like Tannehill, Bortles, Winston, and Mariota, all of whom remain questionable in discussions of good starting NFL QBs. Bortles appeared to have settled his fate, but Winston came back from also being benched. I think Mariota seems most similar to Allen at least situation wise. LOL. If Mayfield or Darnold was the Bills QB, you'd be saying the same thing about rather having him over Allen.

He's also "all in" on the Browns and wears his loyalty on his sleeve. One of Mayfield's notable traits in college was that he was a team player who was willing to do whatever was necessary to win games, and getting a big payday as the #1 overall pick apparently hasn't changed that. Moreover, Jackson is the one who was a "douche" in this situation for taking a job with a state and divisional rival that the Browns were still to face. Since Jackson's HC contract was guaranteed, he didn't need to take a job immediately. He could have waited until the off season to take a new gig or agreed to take the Bengals' job but waited until after the Browns game to actually start.

Allen looked 100% better in this game than he did before his injury. This seems strange to say, but I think that perhaps Allen's elbow injury was a good thing in that he was forced to take time to sit and watch the game -- and film --- after having actually played in some games, and that seems to have paid some immediate dividends. Before his injury, Allen was playing terribly -- he reminded me of JP Losman early in the 2005 season before he was replaced by Kelly Holcomb when he clearly wasn't ready to be the starter and had no idea what he was doing. Yesterday, Allen played significantly played better and looked much more like a competent NFL QB. That's a big step forward IMO. I think Allen needed some time off to sit and watch how experienced QBs play the game, but he wouldn't have gotten that if he hadn't been hurt, which probably would have been detrimental to his development. Sitting and watching how vets play the game interspersed with actual playing time is a proven model for developing young NFL players, which is why it's so common in developing most players but which is seldom employed with young QBs.

Well, since no Bills HC has ever even come close to having a perfect season, not even the sainted Marv Levy and certainly not Jauron-esque McDermott, what's this "too" BS? The Bills haven't been able to win more than 9 games in 19 seasons ... and have only had 3 winning seasons (9 wins) during that span. The "Bills fans are inpatient" bull manure is just that ... bull manure. If anything, they're more like abused spouses always making excuses for why they "deserve" their abuse. See above. Probably too many posters put Joesixpack on their ignore list so he wasn't getting enough cheap thrills from their responses to his insults.