SoTier

A QB who can't make outside throws does not have the potential to be a "serviceable NFL backup". Not in this century it hasn't, not even during the Jauron years. I'm not sure that the QB situation was this dire even back in the 1970s and early 1980s as the Bills had Joe Ferguson as their starting QB for most of that period. Ferguson was a pretty decent QB for most of his career despite playing frequently with crap around him. That kinda leaves a small window in the 1980s between Ferguson and Kelly. I don't think that's a serious fear. I can't see Peterman NOT throwing at least one pick six against the Bears. He can't throw outs, and the Bills OC can't stop calling them. Ergo, a pick six is inevitable unless the defenders can't catch.

I didn't vote because Peterman shouldn't have been on the team last year, and he should have been cut before the season started unless the Bills intended to keep 3 QBs. At best, Peterman is a third QB or PS player. My guess is that Peterman will score as many points for the Bears as he does for the Bills if he's lucky and Bears DBs can't catch.

What is there to defend in the QB situation??? They got rid of a competent veteran QB in Taylor to save some $$$. They signed a backup QB, McCarron, who plainly was looking for a starting gig to prove himself and saw Buffalo as a good place to do it. Then they trade McCarron when he objected to being third string behind Nate "Picksix" Peterman on the very specious argument that Peterman looked better playing against scrubs than McCarron did playing against first stringers. The dead cap space the Bills incurred by trading Taylor and McCarron was around $10 million, but hey, that's okay because they saved millions in current salary by getting rid of these guys. That extra cap space could have gotten them 1 or 2 or maybe even 3 better offensive players than the ones currently on the team, but dead cap is only "on the books" it's not actual $$ out of the owner's pockets. When Peterman crapped the bed in the season opener, the Bills were fine with going with raw rookie Josh Allen and the incompetent Peterman for a MONTH before they finally got around to adding a competent backup QB, in this case a washed up 35-year-old who hadn't played a snap in 2 years and hadn't started in 7. Now, they're back to Picksix Peterman as the starter backed up by Matt Barkley who's only been on the team for a few days, but hey, the Pegulas are making a fat profit by filling the stadium while fielding the lowest paid roster in the NFL, so all's good.

Why should he do that when it's so much more profitable for him to hire neophyte HCs and GMs like McDermott and Beane and have the lowest current salary level in the NFL? Bills fans are like lemmings -- they'll continue to fill the stadium no matter how bad the team. Right-o. No Bills fan could possibly "connect the dots" and come to a conclusion on his own that maybe some of the Bills decisions during the McDermott/Beane/Pegula regime are influenced by individuals' race. It has to come from some "outside agitator" from NYC because we all know there are no racists in Buffalo and WNY while NYC is rife with them.

Tony Romo, Jake Delhomme (I believe) and Kurt Warner were all UDFAs, so a very few do come in and do well. Nathan Peterman was a waste of a fifth round draft pick in 2017 -- the Bills could have easily signed an UDFA QB to play as poorly as Peterman has. Peterman's last pick six wasn't because of failed OL protection; it was because he got suckered into attempting to make a throw he doesn't have the ability to make. It's his poor arm and brain that are the problem not the Bills OL as crappy as it is. Actually, both Kirk Cousins and Matt Ryan have had very nice careers, with and without Shanahan. ROTFLMAO. The only two things that the Bills are doing "right" is demonstrating how clueless and incompetent the entire Bills organization and its ownership are ... and how to play the worst offensive football seen in this century.

Yadda, yadda, yadda. What excuse will you use next year at this time when the Bills are likely to have about the same record and an only marginally improved talent situation???

I used to park in the little lots along Sheldon Road which is off Abbott a block north of Southwestern Blvd (US 20). The Abbott Road Animal Hospital is on the NW corner and there's a gas station/convenience store on the SW corner. It's a decent walk to the stadium but they're not only cheaper than the stadium lots, they offer easy in/easy out access. In From Thruway Exit 56, turn left at the end of the off ramp, taking Milestrip Road (179 ) to McKinley Parkway, turn right at the light, drive past the Mall and then the little strip mall with Wild Birds Unlimited. Turn left on to Brompton Drive/E Highland Parkway and follow Brompton to Sheldon Road where you turn left. Once past Windom Elementary School, start looking for likely spots. The prices increase the closer to Abbott you get. Out Take Sheldon past Windom Elementary (the way you came in), turn right at McKinley. I'm not sure if there's one or two left hand turn lanes at 179 but that left turn is the only bottleneck. Once on 179, you will want to get into the right most lane because the Thruway entrance is just down the road. Remember, Hamburg, Dunkirk, Erie, etc are "West" while W Seneca, Cheektowaga, Buffalo, Amherst, Rocherster, etc are all "East" (even if the Thruway is going more or less north and south at that point) See Google Maps. Get directions using Abbott Road Animal Hospital as your destination.

What part of McDermott realized that he'd lose the locker room if he started Peterman don't you understand??? This was widely reported after the Baltimore debacle. It's why McDermott started Allen. Peterman's pick six in the Houston game simply cemented that Peterman wasn't going to start for the Bills again except under duress. Well, duress, in the form of Allen's elbow and Anderson's concussion, makes Peterman the Bills starter. This game may be a reprise of Peterman's disaster against the Chargers last season in which it appeared that several Bills players just went through the motions. If the defense doesn't come to play on Sunday, the Bears are going to put up 45 or 50 points on them because there are probably more players who are convinced that Peterman is a pick six waiting to happen whenever he drops back to pass. I agree that McDermott is doing the best in a bad situation, but the reality is that McDermott has no one to blame for that situation except for himself. McDermott controls player personnel on the Bills; Beane is the guy who sends the guys McDermott doesn't want packing and brings in the guys that McDermott wants ... or the available guys whom the Bills can afford (because they dug themselves into dead cap hell by trading away Dareus and Glenn -- that's about $23 million in dead cap) that McDermott can tolerate. The Bills lack of talent is totally on McDermott.

How do you know that the Pats -- or other teams -- didn't try to move up to draft Mahomes? Moreover, some teams already have franchise QBs and are trying to build championship teams, so they have other needs. Others had/have young QBs prospects that they drafted in the last 2-4 years. Some other teams may have gambled that Mahomes would be there when it was their turn or that they simply liked Trubiskey or Watson better. Not true. Historically, QBs who are going to be good QBs long term generally take a huge step forward sometime in their second season as starters. This is true even for QBs who don't look very good as as first year starters. When you look at the careers of most of the good current QBs in the league, most were significantly better in their second seasons than in their first, including Brady, Rodgers, Newton, Wilson, Cousins, Wentz, Goff, etc. There have been some precocious QBs who looked good as rookies and continued that way: Ben Roethlisberger, Joe Flacco, Andy Dalton, and Derek Carr. QBs who look good in their first year as starters and then failed tend to be QBs like Colin Kaepernick who depend upon running rather than developing as passing QBs. This looked like maybe DeShaun Watson would be that kind of QB, but he's developed his passing skills, and can't be considered a "run first" QB any longer. IOW, Kaepernick was essentially a running back who could throw the ball, not an athletic QB who can run the ball like the young studs like Wentz, Watson, and Mahomes. The QBs who need 3-5 years as starters to show if they're any good are highly unlikely to become true franchise QBs. At best, they seem to be not "good enough" to win consistently with but "too good" to relegate to backup status. Jay Cutler is the poster boy for this type. Ryan Tannehill, Blake Bortles, and Marcus Mariota seem to be this type -- and maybe Jameis Winston, although that's questionable at this point.

What I said was, "Compared to franchise QBs, shut down DBs are virtually 'a dime a dozen'." If you quote someone, use the entire quote, not just a part you can make fun with a cutsey image. No excuses for you any more than for McDermott.

Passing on a potential franchise QB to take a DB because the team didn't re-sign the Pro Bowl DB that the team had drafted in the first round just five years before simply cannot be justified, no matter what mental gymnastics McDermott defenders try to employ. If the Bills had gotten a great edge rusher or a DT to clog up the middle of the line, there might be some legs to the argument for taking him over Mahomes, but a DB, even a great DB, is simply not that valuable. Compared to franchise QBs, shut down DBs are virtually "a dime a dozen". No excuses.

Isn't that exactly what the Bills have done in the last two drafts under McDermott??? They passed on two excellent QB prospects in 2017 who have turned into decent NFL QBs (at their low end) for a CB because they needed one. They then traded away their starting QB and their starting LT to move up to take the fourth best QB prospect in the 2018 draft. Why would they change "their plan" to stock up on offense in 2019 just because the best talent in the draft is on the defensive side?

McDermott is no longer a rookie head coach.

Maybe you should be pissed at the organization that has orchestrated the Bills ineptitude that has led to "radio hosts who don't even have a local team" to abuse the team.

Wilson probably saw $$$. Before he was hired by the Bills, Brandon's claim to fame was his infamous dismantling of the World Champion Florida Marlins the season after the won the World Series. Marlins went from one of the highest player payrolls in their championship to one of the lowest, which likely increase profitability since player salaries are obviously the major component in the team budget. The Marlins also went from World Champions to the worst record in MLB, but winning was never Wilson's top priority, so Brandon was perfect. McDermott didn't "cut him (Brandon) out of the football department". Brandon was promoted to be in charge of both the Bills and the Sabres so he simply was much less involved with the football side. Since Brandon was essentially the boss of every Bills employee until he was fired, there's no way one of those other Bills employees, even the Bills HC, could "cut him out".

Certainly their tenure as owners of the Sabres suggests that. Specifically, I'm very concerned that in response to the Rex Ryan fiasco, they seem to totally bought into Russ Brandon's "money ball" philosophy, and if that's the case, then winning will continue to take a back seat to making $$$ despite Brandon's departure.

Neither is the mind-numbing, outdated style of football the Bills play under McDermott and his pal Beane. This is 2018 not 1978 or 1988.

Yeah, but at least Fitz gives you something to cheer about once in a while ...

Since Russ Brandon was the Bills head honcho when McDermott and then Beane were hired, why would expect anything to be any diffferent? Since he was okay with how McDermott and Beane before he was fired -- with no indication he wasn't -- why would he not be okay with them if he hadn't been fired? Winning was never Brandon's top priority; maximizing profits was. FTR, Brandon didn't hire Rex Ryan and give him a virtual blank check to hire his relatives and pals. That was the Pegulas who were reportedly "wowed" by Ryan during his interview. McDermott was much more the kind of HC that Brandon liked to hire rather than the expensive, flamboyant Ryan.

My definitions of project QBs are those who need to work on physcial fundamentals before they have a real chance to become NFL QBs. Frequently, that involves fixing their footwork or throwing motion or release. Brady, Romo, and Cousins all improved key aspects of their ability to throw the football. I wouldn't consider Phillip Rivers a "project" because the coaches in SD never tried to change his sidearm throwing motion (which he still uses BTW).

I never go "all in" on young QBs. Too many of those that look so promising as rookies or first year starters (Kaepernick and Griffin are two recent notables) fail to continue to develop into real franchise QBs. I was very skeptical of Goff, Wentz, and Watson last season and Mahomes early this season. I think all of them have demonstrated that they are, at worse, decent NFL QBs. I don't think Dak Prescott is in the same league as the other four but I think he'll make a decent QB. JMO. I think that Jameis Winston has demonstrated maybe he's better than Ryan Fitzpatrick but he's not a franchise QB.

Somewhere out on the web is a photo of Brady from his Combine appearance in 2000. Talk about skinny ... and Kirk Cousins fell out of favor with most football gurus because he was described as "too slightly built", ie, "skinny". Excellent analysis. I agree with your rankings. Mayfield separates mostly because of his leadership. The other three are kind of in a bunch.

I'm just pointing out that first round "project" QBs haven't worked out in the last almost 20 years. My guess is that that's likely a combo of their being drafted much too high for their actual talent level and for being put under pressure by being expected to start --and succeed -- too soon.

I was hoping that maybe Mayfield would fall because of his height, but Rosen was my second choice. My guess is that if Mayfield had been there at #7, McJackass would have passed on him, too, just as they did on Rosen. That's the Billsy thing to do. They passed on Russell Wilson back in 2012, too, because he was "too short". Rosen led a great last drive which ended with a pretty TD pass ... and then tossed a pass to Larry Fitz for the 2 point conversion to make sure that the Cards didn't lose on a last second FG. I haven't watched much of Rosen, but he looked much improved over some of his previous outings. As for Darnold and Mayfield, both struggled against tough, experienced defenses that can bring it against young, inexperienced QBs, which they did. I hope that Allen can develop into a franchise QB, but I think he has two big strikes against him: he's a "project" QB and project QBs don't often pan out; and he literally has no support around him with suspect QB coaching, poor OL, and a non-NFL caliber WR corps. FTR, I can't think of a first QB drafted since 2000 who was described as a "project" who went on to become a franchise QB or better. The successful "projects" recently have come from below the first round, including Tom Brady, Tony Romo (UDFA), and Kirk Cousins.

No, it's the stupid, short-sighted, penny-pinching owners and their FO lackeys who play "moneyball" by hiring cheap, crappy neophyte HCs; by refusing to pay market rates for most of the good young vets coming off their rookie contracts; by trying to foist backup and journeyman QBs; and by only drafting first round QBs when they absolutely need to in order to placate the fanbase.