SoTier

Now, who's "making stuff up"??? How the hell have McDermott and Beane "made clear that QB and the passing game is most important"??? By shedding Goodwin, Woods, and Watkins and adding the Stone Hands Brigade of Benjamin, Jones, and the other assorted scrubs who try to impersonate NFL WRs every week? Maybe it's by replacing Pro Bowl OLers with career backups and bottomfeeder starters? Maybe it's by replacing one Neanderthal OC with Son of Neanderthal OC? You're certainly correct that the Bills don't have a QB. Why don't they have one? Because McDermott really thinks Nate Peterman is an NFL caliber QB and is determined to prove it??? Because the only available street FA QB available was Derek Anderson? Or is it because McDermott is so determined to get a franchise QB that he passed on Mahomes and Watson in 2017 in order to draft a DB?????

Ummm ... January is "very late"??? Wood announced his retirement a few days after the playoff loss when his injury was discovered in an end-of-season physical. Moreover, since Incognito was 35 years old, the Bills should have been preparing to replace him, not pretending he was going to play forever so that they didn't need to have as Plan B. The Bills knew they needed a better backup than Peterman (who shouldn't have been on the roster in the first place) after the first game of the season. Why didn't they bring a veteran backup then? Why does it seem like it was always either Anderson or nobody? What the hell is so special about Anderson -- aside from his Carolina connection -- that the Bills wouldn't look at alternative QBs, some of whom are significantly better than Anderson.

Why in the world would the Saints be interested in trading him away? They are seriously thinking SB, and Bridgewater is a relatively cheap backup. Moreover, they get a season long look at possibly Brees' future replacement.

So was Dick Jauron. What's your point?

And we're going to spend the next fifteen or so years watching Mahomes and Watson tear up the league because we passed on them to draft White -- a CB who will likely go on to success and the playoffs with some other team like so many other good, great Bills DBs over the years, like Jabari Greer and Ronald Darby who both have SB rings from NO and Philly respectively.

"Time servers"? Seriously, in the modern NFL a team can't afford to wait around for two or three seasons to decide they're "ready" to start building the offense. The Bills had a chance to grab a seriously good QB in 2017, and they passed ... for a DB. Compared to franchise QBs, great DBs are practically a dime a dozen.. The Bills then shed talent to gather draft picks in order to trade up to grab the fourth highest rated QB in the next draft who's clearly a project, and trade up again to get another first round project, this time a LB. They could have filled numerous holes on both sides of the ball if they had used all the picks they had collected on more than 2 players. Now, they are very likely to be picking in the top three in the 2019 draft, maybe even #1. What if there are no great offensive prospects worth a top 3 pick? What if the Bills get the #1 pick, there's a consensus #1 pick, and it's a QB? That's the Bills dilemma because they passed on grabbing a good QB when they had the chance in 2017! In the first round, where a team has the best chance to find success, you cannot make need or predetermined "plan" the primary reason for drafting a particular player. If there's a talented QB available at your turn, you take him and don't trade back in order to draft a CB to replace the Pro Bowl CB that you let walk in free agency because you don't believe in paying DBs or WRs the market rate for players at their skill level.

This is simply untrue. The offense had most of the pieces in place except for a QB. It had the best OL and WR corps that any Bills team has had in this century, and the WRs were all young vets. They had a good pass catching TE in Charles Clay who could also block (a bonus), and one of the very best RBs in the league. This group was good enough to be about in the middle of the pack in most statistical measures. The defense had some of the pieces, namely a solid if somewhat older DL and good CBs with Gilmore and Darby. Preston Brown was serviceable at LB. It needed to improve the back seven. It was not a clutch, shut down defense like it had been under Marrone and Schwartz but that was more on coaching than on talent. McDermott stripped the offense of virtually all its talent and replace talented players with bottom feeders and career backups. He did somewhat better with the defense because he cares about the defense -- and special teams. In McDermott's universe, the offense is his red-headed step-child who always gets the crumbs.

Decent compared to whom? For all we know, they could very well just be subs or STers on better NFL teams, but they're starting because the Bills have no one better.

I think that Mahomes would have been successful where ever he was if he had any kind of decent coaching and a decent supporting cast. He's a special talent. You are absolutely right that Allen needs a real QB coach, not a WR coach in need of a new gig so make him the Bills QB coach. I've been on record -- and have taken lots of heat for it -- in saying that the Bills are setting up Allen for failure because they have failed to give Allen any kind of support: not a first rate QB coach, not good receivers, not a solid offensive line. IMO, he's the little kid that the Bills have thrown in the deep end of the pool to sink or swim as best he can ... and he'll also make a convenient scapegoat to take pressure off the Bills CS and FO for their failure to build a competitive team. If you think I'm kidding, consider all the posters who are "okay" with the crappy team the Bills have fielded in 2018 "as long as Allen is learning the ropes". As Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold have shown, a team doesn't have to be totally inept on offense just because they have a rookie QB as their starter.

Dude, have you actually watched Mahomes play???? I was very skeptical of him last season and early this season, but that kid is special. He'd be a star on just about any team he played on with the possible except of McDermott's Bills. Andy Reid's offensive savvy simply enhances his natural talents but then he did that with most of his previous QBs as well ... Donovan McNabb, Michael Vick, Alex Smith, too.

I thought that McDermott ran the 2017 draft because he won the power struggle over the Bills draft board. IIRC, the story was that Whaley wanted Watson. That would seem to make sense since he was officially fired the day after the draft, but that was when all the Bills cheerleaders were hyping the great Tre White pick and Mahomes was just this KC QB who was "nothing special". Now that Mahomes seems to be "the real deal" and isn't a flash in the pan, the narrative is changing to lay the blame for passing on Mahomes -- and Watson -- on Whaley, but of course, McDermott still gets credit for the FA signing of Poyer and Hyde. ?

I didn't say build around them. I was simply counting the NFL caliber talent on offense currently with the Bills. Personnally, I hope that McCoy ends up back in Philly, and I bet that Clay finds a good landing spot as well. Both deserve better than this crap that McDermott and Beane have put on the field.

We should be good with this NOT being the worse season the Bills ever had? I got news for you, dude, I've been watching this team for well over 50 years, and this one rivals those 1-13 and 2-14 squads from the pre-Polian era in how uncompetitive with the rest of the NFL it is. Before the season started, I said they'd go 3-13 in the prediction thread. I may have been hasty in my judgement.

Two years into this supposed "rebuild", there are so many holes on this team that there will not be enough talent available in FA and the draft to fill all the holes even if the Bills could snap up every FA to hit the market and had all the picks in the first 3 rounds of the entire draft. They need virtually an entire offense. Who is at least NFL caliber on the unit? Allen, simply by virtue of the Bills investment in him. Dawkins. Jones. Clay and McCoy if the Bills keep them. Ivory. Groy and -- I hate to say this -- Ducasse as strickly backups. Maybe Miller is salvageable if he had better coaching, which is unlikely if McDermott remains HC. The defense is better but it's living on borrowed time as it's old with 2 35-year-olds (Williams and Alexander) and a 30-year-old on the DL for starters. The safeties are decent, and White is good at CB. Edmunds and Howard are promising but they're rookies who can continue to develop -- or not. Milano looks like the only other half way decent defensive player besides White to come out of the 2017 draft. This roster doesn't resemble a "rebuild" so much as a dumpster fire. McDermott is great at dismantling an NFL team but he's clueless about how to rebuild it. He needs to go ... as does his henchman Beane.

The GM being in charge of the personnel decisions and the HC having input on personnel but not control of who stays or gets shipped out is probably the most common organizational model in the NFL because it works better than other models. A few successful HCs, most notably Belichick and Reid, have personnel control but they didn't get that control from the get-go. They earned that power because of their success over their careers (Belichick relied on Scott Pioli to acquire NE talent early in his tenure in NE). Giving neophyte HCs like McDermott or HCs with mediocre credentials like Jauron or Gruden personnel control is a prescription for failure.

Why? So he can go 0-16 in 2019? So he and Beane can insure that Josh Allen busts because he has crappy coaching and no offensive support????

Some of it's arrogance, especially when successful collegiate HCs like Nick Saban and Chip Kelly come to the NFL and think they can re-create their collegiate successes based on recruiting exactly the players that fit their plans. They fail miserably because of the limitations of player contracts and the salary cap as well as the fact that NFL players are no longer green eighteen-year-olds who don't dare question "Coach". Other coaches are convinced that they have the "real answer" to being a winner, and in order to do that they have to "clean house" of all the current players who don't fit their vision of how a model football player should be. They are perfectly willing to sacrifice talent for "character" or "attitude" or "buying into the process" or whatever nonsense they want to spout to hide the fact that they are seriously lacking in personnel management skills. Basically, these guys can't deal with disparate personalities and/or are intolerant of alternative/opposing opinions; they're "my way or the highway" guys. Both McDermott and Gruden are this type of HC IMO, and they're both going down in flames because of the limitations of the NFL salary cap. Teams simply cannot afford to shed talented players simply because the HC can't deal with players who don't fit the HC's narrow criteria for "his kind of player". I'm not talking about players with off-field issues that may affect their on-field play. I'm talking about players who just have attitudes or beliefs or temperaments that the HC doesn't find acceptable. Managing disparate personalities is a fundamental part of being an NFL HC in the 21st century, and HCs who can't do it, fail miserably. Perennial successful NFL HCs are notable for tolerating players with lots of different perspectives and molding them into winning teams. Think Belichick, Reid, Carroll, Tomlin, and Harbaugh. Whoopty - doo. HOF credential for sure.

Dak wasn't a first rounder. He lasted until the fourth IIRC.

They made roster moves in order to improve the talent at those positions. "Gutting the roster" means that current players are cut and replaced with lesser players instead of better ones. What positions did the Bills actually improve other than CB and S? Certainly not WR or OL

Poor baby. If you don't like what posters are writing, you can always put them on "Ignore" ...

Keep making excuses for McDermott.

Chuck Knox coached the 1981 Bills to the playoffs. Mike Ditka coached the 1985 Bears to a Lombardi. Bill Parcells coached the Giants to a win over the Bills in the 1991 Super Bowl. All these "successful" HCs supposedly without great QBs had their success 2 or 3 or more decades ago.

Are you serious? How, exactly, are KC and Philly examples of "the plan"??? Both of those teams are offensive powerhouses embracing offensive innovation not trying to resurrect the 1980s. This is 2018 not 1981, 1985 or 1991. McVay didn't gut the Rams in order to bring in "his guys". He built on the talented players already on the Rams on both sides of the ball even if his experience came from the offensive side. He wouldn't have gutted the Bills offense just because they played for his predecessor. He'd have hired first rate coordinators, too: DC Wade Phillips, OC Ken Whisenhunt, STC: Jim Fassel.

Yes, I would. The Bills offense in 2016 was about the best it had been since 1999, and played well for Lynn when it struggled under Ryan's original OC, Greg Roman.

Anthony Lynn wanted to be the Bills HC permanently. Instead, he went West to the Chargers. He coached the Chargers to 9-7 and missed the playoffs last season on tie-breakers, and has the Bolts at 5-2 this season. I guess he wasn't committed enough to "The Process" to suit the Pegulas.