SoTier

I have questioned McDermott and Beane's competence about anything to do with offensive football since last TC when, after letting Woods and Goodwin walk in FA, they traded away Watkins, too, essentially stripping the offense of all its NFL caliber WRs and all its ability to stretch the field. At this time (even before Sunday's game), I have become convinced that McDermott not only doesn't care about offensive football but that he views it as a necessary evil, most especially that new-fangled invention called the forward pass. He apparently thinks to resurrect the 2005 Bears that went to the playoffs with a great defense, a great running game, and a rookie QB ... or maybe he wants to resurrect the 1973 Bills that rode rookie QB Joe Ferguson feeding OJ Simpson the ball on nearly every play (to the tune of 2003 rushing yards for OJ) to a 9-5 record. Whatever the motivation, McDermott and his henchman Beane are clueless about how to build a modern NFL offense. They don't value offensive football, and moreover, McDermott seems to be more interested in players' character or attitude than in their talent. Sorry, Sean, but work ethic and "buying into" your outmoded offensive philosophy do NOT trump talent.

I'm not shocked. I'm angry that McDermott and Beane spent so much on a first round QB and then set him up to fail by doing just about everything they could possibly do to insure he fails. If you go out and buy a brand new shiny Mustang, are you going to park it out on a narrow side street or are you going to protect your investment by renting a garage?

McDermott took over pretty much total control over personnel since before the 2017 draft. I believe when he was hired, he was supposed to share personnel selection with Whaley (that's sort of how it worked since Whaley was hired). Sometime between his hiring and the draft, McDermott won the power struggle, and Whaley was essentially a lame duck for the 2017 draft, being fired the next day. The FAs the Bills picked up before the 2017 draft generally have the "feel" of Whaley and the "old" Bills scouts ... bargain priced FAs who played pretty well. Think Hyde, Poyer, E Gaines (whom the Bills didn't bother to re-sign but who is playing decently for his new team). Even Ducasse wasn't a bad pick up since he was added to be depth at the G position behind Miller. The 2017 draft was McDermott's with apparently input from some of his pals already on board. The 2018 FAs and draft class belong to McDermott and the new scouts who were mostly refugees from Carolina. Beane is not a personnel guy, so I think he's the one charge with actually making the deals and dotting is and crossing ts for McDermott rather than deciding which players to bring in or send packing.

Minor point, but the Carpies also won that game ...

I never had any faith in the Carolina crew. It's not like Carolina has won 5 Super Bowls in this century ... or any other century, either.

The whole front office and coaching staff don't look really bad. They are really bad ... just like they've been again and again over the decades. In fact, if I didn't know it was 2018, I'd swear it was 2001 or 1985 or 1971 or 1968. 2018 has the feel of being about as bad as any of those.

Given McDermott and Beane and their scouts' wondrous ability to judge offensive talent, I doubt that those "wholesale changes to the offense" will result in significant improvement in offensive performance, especially since McDermott, Daboll, Castillo, Robiskie, and the rest of the current offensive coaches are still here. Swapping out stinky crap for slightly less stinky crap doesn't change any of it into treasure.

To watch a generally non-competitive team get a lucky ugly win once a month if they're lucky? ROTFLMAO. The Sabres used to be the hottest ticket in town, but the Pegulas fixed that pretty well.

Excuses, excuses, excuses. The reason that the Bills "are lacking on the offensive side" is because the HC is clueless about evaluating offensive talent -- both of players and of coaches.

If you don't like what the poster has to say, then put him on "ignore". This isn't a "No criticism of McDermott and Company Zone" no matter how much you and your fellow cheerleaders try to turn it into one.

Since McDermott is really in charge of personnel and Beane just takes care of the details of getting the players he wants (or getting rid of the players he doesn't want), McDermott needs to go before Beane. At first read, this sounds like a joke but McDermott's stubborn insistence on keeping Peterman on the roster and making him the back up when he is clearly not an NFL caliber player raises serious questions about why McDermott drafted him at all, much less in the fifth round, when he simply doesn't have an NFL arm. He's a TC body at best. Why waste a fifth round pick on a QB prospect whose ceiling is maybe career backup when your team has so many other holes? McDermott shouldn't be fired for not drafting Mahomes, but he should be fired for drafting Peterman.

Can I interest you in the purchase of a slightly used but recently rehabbed bridge over Chautauqua Lake? You seem like just the kind of guy who would jump at that opportunity.

Keep telling yourself that.

You have nailed the relationship with McDermott and Beane dead on. McDermott makes the personnel decisions, and Beane does his bidding by getting the guys McDermott wants -- and McDermott's offensive philosophy is reminiscent of the conservative coaches' from the 1970s or 1980s where the job of the offense is to not lose the game while the defense and special teams provide the winning plays. I'm sure that Mike Ditka and Dick Jauron whole-hearted support McDermott's offensive views because it's the way they liked to play the game. My guess is that picking Allen -- or any first round QB in 2019 -- was simply to placate the fan base. Passing on better QB prospects in 2017 in order to draft a first round DB as well as trading away Watkins after letting Woods and Goodwin walk away in FA reflects how little McDermott values offensive football. That the Bills did nothing but sign bottom feeder OC Bodine and a couple of other non-NFL caliber scrubs to replace Wood and Incognito as well as waiting until late in the fifth round to start drafting offensive players other than Allen simply underscores McDermott's disinterest in creating a modern offense for the Bills by providing his young QB with protection and targets. That the Bills have FINALLY got around to getting him a real mentor -- five weeks into the season FCOL! -- tells you how little McDermott, Beane, and the Bills really care about Allen's success. You could very well argue that NOT signing Anderson or another experienced starter before TC was done deliberately to insure that Allen was going to be starting sooner rather than later, and that the idea that the Bills "intended" Allen to sit and learn for a while was just so much wishful thinking on the part of Bills fans. Allen is essentially on his own to sink or swim ... and be the convenient scapegoat for the team's poor record until the point where either McDermott/Beane get the boot or he's declared "a bust".

They really thought Peterman was NFL material because he looked good in shorts and red jerseys?

De-Nial isn't a river Egypt but rather where Bills fans who refuse to face facts that they don't like take refuge by trying to insult/intimidate fans who point out those facts. Fact One: McDermott/Beane traded for Benjamin on what was fundamentally a one-year rental despite questions about his knee issues and despite his lack of speed. Fact Two: McDermott/Beane also traded for Corey Coleman only to find that he was crap, not only losing a draft pick but also incurring a $3.5 million cap hit, when they could have waited for Cleveland to cut him outright and given him the same 10 day/2 week tryout that they gave him ... and it wouldn't have been a big deal if some other team grabbed him off waivers. Fact Three: The Bills traded away Taylor, and signed McCarron despite knowing what they had in Taylor and, apparently, not knowing all that much about McCarron. They wasted time, dollars, and cap space on a few months' rental of a backup QB before they moved on. With the signing of Anderson, they are sinking even more $$$ and cap space into the backup QB position. If they had gone after Anderson -- who has been around the league long enough to be a known quantity just like Taylor -- from the get-go rather than trying to pick the cheaper alternative in McCarron, they'd have saved both $$$ and cap space. I'll stand by my statement that McDermott and Beane -- and the people advising them -- are clueless about managing personnel matters.

I would not at all be surprised if the Bills actually did something like trading away picks for one year "rentals", especially on offense. It's exactly the kind of clueless stupidity that McDermott and Beane have demonstrated with their version of "team building" so far: trading for Benjamin and Coleman and signing and then trading away McCarron (and then adding Anderson).

The problem is deciding the definition of "project QB" because there's no standard definition of the label or how it's applied. The reality is that about 50% of first round QBs -- who are mostly the best prospects with only a few being "projects" -- either bust or become low level starters and/or career backups. Only the QBs who are picked #1 are consistently successful -- about 4 out of 5 of them become franchise QBs. Off-hand, I can't think of any first round QB who was labeled "a project" who has been successful in the last twenty years. Among QBs taken after the first round -- who would probably all be considered "projects" -- their chances of finding success are generally between slim and none. Most successful later round QBs tend to have reasons for why they weren't taken in the first round: Drew Brees and Russell Wilson were "too short"; Kirk Cousins was "too slight"; andTom Brady was a victim of athletic department politics that resulted in him being only a part-time starter at Michigan. Andy Dalton seems to be one of the few non-first round QBs to consistently play at a high level from the beginning of his career, but he's had success primarily when he has the right pieces around him. Successful real "project QBs" -- UDFAs -- are rarities, and there have only been two who have been bonafide successes in the last 20 years: Kurt Warner and Tony Romo. Case Keenum may be another.

The way it works around here, Billsfan1972, is that criticism = trolling.

Kudos, sir! I'm on the same bandwagon as you ... a long time Bills fan who's sick and tired of watching clones of the crappy Bills teams from the 1970s and 1980s playing against modern NFL teams. Be warned, though, that you're going to be mocked and told you should "get a life" or "sit back and enjoy the game" by the resident Bills cheerleaders because you dare to complain about the Bills feeding their fans bull manure wrapped up in cutesy phrases and promises of "wait until next year".

Unfortunately, while trading McCoy would be good for Shady, nothing is going to help the Bills offense with the current coaching staff.

McDermott and Beane deserve to be fired for McDermott's dismantling of the Bills offense since he was hired and given general control of player personnel along with his and Beane's failure to provide Allen with an adequate OL and a NFL caliber WR corps. If I had ever done my job as incompetently as these two have "managed" the Bills personnel over 2017 and 2018, my ass would have been out the door ASAP. "Accountability" isn't just for players.

The Bills "can't afford" to keep their own talented players but they apparently can always find the $$$ and draft picks to trade for some other team's first round bust, so I figure that it's a real possibility that Ereck Flowers winds up on the Bills. After all, if he was a first round pick, he must have shown "something".

Another TSW nazi censor wannabe heard from. If you want to be a cheerleader for the current crappy Bills regime, be my guest, but don't presume to tell others what they can post.

Get a clue. Those comparing McDermott to Jauron aren't doing so because of a physical resemblance or similar demeanor. ?