SoTier

Why is that? Because the OP doesn't blindly worship at the shrine to football greatness that is McDermott and Beane? Well said. Giving a rookie HC control of player selection is a prescription for disaster. A few successful HCs, most notably Bill Belichick, Andy Reid, and Pete Carroll, have control over player selection, but these HCs have decades of experience. I'm not sure about Reid, but both Belichick and Carroll failed miserably in their early HC stints when they had control over players (Belichick in Cleveland and Carroll in both NE and Jets). Can I interest you in purchasing a recently rehabbed bridge over Chautauqua Lake?

And this one is a championship team???? Sorry, but shedding talent the way McDermott and Beane did in 2017 and 2018 is NOT the only way to add talent to the Bills. As an alternative, consider if in 2017 the Bills had paid Stephon Gilmore and Robert Woods, used the #10 pick on Mahomes or Watson, used the fifth round pick they wasted on Peterman on an OLer (as in both Wood and Incognito would be 30+ in 2018). That would have enabled them to use the draft capital they acquired before the 2018 draft to fill the holes created by letting Goodwin walk and trading Watkins, Dareus, and Taylor. Trading Darby and Glenn would have then been unnecessary, so there would be no holes in the defensive backfield to be filled, and the Bills could have moved Dawkins over to RT to replace Jordan Mills. They would have still had plenty of draft capital fill the holes created by the sudden retirements of Wood and Incognito -- and have a much better team, including having their QB of the future with much better OL and WR corps. Except this team doesn't look capable of either running or stopping the run with any kind of consistency.

The jury is out on MLB and QB because they are rookies -- absolutely nothing says they're keepers at this point; the "young LT" is a sophomore who's not played very well this season now that he's not playing beside a Pro Bowl LG; the only starting caliber RB currerntly on the roster is 30 years old; and the current WLB is under-sized and got benched for a time in the LA game. FYI, the Bills play 2 DTs and 2 DEs so they don't use a NT. Williams is 35 and past his prime. Star is 29 and played poorly last season. Trent Murphy hasn't been healthy since TC began, he's coming off a PED suspension I believe, and when he's been in, he's either sucked or been invisible. As I said, they don't have many good players on their roster.

You credit the Bills FO with much more honesty and transparency than I do.

I disagree that the FO ever intended to sit Allen. The absolute ONLY reason to trade Taylor before the draft and McCarron before the beginning of the regular season when the only QB on the roster not named Allen is Nathan Peterman is to make sure that Allen has to start early in the season. It's absolutely the only reason why Peterman is still on the roster instead of some veteran QB. Why would they do that? To put butts in the seats might be one reason. To cover the FO's collective butts if Allen busts seems a more likely one because they can always claim that Allen might have been better if he'd had more time to sit and learn but "circumstances" forced their hands.

The problem with PFF ratings of QBs is that too often they seem to make mediocre QBs appear to be far better than they are. Does it matter if Joe Backup who was a failed first round QB pick has better PFF ratings than Tom Brady if Brady and the Pats clean their opponents' clock?

It may be that WRs aren't interested in signing with the Bills ...

Doesn't have many good players on the roster, either ...

It is totally disingenous to claim that "the OL is not the problem except for C Ryan Groy". The C is the guy who calls the protections for the rest of his OL mates and if he gets it wrong, the QB pays for it. Moreover, if the center can't hold his blocks, there's no pocket for the QB to step up into. I wouldn't bet against 0-16 for this dumpster fire that McDermott and Beane have created, as hard as it is for NFL teams to go winless through an entire season.

The Bills didn't "reload". McDermott and Beane successfully turned a mid-pack NFL team that needed some tweaks, including a better QB, into a poorly staffed expansion team since McDermott was hired early in 2017. They sent numerous talented young players -- most of whom are starting on playoff contending teams -- packing so that they could fill the team with JAGs, has-beens, and non-NFL caliber trash. Get back to me about how great it feels when the Bills don't have another winning season -- may not even see 7 wins -- for however long McDermott and Beane continue to impersonate competent NFL HC and GM.

Allen won't be on his rookie contract by the time McDermott/Beane figure out how to build a competitive team -- if they ever figure that out at all.

Don't forget that there's been a blocking scheme change since 2016 that may not suit his playing style. That's been Miller's problem, too, as he was looking very good as a young starting RG in 2016 but has been struggling under the McDermott/Castillo. Groy was picked up to fit the previous blocking scheme, so like Miller, he may be struggling to adapt.

Who picks the coordinators and position coaches? McDermott's choices of assistants makes him at least as bad as any HC in the NFL, including Hue Jackson.

Too little, too late. The time to fix the OL was back in the off season during FA and the draft. Furthermore, if McDermott's just realized that the OL is a cesspool, then that raises of serious questions about his fitness to be a HC.

Teams throw away from him because the pickings are so much easier against whatever dud CB plays the other side.

Are you serious? Did you watch MNF last night? A great QB without a decent team around him is no more successful than a journeyman QB, and McDermott/Beane have shown no ability to evaluate talent or "figure out" ANYTHING when it comes to building a team. Furthermore, the clock is already ticking on the evaluation of Allen. The Bills have less than 5 years to determine if Allen is a keeper or not because they'll have to decide whether to pick up his option year or to re-sign him past his rookie contract. A crappy OL, equally crappy WR corps, and a questionable OC calling plays will never allow Allen to be as good as he might be, which means that the evaluation of Allen may never be accurate. It's possible that the Bills could give up on Allen and he goes on to flourish for another team as so many former Bills players have done or the Bills could try to make allowances for the bad personnel around Allen, and wind up signing a journeyman QB to a franchise QB contract that dooms the team to continued mediocrity or worse. That's why it's so important to give QBs with good protection and numerous good targets. That $55 million in dead cap money mostly came from McDermott/Beane's decisions to replace quality players for whatever specious reasons they came up with. They got into cap hell because they didn't pay attention to the cap implicatons of their moves, and they signed trash because of their poor player evaluation. It's called incompetence.

Can I interest you in purchasing a recently rehabbed bridge over Chautauqua Lake?

I'll believe it when I see it happen.

How many kept a player that they always intended to get rid of past March 1, incurring a major dead cap hit in the process, just so they could trade him away before the draft? That's the real problem here. McDermott/Beane seem oblivious to the consequences of shedding players without regard to the cap. Dareus, Glenn, Coleman, and McCarron are more examples. Too.Stupid.To.Be.True.

When you have huge immediate needs on the OL, you can use that $7.6 million in dead cap space to sign a better FA than Russell Bodine or Marshall Newhouse. They could have tried to sign Mike Pouncey, former Pro Bowl center, for $5 million. Too.Stupid.To.Be.True.

Well, the Bills could have had Mahomes AND Sammy if they'd had their crap together in 2017 ... and don't pretend that the trade down to take a DB, however good, over a QB was on Whaley. He didn't run the 2017 draft because he was fired right after the draft.

If IIRC, the Bills could have released Taylor before March 1 without a cap penalty -- or at least a much smaller cap hit. In fact, I think most Bills fans expected him to be released. Instead, the geniuses McDermott/Beane kept a QB that they didn't want just so they could trade him for a third round pick before the draft and take a $7.6 million cap hit. What kind of stupid **** is that???? Then they compound their stupidity by signing AJ McCarron for $5 million and trading him away a couple of months later and incurring $2.6 million in dead cap money. That's $9.6 million in dead cap space for 2 QBs who aren't on the roster ... but at least they got a third rounder and a fifth rounder for all that money they don't have to pay to mediocre QBs. Instead, they're paying about $600k for Nate Peterman to impersonate an NFL QB. Too.Stupid.To.Be.True.

Why would I believe the Bills will get better this season or next or as long as McDermott and Beane are running the show? McDermott has missed on his first OC, on his DC, on his OL coach so far. Had Beane even heard of the NFL salary cap before he was hired as Bills GM because he is obviously clueless about how it limits personnel decisions and vice versa. The scouts McDermott/Beane hired to replaced the Bills scouts they fired are as crappy as the HC and GM who hired them. The lack of talent on this current Bills team, the huge dead cap amount, and the embarrassing effort on the field says it all: this regime is Joel Collier/Harvey Johnson/John Rauch/Jim Ringo/Kay Stephenson/Hank Bullough bad.

We've already seen results, just not the ones any sane person would want to see.

When will that be? 2050????