SoTier

Amazing game! Congrats to the team! I really thought that the Vikes would come out in the second half and make it a game. That never happened. I think they didn't even get into the red zone until the fourth quarter.

Okay. That makes more sense. I thought that you were equating a team covering the spread as winning the game. Maybe to gamblers it is, but to team fans, it's sort of "whoopty doo".

There's no divide on the Bills because all of the scouts were fired shortly after Whaley got the axe and replaced with hand-picked pals of McDermott and Beane, mostly from -- surprise -- Carolina. IIRC, there was a report shortly after the Raiders traded Mack that Gruden's move caught the Raiders FO somewhat by surprise. I'm guessing that that report stemmed from this divide.

I thought of this while watching one of the football commentary shows last week and they were discussing Aaron Rodgers' bad knee. If the Bills crap the bed again against the Vikings, I wouldn't at all be surprised if Kizer started for the Packers when they play the Bills. First of all, while it's likely a player a team intended to rest would be inactive, there's no rule that he has to be. He could just not start. Secondly, there's a big difference between covering the spread and actually winning.

Point. Set. Match. Blaming the players for a team's failures is like blaming foot soldiers for losing battles rather the generals.

In order for the Bills to be like 2018 Bears in 2019, they have to can McDermott, give control of player selection to Beane, hire an offensive minded HC, and finally trade for Von Miller or some other game changer on defense. That ain't happening, which is probably just as well because after seeing the crap McDermott and Beane have put on the field in the form of FAs in 2018 and the stupid trades the Bills have made under Beane, putting Beane totally in charge of player personnel would make the Browns FO at their very worse look astute.

PFF's ratings of OLers and QBs seem to be seriously flawed because they consistently seem to rate lesser players higher than they ought to be and better players lower than they should be.

I totally agree with your assessment of Mayfield. I'm usually very reluctant to jump on the bandwagons of young QBs because so many fail to continue to develop and become true franchise QBs, but Mayfield's performance against the Jets was absolutely amazing. I've never seen any rookie QB -- or any QB in his first start -- come into a game and simply take it over.

If there's one thing that Bills fans know about, it's "not exactly a high caliber franchise" since they've been cheering for one every football season for the last 20 years. In your opinion. His teams have hung tough both last year and this so far, despite all the losses, and that's impressive. His teams have been well prepared. He's smart enough to hire two first rate coordinators. Coaches have different styles, and Hue's style may fit today's players -- especially younger players -- better than other some coaching styles. For the first time in his tenure in Cleveland, he's got talent on both sides of the ball. Bills fans have been brainwashed into thinking no WR is worth the going rate for top proven vets for their position. Well, now they've got their potential franchise QB and he has crap for a receiving corps.

It wouldn't be too hard to be better than most of the Bills OLers with the possible exception of LT Dion Dawkins.

This is an excellent post! Congrats! As I've said numerous times in the past, Allen has been set up to fail because the team around him is so bad. In any field, the individuals who succeed without some kind of support from family, friends, teammates, teachers, etc are very rare because no one exists in a vacuum.

The Bills get embarrassed again by giving up 30+ points in the first half while scoring a FG themselves. The Vikes work on honing their running game in the third quarter and give PT to their subs in the fourth, which keeps the score under 50. 48-10 Vikes. ********************************************************************* Holy crap!!! This has got to be the biggest upset in the NFL so far. Maybe in the entire season!

That's because Iowa seems to regularly produce good OLers. It's like back in the day when Penn State used to be noted for its LBs.

Watkins' rookie contract was up. LA tried to re-sign him but they couldn't agree to a deal, so he walked. The difference between the Rams last season and KC this season versus the Bills is that those teams have lots of other targets for Goff and Mahomes. Watkins was and is one of several fast, sure-handed WRs the Rams and the Chiefs have provided to help their young QBs shine. Who the hell have the Bills given Allen? Maybe I should also ask 'what the hell have the Bills provided to help their young QB?' because they haven't given him any sort of protection in the form of a competent OL, a decent running game so he doesn't have to throw 30 plus times a game or even a respectable defense, either. That's what angers me most: that the Bills are setting up Allen to fail because NO QB -- not Rodgers or Brady or P Manning -- could be successful on this team because its talent level is on a par with an expansion team's. I didn't like the Allen pick at all, but now that he's a Bill, I sure don't want him to fail. It's hard enough for any QB to succeed in the NFL without being sabotaged by an organization that demonstrates weekly it's still as disinterested in winning football games as it ever has been.

The defense isn't the dumpster fire that the offense is, but that isn't saying much, and they haven't played very well so far. White, Hyde, Poyer, and Hughes are bonafide NFL talents. At this point in their careers, Williams and Alexander are somewhat questionable. Star and MIlano are JAGs at best. Edmunds is a rookie struggling to adjust to an entirely new situation. The rest of the Bills defensive roster is trash, although a better class of trash than the steaming pile of offal that's on offense it's true.

The Bills don't have "some depth issues". They have a significant lack of NFL caliber players on their roster, period, including most of the starters on both sides of the ball.

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.