SoTier

Darryl Talley wasn't a first round pick that the Bills traded up to get. Developmental players come cheaper than a two draft picks, one a first rounder. If you spend that kind of resource on a player, you should get more than a kid who needs more time to learn the game. It's not unlike Buddy Nix's penchant for gambling high picks on players coming off injuries -- mostly a waste of resources. Read the draft analysis on Edmunds. The knock on Edmunds was that he does not play instinctively.

The Bills traded Dareus because he was allegedly lazy and didn't use his skill. Is being lazy and having no skill somehow better just because it's somewhat cheaper?

The level of denial about the quality -- or more correctly, lack of quality -- of the Bills OL in this thread is amazing. What excuse comes next, boys and girls? Since we've already had the BS about playing "vanilla" schemes in preseason, when is the second favorite excuse for OLs -- "the OL needs time to gel" -- make its appearance? Preseason game 3 I expect. All the coaching and game planning in the world isn't going to turn a collection of busts, never-weres, and never-will-bes into a starting caliber NFL OL.

Bull manure. Coaching, work ethic, and QB play cannot replace talent, and for most of the last 20 years, the Bills have tried to get by with low draft picks, UDFA, and other teams' second teamers manning their OLs. Yes, you can find talented individuals on Day 3 of the draft and among the ranks of the UDFA, but you need some players with genuine talent, too. The Bills knew the kind of QB Bledsoe was when they traded for him. If you're going to spend resources on a QB, why would you not spend some extra resources to provide him with protection and targets? This is what I'm afraid that the Bills are doing with Allen, too: depriving him of a real opportunity to succeed by stinting on providing him the support he needs. If Wood and Incognito were still on the team, the entire OL situation would not be nearly so dire. The Bills could afford to draft some Day 3 guys like Teller and give them time to develop. If Glenn were still on the team, Dawkins' poor game wouldn't be so worrisome. Losing Wood and Incognito should have changed the Bills priorities in acquiring players this past off season, but I don't think it did; McDermott and Beane remained focused on the defense.

I'm not holding Taylor blameless, but Bills fans have been using their QBs as scapegoats for poor OL play since 2003 when they blamed Drew Bledsoe for "holding the ball too long". Sometimes they've been correct but most times it's been the failure of the Bills FO/GM/HC/whomever has been in charge of personnel to improve the talent on the OL. Whatever bricks and bats one wants to throw at Doug Whaley, he understood that you can't build a good OL without some investment in talent. I don't believe that McDermott and Beane, who are supposedly "joined at the hip", do because they seem to be going back to the bad old days of trying to create an NFL caliber OL with non-NFL talent.

Yes. One of the announcers mentioned that. I think the original plan for the Bills was to only play the 1s for the first quarter or maybe 1 series with Allen, but I think that they were so bad in the first quarter that they stayed in the entire first half. I think that the first D also played into the second quarter, maybe all of the first half, too, with some substitutions, but I'm not sure. The 1s on both sides of the ball sure stunk it up against the Browns' 1s, which is very worrisome.

The media, national or local, isn't going to determine if Josh Allen is successful or not. That's going to depend upon his performance on the field.

We're back to the "blame the QB" scenario. Sorry, dude, but McCarron was out there when the Browns were playing their #1 D against the Bills #1 O. The Bills #1 O played the entire first half while the Browns #1 D was done at the end of the first quarter ... which happened to coincide with Allen coming in and the Bills offense, especially the OL, playing better. The first quarter OL performance is likely what we'll see in the regular season regardless of who's the QB, although I have no doubt whoever is under center will be scapegoated just like Taylor was last season.

I have been saying this all off-season ... and have been crucified for being "negative" and "hating the Bills" by the McDermott/Beane cheerleaders. Ducasse is not a starting caliber NFL caliber OG. He never has been in all his 8 or 9 year NFL career. Bodine is easily one of the worst starting Cs in the NFL ... and Groy wasn't good enough to challenge Wood. As Miller showed last season, a decent rookie season does not necessarily translate into even as good a sophomore season, but the Bills have banked everything on Dawkins continuing to improve by trading away Cordy Glenn. Hopefully he continues to progress, but last night wasn't positive. There's STILL a black hole at the LG position where a pack of never-weres and never-will-bes are competing to fill the hole left by the departure of Pro Bowler Richie Incognito. Putting Allen out there behind the Bills current OL practically insures he's going to fail. It's not enough to draft a first round QB. A team needs to provide him with protection (and targets, too) to give him a real chance at success ... and the Bills don't appear to have done that at all.

There's a reason why Ducasse rode the pine in his previous NFL stops except when the starters ahead of him were injured. He's NEVER been very good, no matter what the statboys at PFF and their questionable methodology for rating OLers and OL performance claim. That he's now playing next to Bodine, who is easily a downgrade from Wood at C, exposes more of his weaknesses.

Why is Shaq a "silver lining" in this case? Are you implying that Shaq wouldn't start playing betters if Murphy had stayed healthy? Signing a FA DE who can stay on the field with Lawson playing better would constitute a true "silver lining".

Don't much like your double standard being pointed out, do you?

How can you possibly be so negative???? McDermott and Beane don't make mistakes.

Because the Jests have already determined that they're going to start Darnold in the season opener, and they aren't going to allow something as minor as Darnold's actual on-field performance to derail their plans. They'll limit him to doing what he does well, knowing that the media will uncritically gush all over him over any little success. They are manipulating their rookie QB to insure that they get the results they want in the short term even if it explodes in their faces later in the season ... or in Darnold's career. That's my explanation for the Jests' keeping Darnold so tightly under wraps.

Actually, I think most young QBs taken in the first round tend to air it out in preseason because they think they can beat NFL secondaries like they did collegiate ones. Darnold seems reminiscent of another USC QB drafted by the Jests in the first round: Mark Sanchez. It's a bit early to declare this QB a great one. The 2012 class was supposed to be so great, too, with Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin, Ryan Tannehill, and Brandon Weeden going in the first round, but if it hadn't been for the three QBs taken in the third and fourth rounds -- Russell Wilson, Nick Foles, and Kirk Cousins -- 2012 would have been just another average QB class.

McDermott is probably the best HC the Bills have had since Chuck Knox. I think the Bills would have a Lombardi if he'd been the HC against the Giants rather than Marv Levy despite going against Parcells (and his evil assistant, DC Bill Belichick).

Which is why when the Bills devolve into their usual sucky selves on offense, I bail. It's why I no longer have seasons. I never walked out early of a Bills game until the Jauron era. They were unwatchable. Sometimes the Bills since then have been almost as bad.

With the Bills, that seems to be how things work ... and have worked since Bill Polian packed his bags about a quarter of a century ago.

ROTFLMAO! The offense CAN certainly be worse than the offense was last year! Maybe you don't remember the offenses under Dick Jauron in 2008 and 2009, but I do. Those offensive offenses make the 2017 Bills look like a juggernaut. While the Bills showed lots of passing in Preseason Game 1, there's no guarantee that they'll continue to be a passing team in the regular season ... or that the OL will perform even close to its 2017 level ... or that any of the QBs are competent NFL starters ... or that injury won't take out Shady or Clay or Benjamin ... or all three.

The problem with this explanation is that Zay didn't just drop that one pass in the Carolina game. He dropped numerous passes throughout the season. He failed to regain any confidence all last season, so why do you think he will magically regain it in 2018? I'm not saying he won't, but I do question why you are so sure that he will.

Sorry, but the Pegulas lost me as a supporter when they not only kept Russ Brandon as president of the Bills, but promoted him to head honcho of both the Bills and Sabres. Brandon's claim to fame before coming to the Bills was the dismantling of the MLB Florida Marlins the season after they won the WS ... but increasing profitability by cutting payroll. Brandon's record as Bills' boss was all of 2 winning seasons in the last 12 years and 1 lucky playoff appearance while keeping the Bills notably profitable. That merits a promotion only if profitability counts more than winning. I'll believe that the Bills have made winning rather than profits their top priority when I see them start winning regularly ... and so many of their best players aren't going off to help NE, New Orleans, Seattle, and Philadelphia win Super Bowls because the Bills wouldn't pay them what they were worth.

Why do you feel that you have the right to speak for all the members of TBD? This is a message board, not a propaganda site for the Bills, and posters have the right to express their opinions even if they are critical of the Bills. If you don't like that, then you should follow your own advice about leaving. You are out of line.

This is what too many Bills fans don't see or refuse to acknowledge. The 2017 team was very flawed, and making the playoffs was due partly to McDermott's coaching (keeping the team from imploding in mid-season and maximizing its opportunities) but mostly to sheer good luck. They could have easily been a 5 or 6 win team last year, and even then, they needed the Ravens pass defense to suffer a brain fart and enable Andy Dalton to throw a winning TD pass in the closing minutes of the final game of the season that put the Bills in the playoffs. The playoffs were "fun" but they hardly portended anything dynastic; too many usually good AFC teams had off-years, opening the WCs to teams with only 9 wins, which is pretty unusual.

I wish it was, but it's how I feel, and it's going to take several years to determine who's right or wrong. Certainly the Pegulas' ownership of the Sabres hasn't produced success since the team has missed the playoffs seven straight years.

This has been my exact problem with all the cheerleaders this off-season/pre-season. I am very skeptical about most of the personnel moves the Bills have made in 2017 and 2018, primarily because too many of them seem to be in the same short-sighted philosophy of sending proven vets packing rather than pay them that has plagued the Bills since at least John Butler and AJ Smith departed for California. As a Bills fan for more than fifty years and a former season ticket holder, I'm no longer willing to give any HC or GM/HC combo or owner a free pass without concrete results for more than a single season. The Bills have conned their fanbase too many times in the past, so I'll believe that the current regime has a formula for winning regularly when double digit wins, playoff appearances, and playoff wins happen frequently rather than maybe once every two decades.