SoTier

Excuse me, but where is this "committment" to a "QB in the draft (or really anywhere)" with Beane or McDermott? I don't see much commitment other than to spend a fortune in draft picks to select a first round QB... and then not look to improve either his protection or targets through the draft or in FA. The Bills lost 3 solid OLers during the off season, and they've replaced none of them quality-wise. They didn't draft another offensive player until the very end of the fifth round ... not exactly the area of the draft likely to yield an OLer or WR who can step in and help out his QB as a rookie ... if ever. It may very well be that there weren't any good OL or WR prospects available when the Bills turns came up but the Bills also have not appeared to be scouring the waiver wire, street FAs, and the other trashpiles very hard to possibly improve either their WRs or OL, and God only knows, both units could use improvement. Furthermore, if they truly had a commitment to any QB -- or to the offense period -- why did they not re-sign either Robert Woods or Marquise Goodwin when they were clearly disillusioned with Watkins. "Commitment" to something means more than simply going out and spending resources to acquire something. It means making sure that that something that you've acquired can be successful. Sometimes, that means spending a lot more on supporting that thing than you originally spent getting it. I think NFL QBs are like that because they aren't going to be successful without an OL to protect them and WRs/TEs to catch their passes -- and RBs to give them options. IOW, a commitment to getting a franchise QB means a commitment to building a full fledged NFL offense with all the parts at least being average. That's not the Bills under McDermott/Beane. They dismantled the modestly successful offense with average or better components the Bills had under Ryan/Whaley and replaced it with a first round QB and 30-year-old RB and not too much else. It's not a commitment to offensive football at all, and it sure isn't a commitment to helping a young QB become an accomplished NFL starter.

That was my point. Whaley's picks have already been judged, but McDermott (who may have actually been in charge of both the 2017 and 2018 drafts) and Beane's players have a grand total of one season of NFL play. Three plus years down the road, they may look like heroes or idiots but right now we don't know ... although certain TBD members post as if the Bills won the Lombardi last season when all they did is squeak into the playoff because Baltimore's pass defense had a collective brain fart in the closing minutes of the final game of the regular season.

In case you haven't noticed, any criticism of McDermott and Beane is not allowed by the TBD Fanboys. The Bills appear to be noticeably disinterested in improving either their WRs or their OLers via the waiver wire, which is, and always has been, a common means for teams to improve weak units. The Bills have brought in numerous defensive players before TC looking for the proverbial "diamonds in the rough", so they obviously do believe in trying out FAs. It also makes their not looking at players to possibly improve their worse two units speaks volumes about the Bills priorities ... that offense doesn't matter.

There's nothing to "see". The only "differences" are: a) McDermott/Beane are currently TBD darlings so they can do no wrong in the eyes of their fanboys; b) there hasn't been enough time for McDermott/Beane draftees to be judged as failures. McDermott/Beane's trade-ups in 2018 dwarf all of Whaley's. They gave up so much to get Allen that if he fails, I don't think that they can survive.

I never complained about Allen at all. I linked an article in which the author claimed that as part of his reason for why the Bills will implode in 2018. Keep your facts straight.

I've noticed that you like to label posters you don't agree with as "trolls". I'm crushed. NOT. Get back to me when the Bills offense isn't ranked in the bottom third of the NFL in other categories than rushing.

The key word in my post was "pretend". The better competition is having a legit starter, even a low level one, so that Allen could have a real standard to measure himself against -- and Bills coaches and fans, too. If Allen beats out McCarron and Peterman, it tells no one anything about whether he can be a decent NFL starter. If he beat out Taylor, we'd at least have an idea of his base. If he failed to beat out Taylor in his first TC (most likely), then he'd have at least an intermediate goal to aim for.

The last time I looked, teams need to score more points than the other team in order to win games. I don't see the current Bills being able to do that with much frequency for the foreseeable future. What I see is a GM and HC who seem to either dismiss offense or view it as a necessary evil. It's like they feel that they drafted a QB high in the first round, made sure that he's got a clear path to the starting role, and that's all they need to do with the offense.

Will you still be "in" after a 2 or 3 win season in which the Bills fail to score an offensive TD in 4 or more games? What about multiple losing seasons? This really disturbs me. For all the change in ownership, FO, and coaching staff, the Bills seem to be handling their QBs in 2018 just like they did they did in 2013. 2013 released Fitzpatrick before the draft signed Kevin Kolb as FA - history of numerous injuries over his career drafted EJ Manuel in the first round of the draft other QBs: Thad Lewis (udfa), Jeff Tuel (udfa) 2018 traded Taylor before the draft signed AJ McCarron as FA - spent his entire career as a backup drafted Josh Allen in the first round of the draft other QBs: Nate Peterman (5th rounder) For those of you who don't remember 2013, Kolb failed to make it even to the first preseason game, apparently tripping on a bathmat and suffering yet another injury, opening the door for EJ Manuel to become the starter as he then had such great competition. The Bills in 2018 seem to be much more open about eliminating Allen's competition: they didn't even bother to sign failed starter to pretend to give Allen competition. The more I see of McDermott/Beane regime, the more I'm seeing the same old disinterest in winning football games often enough to make the playoffs more than once every 2 decades.

So it was one stupid comment, which I'm sure you've never made. The substance of the article is about teams likely to have problems this season, and most of the teams named seem likely candidates, including the Bills.

So? Oh, please, save the country boy bs for the next country song you croon. I grew up on a farm, have lived in predominantly rural areas for the last twenty years, and currently still live in a small city in a predominantly rural county, I have also lived in inner city Buffalo as well as suburbia at various times in my life, so I can say from experience that rural living doesn't automatically impart a better work ethic or moral superiority. Many of the problems that plague urban America afflict rural areas as well, including poverty, drug addiction, child/sex abuse, violent crime, etc, because people are people. In rural areas there's less because there's fewer people, not because the people are somehow "better". People are people no matter where they live. As for Allen going to Wyoming for college instead of staying in Cali, that was because he wasn't offered a scholarship elsewhere. He got no offers from colleges and had to go to junior college. You may think that that's a positive but when you take off your Bills-colored glasses, you have to ask why no colleges were interested in this kid with all this supposedly great talent when so many other kids with lesser arms and less physical potential were fielding multiple collegiate offers ... including Josh Rosen.

Or maybe not. Time will tell. Outside of true believer Bills fans, there are lots of skeptics: Ten teams most likely to implode.

Right-o. Bull Buchanan is a troll because he isn't bowing down to worship the fantasies that you and other gullible Bills fans spin about Allen, McDermott, Beane, etc based on nothing but wishful thinking. Carry on proving your ignorance.

Why would anybody change their minds after 3 or 4 practices in shorts?

Exactly this. Contrary to what some fans hope, McCarron is what he's been: a backup QB, and Peterman isn't necessarily even that good but neither has had enough game experience to be fully evaluated, which I think why they are on the Bills. They haven't been totally proven duds but they aren't likely to challenge, much less embarrass, a rookie QB taken in the top ten. The Bills never had any intention of sitting whatever first round QB they drafted for more than a few regular season games, so they "cleared the deck" by trading Taylor, passing on all of the FA QBs with starting experience, and finally signing McCarron well after almost all the other FA QBs were gone. McCarron and Peterman are not only "not much competition" for Allen, but I think that's how the Bills intended it to be well before they drafted him. Whether that works out well for Josh Allen or the Bills in the long term remains to be seen. The GOAT of what? Failed first round QBs?

^^^ How is Tre White all that different from Antoine Winfield or Nate Clements or Stephon Gilmore? Actually, he was a replacement for Gilmore, the Pro Bowl DB the Bills let walk ... just like they let Winfield and Clements walk away. That's been the Bills personnel pattern over the last twenty years: drafting first round DBs (or RBs), using them for their rookie contracts, and then moving on. How is Josh Alllen a superior pro QB prospect to JP Losman or EJ Manuel, other than he doesn't go by his initials? All three had as their biggest pluses their big arms. All three were considered "projects" who would need work to become pro ready. All three had questions about their mechanics, including their accuracy. None of them demonstrated that they had the intellectual skills sets they needed to make them good NFL QBs such as being able to read defenses. I'll give the current Bills regime credit for being "different" from their predecessors when their actions/selections/results don't bear depressing resemblace to previous regimes.

With the Bills FO staff, they've made so many poor choices drafting first rounders over the last 20 years that most of their top picks can be questioned even by fans with minimal football knowledge ... 1999 - Antoine Winfield - 23 2000 - Erik Flowers - 26 2001 - Nate Clements - 21 2002 - Mike Williams - 4 2003 - Willis McGahee - 23 2004 - Lee Evans - 13; JP Losman - 22 2006 - Donte Whitner - 8 2007 - Marshawn Lynch - 12 2008 - Leodis McKelvin - 11 2009 - Aaron Maybin - 11; Eric Wood - 28 2010 - CJ Spiller - 9 2011 - Marcell Dareus - 3 2012 - Stephon Gilmore - 10 2013 - EJ Manuel - 16 2014 - Sammy Watkins - 4 2016 - Shaq Lawson - 19 2017 - TreDavious White - 27 No first round picks in 1998, 2005, 2015 While the Bills coaching staff and FO have swapped personnel over the years with some regularity, most of the scouting staff really didn't change all that much until Beane took over last year. Unfortunately, the 2018 draft has the same "feel" as previous drafts ... another gamble on the proverbial "high risk/high reward" prospect while leaving better prospects on the board.

What exactly does Wentz' college career have to do with Allen other than they both attended smaller college programs? That isn't even a fair comparison because NDSU has been a dominant power among the Div 1 (FSC) for several years while Wyoming has had a modestly successful team with a couple of bowl appearances but nothing special. More to the point, the careers of Wentz and Allen have absolutely no connection. The success or failure of one has absolutely no connection to the success or failure of the other.

Well said. Beane and McDermott haven't done all that much but they've apparently been given blank checks to do whatever they want because the Bills stumbled to 9 wins and benefited from a major faux pas by the Baltimore defense. Allen has the deck stacked against him coming to the Bills, a team that has no OL and no WR corps. Add to that his lack of top quality coaching and relatively modest success against pretty poor competition on the college level, and he doesn't look like the horse to bet the rent on. That's not "praying for him to fail", it's just not ignoring reality. Excellent post. Too many Bills fans refuse to accept the fact that OL play is the key to having a successful offense. Unfortunately, they're going to learn a hard lesson this coming season because the Bills OL is simply not good enough, which means that the Bills offense is going to pile up three-and-out, turn overs, very few TDs, and QB injuries.

And if he wrote that the Bills would go 8-0 in the first half and finish 13-3, you'd be slurping it up like it was your grandma's spaghetti sauce, and it sure wouldn't be "useless". The Bills don't have an NFL caliber OL or WR corps. They not only don't have a starting QB, they don't even have a QB who was significantly better than the other two in minicamp. When a veteran QB who's been around as long as McCarren can't easily out perform a green rookie and a second-year QB who demonstrated as little potential as Peterman demonstrated last season, it's time to start worrying that the emperor's new clothes may be an illusion.

Word out of mini camp is that McCarren couldn't separate himself from Peterman or Allen, which is a scary scenario ... and a blueprint for a 2 or 3 win season.

That Bodine started for Cinci doesn't mean that he'd start elsewhere, including, according to some here on TWD, the Bills. Zay Jones is a bust until he proves otherwise. Kerley and Ivory are long past their primes. No rookie QB is going to be good enough to start on most NFL teams because the learning curve is too steep, and Allen isn't considered pro ready -- his collegiate coaching simply wasn't good enough. Quite frankly, the offense on this team is reminicent the Jauron era, both in the general lack of talent and in the HC's attitude towards offense. I would like to be proven wrong but I don't expect to be. Hopefully, Daboll is better than Dennison, but I'm not holding my breath on that, either. Sad but true. I watch old videos of the Bills offense in the 1990s, and it saddens me that so many younger fans have never, ever seen the Bills regularly play well on offense. The thing is, McDaniels hasn't actually demonstrated that he HAS learned from his mistakes. He was a brilliant OC when he left for the Broncos and failed as a HC. He's still the OC for the Pats until Belichick hangs 'em up.

When I was a kid maybe, but then when I was fourteen I saw the world in simple black and white primarily because I was naive and ignorant. I'm not either now, and haven't been for a long time.

Pretty much this since it's about all that he'll have the talent on the field to do. Why? Aside from McCoy, Clay, Benjamin, and maybe Dawkins, what other offensive players would make most NFL teams except as backups? The reality is that the Bills easily have one of the worst offensive talent levels in the entire NFL, so 28-32 is probably much more realistic.

Right-o. Like Kelvin Benjamin.