SoTier

How did Jenkins "mess up"? He has been in Florida for weeks. Lots of people have relatives/friends/house sitters stay at their houses when they're away for extended periods to discourage property crimes.

Since the police could very well not let you into your house if it was a murder scene, it might be pointless until they release the house from the investigation. If his brother is involved, then that would be a reason for Jenkins to return immediately but it wouldn't necessarily make him look involved in the crime. Families tend to come together in times of trouble.

I agree. Gabriel's evals of both Allen and Edmunds are about like the evals that other draft analysts put out around draft time. Both are big risks, even without the fact that the Bills traded up to get both.

Just because the Bills frequently trade away their best players for next to nothing, especially when those players are among the best in the NFL, doesn't mean that other teams are as disinterested in winning football games. For those suffering from memory impairment, Jason Peters and Marshawn Lynch are two ex-Bills who were about the same caliber as Jones when the Bills traded them away for the equivalent of used athletic equipment. Even if Jones were to be available for trade, the Bills wouldn't be interested. The current regime doesn't seem interested in adding top players, especially on offense.

Actually, Blake Bortles played pretty well most of the year, so your statement is dead wrong. Moreover, why do you think that the Bills will be able to run the ball? They weren't nearly as good running the ball last season as they were the season before, and they've lost their 3 top OLers. They've added only 1 veteran lineman, and the prospects of finding decent OLers off the waiver wire are between slim and none. There's also no guarantee that the QBing will be an improvement over last year, either. FTR, the Bills didn't have a "great" defense last season.

Yeah. Only morons or Pats fans would question the ability of a team lacking an NFL caliber OL, WR and QB corps to win more than a few games in the same season.

The last time I looked, the media doesn't determine whether any athlete succeeds or fails. Allen will succeed or fail based on how he does on the field, not on what the media says about his play.

I think that the arguments over "production" for Allen -- or any QB -- will occur if he fails to clearly take command of the team and take it to wins using his arm and leadership so that the team wins regularly and makes the playoffs consistently. Who's the best QB among Andy Dalton, Ryan Tannehill, and Cam Newton? I think most posters would pick Newton even if his stats aren't nearly as good as Dalton's or Tannehill's for most of his career. Controversies over a QB's stats occurs when there's general dissatisfaction with how the team performs, even when that performance may not be the QB's fault (like the Bills likely having a suspect OL and WR corps in 2018 or a crappy defense like they had in 2016). How many Packer fans complained about Favre's propensity to throw INTs?

Y'know, the last time I heard a Bills team described this way was when Jauron had those god-awful boring 7-9 losing groups, and the 2018 Bills resemble those talent-deprived squads far too much for my liking. Sorry, but motivation, youth, and work ethic are not substitutes for talent, and good coaching can only go so far in making up the talent deficit. Perennial playoff/Super Bowl contenders aren't that way because they're filled with hard working players with modest talent; they're filled with lots of very talented players on both sides of the ball. Brandon Beane has proven squat. He's run exactly 1 draft, and none of those players have played in an NFL game that counts yet. His trades yielded mostly draft picks. HIs FA acquisitions have yet to play for the Bills in NFL games that count just like his draft picks.

I hope you are wrong, but certainly giving Wood and McCoy incentives for 2017 would have likely been a very seamless way to get them to buy into McDermott's "process" without appearing to do so. I, too, am suspicious that the return to Jauron Ball in 2017 might become the Bills new "norm". Why do you think that NFL execs/management are exempt from practicing the same kind of ruthless manipulation that we see all the time in other businesses -- and in government, organizations, and even families? Have you never known of somebody high up a corporate food chain who used financial incentives or a strategic promotion or transfer to accomplish some goal without appearing to do so? I'm not saying that this was the case with the Bills deals with Wood and McCoy, but it's not outside the realm of possibility, particularly with Russ Brandon at the head of the organization.

Why is Bodine "likely fine actually"? Because the Bills just have this "knack" for turning trashy OLers who aren't really good enough to be starters on other teams into All Pros? Sorry to burst your daydream but the Bills have no such "knack". Other teams' crappy OLers come to the Bills and play just as poorly here as they did before. Too many Bills fans just ignore that and blame the QB or the RBs or whomever. Teams that have some top notch OLers can often mask the poor play of the other guys, which the Bills did when they had Wood, Incognito, and Glenn in 2016. All three are gone. How much did Dawkins benefit from playing beside Incognito in 2017? Well, we'll find out now, and what's scary is that Dawkins, a sophomore, is probably the Bills best OLer on paper. I'm not saying there's much the Bills could have done between the end of 2017 and now, to have changed the situation, but pretending that "everything will be fine" with the OL is simply ignoring reality. Wood's injury and Incognito's problems weren't things that could be foreseen and remedied. An argument could be made for them keeping Glenn but there are arguments the other way, too. Even addressing the OL in the draft differently may not have been possible. I just hope that what's transpired in FA and the draft in 2018 doesn't portend a return to the kind of lip service to creating a functional offense that we saw during the Jauron years. Just drafting a QB in the top ten isn't enough. All QBs need protection and weapons to be successful, and the Bills are woefully short on talent in those areas.

What, exactly, does Josh Rosen have to do with the fact that Josh Allen is the least accomplished of the top four QB prospects in the 2018 draft? Rosen's success or failure is irrelevant to Allen's success or failure. Each one will stand or fall on his own. The OP implied that Allen is a superior prospect to any other QB prospect that the Bills have had since Jim Kelly, and that's just not true however much "true believers" try to spin it, and that's especially true of Losman. Allen is another project just like Losman and Manuel. Too many pro evaluators fall in love with physical traits while glossing over all the prospect's faults, especially when they involve intangibles like decision making or reading defenses. Allen could be turn out to be great, but declaring him so just because he was drafted in the top ten is simply silly.

Aside from Allen being taken in the top ten, how is he different from JP Losman and EJ Manuel? All three were/are "projects" with lots of raw talent that the Bills gambled on. Almost all QBs taken in the first round who are considered "projects" like Losman and Manuel have failed. Maybe Allen will be different, but don't bet more than you can afford to lose because the odds are stacked against him. That's what's "real", dude.

In an alternative universe your scenario might be true but in the one we inhabit, the defense has stayed about the same, and the offense has taken a major step backwards at QB and OL and done nothing to improve the sad situation at WR. I'm sorry, but McCarron hasn't even made 100 passes in the NFL and no rookie QB can truly compete with a competent NFL starter, and unless Daboll is a miracle worker, the Bills offense will be "offensive" in 2018 will make 2017 look like a juggernaut.

Exactly. I remember when McGahee was here, and the fans were on him because he "danced" at the LOS. Then he went to Baltimore and later Denver where they had good/decent OLs, he stopped "dancing" and the hit the holes ... BECAUSE THEY ACTUALLY EXISTED!!!!

Only in an alternative universe.

RIP, Coach Knox. He was probably the Bills best coach ever, given the talent he had on his rosters, compared to what Saban and Levy had on theirs.

Keep telling yourself that when the Bills offense scores even fewer points than last year ... and then blame it all on McCarron or Allen, whoever has the misfortune to be the starting QB. The Bills OL wasn't "fine" in 2017, and the prospects for it being "fine" in 2018 are highly unlikely. Statistical "analyses" of OLs are jokes that seem aimed at "proving" poor OLs aren't nearly as bad as they played.

Sorry, but news is not dependent upon the reporter's political views. News is the simple facts of a story: what happened, who was involved, when it happened, and where it happened. Example: Joe's house in Timbuktu burned down on Tuesday or the President addressed Congress on the economy on Friday. Whether someone subscribes to one particular political creed or another doesn't change the facts. If it does, then that "reporter" isn't reporting news at all but spreading propaganda.

IMO, you're scrambling to find examples so you've used the meaningless phrase, "some success". I would use a stricter standard: only QBs who were considered franchise QBs for the bulk of their careers. That's Favre, Brunell, Bledsoe, Plummer, Garcia, Hasselbeck, and McNabb pre 2000. Maybe Green and Delhomme, too. That's 7 franchise QBs in about a decade. Post 2000, which is almost twice as long as the first time frame, there's only half as many franchise QBs: Vick, Palmer, Ryan, and Stafford. That's a reflection of how much the game has changed over the last twenty years. Given that Allen was a top ten draft pick for whom the Bills expended additional draft capital beyond the #7 pick, I think if he's fails to develop into a franchise QB, he will be a major disappointment at best, and that's even if he performs at about Jay Cutler's level. If he does no better than a McCown or Orton or have a meteoric career like Anderson or Kaepernick, he'll be considered a bust.

You don't know that for a fact. If the Bills hadn't traded up, it's possible that neither does Arizona or maybe the Cards always wanted Rosen and would have taken him with the tenth pick even with Allen available so that Allen would have been available at #12. Not what actually happened nor what might have happened changes the Allen's quality as a NFL QB prospect. He is what he is, at #7 or #12 or at #22. Moreover, "Allen was always a Top 10 pick throughout the process" is simply hype from the media draft mavens; he was only a "Top 10" pre-draft because the talking heads said he was. Allen's stock rose significantly only after his Combine performance IIRC, so he might not have actually been "always a Top 10 pick throughout the process". He was a good story, and after Carson Wentz's meteoric rise and his Combine, there was a lot more interest in a kid from ND State. Those same talking heads claimed that Sam Darnold was the best QB in the draft ... until he wasn't, and Cleveland didn't take either when they could have, did they? They took the QB who actually produced in games, not just in shorts and controlled situations, and who demonstrated accuracy, good mechanics, knowledge of the game, on-field leadership, etc. Mayfield and Rosen were the best prospects in this draft, and Mayfield was better than Rosen because he doesn't have the concussion injury. That's a very valid reason IMO to downgrade him, and I think it factored into evaluations. Darnold and Allen only really had excuses for why they didn't do was well as Mayfield or Rosen; the excuses were a constant whenever the media experts listed their QBs. Now, maybe some or all of the excuses were legit, but Allen is still the same thing that Losman and Manuel were: a project QB who has a greater chance of busting than succeeding as an NFL QB, and that's not because of where he was drafted but because of the skills and talents he has or doesn't have.

How, exactly, is Josh Allen all that different from JP Losman or EJ Manuel? All three were NOT the consensus best player in their draft class, which is pretty much the closest a QB comes to being a "sure thing" in the draft, but all three were first round picks. All three were selected in the first round because the Bills were set on drafting a QB in the first round. All three were considered "projects" who would have to sit for a season or two to be ready for the NFL because they all had faults with their mechanics. For the record, no first round QB considered a "project" has developed into a successful NFL QB in the last two or three decades, and that has been what has so many Bills fans worried. That you lumped Edwards and Taylor, neither of whom were first rounders, together with failed first rounders as "bad QBs" demonstrates that YOU don't know what you're talking about. Drafting a QB in the top ten doesn't necessarily make him better than other first QBs. Vince Young was drafted #3, Jake Locker #8, and Blaine Gabbert #10. Aaron Rodgers was drafted at #24. Russell Wilson was a third round pick, and of course Tom Brady was a flyer taken in the sixth round.

The Stillers in general have been "much less effective" since they won their last SB. In recent years, their defense simply hasn't been as good as it needs to be for them to win in the playoffs, especially when they play in the same conference with Brady and the Pats, and their cap troubles have limited their ability to fix it. Getting together a good enough team to be true Super Bowl contenders under the salary cap is a major problem for just about all of the teams with great QBs ... except for NE.

You beat me to it. Roethlisberger may be a great QB on the field, but off the field, he's rivals your average golden retriever in IQ.

If he can play guard even decently, then I'm for bringing him in. He'd be an instant upgrade at LG (where there's no legit starter) and possibly at RG as well.