SoTier

So, why aren't you frustrated cretins taking out your frustrations on the culprits responsible for the 20 years of failure instead of blindly defending them as if they can do no wrong?

POINT. SET. MATCH. You absolutely nailed it ... as did the original article. As for Peterman, it seems to me that he was set up to fail, too. In addition to the limited prep time he had, the game plan he was asked to execute simply wasn't what a sensible HC/OC would provide for a rookie making his first start. Instead of a simplified plan emphasizing lots of running, max protections, and limited, safe passes to protect the rookie as much as they could, they had Peterman slinging it behind an OL that has been and is playing poorly ... against Joey Bosa and Company ... way too much. Are they that stupid or did they have another agenda? I am not a conspiracy theory believer by nature. In fact, I tend to be just the opposite. However, the Bills have made so many bizarre moves since they put the McDermott-Beane regime in place, that I'm convinced that winning football games -- now, in the immediate future, or ten years down the road -- is simply not on their agenda. I don't know what their agenda is but obviously it's not winning. I have no doubt that the Bills -- FO and coaching staff -- have done their best to sabotage Taylor, and I think that throwing Peterman to the wolves in LA on Sunday was part and parcel of it. They wanted him to throw downfield more than any first time starter should be asked to throw in order to "prove" that the Bills conservative offense in previous games was all Taylor's fault. It blew up in their faces, and I'm glad of that ... but I'm sorry that Nate Peterman, Tyrod Taylor, and all the rest of the Bills players suffered such humiliation because of the asshats in charge. I am also beyond angry that the Bills organization has shown such disdain for Bills fans and their loyalty over the years as to not even TRY to win games in a year when making the playoffs in the AFC with a 9-7 record is entirely possible ... and with the Bills even holding some tie-breakers. And for you cretins who want to B word that the rest of the Bills players ought to have played better, understand that most of them simply can't. They don't have the talent. Most of the younger talented Bills players from the last couple of years -- "Whaley's mistakes" as you cretins call them -- are scattered around the league playing on playoff bound teams. The Bills in their infinite wisdom gleaned from seventeen, soon to be eighteen, straight years of avoiding the playoffs, replaced them with scrubs and rookies. It's not reprehensible for a football player to lack talent. It's the way it is. It is reprehensible, however, for a football team to not even try to win a game when they are seeded for a playoff slot.

Assuming that the Bills make the playoffs any time before 2030 might be a tad optimistic given the brilliance of the current coaching regime and the team's play on the field.

What it says to players is that McDermott and the Bills are NOT committed to winning, and NFL players want to win, and win now, not 3-5 years down the road ... maybe. The average NFL career is only about 3 years, and any player could suffer a career ending injury on any play. The only FAs interested in playing for bottom feeders are players with very limited options because of lack of talent or age ... ie, scrubs ... or guys just looking for pay days.

More continued beat downs like the last three weeks and there will be many fewer Bills fans who care if that happens ... Do you really think that the Bills aren't going to start "hemorrhaging fans", too, if the current team continues to play as badly for the rest of the season as it has for the last weeks and McDermott and Beane come back next year? Well said. Be prepared to get dissed by the True Believers who swear that Russ Brandon has no say in the football operations, though.

Why is the Bills OL so bad this season? This was a good run blocking line the previous three years, and it was adequate at pass blocking. In fact, it was generally thought that LG John Miller, drafted in 2015, was a promising starter who would solidify the line of Glenn, Incognito, Wood, Miller with second round OT Dion Dawkins switching over to take the RT spot. When Glenn can go, Dawkins does, indeed, move over to RT. While it's true that Cordy Glenn has been out a lot this season (contrary to claims by some posters on TBD, he hasn't missed significant time previously), the real problem here is that at least some of the Bills OLers don't seem to fit the blocking scheme that they've been forced into. This has been an issue since TC. That veteran OLers like Incognito and Wood are STILL having trouble with the scheme suggests that it simply doesn't fit what most of them do well. It certainly has been a disaster for Miller since he's been supplanted by Vlad Ducasse, an OG who has failed on every single team he's been on. A competent coaching staff would be smart enough to understand that the OL is the foundation of the offense, and would adapt the blocking scheme to fit their personnel when they come into a situation with a decent OL, not try to remake it into something it's not for no valid reason other than this is what the coaches want. Of course, a competent coaching staff would also understand that having at least one WR capable of stretching the field has to be an essential part of modern day offenses simply because modern defenses are so much more sophisticated than they were twenty or thirty years ago. Then again, a competent coaching staff would not only make sure that a rookie QB making his first NFL start was properly prepared, they would draw up a game plan designed to protect him as much as possible by featuring lots of running plays, max protections, and as safe as passing plays as possible. Riddle me this, McDermott supporters, why the hell wasn't Peterman protected by a simplified, limited game plan? Your hero screwed that kid by throwing him to the wolves in the persons of Joey Bosa and Company with a game plan that he couldn't have success with even if the Bills had better talent and had played better.

The OP is absolutely right about "drought psychosis" reigning supreme, especially in his own mind. I don't doubt that Peterman likely starts on Sunday ... just like I don't doubt that the Chiefs could very well ring up 60+ on the Bills if he does.

^^^ Somebody brought the idea up last week before the Chargers game, but with the likelihood, from McDermott's statements, that Peterman will get the start against the Chiefs, one has to wonder if the Bills changed QBs simply to take fan attention away from the Dareus trade and the defensive collapse that followed. Last week, the way the Bills D played against the Jests and Saints was hardly mentioned in the media. Even after the awful loss to the Chargers, fan attention is still more focused on the QB question than on the defense.

Oh, I don't think that fans disliked Dareus until he signed his new contract, and the media started harping on it last year when the entire D sucked. He was a convenient scapegoat, and then McDermott and Beane piled on, probably on the orders of the suits in the second floor at OBD who decided to get rid of the obligation ASAP, fueling fans' animosity towards him. Says who? Sean McDermott? Brandon Beane? Russ Brandon? Message board posters? The only things you know about him are what you read or hear in the media and MBs like this one; you don't know him personally. The Bills have been trying to get rid of Dareus since last spring but teams wouldn't take on his contract because they figured that if they couldn't trade him, the Bills would cut him ... until Jacksonville decided to act because, unlike the Bills, the Jags organization isn't stupid enough and arrogant enough to pass on an opportunity to make the playoffs even if the best they can do at QB is their bust of a supposed franchise QB ... and I'd trust Tom Coughlin's and Doug Marrone's evaluation of Dareus far more than I'd trust McDermott's or Beane's. The Jests put 37 on the Bills, the Saints 46, and the Chargers 54. If this arithmetic progression holds true, then KC's gonna ring up 61. ^^^ Well said, sir.

Why should they be rewarded for !@#$ing up and turning a modestly talented team in a virtual expansion franchise? The Bills had some young talent to build on, so it wouldn't have taken them five years to add enough pieces to make the playoffs and then shoot higher. Now, it will take two or three years just to replace the talent these two asshats jettisoned ... and that's assuming the Bills would have somebody better than McDermott and Beane because the player evaluation skills they've demonstrated so far suck ... and seem to lean heavily on Carolina rejects. The Bills fans have been remarkably patient with the Bills as they've continued to support the team despite the Bills only posting 2 winning seasons in the last 17 years, but they may be reaching the end of the road. If the team continues to play as poorly as it has the last three weeks and heads don't roll, only drafting a QB in the Top Five may bring the fans back in 2018.

Two points. IIRC, the Bills get virtually all of the profits from parking and concessions which are totally dependent upon actual game attendance. The second point, barring some kind of drastic measures or a miracle, the chances of this team playing competitve football much less actually winning any more games, seem dim at best. Season ticket sales were down this season. They could plummet next season if the Bills don't do something to give fans hope that things will be better. Drafting sensibly ain't gonna do it, especially if McDermott and Beane remain. Making a "bold move" to trade up in the draft to grab a big name QB could, and it's entirely plausible if you consider the haphazard way the Bills have managed personnel issues on the team for at least a decade.

Feel to free to save it on your own if you're so confident that your hero is going to be successful. I own my mistakes. Do you?

LOL. The constant excuse of Bills fans for the last seventeen years ... since sainted Ralph ran Wade Phillips out of town. Wade's QBs were Rob Johnson and Doug Flutie, neither one a HOFer. Andy Reid made Mike Vick into a reasonable facsimile of a good NFL QB for a while, and he resurrected Alex Smith at the end of his career. Mike Zimmer in Minnesota has had three different QBs in his four seasons as HC there and is leading the NFCN with an 8-2 record and Case Keenum as his QB. Then there's Doug Marrone. He got the Bills to a 9-7 record in 2014, 1 of only 2 winning seasons the team's recorded since Wade left, with Kyle Orton as his QB. Now he's got his Jags poised to take the AFCS with Brian Bortles as his QB. Keep whining about not have a QB ... while you think about how drafting Andrew Luck didn't bring sunshine and rainbows and playoff wins to Indy fans.

Just because you swallowed the McDermott-Beane sales pitch whole doesn't mean that all Bills did. There were a significant number of fans who were skeptical about the manure being spread back in August, especially after the Watkins trade. I don't know if the OP was among them, but those of us who were got shouted down by all the true believers who jumped on the McDermott/Beane bandwagon. For myself, I compared McDermott to Dick Jauron, although I thought he might be somewhat better because I thought he at least wasn't a play to not lose by too much coach. I was wrong. He's worse because he apparently doesn't care how much his team loses by as long as he loses his way.

The Bills NEVER think the right players are worth paying for but they'll go chasing after big names if they think it will put butts in the seats which was why they signed Terrell Owens and Mario Williams but traded away Jason Peters after a contract dispute and let both Chris Hogan and Robert Woods as well as horde of DBs past and present walk away.

The OP is referencing the Rams-Vikings game on Sunday. Robert Woods injured his shoulder in that game. Jared Goff's favorite WR, Cooper Kupp, caught a pass but fumbled on the 1 going into the EZ. Sammy Watkins again wasn't targeted much. IOW, the Vikes defense effectively shut down the Rams high flying passing offense. Unlike the Bills game, it was a good football game ... I watched it.

This. Hamsters on a wheel: rolling along but never going anywhere. YOU look at the Eagles. Three years ago they finished 10-6 and just missed the playoffs. In 2013 they won the NFCE. Since 2000, the Eagles have had 12 winning seasons and made the playoffs 10 times. When they realized that Chip Kelly was a mistake, they fired his arse rather than give him more time to screw up their team. If you were a journeyman FA, would you sign with this mess if you had any other alternative? NOTE to OP: save your post so that you have a template for future use with the next regimes ... It's now a roster worthy of an expansion team. Yeah but look at it from a business model POV. Which is more likely to generate more revenue? A QB drafted in the Top 5 or a DT, MLB, and C?

If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck and it swims like a duck, I'm calling it a duck. Well, McDermott and Beane look like the two of the most incompetent ducks to ever swim in WNY waters, and that includes some real prize specimens, among them Dick Jauron, Hank Bullough, Jim Ringo, and Harvey Johnson. I am out of patience with the bull manure the Bills organization has been dumping on its fans for almost twenty years. When Ralph Wilson was the owner, I accepted that he was an old man and set in his old fashioned ways, but that's not an excuse any more. If the ownership and management of the Bills have some other agenda than winning football games, which apparently seem to do, then I'm done with them. I sure as hell am not going to waste my time watching their crappy brand of football.

Going into Arrowhead where even when the Chiefs are bad (although I don't think they've ever sucked as bad as the Bills did last week) they usually win is definitely worse than playing in that clunky soccer stadium where the Chargers play. Playing a probably very angry, very talented Chiefs team is worse than playing the Chargers who are just good enough to find new ways to lose close games. Luckily for them, the Bills weren't within 3 TDs of them in the closing minutes. Playing a top ten rushing team is worse than playing the twenty-fifth ranked Chargers, especially when the Chiefs have Kareem Hunt. He'll probably ring up 200 yards on the Bills all by himself. It's gonna be a long, long Sunday afternoon. You're assuming it's his decision alone. It's possible it's not. Nothing that the Bills have done with personnel in 2017 has made much sense, so why should they start now?

I think that letting Marrone and his assistants escape was probably a major blunder but certainly keeping the powerful suits on the second floor at OBD was a much bigger one. I'm with the posters who think there should have been a "football guy" -- a czar, an independent GM -- who took care of the football side. I think that Donahoe had that role until he was fired but I'm not sure. There hasn't been anybody like that since. Likely, but remember that Belichick failed as a HC in Cleveland and Pete Carroll in NE and in NYJ. I don't think that I'd lobby for Schwartz as the Bills HC though. What I object to is the wholesale purging of young talent from this roster in the name of rebuilding when it was for some other reason entirely. Teams that are rebuilding dump the older, big name players. I happen to think it was for the purpose of cutting costs but maybe it was just McDermott being a jackass. What I do know is that some of the most talented jettisoned players like Gilmore, Woods, and Gillislee were allowed to leave in FA before McDermott had any real opportunity to evaluate how they fit into his "system" or whether they bought into his "process" so that makes the claims that these guys didn't have the "skill sets" that McDermott wanted seem like just so much bull manure. Trading away Watkins effectively emasculated the offense by eliminating any downfield threat. Trading away Dareus at the trading deadline for even less than the stupid Bills got for Marshawn in 2011 spectacularly emasculated and probably demoralized the defense. BTW, if you think Woods has played like a "mediocre over rated" guy in LA, you need to broaden your horizons and watch some good football teams instead of restricting your viewing to Bills low-lites.

Agreed. My guess is that if McDermott hasn't lost the locker room yet, he will if he continues with Peterman.

My thoughts exactly. I thought Glenn was going to go before the trade deadline but I think his ankle prevented the Bills from getting it done. There were just too many rumors and "reports" in the media about rumors that Glenn was on the block for it not to have had some validity. With the Bills, where's even a whiff of smoke, expect a major conflagration to follow. The problem with ankles is that they take a long time to heal, probably because the joint's rather complex. If the Bills brain trust was smart, they would realize that Glenn, Dawkins, and Miller could form a good OL foundation if they returned to the blocking schemes they used in previous years. That might give both Wood and Incognito a year or two longer, too, so that the team could draft and groom replacements. Unfortunately, that's highly unlikely to happen simply because it's too sensible and none of those guys are "their guys" like that gem Ducasse.

Let's face it, it doesn't matter who plays QB for the Bills on Sunday. Does anybody really doubt that KC is going to take out all its frustration at its last four losses on the Bills? Kareem Hunt will probably run for 200 yards himself in a decent Jay Ajayi impersonation.

I'm curious as to why the Bills didn't play Ragland even one snap. What they had out on the field was so superior? Really? Or did he pee in McDermott's cereal and get sentenced to be sent to KC? I'm wondering, too, about why Dareus didn't play more snaps. The claims were that he wasn't "playing well enough" but he's doing so well in Jacksonville that Marrone has been giving him more snaps. One explanation, a very snarky one, might be that since the Bills wanted him gone, they wanted the fans to believe he wasn't any good. Another explanation may be that he's the kind of player who thrives when he's "busy" like a RB who's better carrying the ball 20+ times a game rather than just 5 or 6. A third explanation may be that the Bills FO didn't want to risk Dareus getting hurt when they were desperately trying to trade him before the trade deadline for whatever reasons they had. This is the same warning alarms Bills fans constantly chirped while Marshawn Lynch was racking up yards and helping the Seahags to a Super Bowl. How'd that work out? I think we're already there. It's just that the stats don't accurately reflect current status. Welcome to "the Dark Side" where it's not taboo to call a duck a duck when it looks and acts like one.

If it's such "crap" then why are you so upset by it? Don't like reality intruding on your excuses? The loss Sunday wasn't because of "bad karma". It was because of the incompetence of the coaching staff and the arrogance of the Bills FO.