SoTier

This. My answer is that the Bills spent the previous 17 years more interested in putting butts in the seats than in winning football games. The previous FO and HCs simply weren't good enough, except perhaps for Marrone.

Exactly this. In 2016, the Rams and Eagles were able to trade up ONLY because the top two teams were again the Bucs and Titans, both of which drafted QBs at #1 and #2 in 2015. In 2012, Washington was able to trade up to #2 only because the Rams had drafted Sam Bradford in 2010. Neither the Panthers nor the Colts even considered trading back in 2011 or 2012. Fast forward to 2018 ... Cleveland, which has no QB, and the Giants, which has a 37 year old QB, have both hinted that they might trade out of the #1 or #2 spots. Indy, which has a young franchise QB who might be healthy or might not, already traded out of #3. That's an indication that maybe the pros don't think as much of the top QBs as the media.

Oh, you mean a dedication to winning? A smart HC? A good FO that makes personnel decisions based on drafting/signing/re-signing talented players to help the team win rather than just put butts in the seats? Why can't the Bills have those things? You are buying into the media's hype that all four of the top QBs are going in the top five. My guess is that the pros don't see it that way. If they did, NONE of the teams in the top five except Cleveland which has 2 top five picks, would be interested in trading back. Instead, it's like they're all at least sort of interested in trading back. That says that the pros aren't nearly as enamored of these QBs as the media talking heads and fans are. That's NOT what you've been saying in this thread. You've been constantly saying "do anything to get into the top five and draft a QB". Whenever somebody calls you on it, you claim you're not doing that, but then you come right back and say the same thing in your next reply to a post. If McDermott is running the draft and the team, why would he CARE about "saddling" a GM-to-be-named-later with his choice of QB? If he likes the QB, what the GM likes or dislikes would be immaterial. That's why the idea that McDermott didn't draft a QB last year because they were planning on changing GMs is nonsensical.

You don't pass on a future franchise QB when you have a chance to get one. That the Bills didn't pick a QB in the first round with 2 available says that they didn't think either Mahomes or Watson was likely to be one rather than that McDermott passed on a first round QB because of FO politics. Plain and simple, Mahomes and Watson were flawed prospects ... as are some of this year's highly touted media favorites.

I just want to be clear here. Staying at #12 and picking QB is automatically a "reach" but recklessly trading away high draft picks to move up to the top five in order to grab one of the media mavens' darlings who isn't even a good pick in the top ten isn't? Is that what you're saying?

How many playoff games have Phillip Rivers or Matthew Stafford won? Jim Kelly and Dan Marino won 0 championships between them. Aaron Rodgers has won only 1 championship as has Drew Brees. Peyton Manning won only 1 championship with Indy, Andrew Luck none. If you think that just drafting a "franchise QB" and "filling out the roster" is enough to win championships, guess again. Of course, that presupposes the QB the team drafts in the first round actually becomes a "franchise QB" rather a JP Losman, Mark Sanchez, Matt Leinart, Christian Ponder, Jake Locker or EJ Manuel. The Bills OL is in no way comparable to Philly's, and it didn't play "really well down the stretch". It played much better in the second half of the season compared to how it played early in the season, but that's not saying much because the OL really sucked early. Moreover, the center position has been weakened because Groy, who couldn't displace Wood as a starter, has now inherited the starting spot.

It's just part of the hype and hysteria that the media cultivates around the NFL draft to increase clicks or ratings ... and it obviously works judging from numerous responses.

It's called not burning your bridges. Some people never learn that.

It's worse than that IMO. He's shirking all responsibility for his own conduct. A mature adult would admit that he f'd up, and would promise that he'd try to do better if he got another chance. It's also not his fault that he did whatever drugs he did, either, amirite?

How many Super Bowls have the San Diego Chargers participated in since they drafted Phillip Rivers? What about the Detroit Lions? I'd take Tre White because I know he's proven himself. The history of the NFL is cluttered with all the flash-in-the-pan rookie QBs who looked good for part of a season. Isn't the cap dependent upon the amount of $$$ the NFL gets from its TV contracts, as per the last CBA? There were numerous articles in 2017 about the networks taking significant losses on games because of lowered ratings. That suggests that the television money may not increase significantly if at all in the next contract, and the cap won't be able to increase -- and might even decrease -- unless the CBA is changed.

Things would have been much worse without Cousins, though. He was just about the only thing the Skins have had for the last few years.

Actually, the Raven's Browns roots are the winning branch of the Cleveland Browns family. They are the descendents of the original Cleveland Browns of the All American Conference, Jim Brown, NFL Champion Browns. The current Cleveland Browns are the adopted children who have the name but not the DNA.

Good thing the Deadskins wasted that 2012 fourth rounder on that skinny kid named Cousins.

Griffin's problem has been that he never adjusted to the pro game. Even if he'd never been injured, he would have failed once defenses figured him out. It's the very same reason so many young QBs light up the league for a season or two and then crash and burn.

Mea culpa. Dak Prescott. Thanks.

I can see 3 or 4 QBs going in the first round because, apparently like their fan bases, some NFL GMs seem to buy into the a significant amount of the hype and hysteria dished up by the media around the draft. I think that Cleveland's GMs prior to the current regime certainly did that. IMO, the Jests move up to #3 so early and without knowing which QBs will be available smacks of the same stupidity. You are correct in noting that except for 1983 and 2004, most years with 3, 4 or 5 QBs taken in the first round don't actually produce that many successful QBs, much less "franchise QBs" from those first rounders. The drafts since 1983 have seemed to yield 1 and sometimes 2 successful QBs from each draft whether there's 1 QB drafted in the first round or 4 or 5, and in the last few years, there seems to be more successful QBs coming out of the draft from the rounds after the first. The chances of actually getting a "franchise" quality QB (a top notch, long term starter who becomes the face of the franchise) is much less because not all drafts produce one. Between 1999 and 2014, the 2002, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2014 certainly failed to produce QBs who were good enough to be considered "franchise QBs" although some of those drafts produced successful QBs. Taking a Daunte Culpepper or Ryan Tannehill or Jay Cutler at 11 or 12 is okay, but taking a Todd Blackledge or Joey Harrington at #2 is painful. Trading up to get a bust like JP Losman is a disaster. Only if the Bills or some other team trade up will 3 go in the top 10 IMO. I don't see any of the teams in the top 10 except Cleveland and the Jests drafting a QB, including Denver which has Keenum as well as 2016 first rounder Paxton Lynch who was hurt most of last season. The problem is that the evaluation skills that NFL teams use to judge draft QBs are woefully inadequate to enable teams to consistently pick good QBs in the draft, so yeah, it's a crap shoot. I can only think of 2 teams in the last 20 years that successfully transitioned directly from one franchise QB to another without missing a beat because they drafted his replacement: NE when Tom Brady replaced Drew Bledsoe and Green Bay when Aaron Rodgers replaced Brett Favre. The NY Jests transitioned from one successful QB, Vinnie Testaverde, to another successful QB, Chad Pennington, but I wouldn't rank either as "franchise QBs". Dallas may be a third team if Deshaun Watson Dak Prescott turns out to be a franchise QB (replacing Tony Romo who was an UDFA). QBs who are #1 consensus picks seem to hit with regularity, but the percentage of successful QBs from the first round drops precipitously after #1, even for QBs drafted in the top 5 or top 10, and is depressingly low for QBs drafted in the bottom half of the first round. My guess is that the success rate for QBs in the first round is significantly lower than for most other positions except perhaps WR. That suggests to me that the evaluation criteria aren't measuring what needs to be measured, which are the very things that separate the Rivers, Rodgers, and Lucks etc from the Harringtons, Losmans, and Carrs. So, unless there's a QB who's the #1 consensus pick in the draft, it's pretty much a crap shoot.

Promises, promises, promises.

If the QBs go as high as the media mavens predict they will, Smith will be available at 12. If the QBs don't go as high as predicted, then there will be 1 or 2 available for the Bills to pick -- if they want one of them, and they might not. As I've said numerous times, we don't know how the Bills have the QBs rated. I don't think the Bills will move up for "a" QB as the Jests apparently are willing to do. I think if they're willing to trade up, it's for a specific QB, which means that they won't trade up before the team they have as a partner is on the clock and their guy is available. Of course, it may be that neither Cleveland nor Giants is interested in trading out of their spots except for far more than the Bills are willing to give. If they can't find a partner or their QB is off the board, then they're going to go BPA at another position, which certainly Smith would be. Whatever the outcome, the Bills need to cross their Ts and dot their Is, and be prepared for contingencies since drafts seldom go the way the hypesters in the media claim it will.

Minnesota. Back in the late 1990s the Vikes went to the playoffs with Brad Johnson (1996 & 1997), Randall Cunningham (1998), Jeff George (1999), Daunte Culpepper (2000). Then they came back in the last decade to make the playoffs 5 out of the last 10 years despite not having an entrenched franchise QB in his prime: Gus Frerotte (2008), Favre (2009), Ponder (2012), Bridgewater (2015), and Keenum (2017). Furthermore, the Bills 17 years of playoff drought wasn't because they lacked a franchise QB. They failed to make the playoffs for so long primarily because of poor FO decisions, from selecting HCs to drafting players to decisions about which FAs to keep and which FAs to sign. The Bills had a franchise QB in Drew Bledsoe from 2002-2004, and failed to make the playoffs. The only year where you actually argue that better QBing would have put them in the playoffs was in 2014 when Marrone dumped Manuel and went with retirement list refugee Kyle Orton who played rather poorly toward the end of the season. Through most of the drought, the team didn't have enough talent on the sidelines or on the field to even be a playoff contender.

You're right about the stupidity. A certain percentage of this fan base has been conditioned to believe that QBs drafted in the top five can't bust. Todd Blackledge, Ryan Leaf, Tim Couch, Akili Smith, David Carr, Joey Harrington, Vince Young, JaMarcus Russell, Mark Sanchez, and Robert Griffin III all say "hi, fools".

Name them.

Philly was a talented team before the Eagles took a flyer on Chip Kelly, and he wasn't in charge long enough to do a total gut job on the team, so Philly already had a pretty talented team. Even so, the Eagles went 7-9 in Wentz's first season. The Bills weren't all that talented before McDermott was hired, and he proceeded to get rid of more players, including young, talented players like Watkins, Darby, Dareus, etc. They also traded their starting QB and their starting LT, although Glenn was injured most of last season, and they lost C Eric Wood to injury/retirement. Through trades and FA, they've only replaced a few of the players they lost, so they still have massive needs at WR and on the OL plus LB. Even if the Bills use only 1 draft pick on a QB and he develops into a quality starter, it's likely to still take them two or three years to return to the playoffs. If they give up all of their Day 1 and Day 2 picks and some 2019 picks, too, which is what some advocate, to trade up into the top five, they are going to be doomed to more than three years of no playoffs even if the QB they pick turns out to be a quality starter. Even greats like Brady, Brees, and Rodgers need protection and targets ... and defensive help so that they don't have to score 30+ points a game to win.

^^^ So, you two are obviously either privy to what the Bills' FO office staff were thinking last year, or you're mind readers who've personally met with McDermott. So, why are you wasting your time and talent posting on a fan message board rather than trading on connections and/or talent to make some real $$$?

Exactly this. Except for 2004 which was an outlier because of its quality, drafts with 4 QBs going in the first round since 2000 (2003, 2011, and 2012) have yielded only 4 hits among the 12 first rounders (Palmer, Newton, Luck, and Tannehill). Even the 3 successful first rounders from 2004 only raise that to 7/16 which is less than 50%, and the three successes from 2004 were significantly better prospects than the top guys this year. What if there isn't one to be found??? Sorry, but drafting a QB in the first round doesn't guarantee that he'll be successful. Not only were both Losman and Manuel failures for the Bills but so were top ten picks David Carr, Joey Harrington, Byron Leftwich, Vince Young, Matt Leinart, JaMarcus Russell, Mark Sanchez, Jake Locker, Blaine Gabbert, and Robert Griffin III for other teams. Since Mahomes and Watson have played all of 8 NFL games combined, it's a bit early to declare them successes. Both of these players had significant question marks about how they would adapt to the pro game. Now, one or both may turn out great or really lousy. Come back in a couple of years to see if passing on either of them was a mistake.

Promises, promises, promises ...