SoTier

That would be too simple. It takes real skill to pull that off ... just as it takes real skill to be unable to build a team good enough to at least make the playoffs once in 18 years. The Bills, of course, have perfected the FO and coaching skills to do both ... which is why it's both very funny and very sad to listen to so many diehard fans so hopeful that the Bills are going to get it right with this latest iteration of the Perpetual Rebuild of the Championship Caliber Team that Never Was. Except they didn't. Moreover, Matthews and Taylor can't because they play in an offense that would embarrass many high school football teams ... and maybe even some Pop Warner teams. They've both been set up to fail by the Bills suppposed "brain trust". The rookie QB that the Bills draft in the first round next year is unlikely to fair any better than Taylor or Manuel or Losman even if he's got Aaron Rodgers talent. BTW, the Bills played a team supposedly worse than the Niners in the Jests ... and neither Matthews nor Taylor had "huge games".

That's because Manuel was NEVER as good a QB prospect as Goff. Goff was the first player taken in the 2016. Manuel was the best QB in the awful 2013 QB class and never should have been drafted in the first round at all. He was so good that the Bills dropped down several slots and he was still available. Like with Losman, they probably could have waited until the second or third round and still had him. Obviously, you didn't watch last night's game ... or you're in denial as to what you saw. Sammy may very well become a potential HOFer, especially now that he's been freed from the Neanderthal offensive concepts of the Bills coaching staff. The Bills LOVE to trade away All Pros and potential HOFers for the equivalent of used athletic supporters just like they did when they sent Jason Peterson and Marshawn Lynch packing for a JAG center and a career reserve LB and a career reserve RT. The Bills had "real reasons , actually good reasons for punting" these guys, too. At least according to the Bills FO and its diehard true believers. The Bills are a joke around the NFL and that's of their own making ... as Al Michaels' quip about NE having better Bills players than the Bills has already been applied to LA. It will likely be applied again to whatever team scoops up Dareus either before the trade deadline or in the off-season.

He's a talented player that the Bills gave away for a song because they didn't want to pay him, and he sparkled last night for the team that was willing to take him with his current salary and likely his much larger salary next year ... His foot injury and concussion are tied together only by fans attempting to rationalize yet another stupid move by the Bills "brain trust". It was only short-sighted if you believe the Bills are interested in truly building a winning football game. IMO, the Bills FO isn't. They're only interested in doing enough to keep the seats full so that the $$ continue to flow into the Pegulas' coffers. I have no doubt that the Bills will draft a QB in the first round in 2018, but expecting them to go out and provide that kid with protection and targets not to mention a coaching staff interested in the offense as more than a necessary evil, well, good luck with that. Offensive players tend to be more expensive than defensive ones, but the QB will be cheap enough on his rookie contract. The Bills will "get our young guy in the Spring" only because they're going to draft a QB in the first round in 2018 whether he's a particularly good prospect or not. That's exactly what they did in 2004 with Losman and again in 2013 with Manuel. But, hey, third time's a charm, right? With the Bills' innovative offensive coaching and great wide receiver corps, how could any young QB NOT turn out to be at least as good as Aaron Rodgers, right?

Pardon me. Two special teamers -- for other teams -- for an All Pro RB. That's the Bills way. No wonder the Bills haven't made the playoffs in this century ... and aren't likely to make them any time in the foreseeable future, either. Maybe you should have waited a while longer. I understand perfectly. The Bills didn't want to pay Watkins. Not this year, not next year. They don't need or want fast, game breaking WRs with sure hands because the genius offensive minded coaches the Bills continue to hire like offenses that were passe fifty years ago ... but carry on. Maybe in another half century, the pendulum will swing back to the era before the forward pass and the Bills will get their "championship caliber team" they've spent this entire century not building. More like a dozen of those 'one plays'. Watkins will probably become an All Pro like Peters and Lynch, and the true believers will continue to bleat about "they didn't want to be here anyways" so no great loss. Personally, I don't think the Bills are capable of building a good O since they don't believe in paying WRs or RBs or OGs. I'm not sure that they believe in paying QBs either, since they've never been able to actually draft and develop a good one.

I totally agree. CTE might have very well been a contributing factor in Hernandez's suicide, but the link between his playing in the NFL and CTE is limited I think. He only played in 38 games in three seasons, 2010-2012. He was allegedly involved in gang activity before he became an NFL player, and he was involved in gang activity while an NFL player. He also played HS and collegiate football. Finally, he may have also been in fights while in prison. He could have suffered concussions during any or all of those activities. There's no way to tell when CTE began to affect him -- or if it had, Maybe his suicide was linked to CTE but it might just have easily have been simply his inability to face life in prison. At least suicide is a recognized danger for individuals who suffer from CTE. Premediated murder involving the drug trade isn't. I don't think there's evidence to support your last statement. Everything that I've heard/read about CTE (I have a brother who suffers from it because of a car wreck) is that it's much more likely to impair a person's judgement than to make him a murderer, which is what Hernandez was convicted of IIRC. A person suffering from CTE might very well be dangerous, but it's because he/she might fly into a rage or maybe become paranoid but he/she is unlikely to be moved to murder a couple people in order to further his/her drug business by CTE. Maybe you could say that CTE might have lessened whatever inhibitions Hernandez had about murdering someone but I don't see how anybody could prove that. Hernandez wasn't a choir boy, although he originally had that image.

Bull manure! I don't remember anybody on the Bills in recent years that has been guilty of truly bad behavior off the field. There have been some drug violations, some PED violations, some stupid behavior, and some regrettable incidents, but nothing that's truly or deliberately vicious, violent, perverted or pathologically criminal. These are mostly twenty-something guys cut loose from two major restraints that force most twenty-something males to behave reasonably well: limited financial means and censure from parents, other family, friends, etc. They're going to get into trouble because it's what young people do. Because they're local celebs, they're gonna get their names in the news when they do it. Have any of the Bills been accused of rape? Of child abuse? Of killing someone? Of selling dope? Of robbing a bank? Of spousal abuse/assault? I think the biggest/ugliest incident was Shady's involvement in that nasty bar fight in Philly where a couple of people were seriously injured, but he wasn't charged in that. I'm not sure that anyone was. It seems to me that when the Bills have nattered on about character in the past, they were using code for "we're going to chuck talented players in favor of JAGs who cost a lot less and use 'character issues' as the excuse for doing it." I hope the current regime isn't going down that same road, but usually when something looks like a duck and quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, it is, in fact, a duck.

BINGO!!! A new QB isn't going to help this offense. A rookie QB put into this pile of poop is destined for failure from the get-go. I don't know if Brady or Peyton in their primes would look anything but average in this offense. Maybe it was cutting edge back in 1967 but it's simply not 21st century NFL caliber in concept or design. It's only going to change, if it changes at all, with a new OC and that probably means a new HC, and given the way the Bills operate, that will mean starting the newest iteration of the Perpetual Rebuild of the Championship Caliber team that never was.

Gailey was an offensive coach. Unfortunately he didn't know/care much about defense and left that up to his less than scintillating DCs which was too bad because he did a lot with the very limited offensive talent he had because -- shock of shocks! -- he adapted his offensive schemes to fit what the players he did have did best. None of the others have been offensive minded coaches, and one was new to being a HC in the NFL, one was a buffoon who probably made his reputation as a defensive genius on Mike Pettine's coattails, and the third appears to be the spiritual godson of Dick Jauron. Maybe they thought/think audibles were/are dirty words or they were sleeping during those coaching meetings when they were discussed.

ROTFLMAO!!! "PFFELO is an iterative system that updates each team’s rating after each game based on two things: how well they played against their opponent and how well they were expected to play against their opponent." It's obviously not whether you kicked your opponent's arse or got handed your own or how great or awful you looked in either earning either result but how you played compared to how you were expected to play. TOO.STUPID.TO.BE.TRUE.

Well, I'm sure that the Bills can find some team in need of a good LT to take him and his contract off their hands for a couple of day 3 picks and not have any cap implications at all. Maybe then Vlad Ducasse can flip over to the left side and slide outside to keep the Bills shiny new franchise QB from being trampled too badly in his rookie season.

No, no, no! It's totally ridiculous to dare compare the Bills offensive offense against Carolina to Jauron's great offensive offenses. After all, McDermott went for a first down on 4th and 1 at mid-field so they're NOTHING alike! //sarcasm off Y'know, you may be fine with another iteration of the never ending rebuild of the championship caliber team that never was and never will be, but after 18 years, I'm pretty sick of it. I have no patience left any more. There is no light at the end of the tunnel with the Bills. McDermott will be out in three years or maybe even less, and the perpetual rebuild will return to square one with another has-been, neophyte, buffoonish incompetent running the show. Alexander is 32 or something, and Hughes 29. On the offensive side, all the RBs are 29 or older. DiMarco the FB is 28. On the OL, Wood is 30 and Incognito is 34. That's beside the point that the Bills don't have an NFL caliber WR corps. The idea that drafting a franchise QB in the first round will put the Bills on the fast track to the Super Bowl within a couple of years is ludicrous. Most of the starters need to be upgraded or replaced in the near future. That's even assuming that the QB the Bills draft in 2018 doesn't turn out to be another Losman or Manuel.

That's probably because they didn't watch the Carolina game. Well, that was probably the stadium name the last time an over-confident team came into town and got their asses handed to them.

This is EXACTLY what Bills fans said about the Jason Peters trade in 2009 and the Marshawn Lynch trade in 2011 ... and the stout defenders of the brainiacs who've orchestrated the Bills incompetency for the entire 21st century crowed like roosters whenever Peters or Lynch had the slightest miscue ... until they were named All Pros. After all, it's SOOOOO much better to have a JAG center who compliantly agrees to whatever contract the Bills are willing to give him than an All Pro/HOF bound LT who wants to be paid what he's worth, and since RBs are a dime-a-dozen, who needs an All Pro RB, right? Is the guy the Bills used that 4th round draft pick from Marshawn on even still in the league? Marshawn, of course, still is. See above. Maybe that's true for most teams but the Bills too frequently trade players, particularly their best players, for reasons that have nothing to do with how well they can play. Apparently, the two biggest "sins" Bills players can commit are demanding to be paid fairly and criticizing the crappy FO and/or crappy coaching staff. The Bills will go to just about any length to get rid of top players who dare either, as witness Peters, Lynch, and I suspect, Watkins (remember, he did say that he thought WRs should be paid more in general) ... even virtually giving them away. And, of course, the faithful continue to defend these actions because they "trust" the Bills FO to continue its successful efforts to build a team that could win the AFL Championship a third time. Get off your high horse. You ain't the head honcho here. You made a statement as if it were a fact even though it was only your opinion, and an opinion that's based on nothing except your willingness to accept whatever BS the Bills FO puts out to excuse their continued unwillingness to keep talented players. ("X will never sign here" is their absolute favorite BTW.) The poster in question called the statement you made a lie, which probably was a bit strong, but your statement sure wasn't fact. Some folks be more inclined to see things in black and white than in shades of gray. If you didn't want to be called on it, you shouldn't have stated your opinion as if it were a fact.

I think that doesn't just describe Bills fans vis-a-vis the personnel moves but the coaching staff as well. I think that the FO's agenda is simply that they don't want to pay even top players at certain positions, namely DB, RB, and WR. Even the extra money added to Shady's contract is likely to be a joke since it's all incentives which, given the scintillating offense Dennison's put together, he'll likely never reach.

Who announced it? Not Andy Reid certainly. Reid will part with Smith only if he feels he's finished. Mahomes hasn't played a minute in a real NFL game, and he may not even get any meaningful playing experience at all unless Smith gets hurt. Aside from that, Smith is not going to make the Bills competitive in any way, shape or form. Neither will the first round QB that the Bills will draft in 2018. Lorenzo Alexander, Richie Incognito, Kyle Williams, and Eric Wood are all on the wrong side of 30. All the RBs are 29 or older as is Jerry Hughes. It's likely that both Taylor and Dareus will be gone by next season. Most of the WRs and DBs are never weres or ST refugees. The right side of the OL remains a sieve. Maybe Dawkins helps but he's a rookie and about 50% of even first and second draft picks bust, so who knows?

Only in the forlorn dreams of diehard Bills fans. McDermott and his crew will be lucky to make it to year three, and when they go, the Bills won't be any closer to the playoffs than they were in 2004 or 2013, the last two times they found their "QB of the future". 'Cuz that's what the Bills do. It gives the FO a built-in excuse to replace expensive young talent with ST refugees, saving some significant $$$.

That Dennison's choices are limited is largely his own fault because he's insisted on forcing his players into an offensive system that doesn't suit them.

Don't confuse fools with agendas with facts.

That's how it works on the Bills, but Denver has an entirely new coaching staff, and a DC who's always been a 4-3 guy. Guess what, the Broncos are still running a 3-4 D that fits their personnel. Maybe the Bills FO should try having a long term plan for building a winning football team and hire coaches who buy into that plan instead of giving every single has-been, neophyte, and expensive buffoon head coach they bring in carte blanche to tear down the entire team to fit his whims ... or the whims of his pals. McDermott and his boys will be gone in a couple of seasons or less, and the Bills will once again start from scratch. It's been the story of the last eighteen years, and it's not likely to change unless the team sees ticket sales plummet.

Reality is that this team is not a talented team on paper or on the field.

You don't know that. They've got Mahomes for 5 years, so if Smith has a good year, Reid feels he's still got gas in the tank, and they feel that they have a legit chance to go to the Super Bowl in 2018, they'll extend Smith. It might only be a two year deal but KC isn't going to throw away a shot at the SB to "develop" a QB who has never played in an NFL game. The AFCW seems pretty competitive with Oakland, KC, and Denver all looking like serious playoff contenders, so the chances of Mahomes getting meaningful playing time seems unlikely unless Smith gets hurt. Of course, even then, there's a big gulf between a good backup who can come in and play decent for 3 or 4 games and a good starter as Brock Osweiler proved most recently ... and Kevin Kolb proved to Reid back in 2010. To answer your rhetorical question, Reid couldn't develop Kolb into a starting QB even though he'd been a decent backup to McNabb for 2-3 years, so ol' Andy replaced him with Michael Vick. That was 2010.

Well, sweetie, there's a first time for everything. I don't think it's "more of the same" from Tyrod at all because the last two seasons the Bills had an NFL-caliber offense. It was average but average is better than non-existent, which is what they have now. They looked decent against the Jests because the Jests seem to have even less talent and certainly less desire to win than it seems possible for an NFL team to have. I think the current Bills offense is a very unpleasant flashback to the kind of offensive offense run by Jauron and his supposed OCs circa 2007-2009. Maybe it's better than semi-pro level but it's not NFL caliber, especially in its philosophy and design. I don't see the Bills offense getting close enough to the Denver EZ to attempt a FG, so it's up to the ST or defensive to get them close enough to kick a FG. They better kick on first down, too, before holding penalties put them out of range. Another team might catch the Broncos "ripe for a let down" but I seriously doubt that the Bills "brain trust" has enough imagination to come up with a game plan that might take advantage of the flattest Broncos team. Trevor Siemian is a better QB than many think even if he's only a seventh round draft pick.

^^^ Totally agree with both posts. At least Jauron waited a season to see what he had. McDermott didn't bother. Oh, bull manure! Before Jauron and Levy started gutting talent, the Bills offense had a half-way passable OL and receiving corps. When they finished, they had no OL and no receiving corps, just bodies wearing jerseys with linemen's and receivers' numbers. Jauron's play-not-to-lose-by-too-much offense was so bad that by the end of 2008, Trent Edwards and JP Losman played like equally bad clones of each other. As for the defense, he filled it with smurfs. The damned LBs weren't even as big as the RBs they were supposed to tackle so they got dragged downfield for another 5 or 10 yards. Aaron Maybin was supposed to be a tweener (hybrid DE/LB) but he was more the size of big DB or small LB: 220/230 lbs. The only Bills player to make the Pro Bowl during Jauron's time in Buffalo was Brian Moorman, the punter IIRC. Jauron made the Bills into a team of great STers ... unfortunately, they were playing starting positions. That's the team that Nix and Gailey inherited in 2010. Totally agree. The lack of a passing game is totally on the current Bills FO and coaching staff. No, they're getting the team ready for a new coaching staff to pick up the pieces yet again for the 2019 or the 2020 season. Why does a change in coaching staff have to result in a disastrous season? Andy Reid turned a 2-14 Chiefs team into an 11-5 playoff team in his first season. Bruce Ariens turned the 5-11 Cardinals into 10-6 winners that just missed the playoffs in his first year. Jack Del Rio took the hapless 3-13 Raiders to 7-9 in his first season and 12-4 and the playoffs in his second. Vance Joseph has the Broncos looking as good or possibly better than under Kubiak in his first season, and the Rams under McVay now look like an NFL caliber football team in his first season, especially on offense. The Bills look like a semi-pro outfit on offense.

Good analysis. I pretty much agree. I will add these points. Concerning the Rams and Eagles: they aren't cutting bait on either Goff or Wentz at this point since they're only 2nd year players. I've watched parts of both Rams games just to see how Goff is doing, and he is much improved over his rookie season. It's like night and day. Of course the Rams have added some pieces, most notably a new coaching staff. Wentz doesn't seem to have improved as much as Goff, but he was better last season. That the Pats traded Brissette rather than Garoppolo says that they like him more than any of the other QBs they've drafted since Brady. Is he franchise QB material though? As Brock Osweiler has demonstrated, there's a huge difference between being a competent backup QB who can win a few games and a good starting QB ... and nobody knows which side any QB falls on until he gets to play as a starter for more than a few games. Some of the teams that might appear to need new QBs because their established franchise QBs are struggling like Cincinatti and the Giants need to fix their OLs. The Bills need that, too, although I have no doubt that they're going to draft a QB in the first round of 2018 whether there's a good prospect available or not.

The Bills FO hasn't "thought things through" as far as building a winning team since 2001. They shuffle and reshuffle their first and second round picks among DBs, RBs, and WRs that they use as replacements for the previous first and second round DBs, RBs, and WRs that they've kicked to the curb through trades and FA. They sprinkle in a few other positions just so it's not too obvious. They'll also occasionally add big name FAs to con the fans into thinking they're trying to build a winner like Takeo Spikes, Terrell Owens, and Mario Williams. When the fans get really restless, they draft a QB: Losman in 2004, Manuel in 2013, and some college QB to be named later in 2018. The Bills players they choose to extend are sometimes fan faves like Kyle Williams but oftentimes JAGs like Chris Kelsay, but they're seldom the most talented guys on the team. Marcel Dareus is the rare true talented player they've chosen to pay -- at least for now -- and yes, he is worth his $$$. The problem with Dareus' contract, if there's any real problem at all and not simply FO propaganda in preparation of dumping him before next season, is that the contract is poorly written in its effects on the Bills cap situation. That's solely on the Bills FO because teams that are interested in winning always find ways to not only keep their best talent but also slurp up the younger talent that teams like the Bills, Indy, Cincinatti, and NO can't "afford" to keep because they have morons writing cap unfriendly contracts reminiscent of the early years of the salary cap era.