SoTier

According to the latest news report, the seven-year-old had a broken arm and ankle. He was also found walking in the gorge, which suggests he did fall since it seems unlikely he could have gotten into the gorge otherwise. If he didn't fall with his parents and brothers, he may have tried to get down to them and got hurt in the descent.

The Bills have been lucky recently because a few things have fallen their way that have cushioned fan disappointment to continuously fielding a crappy team, most notably the change in ownership and the hiring of Rex Ryan, both of which boosted ticket sales. Now, the Bills are peddling the idea that they've turned over a new leaf. Again, that's going to boost ticket sales -- and don't kid yourself that a team like the Bills isn't attuned to paid attendance. Making a profit is nice, but making a larger profit is even better. IMO, there's not much "new" about the Bills current leaf at all. It bears a depressing resemblance to the leaves under Williams, Mularkey, Jauron, Gailey, and Marrone. In other words, the team seems to be operating the same it's been operating since Wade Phillips, John Butler, and AJ Smith went west. The names of the GMs, coaches, and players have changed but the fundamentals of "the Bills way" for the last 16 years remain the same. For neophytes, the basic tenets of "the Bills way" include ... Draft defense over offense in the first two rounds. When drafting offense in the first round, pick DBs, WRs, and RBs 'cause they're cheaper. Do not pay premium $$ to keep even All Pro DBs, WRs, RBs because new ones can always be had in the draft. Do not tolerate any player calling "Foul!" at something that OBD has done. Character counts more than talent and production. Pay 1 or 2 fan favorites to keep the fans happy ... and counteract the idea that the Bills don't re-sign their own stars. Periodically bring in a big name for big $$$ to excite fans when they threaten to become jaded by continuous losing seasons. Alternatively, draft a QB in the first round even if there's no real QB talent available in the draft when you decide to do this. Hire HCs with modest credentials because they're a whole lot cheaper than hiring a HC with lots of winning seasons on his resume. Maximize the "wait 'til next year" mentality by winning at least 7 games, so that the fans remain hopeful. If the fans become restless, fire the coaching staff and be sure the next guy has an entirely different philosophy on offense and defense so that you can shed good veterans through FA or trades in the name of "he doesn't fit the system". When in doubt,cry poverty ... and blame the salary cap.

I didn't miss the mark at all. The OP posted his interpretation of the Bills' off season actions on a message board. My opinion is that his interpretation is based on fantasy. I have just as much right to my opinion as the OP does to his, and posters to a message board have to expect that others may very well disagree with what they write. I responded to one poster who started a thread based on ideas that I strongly disagreed with, yet you decided that I respond to any and all posters who have different views than I do in that same way. Maybe you should examine why you did that.

Oh, woe is me!!! All the Bills need is a franchise QB and their troubles will be over! Suck for ????, right dude? Don't worry, in case you haven't followed the dismantling of the Bills offensive team over the off-season, the choice between winning games and losing them to get a higher pick is likely to be immaterial. The Bills will suck ... and embarrassingly and boringly so. FYI, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, QB in NFL history was drafted in the sixth round. One of the very best young QBs in the NFL today was drafted in the third round. Meanwhile, the # 3 pick in the 2014 draft, QB Blake Bortles, is going down in flames in Jacksonville, and the Bills last would-be first round "franchise QB" is now a backup. Dream on.

I guess I was maybe five or six when I figured out Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy weren't real. Apparently, some Bills fans haven't stopped believing in them even though they're well into adulthood.

IMO, the Bills aren't deliberately tanking for the #1 pick. They're looking to shed as many high priced players as they dare while giving fans the impression that they are trying to build a winning team because they want to maximize profits. The Bills are profitable, but they're much more profitable when they shrink their player/coaching payrolls while still putting butts in the seats. This has been exactly what the Bills have done since Russ Brandon took over the running of the team in 2006, and he's still in charge of the team. McDermott is exactly the kind of modest credentialed HC that he Bills picked before the Pegulas went gaga over Ryan. Beane seems much like a figurehead like Levy was, which means decisions get made higher up the food chain for reasons that have nothing to do with winning football games and everything to do with cutting payroll. McDermott is just the sap who gets to try to figure out how to salvage something from the crap he has left to work with. I'm not normally a paranoid type individual who sees conspiracies under every rock but with the Bills, I'm suspicious of every move they make because they've made so many that are so inexplicable for a team that is supposedly trying to build a winning team. Remember that Russ Brandon was the genius who dismantled the Florida Marlins the year after they won the 1997 World Series. That team went from the 7th highest opening day salary in 1997 to 20th in 1998. The Marlins won 92 games in 1997 in addition to the WS. In 1998, the Marlins won 54 games and finished 52 games behind, the worst record in history for a defending World Series champion. That was Brandon's claim to fame before he came to the Bills a few years later ... something he no longer includes in his on-line biographies/resumes. I think that it's highly unlikely that the Bills trade Shady but I put nothing past the suits at OBD. Just my opinion.

Truth.

The presence of any game changing player is going create opportunities for other players, and that's not limited to the offense, because the opposition players are going to always be aware of that ability and may alter their own play just a bit, creating an edge for the unit with the game changer. Obviously, getting such a tiny edge has never mattered to the Bills because they win so easily ... a JAG DB and a second round pick are soooo much more valuable than a game changing WR. //sarcasm off

Well, the OP has the honor of being #1 on my Ignore List!

The Bills "need speed" because they sent their speediest WR west about ten days ago. How many of you player personnel geniuses who want to trade a pick for some other team's first round bust of a WR applauded the Watson trade? If the Bills FO didn't feel the need for Watkins' speed -- and sure hands -- why would they ever want Dorsett's lesser talent?

The "real" offense, ie, first team, has been out there early in games, and it has sucked. All this chatter about "playing vanilla" and working "on stuff they need to work on" is a lot of whistling past the graveyard. Other teams' first team offenses manage to produce drives and score TDs in the first two preseason games, but the Bills can barely get two first downs in a row. Every third or fourth play, they get caught holding. The only Bills offensive starters who seem to have played well have been Shady and Sammy, who is now in LA. When the starters on any unit consistently play poor in preseason, it's a sure signal that that unit is going to struggle in the regular season. It's likely the Bills are going to have to depend on the defense to not only stop opponents' offenses but to do much of the scoring as well.

This is nonsense. The offensive line was not "a bright spot last year" at all. It was good at run blocking but mediocre at best at pass protection, which is why the Bills had so much difficulty passing on third downs whenever they needed more than a couple of yards. Without Glenn, the pass blocking has become noticeably worst. I agree with LeGOATski that it's more about lack of talent than coaching at this point. You can't coach talent. RT has been a problem for more than last year, but they finally got around to drafting an OT to fill that problem ... only they may need him to play LT because of Glenn's injury. Meanwhile Wood and Incognito aren't getting any younger, and the Bills don't seem to have any other truly promising young OLers as backups. That means that even if Glenn can magically heal by opening day, the OL is still going to be short quality, especially on the right side. It is virtually impossible to acquire talented OLers except through the draft unless a team is willing to spend really big $$$ on one of the few prime OLers who hits FA. The OLers who linger on the FA market or are available after TCs start likely have injury, age or other unusual issues or are simply just not any good. The Bills got really lucky in being able to sign Incognito when he was coming off his suspension, a situation which is unlikely to happen again simply because there's not enough quality OLers to go around. That means the Bills need to stop letting their top DBs and WRs leave and using first and second round picks to fill the holes created by those departures. They need to use some of their high picks to draft first rate young linemen. As for Ducasse, he's trash, but in the preseason, maybe they're trying to see if he has anything at all. That means they need to play him against the starting defensive unit which usually only plays early in preseason games. They aren't considering whether to keep Miller or cut him.

What hasn't changed is the Bills FO's failure to take the importance of the OL seriously enough. They certainly have more talent now because they've drafted it more recently, but they still don't have enough top notch young OLers coming up. Part of that is that they've missed on too many higher picks like Kouandijo. They don't seem to recognize that virtually all OLers will miss games, that Wood and Incognito are aging, and that depth is virtually non-existent. They also have not done anything to address the fact that the Bills pass protection wasn't all that good last year, and is worse this year. A decent pass blocking OL can make even a merely competent QB like Dalton, Tannehill, and Taylor a whole lot better. A franchise QB isn't going to turn around any franchise if he doesn't have protection. Vlad DuCasse has sucked since he was a rookie with the Jests. My guess is that he's with the Bills because Rex Ryan originally drafted him.

There is no plan. For all the yapping by fans about the organization turning over a new leaf, the reality is that it continues to do what it's been doing for fifteen pus years:refusing to accept the importance of the OL. The only improvement in dealing with the OL since the Jauron era is that the Bills have actually drafted some OLers in the higher rounds rather than relying on Day 3 scrubs, UDFAs, and assorted bottom feeders they could claim off waivers which is pretty much what they did prior to 2009. Of course, if they didn't keep creating holes elsewhere on the team by allowing talented starters to leave, they might have more picks to invest in the OL.

What he said.

Bortles is a dud who just doesn't have it. Lots of first time starting QBs look like hot stuff early on before the defenses figure them out. Bortles is one. So were Ponder, Kaepernick, Foles, and Osweiler in recent years. Mark Sanchez "led" the Jests to the AFC championship game as a rookie but he still sucked. Taylor is at least competent. Bortles isn't even close to that.

With playing the Jests twice and the Carp without Tannehill, the Bills might be able to eke out 3 wins there. Maybe they can squeak out a couple of wins from among Denver, Tampa Bay, and Indie, all home games. That's an ify five wins but I'm a fool so I said 6 wins.

Sorry, Boyst, but I've seen this same kind of trash much too often over the last 17 preseasons to fall for that line. Preseason win-loss records may mean nothing, but how the team plays means everything. This Bills team didn't play well at all on offense or special teams. The starting OL is a dumpster fire on pass protection; not even Aaron Rodgers would have much success behind it. My guess is that the running game will deteriorate because defenses will regularly put 8 in the box to stop it, confident that the Bills can't pass. The defense looks good but the secondary is worrysome; Carson Wentz isn't Tom Brady, Matt Ryan, Drew Brees or Phillip Rivers. We all know that the OL just needs time to "gel", which it magically will do by Sept 10.

Oh, bull manure! The problem the team has had for years is that the FO's philosophy is a commitment to maximizing profits not winning football games, and that means keeping salaries as low as possible because that constitutes the bulk of the expenses. Over the last 15 years, since about 2002, the Bills have repeatedly shed their top DBs or WRs, usually first or second rounders and replaced them with first or second rounders in the next draft. Consequently, they don't have the draft picks to fill other personnel needs ... like OLers or LBs or QBs. When the Bills have spent big, they've spent on big names that would excite the fan base and put butts in the seats. Takeo Spikes, Terrell Owens, Mario Williams all fit that mold. So does Rex Ryan. How do you "build a team" when you consistently send the best talent you have packing? In 2017 that was Watkins, Gilmore, Woods, and Gillislee. The number of ex-Bills who have gone on to other teams and had not only personal success but helped their teams win in the playoffs is mind boggling compared to the Bills' inability to make the playoffs for the last 17 seasons. In the mid-2000s, Minnesota had one of the toughest defenses in the NFL, compliments of three Bills rejects: Antoine Winfield, Nate Clements, and Pat Williams. Another Bills reject, Ruben Brown, helped the Chicago Bears make the Super Bowl. Jabari Greer has a Super Bowl ring with the Saints. Marshawn Lynch has one, too, and so does Chris Hogan. Jason Peters anchors the Philly OL at LT, has been an All Pro repeatedly, and even at his age and post-Achilles injury, is still a better LT than anybody the Bills have had since, including Cordy Glenn who is a good LT just not as good as Peters.

... and 20 straight years without making the playoffs. No, you just don't give a crap about winning in 2017 ... or 2018 or any other season.

My thought exactly. If Watkins came back to the Northeast, it would be as a Patriot.

^^^ I think this is what raises the specter of Jauron/Levy in skeptics' minds more than anything else. Jauron's offense was excruciating to watch in its boring predictability, and McDermott seems to want the same run-run-short check down pass on third down-punt style that Jauron favored.

The problem in 2016 was not the offense or the number of games individuals missed. The offense was more than adequate for the Bills to have won at least 9 games, and likely to win 10 and possibly more. The problem was the defense, which sucked monkey balls. How many opposition RBs ran for 200+ yards against the Bills D? Ajayi ran for 200+ twice and I think at least one other RB hit that mark, too! The problem in 2016 wasn't that Taylor wasn't the proverbial franchise QB or that Watkins missed games or that McCoy missed 1, it was because the defense couldn't stop anybody! Contrary to what some here think, a franchise QB doesn't help a team much if it doesn't have a defense. See the recent records of the New Orleans Saints.

Unless you're the Bills ... which they did in 2009 when they traded away All Pro LT Jason Peters.

First off, the bulk of team revenues these days come from the televison deals. The teams that are able to sell luxury boxes and seat licenses rake in really big $$$ from those sales, but that's not the Bills. Their ticket sales add modestly to their revenue. If the season tix are already sold, and most individual game tix are sold, the team already has the vast bulk of its attendance money for 2017, so trading Watkins after the first preseason game had little risk. Not re-signing Gilmore probably weakened the secondary enough so that it was unlikely the team could win 10 games and have a legitimate shot at the playoffs. Making the playoffs would have likely added to 2018 attendance but probably not all that much unless the team had a playoff win or two, too. That scenario was unlikely even with Gilmore and Watkins, so their high salaries made them expendable. Winning only 6 games rather than 8 isn't going to significantly impact 2018 season tix sales. Winning only 2 games in 2017 would likely create a drop in ticket sales, especially if the team sent established stars like Kyle Williams and Sean McCoy packing. Even drafting a first round QB might not have helped raise the numbers. The organization can't market a 2 or 3 win team as just a QB away from the playoffs. It can market a 6 win team as being a playoff contender with a shiny new high first round QB as the starter.