SoTier

Most 2017 HS grads will retire from jobs/careers in fields that don't exist -- and probably aren't even thought of -- today. Think of how cell phones have changed since the 1990s when they were big, clunky "car phones". Think how much more sophisticated cell phones have become in just the last five years -- and all the people who work designing/creating/supporting them. Yes. If the gas company wants to run a gas line across your property, they have to get an easement.

I think that you are seriously under-estimating the speed at which technology moves. It's unlikely to happen in the next decade, but it might very well happen before 2040. Consider that the first manned flight in an airplane, the Wright Brothers' 1903 Kitty Hawk flight, occurred in 1903, and that within twenty years, airplanes were already in use by the military and for carrying mail. In 1927, Charles Lindberg fly non-stop across the Atlantic, and within 30 years, the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. Within less than 12 years of that, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. The technology for powering hyperloops already exists. Tunnel building technology has largely been perfected ... nobody thought the Chunnel (Channel Tunnel under the English Channel) was possible when it was proposed because building a tunnel under water is much more difficult than building under ground but it's been open since 1994. What will hold it up is acquiring the land (or rights of way) and legal challenges.

Either 9 wins and a playoff spot or 10 or more wins even without the playoffs (because sometimes poop happens because of tie-breaking rules). The Bills have accomplished neither in this century so this would be a major accomplishment. I am expecting neither, however.

That makes two of us.

The last time I looked, the Buffalo Bills drafted EJ Manuel in the first round in 2013, which is just a tad bit more recent that 2004. Tthe only other first round QB they've taken since 1970 was Jim Kelly in 1983. Todd Collins (1995), Matt Kofler (1982), Gene Bradley (1980), and Dennis Shaw (1970) were the Bills only 2nd rounders. They drafted Trent Edwards (2007), Frank Reich (1985), Gary Marangi (1974) and Joe Ferguson (1973) in the 3rd round. The only two who were even close to being "franchise QBs" from that lot were Kelly and Ferguson. Reich was a competent backup QB on a strong team, but his stint in Carolina proved he wasn't starter material, either. Shaw was 1970 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year, but like Vince Young, it was all downhill career-wise after that. The Bills inability to find QBs in the draft -- and their apparent disinterest in drafting them in the higher rounds -- isn't something that began with the departure of Bill Polian. It was a hallmark of the Bills under Ralph Wilson's ownership and the FOs that he employed. Of course, except for the Polian era, poor drafting was generally the rule rather than the exception for the Bills, but I'm sure that that's all changed now, so undoubtedly if the Bills tank, they'll draft a QB #1 and he'll turn out to be a combination of Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady ... at least he will in the alternative universe you inhabit.

Who, exactly, besides draft nuts, media mavens, and message board GM wannabes, would "some" include? Certainly not employed NFL GMs and HCs who want to remain employed because they're busy looking for players that can help them win in the upcoming season, not drooling over the high light videos of college kids who have 1+ years of college eligibility remaining. Scouts might be keeping tabs on some of the best looking ones, but no GM would decide to throw away a season just for chance to draft a specific college player. Too many kids who looked so great as juniors either get injured or don't perform up to snuff as seniors for an NFL team to commit to "tanking". Moreover, especially among QBs, too many supposedly "great" prospects who had excellent senior years have crashed and burned because they couldn't adapt to the pro game. Keep in mind that in order for a mid-pack team to deliberately tank, the FO would have to make the decision to do so even before the FA period and the NFL draft so that it could shed key talent via FA and trades. Then it would have to pass on talented players in the current year's draft who could play well as rookies in order to preserve its chance to pick in the first slot in next year's draft. Now, this might seem sensible to you, but it's simply an absurd scenario to most sensible people. Somehow, I think NFL GMs are more concerned with the collegiate players currently in the draft than with who might be in the draft the following year.

When I saw the thread title, the first thing I thought of was the IGY, but then I thought, "naw, only STEM nerds like me would have even heard of the IGY" ... unless it just popped up on your phone because you have a calendar app ... which probably wouldn't exist if the IGY (and Sputnik) hadn't fired up increased interest in the sciences way back then.

I retired April 1, 2016 and have never been tempted to look back even though I liked what I did and worked in a great organization with great supervisors and co-workers. Retirement is simply better.

In addition to Chautauqua Institute, Chautauqua County has Midway State Park on the northern side of the lake which is a former amusement park geared for younger children. There are a couple of tour boats on Chautauqua Lake as well as Long Point State Park for swimming. I believe the Stowe Ferry is still operating on week ends (it costs a donation to take your car across the lake) between Stowe, NY and Bemis Point which is a cute little tourist town on the other side. Jamestown has the Luci Desi Museum and the LuciFest which celebrate the life of comedienne Lucille Ball. Panama Rocks in the southern part of the county are huge boulders left from the erosion of an old seabed. They're not a hard hike at all as they're geared toward tourists not hikers. The western part of the county has a compact wine trail consisting of several wineries between Silver Creek and Westfield. Dunkirk has a wonderful harbor for strolling and couple of nice beaches: Pt Gratoit (pronounced Gratchit) and Wright Park. Pt Gratiot also has an historic lighthouse. Chautauqua County is primarily rural with a lot of Amish living in the southern and eastern parts of the county (Panama, Sherman, Cherry Creek, Randolph). These Amish communities also stretch into neighboring Cattaraugus County and northwest PA, and are much less commercial than the Amish communities around Lancaster, PA. The area abounds with farmers markets. The Chautauqua County Fair runs from July 24 through July 30. For shopping, entertainment, and more museums and beaches, Erie, PA is about 45 miles away via I-86. Check out the Erie Maritime Museum and Presque Isle State Park (which is free).

Why? Football doesn't exist separate from the real world. Players and coaches are people, so they're going to have the same issues as other people. The big difference is that NFLers have more talent (and probably more money) than Joe Average, and people are interested in what they do, who they are, etc.

The operative word here is "should be". In many places in this country, being gay can be uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous, and those places are not necessarily the ones that come to mind when you think of homophobia. Furthermore, while younger people tend to care less about whether somebody is gay than many older people, some are much worse. That it's easier for gays now than it was even a decade ago doesn't mean they're home free. Very well said. Race. sexual orientation, religion, national origin, gender, even physical or mental handicaps can all be fodder for individuals energized by hatred.

I'm skeptical of the Bills "playing a long term game" this season simply because what they've done this season pretty much looks like what they've done in the past: fired a poor coach; hired a new one with, at best, modest NFL credentials; let an expensive proven DB walk and filled in his spot with a first round rookie; let other proven veterans leave and signed cheaper ones to replace them. So, to a lot of fans, it just looks like the same old, same old. Among the most frustrated, the idea of tanking to get the #1 pick seems a reasonable way to break the cycle. Realistically, the Bills aren't tanking for the #1 pick in 2018 but just doing what they've been doing for this entire century, although there's an outside chance that maybe they really do have a long term plan but the initial stages look similar to past actions. If, however, McDermott turns out to be a dud or if Taylor gets hurt or something similar happens, the Bills might very well wind up drafting in the top 3 or 5 of the draft, possibly even #1. That's no guarantee that there will be a QB worth taking at #1, though. If the Bills had had the #1 pick in the 2006, 2007, 2010 or 2013 draft, they still wouldn't have a franchise QB while if they'd drafted smarter in 2004 or 2012 they would, which seems to be the reality that the "tank for a QB" posters can't seem to understand. So, with the #1 pick, your 1 or 2 win team should trade down to amass more picks and pass on Bruce Smith or JJ Watt so the next year it can trade half those picks to trade up to grab Robert Griffin III? Brilliant! The teams that have started their runs to the Super Bowl using that strategy are too numerous to count!

Cleveland hasn't been a "mid-pack or better" team in at least a decade, and they've proven that bad ownership/FO incompetence practically guarantees failure in the draft even when picking high. How the hell can a team that won 3 games in 2015 and 1 in 2016 (and has had 1 season with more than 5 wins since 2007) be accused of "tanking" in 2017? Since 1999, the Browns have had the #1 pick in 1999, 2000, and 2017 plus they've traded away the #1 pick at least once (2016). They also drafted in the top three three more times and had two first round picks threes times and three first round picks once (2017). They've drafted 4 QBs in the first round: Tim Couch (1999), Brady Quinn (2007), Brandon Weeden (2012), and Johnny Manziel (2014), all busts. They had 5 first round picks in the 2014, 2015, and 2016 drafts but they still managed to win exactly 1 game in 2017. So much for the power of the draft to lift an incompetent organization even into the middle of the pack, and in case you didn't realize it, the Bills FO has proven to be only marginally better than the Browns.

That was primarily because Jauron wanted his small, undersized defenders to play like missiles, throwing themselves at bigger offensive players to stop them. It's simple physics. If a smaller body slams keeps slamming into larger bodies enough times, eventually the smaller body is going to break. Most of Jauron's LBs and some of his DLers weren't as big as the RBs they were supposed to stop, which was why a gang of Bills defenders would be dragged five yards downfield after the original tackle. Add to that the fact that Jauron was a true believer that work ethic trumped talent, and you have the recipe for an injury epidemic. Godamighty but I hated Jauron. Incompetence and stupidity have been the hallmark of many Bills HCs over the years, but you can forgive those failings. Jauron wasn't stupid, just rigidly wedded to a belief in the superiority of his own coaching philosophy despite years of evidence to the contrary.

Wilson was not "just getting lucky". Wilson was the victim of the insistence of NFL GMs that "bigger is better" so a short QB has no chance. If Wilson had been 6'3" or so, he'd have gone #2 after Luck. And Luck's "sure thing" status was fueled by the media hype machine that had been saying he was the next great QB for three years before he was drafted. Furthermore, Luck hasn't proven to be "the next great QB". He was great as a rookie and sophomore QB but he's making many of the same mistakes now as he did in 2013 indicating that he's not improved professionally since his sophomore year. QBs like Newton, Wilson, Tannehill, Cousins, and Dalton (all drafted in 2011 and 2012) have all improved significantly more than Luck in the four or five years they've been in the league. Nobody is arguing that the top QB prospects are almost always to be found in first round, and statistically, mostly in the first three picks, but the idea of deliberately sabotaging a team's season in order to chase a particular draft pick is nonsensical. First off, in order for a mid-pack or better team to land the first draft pick by tanking, they would have to do something blatant like literally selling off their best players or firing their coaching staff during TC. It would be the kind of move that would likely bring in the federal government, something that would be an anathema to the NFL. For a bottom feeder team to tank, what makes you think a team that couldn't get it right for years suddenly picks the right guy? In the 1999 draft, the Browns had the #1 pick, and with unerring skill, they picked Tim Couch over Donovan McNabb. After a 10 win season in 2002, the Niners sank into incompetence that lasted until 2011. They had the #1 draft pick in 2005 and took Alex Smith over Aaron Rodgers. In 2007, the hapless Raiders took JaMarcus Russell when they could have had Calvin Johnson, Joe Thomas, Adrian Peterson or Patrick Willis. Perennially bad teams in the salary cap era are bad because they've perfected their own brand of incompetence, and it's not something they can turn on and off at will. Who the hell cares how many QBs go in the first round? What counts is that the one your team picks is successful. Five QBs went in round 1 in 1999, and only Donovan McNabb (#2) turned out to be a franchise QB. Of the three first round QBs in 2002, none were franchise QBs. Of the four in 2003, only Carson Palmer the #1 pick was any good. The same happened in 2011 with Cam Newton. Of the three QBs taken in the first round in 2006 and 2009, only 1 from each class were decent. The only year in the last 30 with more than 2 successful QBs from the first round was 2004. Of course, that was the year that the Bills chose to trade back into the first round to take JP Losman. As I said, bottom feeder teams perfect their own brand of incompetence. Right. Since the Bills "re-upped" just fine after they picked fourth in 2001 and third in 2011, I have every confidence that they will make the right picks after tanking in 2017. Would you also be interested in a slightly used but recently rehabbed bridge over Chautauqua Lake that I have for sale?

Something we agree on!!!!

And that usually happens unless he comes to a team that really lacks the talent to compete or gets hit with injuries to key personnel. Good coaching and a stout defense can get a team pretty far as witness both Minnesota and Houston have repeatedly made the playoffs with virtually no NFL caliber QBing. The Bills lacked both last season. I expect a better defense this year simply because last year's was so putrid, but the closer it resembles 2014, the happier I'll be with the coaching staff. I will be disappointed if McDermott can't coach this Bills team to 8-10 wins if key players are available for most of the season. Getting 10 wins, even if they miss out on the WC, would be huge (which has happened to teams in the past). It would be the Bills' first double digit win season in this century.

Oh, boo hoo! If the stupid Bills had done their homework in the 2004 draft, they would have kept their 2005 first rounder instead of wasting it to take JP Losman and used it to draft Aaron Rodgers who lasted until GB took him at #25. Losman would have been there in the 2nd, and if he wasn't, they could have taken Schaub in rounds 2, 3 or 4 or just not bothered. The Bills had the 18th pick in the first round in 2005 but it went to Dallas. Of course, knowing the Bills, they would have probably used it to draft a DB since they hadn't used a first rounder on one since 2001. As I said before, it's poor player evaluation, poor cap management, poor drafting, and poor coaching that's given the Bills their shoddy record over the last 20 years, and tanking isn't going to change any of that. They drafted #4 in 2001 and drafted a bust in OT Mike Williams (it seems to me that maybe the Bills scouts and draft gurus should have known that collegiate RTs seldom convert to pro LTs). They drafted #3 in 2011 and drafted Marcell Dareus rather than AJ Green. Dareus hasn't proven to be a game changer the way Green has been. The Bills long history of passing on diamonds to draft duds makes the idea of the team tanking to get the #1 pick and getting it right just too silly to comtemplate. FYI Indy with Luck: 2012 11-5 2nd division WC -- 2013 11-5 Division winner Won WC game -- 2014 11-5 Division winner Won WC game -- 2015 8-8 2nd division -- 2016 8-8 3rd division Seattle with Wilson: 2012 11-5 2nd division WC Won WC game -- 2013 13-3 Division winner Won Divisional Round Won NFCC Won Super Bowl -- 2014 12-4 Division winner Won Divisional round -- 2015 10-6 2nd division WC Won WC game Won Divisional Round -- 2016 10-5-1 Division winner Won WC game You can drool over Luck all you want, dude, but I'll take Russell Wilson hands down over him. The guy does what he has to do to win. A great QB isn't the guy with the big rep or the fancy stats, it's the guy who helps his team. That's Brady's trade mark. The one year he had all rookie receivers, he was passing for less than 150 yards a game but the Pats were winning. Wilson's done it repeatedly already, both in college and at Seattle. Luck hasn't. Exactly this. Between 2001 and 2013, the 2002, 2006, 2007, 2010, and 2013 drafts together yielded exactly 1 QB who was better than a backup: Jay Cutler whom most don't consider a franchise QB. That's 38.5% of the draft classes that had no QB worth drafting in the first round. In four draft classes -- 2001, 2004, 2005, 2012 -- as good or better QBs were drafted after the QBs drafted #1. In 2008, the first QB drafted was Matt Ryan at #3, and he's better than Joe Flacco who was drafted at #18, but Flacco won a Super Bowl ring and was SB MVP, so he wasn't exactly chopped liver. In 2011, Newton went #1, but Ryan Tannehill and Andy Dalton are pretty good starters, too. Only in 2003 (Palmer) and 2009 (Stafford) did the #1 pick yield the only QB worth taking in first round of the draft, and neither won a Super Bowl, which is a pretty shabby 15%.

I'm not missing the point. Setting impossible goals and achieving them is the stuff of fiction, not reality. In the real world, setting attainable short term goals sets the stage for accomplishing more ambitious long term goals, and that's true for school children and football teams. A student who doesn't master multiplication is never going to become a mathematician or an economist or an accountant. A football team that doesn't learn how to win the game they're currently playing is never going to go on to the Super Bowl. Furthermore, the Bills have not been building a wild card team. They've been "building" a team that wins just enough to keep fans happy enough to have respectable attendance while producing plenty of profit. You can see that in the way they've drafted and in the players they've drafted, retained, and sent packing as well as most of the HCs they've hired over the past 17 years. Example 1: In 2002, they traded their 2003 first round draft pick for Drew Bledsoe. He set Bills passing records and the Bills finished 8-8 without a defense. In 2003, in order to build up the defense, the Bills brought in pricey FAs like London Fletcher and Takeo Spikes, but they stripped Bledsoe of his receivers: #2 WR Peerless Price, HB Larry Centers, and TE Jay Riersma. They wasted the first round pick they got from Atlanta on RB Willis McGahee who didn't play at all in 2003 when they had the serviceable Travis Henry as their starter when they could have drafted a WR, TE, or a RB who could catch the ball. Example 2: in 2004, the Bills traded back into the first round to get JP Losman at #22, giving up their 2005 first round pick -- for the 4th best QB in the draft. They still had Drew Bledsoe, so they weren't in desperate straits, but Bledsoe was getting in the fans' doghouse because like most QBs he needed protection and targets, and with the Bills he had neither. Losman could very well have been available in the second round or, if not, they could have taken Matt Schaub who lasted until the fourth round and turned out much better than Losman. Better yet, if the Bills had kept their 2005 first rounder, they could have taken Aaron Rodgers at #18 since Rodgers lasted until Green Bay's turn at #25. FYI, a team has absolutely no chance to get to the Super Bowl if it doesn't at least make the playoffs.

This is BS. No team has ever gone from cellar dweller to Super Bowl winner in a single season for the very simple reason that if a team jettisons its talent in order to tank, it will take years to rebuild it. That's especially true in the present NFL. Use your head for something besides keeping your ears apart. A football team needs 53 players, not just a QB. A Super Bowl team needs real talent at numerous key positions and a lot of luck. There are only 7 rounds in the draft. About half of draft picks bust or fail to live up to expectations. The average career length for NFL players is just over 3 years IIRC, although that number was from a few years ago, so it may be a little longer. Then there's injuries and suspensions for rules violations. The salary cap imposes a limit on how much a team can spend in salaries in any given season. Rookie contracts for first rounders last for 5 years and for others only 4 years. Too many veteran players are not going to want to sign with a losing team if they can sign with a team with a realistic chance to make the Super Bowl -- and a team with recent playoff runs and repeated Super Bowl appearances constitutes a "realistic chance" as opposed to a team that went 0-16 the previous year, which is why Chris Hogan, Stephon Gilmore, and Mike Gillisless are all Patriots. Oh, and let's not forget the quality of scouting, drafting, and coaching. Moreover, there's no guarantee that there's a franchise QB in any draft. In 2002, neither David Carr nor Joey Harrington were any good. In 2007, 2010, and 2013 none of the QBs were better than backups. In 2006, Jay Cutler was the best of a poor lot, although some considered him a franchise QB for a while. Also remember: In the 2001 draft, Michael Vick was the #1 pick, but Drew Brees was the best QB, first pick in the 2nd round (or what would be the end of the first round today). In the 2004 draft, #1 pick Eli Manning was drafted and then traded to the Giants for #4 pick Phillip Rivers and a carload of draft picks. E Manning has won 2 Super Bowls with the Giants but since Rivers has only been there as a spectator, it's unlikely the streaky Manning would have done better. In the 2005 draft, while Alex Smith was the #1 pick, Aaron Rodgers was the best QB at #18. In the 2008 draft, Atlanta took Matt Ryan at #3 and Baltimore took Joe Flacco (who was Super Bowl MVP) at #18. Despite all the hoopla about Indy tanking to get Andrew Luck in 2012, the best QB to come out of the 2012 draft was third rounder Russell Wilson who has already won a Super Bowl. Luck has not matured significantly beyond what he was as a rookie/sophomore QB, and he might not be as good a QB today as Tannehill (#12) and Kirk Cousins (4th round) who have matured professionally. The Bills have been bad for nearly 20 years because the FO has been far more interested in making profit than in winning football games, and no QB is going to rescue the team from that reality.

How many times have the Redskins made the playoffs in the last 17 years? How many times has the team won more games than it lost in a season? Have they been continually drafting first round DBs and RBs for the past 20 years only to get rid of them after their rookie contracts rather than pay them? Have Redskins coaching staffs lasted more than 2.6 years before changing out over the last 17 years? On a dysfunctionality scale, only Cleveland comes close to the Bills FO. This sounds like the prediction that pundits made about 15 years ago about the effect of the salary cap on teams being able to regularly field winning teams. Teams like NE, Pittsburgh, Green Bay, Kansas City, etc weren't supposed to happen. Well, guess what, they still do. Unless the NFL bans the forward pass, teams aren't letting their QBs walk, and so QBs are going to get paid, even if the league has to exempt QBs from the salary cap.

I think it's a lot less "doomsayers" and much more "let's see what he actually does", especially among those of us who've been fans for decades and have seen this hype for new coaches over and over again. McDermott comes into a much better situation, talent-wise, than any of his predecessors with the Bills in this century except for Ryan. If he's a decent HC, he'll do more with it than Ryan.

This is an excuse the Bills faithful trot out every time the team hires a new head coach, and since they change HCs every 2 or 3 years, the faithful remain placated. As long as the fans continue to fill the stadium and buy merchandise, the Bills are going to continue to do what they've been doing for the last 17 years ... what they've done for most of their history except for the brief time in the "Glory Years". Why would they spend big bucks to put an improved product on the field when the fans fill the stadium for an inferior product that costs less to produce? For those who are younger and might not remember, it wasn't all that long ago that both Cincinnati and Arizona were as much perennial bottom feeders as the Bills. IIRC,the fans in Cinci, and maybe in Phoenix, too, held new stadium approvals hostage to promises of improved performance based on the teams getting serious about fielding winners. Even the Bills "Glory Years" had their roots in fan discontent. It might be hard to believe, but support for the team -- and its losing ways -- deteriorated in the mid-1980s to the point where usually only about 30k fans filled then 80k seat Rich Stadium. I think that the Bills sold fewer than 20k season tickets. Back then, teams actually depended upon ticket sales for much of their profit, so the lack of fans in the seats at last encouraged Wilson to bring in Polian and upgrade the organization ... especially when the long term lease the Bills had on Rich meant they couldn't pull up stakes and find another sucker city like teams do today. As long as Bills fans continue to make excuses for poor team management and to fill the stadium every Sunday, nothing is really going to change with how the Bills do business. I totally agree. This team is significantly better talent-wise than the teams all of the Bills previous new HC inherited in this century. It has both a functional offense and defense. Even the team Ryan inherited, which had a good defense, lacked a competent offense. This one has the talent to be decent on both sides of the ball if it gets competent coaching. Keep in mind, the Bills don't have to good enough to win a Super Bowl this year. They just have to be good enough to get double digit wins, something they haven't done since 1999. I agree, especially about Russ Brandon. Previous to joining the Bills, Brandon worked on dismantling the Florida (now Miami) Marlins baseball team after it won the 1997 World Series by selling off talent to make more profit. That career stop is conveniently missing from Brandon's current on-line bios BTW. It's like his professional career started when he joined the Bills. FYI, in 1997, the Marlins had the 7th highest opening day salary total out of 28 MLB teams. They took the NL wild card in their division and won the World Series. In 1998, they ranked 20th out of 30 MLB teams and compiled the worst record in MLB history for a defending World Series champ.

How have the Pegulas changed the Bills' FO philosophy? Overdorf is still in charge of "cap management", which can best be described as replace pricey stars/vets with much cheaper rookies and never weres and hope for the best. Terrence McGee for Antoine Winfield ... Zay Jones for Robert Woods ... The Bills preferred to let 2012 first round DB, Stephon Gilmore, who made the Pro Bowl in 2016, leave, which is exactly what the Bills did with 1999 first round DB Antoine Winfield, 1999 second round WR Peerless Price, 2001 first round DB pick Nate Clements, 2003 first round RB Willis McGahee, 2006 first round safety Donte Whitner, 2007 second round LB Paul Posluszny, 2009 second round DB Jairus Byrd, 2009 second round LG Andy Levitre, 2010 first round RB CJ Spiller, and 2013 second round WR Robert Woods. The Bills have also let other top players as well as key role players leave through FA or trades rather than pay them ... in 2017 as well as in the past. Who did the Bills have on the roster to replace Peerless Price in 2003? Who did they have to replace Chris Hogan in 2016? How many years did it take to replace Pat Williams at DT or Ruben Brown at LG or Jason Peters at LT? So, how long will it take for the Bills to fill Sammy Watkins' spot when he signs with another team next season? They're on their third HC since purchasing the team in the fall of 2013. As somebody said, Ryan was supposed to be this era's Chuck Knox. When it turned out he wasn't, the Bills went back to their "tried and true" philosophy of hiring a cheaper HC with a mediocre record and limited experience. Sorry, dude, but I just can't see significant differences between the behavior of the Bills FO under Ralph Wilson's ownership and the Pegulas' ownership. Maybe I'm just getting pessimistic in my old age. Maybe I've just spent enough time in the working world to realize how impossible it is to change corporate/organizational culture without a willingness to shed some blood at the very top of the food chain. That the Pegulas have owned the Sabres for several years longer than they've owned the Bills and have failed to get that organization squared away doesn't seem to bode well for the Bills, and that includes McDermott. Hopefully, I'm dead wrong but I'm not buying into anything until I see some results that look different from the results of the last twenty years.

Oh, puh-leez! This has been the Bills FO's excuse for letting key players walk away for 20 years, and in many, perhaps most, of those seasons they weren't even within 10 million $ of the cap even including dead money! I am sick of the Bills organization fielding crappy teams because they either can't or won't manage the salary cap well enough to put a winning team on the field! Maximizing profit is a whole lot more important at OBD than winning games for this entire century! Jeez maree! It takes real skill to manage to put together only 2 winning seasons and no playoff appearances in 17 years!!!! Even Cleveland's done better than that because they made the playoffs at least once in the last 17 years. What I'm upset about is constantly watching ex-Buffalo Bills help other teams make the playoffs and play in and even win Super Bowls ... Antoine Smith won a Super Bowl with NE. Jabari Greer won a Super Bowl with New Orleans. Marshawn Lynch won a Super Bowl with Seattle. Chris Hogan won a Super Bowl with NE. Ruben Brown, Mike Gandy, and Donte Whitner all played in the Super Bowl within the last decade. Then there's all the former Bills who took Pro Bowl and All Pro honors while helping other teams to make the playoffs during the Bills playoff drought. I have no idea whether McDermott can be a good HC coach or not, but my gut feeling is that he's doomed to mediocrity at best because he's unlikely to get the support from the Bills FO that he needs in terms of retaining key talent. Oh, they might bring in an expensive FA to excite the fans like Terrell Owens and Mario Williams but they'll let key players already on the roster go and then use the draft to try to fill those holes, leaving McDermott and his staff to rearrange the deck chairs on Titanic.