SoTier

What if there's no franchise QB to be had???? You, like so many stubbornly delusional Bills fans, apparently assume that all the Bills have to do is draft a first round QB and voila!, he'll turn into a franchise QB. Don't bother to deny that that's your assumption, either, because your own words betray your feelings on the subject. The Bills tried twice before, in 2004 and again in 2013, to take a first round QB just to take a first round QB and suffered disastrous consequences. Face reality: if the Bills draft a QB in the first round in 2018, they won't be drafting another first round QB for at least four or five years unless said QB is a bust, so they better make their QB pick a good one or draft somebody else. Drafting the wrong QB is worse than not drafting any QB. FYI -- Among the FA QBs, probably the only significant upgrade to Taylor is Cousins. As a FA, he picks where he'll sign, which is very unlikely to be the Bills. Franchise QBs are rarely to be found in FA. Among the QBs in the draft, it's entirely possible that even if they want to trade up, the Bills may not be able to find a dance partner. In both 2011 and 2012, there was no way Carolina or Indy were ever going to trade out of the #1 pick. No QB in the draft comes with a guarantee ... and outside of the #1 pick, it gets dicey even for first round picks. Of 27 first round QBs taken since 2000 outside of the #1 pick, only 10 have been long-term starters on at least a level of Jay Cutler, Sam Bradford or Ryan Tannehill. That's still only about 1 out of 3. Pretty shabby odds.

How many teams has Bradford been healthy enough to take to even a winning season? Not many because he's missed all/most of 4 seasons in his 8 year pro career. Bradford can not stay on the field, which is exactly why Case Keenum became the Vikings' starter. When he's on the field, he's basically a game manager type QB in the same mold as Tyrod Taylor ... or Alex Smith prior to 2017. He's one of those first round QBs who keeps getting starting jobs because he hasn't totally crashed and burned ... because he's always hurt.

We'll have to agree to disagree. I'm not impressed with comparisons to a future draft class or a draft class in which only 1 first round rookie QB distinguished himself ... and that for only part of a season. Generally, drafts yield 1 franchise QB no matter how many prospects are taken in the first round, and usually that's the guy who's clearly head and shoulders better than any of the other QBs.

Exactly this. Maybe more star QBs would come out of other rounds if the QB position was such that more than 1 QB regularly played in games (such as DL rotations or RB substitutions) but that's not the nature of pro football. Most of the truly successful QBs who've come out of later rounds in the last 16 years were drafted lower for reasons really unrelated to their ability to play QB (ie, usually short or slightly built), and they benefited from being given real shots to start fairly early in their careers.

This. Go high or stay at home is the best way to get a QB. The number of #1 picks who have been busts over the last 16 years number just 2: 2002 - David Carr and 2007 - Ja'Marcus Russell. All the others have been at least modest successes: Michael Vick, Carson Palmer, Eli Manning, Alex Smith, Matthew Stafford, Sam Bradford, Cam Newton, and Andrew Luck. Jameis Winston (2015) and Jared Goff (2016) appear likely to be at least modest successes, too. I would add that being the consensus #1 pick in the entire draft regardless of position is important, too. I would only trade up to the #1 pick for that consensus #1 pick because that means he's the best prospect hands down. Of the successful #1 picks I listed, only Eli Manning and Alex Smith were not the best QBs in their draft class, and only Manning was a consensus #1 pick ... but he was in a generational QB draft class which will likely include 2 HOF QBs, and maybe 3. There is no QB in the 2018 draft who is the consensus #1 pick. In fact, there's no consensus on who's even the best QB since all of them have significant flaws. It's not like 2011 or 2015 or 2016 where there were two outstanding QB prospects that were clearly superior to all the other prospects, regardless of position, but maybe not necessarily to each other. That makes 2018 the wrong year to trade up very far to get a QB. Giving up 1 draft pick to move up to grab a QB they really, really like might be an acceptable risk. Giving much more in this draft to move up for a first round QB is playing Russian roulette.

Totally agree. What defines "success" is key, and it's very different for first round QBs than for fifth rounders. QBs taken after the first round are generally taken with limited expectations, ie, backups, and the lower round, the lower expectations. Guys like Cassel and Fitzpatrick who eventually make low level starters are probably "hits" whereas first round QBs like Leftwich or Sanchez who were also low level starters are probably "misses". It's why I wouldn't try to calculate/compare success rates for first rounds vs any other rounds except for limited criteria. For me, the minimum definition of "success" for any QB would be minimally a decent starting QB on the level of a Cutler or Dalton or Tannelhill, somebody who is ranked among the top 15 QBs over several years, and occasionally making the Top 10 QB list. Of course that's a pretty low standard for first rounders, especially guys taken at the very top of the draft. For first round QBs, I think anything less than being a "franchise QB" makes a QB a "disappointment" since the expectations for first rounders are so high. A franchise QB is usually included in the Top 10 QBs statistically. He also doesn't just put up stats but demonstrates leadership and "clutch" ability by making plays with some regularity when needed to win games rather than throwing INTs that contribute to losses. It's the intangible factors that separate Aaron Rodgers or Matt Ryan or Russell Wilson from Jay Cutler or Andy Dalton or Ryan Tannehill. I also don't think QBs with less than 3 full years (48 games) should be called "hits" or "misses" unless they crash and burn early (Manziel). By my criteria, both Mariota and Winston are still in the "too early to be sure", but I do agree with your assessment of Mariota and Winston so far in their careers ... and I totally agree about Tannehill. He's one of those QBs who's too good to just let go but not good enough to win with consistently IMO. Bortles is another one like that, and I think those QBs are probably even worse than outright first rounders who are busts since teams are reluctant to walk away from first rounders unless they're clearly busts. There's no comparison between Pennington and Tannehill. Pennington was a very good QB who was hardly a miss. His stats don't reflect his leadership or his clutch play, neither of which Tannehill has demonstrated to any significant degree. When Pennington was able to play full seasons, he took the Jests to the playoffs -- 2002, 2004, and 2006. Then when he signed with Miami in 2008, he took the Carp to the playoffs. Unfortunately, injuries, especially the one to his throwing shoulder, shortened his career by limiting his ability to throw.

Apparently you are of the "sky is falling" club. Realistically, the Giants, Dolphins, Bengals or Chargers don't seem all that likely to draft QBs in the first round because they're already paying big $$$ for their starting QBs since adding a first round QB is likely to add $5-7 million for the rookie. Plus, they likely have many other needs more pressing than getting a young QB who isn't going to help them much in the near future ... or they don't like the QB prospects as much as they like other prospects. I also can't see the Saints or Steelers trading up "a few spots" to get ahead of the Bills, either. QBs available outside of the top 12 spots have simply been too prone to failure for smart organizations to trade up to get them. Since 2000, only Chad Pennington, Aaron Rodgers, Joe Flacco, and Teddy Bridgewater have been successful coming out of the bottom of the first round. A team would be better served to take a QB in the 2nd or 3rd than giving up more draft capital for a player likely to fail, and I think that most GMs understand that. I think that Cousins ends up in Denver, with Jacksonville and maybe Arizona also possibilities, so I think it's entirely possible that one of the popular top prospects will be available when the Bills' turn comes up at #21. Then the question is whether the Bills like him enough to gamble or if they pass to take a player other than a QB that they like better.

This class isn't nearly as good as 1983 or 2004, the only two drafts since the merger to produce even three franchise QBs. IMO there's likely to be 1 franchise QB and maybe a decent starter who ranks maybe 10-15 among starting QBs ... that's about what comes out of most drafts whether there's 2 first round QBs or 4 first round QBs.

Trading up for the #1 pick before the draft is very different than trading up for the #2 or #3 before the draft. Trading up for #1, you get your choice. For any other pick, you don't get your choice.

And Favre wasn't with Atlanta, the team that drafted him, the next year. BTW, Favre only threw 4 passes with 2 INTs. Peterman threw 6 INTs in 52 passing attempts with 2 TDs including the wild card game.

Groy has more "SOLID experience and DEMONSTRATED results" than 2 Pro Bowl LGs (Ruben Brown, Richie Incognito) or a future HOF LT (Jason Peters) or one of the NFL's solid starting LTs (Cordy Glenn)? Really? Or were you referring to Langston Walker and/or Bennie Anderson? Walker was a starting OT for 4 of his 9 NFL seasons with Oakland and the Bills. Bennie Anderson was a five year NFL starter with Baltimore and the Bills. Groy's "SOLID experience and DEMONSTRATED results" consists of playing in 41 games over 4 seasons, starting 11 of them. He started 7 games in 2016 and 1 game in 2017 for the Bills because Wood was injured. He's a backup who hasn't demonstrated that he can be a full time quality starter.

As long as it truly isn't this, I'd prefer the Bills draft a QB to signing a FA vet. They might as well just keep Taylor in that case because there's not much out there other than Cousins. They'd have to trade for Foles, and I'm not sure that he could have success with the Bills because of their holes on offense. To negotiate trades and other related personnel matters. I think that both NE and KC use the model where the HC has control of player personnel. The Bills have generally had the GM either equal/semi-subservient to the HC since Donahoe was fired after the 2005 season. Both Whaley and Nix selected players that fit what the HC wanted ... for good or bad, and mostly bad IMO since the 2013 draft.

It depends upon who's available. However unlikely, if Nelson is there at #21, you sprint to the podium to get him. There may be some others worth taking at #21 or #22, but a second rounder might work out well, too. OBD passed on 2 potential franchise QBs to take a DB last year when they traded out of the #10 slot. I'm not saying they were wrong to do that, but I sure wouldn't want them trading up take the fourth or fifth best QB prospect in the draft. That's a recipe for disaster. I'm not sure if I'd want them to take any QB at #21 or #22, either ... the number of successful QBs to come out of the bottom of the first round since 2000 is really small. Off the top of my head, I think there's Chad Pennington, Aaron Rodgers, Joe Flacco, and maybe, if he's truly healthy enough to play, Teddy Bridgewater. With QBs, it's basically, go high or stay home IMO, and my guess is that nobody at the top of the draft is likely to want to deal except maybe Cleveland. More precisely, the Bills depth is non-existent unless Glenn makes a full recovery and the Bills keep him, and Miller gets another chance at RG. Vlad Ducasse is a career backup. I hope so. Ducasse didn't suddenly become starting guard material after 8 years in the league.

Sorry, but I've heard this kind of thing so often over the years when the Bills replace a starter with a backup, especially on the OL, that I am exceedingly skeptical. Bennie "The Penalty" Anderson wasn't an adequate replacement for Pro Bowl LG Ruben Brown and Langston Walker and numerous other Never-Weres weren't replacements for All Pro LT Jason Peters. The Bills wasted about 4 years before they got around to replacing Brown, and another 3 or 4 years before they replaced Peters. I hope Groy is a decent replacement for Wood but I'm not pinning my hopes on him. The Bills need to draft a center on Day 1 or Day 2 and then add a guard on Day 2 or Day 3. If this regime is committed to winning football games, then there can be no excuses for not bringing in some quality young OLers through the draft and keeping the good OLers they already have, ie Incognito, Glenn, and Dawkins.

Maybe because most people would think that winning "only" 8 or 9 games is better than losing 13 or 14? Peterman doesn't have an NFL arm, so his ceiling has always been limited. He doesn't appear to be the supposedly "cerebral" and "pro ready" QB he was thought to be in college. In a perfect world, he wouldn't even be on the Bills roster on opening day. If he's their starter, it's going to be a long season for the faithful.

This. The real problem with the Bills offense last season was the OC. He not only forced Taylor into a system that didn't fit him, his insistence on changing the OL blocking scheme seriously compromised that unit's play as well; the OL never played consistently well all season. It didn't help that Dennison's 1950ish conservatism and the Bills lack of downfield speed enabled teams to disrespect their passing game. He's probably not a good fit for the Bills because the Bills don't have a good pass blocking OL and have a lousy WR corps ( in contrast, the Eagles have one of the best two OLs in the league and excellent receivers). Bringing Foles without major upgrades to those units is a recipe for being here in February, 2019 reading post after post whining about how disappointing Foles is.

Bull manure. So, how come the Saints have only made the playoffs in 6 of the 12 seasons that future HOFer Drew Brees has been with them? How come the Chargers have only made the playoffs once in the last 8 years despite having Phillip Rivers or the NY Giants only twice in the last 9 seasons despite having Eli Manning? It takes more than simply a QB, as the Indy Colts demonstrated the last 3 seasons even when Andrew Luck played. Moreover, there is absolutely no guarantee that "all those other pieces will fall into place after that". It hasn't for GB in recent years ... Aaron Rodgers' excellence has simply hidden all of the Packers' flaws. Jameis Winston hasn't enabled TB to put together a winning team, and neither did Kirk Cousin in Washington. OTOH, both Minnesota and Philadelphia proved that stout defenses and good offensive personnel/coaching can make even backup QBs winners. FYI -- how can you possibly claim that Zay Jones had a "pretty good start"? As of now, he looks like a bust. Well, maybe not "most" but certainly a significant number advocate just that position ... very emphatically. They've been agitating for the Bills to do whatever they have to do -- "tank" or trade up -- to take a QB since TC last summer when nobody had any idea what QBs would be in the 2018 draft. Even now, numerous posters advocate the Bills trading up to get a QB without having any specific QB in mind, even if he would be the fourth or fifth best QB prospect taken, so I think it's safe to say that many posters do advocate that the Bills "go get a QB to just get one..." It seems that he might be subordinate to McDermott when it comes to personnel decisions. As someone mentioned, McDermott had at least some if not most of the say in Beane's hiring.

Totally agree. Philly won the Super Bowl with a backup QB because their OL enabled them to run their offense. If the NE defenders had been in the Eagles backfield all game (like so many teams' defenders were in the Bills backfield all season), it's likely the outcome would have been different. Certainly Foles (and Wentz when he was healthy) wouldn't have looked so great. The best thing the Bills can do is fix their OL ... for whoever is the QB in 2018 and for whenever they get a franchise QB. The best QB in the world can't do squat when he's on his back.

The bolded part is what I'm leery of with Foles, too. DCs as well as many veteran defenders build up "books" on QBs based on film study. The more they see of a QB in a specific offense, the more likely they are to figure out how to stop him. With top QBs, that's not all that much of a problem because they're so good, but with lesser QBs, it becomes a problem because they're more limited. The "book" on Tyrod Taylor is to confine him to the pocket and make him throw the ball to his check down receivers by covering his wide outs because he won't throw throw them open -- and the Bills didn't have any WRs who could get separation this past season. Foles has very real limits to his game because he did struggle the second year in Philly as well as in his other stops. My guess is that if the Pats' defense could have taken away the RPOs, Foles wouldn't have looked nearly so good ... but Philly's great OL prevented that ... at least in the short term. If Belichick had more time and film, he probably would have figured out how to significantly limit Foles' effectiveness.

Always the first to come to the defense of your buds, eh?

That's what happens when the grammatically-impaired don't bother with capitalization or other "niceties" of the English language -- it can change the meaning of the sentence entirely. I had to read the sentence twice before I realized he meant Tre White.

So, after squeaking into the playoffs as a WC with a 9-7 record after 17 years of missing them, the Bills should declare 2017 a "success" and immediately begin rebuiliding? Seriously? One wildcard game does NOT make a dynasty any more than a couple of good games does NOT make a QB's career. I agree with Bandit27. The Bills need to have a good draft, and they have enough picks to do that. They also need to be smart about their own vets, including keeping the ones that they can't truly upgrade with reasonable FA acquisitions, something the Bills have repeatedly failed to do over the years. IMO, the OL needs to be a priority on the offensive side since all offensive success is dependent upon that. They need to draft the best C or OG they can, hopefully on Day 1 but no later than Day 2. Philly's OL is considered one of the very best if not the best OL in the NFL, and they played like it on Sunday night. I'm not sure that Foles was even knocked down all game. If a QB the Bills truly like falls to them, I'm not opposed to them taking him, but I surely don't want them trading up to take the fourth or fifth best QB prospect or taking a QB at 21 or 22 simply to say they took a QB. They've tried both those routes before and got nothing but manure for their trouble. They have too many holes to fill to waste high draft picks on a QB who's ceiling is "backup QB". They can draft one of those on Day 2 or Day 3 if they want somebody better than Peterman (which I hope they do but they have bigger needs right now, so I wouldn't be upset if they didn't). The reality is that cutting Taylor will cost $8+ million in dead cap money, so that has to be figured into the cost of any FA QB the Bills consider. That seems likely to make Kirk Cousins prohibitively expensive for the Bills, even if Cousins passed on much more QB friendly situations in Denver or Minnesota to consider the Bills. Keenum is probably an upgrade but I can't see Minnesota letting him walk while keeping Bradford and Bridgewater with their very questionable knees. Most of the other potential FA QBs being mentioned are career backups, and not necessarily very good ones. IMO, unless they can truly upgrade the QB position through FA, which will cost big bucks, the Bills need to bite the bullet, keep Taylor even if they draft a first round QB, and give him a system that fits his talents better as well as a better WR corps. Spend the $ on the WRs, OLers, and a better RB than Tolbert. On defense, the Bills need to upgrade DT and LB. Another edge rusher would be nice, too. It generally takes 3-4 years to develop a DT, so FA might be a better bet than the draft unless there's a real stud available. Unfortunately, FA DTs are expensive, so wasting $$ on a FA QB who's not better than Taylor likely means that the Bills can't add a DT or edge rusher. LBs tend to be easier to find and develop, so the Bills should probably look to the draft to upgrade that position. The good news about the draft is that the Bills have so many holes that taking "best player available" when their turns come should be a no brainer.

A lot of Foles' success in the playoffs is because Pederson and his OC have modified the Eagles offense to fit what Foles does best as well as Doug Pederson's aggressive play calling. With a more conservative minded HC and an OC less willing to change to fit his QB, my guess is that Foles would struggle.

Exactly this. IMO, the Bills QB position doesn't need to be fixed but upgraded. Cleveland and Denver are teams that need to fix their QB situations. If the Bills can't get a better QB than Taylor in FA, then they need to keep him. Cousins would be an upgrade. If Bradford were healthy and could stay that way, he would be, too, but staying healthy has been problematic for him since he was drafted. Keenum might be, but I'm thinking he doesn't leave Minnesota unless the Vikings sign Cousins. Who else is there on the FA market? Fitzpatrick and McKown might be available. Matt Moore, Chad Henne, Derek Anderson have been mentioned. Keep in mind that cutting Taylor will result in an $8+ million cap hit in 2018, which likely puts Cousins out of range and makes both Bradford and Keenum cost about the same against the cap as keeping Taylor. Taylor/Cousins/Bradford/Keenum plus a first round QB would be an upgrade. Any of these same QBs plus a second round QB might be an upgrade if the rookie turned out to be at least a competent backup. A QB like Moore, Henne, or Anderson plus a first round QB would only be an upgrade if the rookie was good enough to win the starting job in TC.

Sorry, dudes, but when trashy QBs like Anderson, Moore or Henne are being talked about as possible Bills starters as "bridge QBs", Tyrod Taylor is looking better and better. The FA QB market is always slim pickin's because few teams let good ones, even good backups, leave. If the Bills cut Taylor and don't sign Cousins, they are simply reprising 2013 when they chose to save current $$ over winning football games either now or in the future.