SoTier

After 17 years of mediocrity occasionally sprinkled with outright crappiness, I think those being optimistic about the Bills are suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Newbie transplants with no football IQ will have no interest in the Bills; they have better things to do on Sunday afternoons.

Keep telling yourself that. KC is a good team that went 12-4 last season. Even without Eric Berry, they're likely good enough to take the AFCW unless Trevor Siemion improves at QB in Denver and/or the Raiders D is significantly better than expected. Alex Smith is a competent QB who now has better targets to go along with the good protection he enjoys behind the Chiefs' excellent OL. It's entirely possible that the first the Bills get next season from the Chiefs isn't even as high as #27.

Why, exactly, do you "trust" McDermott and Beane? Because they spout a bunch of platitudes and make promises that you like hearing? Neither of them have track records as head guys: they've always been assistants, never the leaders. Whatever happened to earning trust? Moreover, in what way(s) did Watkins "not fit the culture they're trying to build"? That he dared to speak his mind? Dude, this is 2017 NOT 1967! As long as players perform on the field, whatever they think about issues like player salaries or standing for the national anthem is their own damned business. Furthermore, the Bills are notorious for filling player contracts, especially rookie contracts, with individual performance incentives rather than just giving them a flat salary, so a WR who doesn't get many targets is going to get paid a lot less than he might if he just got a flat salary. It encourages a "me first" attitude rather than a "team first" attitude, and the fault for that is all on the Bills not on the players.

Well, that "when" will be a long time coming. My guess is that the drought hits at least 20, maybe even 25. The only things that are different between the current regime and past ones are the names and faces. The Bills are working towards the exact same thing they've been working at for the last 17 years: maximizing profits by minimizing salaries without alienating the fans so much that they stop buying tickets. And easily one of the best NFL coaches of all times. Somehow, I think I'd trust his player evals over some neophyte HC. The Chief's OL is seriously better than the Bills' OL.. Shady would run wild behind it. ROTFLMAO! Dream on.

So, true, and it's truly funny. I'm sure that we'll be treated to gloating threads every time Gillislee, Gilmore or Hogan have a bad game or make a mistake. Gilmore was in single man coverage most of the night. He had one screw up ... the problem is that when a CB screws up, it usually ends up in 6 for the other team. Meanwhile, I think that all the gloating over Gilmore ignores the fact that the Pats offense was not impressive ... primarily because of the Chiefs' D. Those boys stopped NE on 4-and-less-than-1 twice. That first fourth down stop down in the red zone after Hunt's fumble changed the entire tenor of that game. Instead of being up 14-0, they were soon tied 7-7. It's like it deflated the entire offense; they played flat the rest of the game. Eric Berry's achilles injury aside, all those draftniks spinning their fantasies about KC sucking this season and the Bills getting a mid/high first rounder for them need to face the reality that it might not even be as high as #27. I agree. When the Pats lose 8 games this season, then I'll say they ain't making the playoffs. LOL! They looked dismal and out-classed when the Bills beat them. Season opening games are the most likely to see upsets. Even the hapless Bills have beat better teams in season openers and falsely buoyed up their fans' hopes. Maybe instead of trying to emulate Carolina, the Bills brain trust should emulate the Chiefs who have been a consistent playoff contender since Andy Reid became their HC. They're a run-first team that mostly use short passes but they've added enough speed to go deep when the opportunity is there ... and they field killer Ds besides having an excellent OL that not only can run block extremely well but is capable of keeping their QB clean. IMO, part of the reason that NE looked bad was that Reid out-coached Belichick. The long TD passes were killers ... and totally unexpected.

It wasn't entirely accurate about NE, but it wasn't necessarily untrue about the Bills, and the Bills have earned every bit of disrespect they get around the league. Anyway you cut it, the reality is that the Bills have regularly shed their best talent through either FA or one-sided trades for almost two decades ... the entire length of the playoff drought. The Bills are never going to make the playoffs until that "process" stops. Name any other NFL team that has traded away an All Pro LT and an All Pro RB in their primes within 4 years. How many top DBs, RBs, and WRs have the Bills developed that they let walk after their rookie contracts ... and then had to replace with either first or second round draft picks or JAG FA they pretend are "just as good" as blue chippers who left?

Oh, some of the really great trades that the Bills have pulled off live in infamy far longer than 5-10 years. Trading future Pro Bowl QB Darryl Lamonica for a has-been QB and even more of a has-been WR back in the 1960s was the all-time great. In this century, trading away All Pro LT Jason Peters for a late first rounder in 2009 has only been topped by the Bills trading away All Pro RB Marshawn Lynch for a fourth rounder. Trading Sammy for a second and player still has a ways to go before it reaches the level of those three trade disasters. I think it might outrank the Bills' trading their 2004 2nd and 5th rounders plus their 2005 first rounder for the great opportunity of drafting JP Losman when they could have drafted the much more serviceable starting QB Matt Schaub with that 2nd or waited a year to use that first rounder on Aaron Rodgers. The idea of the Bills being worried about their future cap is ludicrous. They just didn't want to pay Watkins his salary this season. Never doubt that the Bills won't draft a QB in the first round in 2018, no matter where they pick or how crappy the QB draft class is ... and rest assured that unnamed rookie QB will start sooner rather than later. It's simply a reprise of 2013 because after this season, the Bills will need to excite fans again to put butts in the seats. Yep. WRs are irrelevant to winning football games in the 21st century ... and the Bills are going to prove it. //sarcasm off You shouldn't insult your people like that, Mr Caveman.

Just as they've been doing for this entire century.

Or a Jests game any time in the season. Jests games (and Giants games when the Bills play them) always sell out because 1)so many downstate fans travel to see the games here because tix are easier to get ... and cheaper; 2) there are so many downstate transplants in the area; 3) there are so many downstate college students around. It says a lot about what both Jests and Bills fans think of their respective teams.

Yeah, right, because we've seen how Bills fans complain every time the Bills post 14 wins in a season ... oh, wait, they've never had a 14 win season! In fact, they haven't even had a double digit win season in this century! :doh: Well, before TC, I said that I'd consider 10 wins even if they didn't make the playoffs to be a successful season, so I'd be comfortable with 10 myself. I think he'll probably find out this season.

There's nothing the Bills can do against the Jests that will make me "feel better" about this team's chances about accomplishing anything but possibly finishing with more wins than the Jets. After watching the offense in preseason, I'm not sure that the Bills will be competitive with any of their opponents except the Jests, Saints or Colts.

For a poor team, the opening game of the season might be the easiest game to win since their opponent won't have much film of real plays to figure out what they might do. That's why opening day upsets are so common. When two poor teams meet up in the opener, just about anything can happen.

You made a dumb statement. I responded in kind.

You've been a Bills fan too long because you're beginning to think like the bean counters who have been really running the team for the last seventeen years. Teams, at least teams that are remotely interested in winning football games, don't trade away young franchise QBs unless there's something seriously wrong with them, although I could see the Bills doing something that stupid to save a few millions in salary in the short term. After all, we all know that QBs are almost as easily replaceable as DBs, RBs, and WRs. FYI ... Half of all QBs drafted in the first round since 2000 have failed. Moreover, most drafts will yield only 1 franchise QB. A "good" draft will yield 1 franchise QB and 1 or maybe even 2 competent QBs on a par with Flacco, Dalton or Tannehill. Another problem is that it takes about 3 years to sift through the dirt to find the 1 who's a diamond. It will be interesting to see if Dak Prescott continues to have success because many times young QBs who look good as rookies/first year starters crash and burn over the long haul. Trent Edwards, Christian Ponder, and Colin Kaepernick all come to mind.

Seriously??? "Show them the way" to what? Where to buy tickets for playoff games? Unless they played for other teams that went to the playoffs, that's the only way any of the Bills veterans will ever attend one.

My point is simply that I don't think Belichick is tied to any philosophy except "winning is everything," and he does what he has to do to keep the team stocked, If he sees a veteran he likes being shopped, he's not shy about trading away a pick to grab him.

Agreed. I watched one of Miami's games (I think it was the third) and I was surprised at how well Cutler played. Cutler has always been a decent QB. His problem has always been that every so often he turns space cadet and throws an absolutely bizarre INT for apparently no rhyme or reason, and then he gets into a funk and falls apart. Since he's diabetic, maybe his blood sugar spikes or crashes and he loses focus for a bit. Whatever the reason, Gase certainly managed him well, and I second the idea that he's got many more weapons than he had in Chicago. Miami also has a pretty good OL and a decent D. I've never been a Tannehill fan. Like Andy Dalton, he's competent but he needs a good team around him for any kind of success, which is likely why the Bengals can get to the playoffs but don't do much when they get there.

The Bills haven't drafted terribly, especially since 2010. The problem is that they continually let too many good young players (especially DB, RB, and WR) leave after the rookie contracts, and then are forced to fill those voids with draft picks, leaving precious few picks for other positions. If the Bills had re-signed Gilmore and Woods/Goodwin, they wouldn't have had to use the #1 on White and their #2 on Jones in order to fill those voids. Trading Watkins was more of the same.

I think people are confused. Miller is the RG. He was decent last year, but has had some problems with the new blocking schemes (no, he hasn't gotten "complacent"!), and has been in "competition" with Vlad Ducasse who has played for Castillo before. Ducasse is a dog but he knows the blocking schemes, so he may have an edge. Mills is the RT. He struggled last season, and Dawkins was drafted to be his eventual replacement. Dawkins played LT in college (generally in college, the best OLer play LT but in the pros the skill sets are significantly different), so he's going to need time to adjust to his new position (everything is reversed, and not everybody can adjust to that quickly). Unfortunately, he didn't get as many reps at RT as intended because of Cordy Glenn's injury. It was probably unlikely that Dawkins would become the starting RT this season unless it was late in the year.

The Bills have used the cap as an excuse to get rid of players for almost 20 years. Early in the 2000s, the Bills had real cap issues and had to cut pricey veterans. Since then, under Donahoe, Brandon/Levy/Jauron trio, Nix, Whaley, and now Beane, they trade/cut/let go pricey veterans with depressing regularity, most notably DBs, RBs, and WRs. Then they use high draft picks to replace them with much cheaper rookies, which is why the Bills are always spinning their wheels and can't ever gather enough talent to have a balanced team that can win double digit games in a single season. Apparently, the Bills FO (higher up the food chain than Beane or other GMs) decides what it's willing to pay for DBs, RBs, and WRs that's not really anywhere near "market rate" for the players of the same caliber, so those players leave. The Bills have trained their fans to believe all the cago they spew that they're too "poor" to afford to keep their Pro Bowl CB or get the best offensive player on the team to re-sign the following year when, in fact, the Bills just don't wish to pay them. It's not a cap issue because frequently those ex-Bills end up signing with playoff teams loaded with pricey QBs and other players. It's primarily an attempt to maximize team profits by stinting on player salaries while managing to keep fans hopeful enough about the team's chances to sell tickets. IMO, the timing of the Watkins trade, after the first preseason game when the deadline to buy season tix had passed, was calculated to cash in on having Watkins on the team while shedding his 2017 salary. Extreme moneyball at its finest.

Obviously, you didn't watch how well "the same offensive line" from last year played in the new offensive scheme with new blocking schemes ... or you choose to ignore it. FYI, it wasn't "the same", either, most notably that LT Cordy Glenn only played in the last preseason game and useless veteran Vlad Ducasse pretended to play RG as much as Miller. Oh, and the offense could barely run two consecutive offensive plays without the offensive line incurring a holding penalty or two. The pass pro was rivaled the legendary pass protection put up by Dick Jauron's offensive offenses of a few years ago.

Seems like the sour grape juice is flowing like a river among certain TBD members. It might just be that Watkins will make Goff a better QB just the way that AJ Green has made Andy Dalton better. It's amazing how much a QB's play can improve when he has protection and targets ... or fall off if his team messes up his OL and trades away his best target.

Since you're so interested, prove him wrong by providing an example of a team that did swap out 41 of 63 players as well as hiring on a new coaching staff and FO. I can think of one that might fit that criteria but I'm not going to waste my time figuring out how much the roster changed. I'll give you a hint: it was an AFC team and happened within the last decade.

In the real world of football that may be true, but in the fan universe of excuses, the frequency of use of the word "gelling" as applied to the OL is inversely related to how bad the OL plays. The more you hear fans claim the OL needs to "gel", the worse the OL has played.

I'm not sure if there's been all that significant a shift in Belichick's philosophy. I think he's the ultimate pragmatist who looks at his team's talent needs without preconceptions of how to fill those needs. The Pats under Belichick have always made judicious use of other team's cast off veterans. They acquired FA RB Antowan Smith (former Bill) who helped them to win their first SB in 2001. They stole Wes Welker from Miami for a second rounder. They've always been on the look-out for talented young vets who could help the team. When they've had veterans of their own who were marketable and young guys coming up to replace them, they've traded away the vets. Then, of course, when there are such obliging teams like the Bills around that shed their best talent like they were ducks drying their feathers, why bother with drafting unknown college talents when you can sign a young, Pro Bowl CB for a few $$ more?