Inigo Montoya

It looks like the contracts for Milano and Williams are going to be in the same range, around $12-$15mm a year. The question is who is worth more to the team, Williams or Milano? My position is that we need to keep Daryl Williams. He has played at an elite level all season long protecting our franchise QB. I dread a return to the days of shoddy O-Line play like we saw in JA17's rookie season. This team has evolved and we are now winning games on offense, not defense. We need to maximize the ability of Josh and the offense to score points. This decision all boils down to the fact that I value strong O-Line play above what Milano brings to the defense. Even when Milano was healthy our defense struggled this year. Milano missed six games this last season due to injury. The Bills' record was 3-3 during those games without Milano losing to Tenn, K.C., and Arizona while beating Miami, Seattle, and the Chargers. Some would argue the Hail Murray was a fluke and we should have gone 4-2 without Milano. Two of those loses also came when Josh Allen was playing injured. Williams stayed healthy all season and is now back in his All Pro form and he is only 28 years old. He should have another 5-6 good years ahead of him. Nsekhe is also a free agent this season, and while I'm a big Nsekhe fan, he's 35 years old. I think he would be a great re-sign to continue as our swing tackle for injuries, but I don't think anyone expects him to be able to step in and play a full regular season and a deep playoff run. Could we draft another RT? Sure we could and I expect we will, but I doubt Beane and McDermott want to roll the dice on the draft producing a starting rookie RT to protect Josh Allen. Similarly, I don't think McBeane wants to count on Cody Ford as their starting RT. He didn't play well there when he had the chance and is now coming off an injury. I don't see a free agent RT out there who would be a bargain either. It looks like Daryl Williams would be a top 3 RT on the market if he does hit free agency. Trent Williams in San Fran and Taylor Morton Carolina are the other two and both are expected to get resigned and stay where they are. Losing Daryl Williams creates a bigger hole for the Bills to fill than losing Matt Milano. In a perfect world we resign both Milano and Williams. It's more likely though that Beane has to chose just one, and I don't see the sense in giving a huge contract to Josh Allen sometime in the next year while cutting corners on his O-Line at the same time.

I wish Fitz the best in whatever he decides to do. Having said that, I hope he does move on from the Phins. They don't win half as many games last year without him under center.

I thought it would be fun to look back at some of the conventional wisdom that was in effect at the start of the '20-'21 season and see how it all played out. I was in full agreement with all 5 of these conventional wisdoms at the start of the season. 1. The Bills would probably be a better squad than the '19-'20 Bills, but still finish with a worse record than the 10-6 record the '19-'20 team had. The Bills started the season winning.... and they just kept on winning. It was the most enjoyable season of BIlls football in 20 years. The Bills shined in Prime TIme and finished the season with a fantastic record of 13-3. You have to go all the way back to the '91 season to find 13 regular season wins for this franchise. 2. The Bills would fight the Pats for the division title, with the advantage to the Bills. After the Pats picked up Cam Newton in the off season and they started the season strong at 2-1, only losing in a close road game against the Seahawks 35-30, that sure looked like the case. While the Bills did end up winning the AFCE, it turned out to be those upstart Dolphins who chased the Bills all season long, getting to within a game of the Bills late in the season. The underdog Phins continued to grind out wins with strong defense, solid special teams, and a whole lot of FitzMagic. We won the AFCE for the first time since 1995 but I never imagined it would be the Phins, not the Pats, who would push us. 3. The offense needs to take a step forward this season, our defense is still elite. The Bills brought back much of the defensive roster, scheme, and coaching staff last year. The conventional wisdom was that the defense should still be stout, and if the Bills could get just a little bit more offense each week, the Bills would be a dangerous team going forward. I don't think anyone expected the defense to struggle as much as they did for most of the year. It was the complete opposite of last year, the offense was saving the defense every week. While the defense finally started to get healthy and hit its stride at the end of the season, the offense not the defense, was this team's strength this year. I didn't see that coming. Neither did anyone else. 4. For this season to be successful, the BIlls would have to get the playoff-win monkey off their back. Just making the playoffs wouldn't be enough anymore, not with this roster. Mission accomplished. The Bills showed their grit against a tough Indianapolis team winning a hard fought Wild Card game and then put the rest of the NFL on notice when they handled Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens to win in the Divisional Round as well. They made it to the AFC Championship game before being hammered by the Chiefs. As much as the Chiefs game was hard to swallow, making it to the AFC Championship game clearly met and exceeded the pre-season hopes of a playoff win. I believed the Bills would win a playoff game this year, but if I'm being totally honest here, I wouldn't have bet $2 that the Bills would make it all the way to the Conference Championship game. 5. The last of the conventional wisdoms before the start of the season all had to do with Josh Allen. (a) This season was going to be all about JA17. (b) Could he take another step this year? (c) The Bills would only go as far as Allen could take them. (d) This was year three for the Josh Allen Experiment and he needed to show the team that he had the ability to become an NFL franchise QB. The conventional wisdom here was right. This season was all about Josh Allen, but heading into this season I never dreamed of the kind of season that Josh Allen would put together. He dominated all season. He improved in every facet of his game. He found touch on his passes. He stopped playing Hero Ball. He was deadly accurate. He dissected defenses. The guy was legitimately in the MVP hunt. Josh Allen became a superstar this year. I hoped and expected he'd take another step, but sweet mother of pearl... I didn't see this coming. The biggest question for the entire franchise was answered definitively this year, Josh Allen is for real.

It would have been great to get Watt, but not at the numbers he signed for at Arizona. I'm glad Beane passed, that contract was just too much money for this team in its current cap situation. I'd rather we use some of that money to resign Darryl Williams and keep JA protected.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Amazon step in and blow up the negotiations with a ridiculous offer to get access to NFL games. They have more money than anyone and I think they would be willing to overpay to get NFL football on their platform. It not only would get their face into the NFL money trough, but from a long term strategic perspective, it would also help speed along the demise of the tv broadcast networks and allow Amazon Prime to grab a bigger share of the entertainment market.

There is a silversmith in India who has felt badly for the last couple of days and he just can't figure out why. Little does he know that the entire silversmithing world has been harmed by a football celebration in Tampa Bay, FL causing a disturbance in the Silversmithing Force. If Tom Brady would just apologize to all silversmiths, everywhere, it would restore balance to the Silversmithing Force. But you just know that selfish bast*** won't.... As if you needed one more reason to hate Tom Brady.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2020/12/12/brandon-beane-reflects-on-drafting-josh-allen-when-many-had-doubts/ https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/how-the-bills-front-office-arrived-on-josh-allen-as-the-teams-franchise-qb/article_013c597a-2b90-54d2-b964-3dc60895cf04.html I remembered reading articles about all of the evaluation that went into the Bills drafting Josh Allen in 2018. If the NFL had this year's restrictions on scouting in 2018, I don't know if the Bills draft Josh Allen. The entire front office met with Josh repeatedly, including the Pegulas, before they finally became comfortable enough to make him their selection on Draft day. For players like Josh who don't have an elite pedigree coming out of college, they are not going to have the opportunity to showcase themselves this off season like in years past. More importantly, front offices will be be ham strung in their ability to do a thorough vetting of players who are on the bubble like Josh was. As @Virgil noted above, it's nice to already have our franchise QB in the fold. I wouldn't want to be a team looking to find their franchise QB this year. Lawrence at #1 is easy, after that, things get a bit more dicey.

https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-memo-details-different-format-for-combine-individual-workouts-will-be-held-o The NFL has announced some changes that will make it more difficult for NFL teams to evaluate potential Draft prospects this off season. This year there will be no East-West Shrine game to showcase underclassmen declaring for the Draft. The Combine will also be modified this year. There will be no in person work outs allowed at the Combine by teams. They will have to conduct in-person workouts during the player's college program Pro Day. The Combine lasts several days and there is plenty of time for each team to grab a prospect for a face to face meeting. A college Pro-Day is...one day. Going to be hard for a team to get any significant face time with a prospect when two dozen other teams are trying to evaluate them too. No medical evaluations at the Combine this year. The NFL is looking to have some sort of get together for shared medical evals some time in April, not very long before the Draft. No in-person psychiatric evals at the Combine. All of that will need to be done by video conferences. When you take these changes and also factor in the diminished ability for teams to evaluate college players during the 20-21' college football season do to the decreased number of games played, player opt-outs, and travel restrictions, this year's Draft will end up being more of a roll of the dice than normal. This is another instance where the Bills' institutional stability should provide them with an advantage heading into the Draft. The Bills were very lucky that they did not have any of their front office personnel poached by other teams. I think most of us expected to lose a couple of our scouting / player personnel people this season. Having the Bills' scouting department remain intact, not having to bring in a bunch of new scouts and rebuild that group, should give the Bills an advantage over those franchises who have had turnover this off-season in their front offices. There are seven new GMs in the NFL this year, and a lot more lower level front office turn over around the League. Let's hope this stability gives Beane and his crew an advantage for this year's Draft.

I took me an hour to put together this "meaningless" thread last evening just so you would have something to criticize this morning with your breakfast. You're welcome.... 😉

Respectfully disagree FireChans I don't think your position that the clock for the Chiefs starts the day they drafted Mahomes, and the clock starts for the Bills the day they drafted Allen is reasonable. It's not just about the QB. Football is still a team sport, and while the QB position is the most important, we just watched the best QB in the NFL lose the Super Bowl because he had no O-Line in front of him. It Reid took 7 years to build a Super Bowl winning roster in KC. That roster, without Mahomes starting at QB, had been in the playoffs four of the previous five seasons. It was a deep, talented roster with experienced coaches and Mahomes pushed them over the top. We are in year four of the McDermott / Beane regime and they put together a roster that made it to the AFC Championship game. It took Andy Reid six seasons to get a roster into the AFC Championship game for the first time. By that standard, McDermott and Beane are father along than Andy Reid was at year four of their respective regimes, and that's how I see it. We might just have to agree to disagree on this one. 🍻

I agree. We are ahead of the Chiefs' timeline. That is a credit to Beane and McDermott. Mahomes stepped onto the field as a starter with a roster that had been in the playoffs 4 out of the previous 5 years. JA17 was stepping onto the field with a franchise that had made the playoffs once in the previous 18 years and a roster with the highest dead cap hit in the NFL.

There has been a lot of talk here over the last month comparing the Bills to the Chiefs for all the obvious reasons. A lot of posters were very hard on Beane and McDermott for the loss to the Chiefs in the AFC Championship game. I was going to post this then but I thought emotions were still too raw for a lot of people. Losing to the Chiefs was rough, but taken from a distance and with some context, it's clear Beane and McDermott are two years ahead of where Andy Reid and the Chiefs were in their rebuild. I think the facts show that Mc/B have done an amazing job. I'd love to have won the Super Bowl this year, that goes without saying, but this was still an incredibly positive season. Year 1 Reid Record 11-5 Lost in Wildcard round Mc/B Record 9-7 Lost in Wildcard round Year 2 Reid Record 9-7 Missed Playoffs. Mc/B Record 6-10 Missed Playoffs (Drafted franchise QB Allen) Year 3 Reid Record 11-5 Lost in Divisional round Mc/B Record 10-6 Lost in Wildcard round Year 4 Reid Record 12-4 Won AFCW Lost in Divisional round Mc/B Record 13-3 Won AFCE Lost in AFC Conference game Year 5 Reid Record 10-6 Won AFCW Lost in Wildcard round (Drafted franchise QB Mahomes) Year 6 Reid Record 12-4 Won AFCW Lost in AFC Conference game Year 7 Reid Record 12-4 Won AFCW Won Super Bowl Year 8 Reid Record 14-2 Won AFCW Lost Super Bowl Some points I took away; * It's remarkable how much the two teams first 4 seasons mirror each other. * When Mc/B took over the Bills, it had been 17 seasons without playoffs. When Reid took over the Chiefs it had just been one season. * Mc/B have already made it to the AFC Championship game in year 4, something that Reid didn't do until year 6 of his rebuild. * Mc/B found their franchise QB in year 2, Reid didn't find his until year 5. Alex Smith was a solid QB but not an elite QB. * It took Reid 7 drafts / seasons to assemble a Super Bowl winning roster. * Mc/B didn't have a Super Bowl winning roster this season. By the "Chief Standard" Mc/B have three more seasons to get there to be on pace with Reid. * Mc/B have done an amazing job building this franchise in just 4 seasons from dumpster fire / 17 year Drought to the second best team in the AFC. * The people who threw Mc/B under the bus after the Chiefs' loss need to step back and take a look at where this franchise is sitting right now with a top 4 NFL QB who is only 24 years old, a sweep of the division and an AFCE championship, playoffs in 3 out of 4 seasons, and a winning culture / roster that has the building blocks in place for sustained success. * Lastly, rooting for this Bills' team and enjoying this amazing season was one of the few bright spots in a terrible year for most of us, and Mc/B deserve some thanks for that.

Yep that's my goal! You got me on that one!!!! Read my post at the end of page two of this thread.

Hey Dr. Who. I'm being flip with ScottLaw because he's a troll. My point is that Beane and McDermott put together a fantastic roster this year that swept our division and made it all the way to the final four with a roster comprised of a lot of mid-range free agents signings. Beane did this out of necessity. He didn't have any other choice if he wanted to field a competitive roster this year. I think McDermott put it pretty succinctly, the Chiefs are in year 8 of their build, the Bills are in year 4. Good teams are built through the draft. It's a cliché because it's true. Andy Reid has had 8 drafts to do that. Beane hasn't. Give Beane some more drafts to stock the roster with young talent on cheap rookie deals and we won't have to go out and sign a bunch of mid level free agents to market level contracts to fill out the roster. Andy Reid doesn't go crazy in free agency, he doesn't have to, he has built his roster through the draft. Beane isn't a fool, he can look at the roster and see that he has a lot of money tied up in mid level free agent players. I suspect that after this year's draft we will have less of that, and following the next year's draft, even less. Look at our likely roster next year and you will see it happening already. Epenesa in, one of the free agent defensive ends out. Gabe Davis in, John Brown out. Cam Lewis or Dane Jackson in, Josh Norman out. Ike Boettger in Brian Winters out. It's a process. Andy Reid made it to the AFC Championship game and lost in his 6th season in KC. They won the Super Bowl in his 7th. Beane started a total rebuild four years ago and we have already made it to the AFC Championship game. It looks to me that we are ahead of where KC was in their rebuild. I have faith in Beane to continue to make smart draft picks and build this roster that same way KC has built theirs. He just needs more time and more drafts to do it. This year Beane had no other choice than to fill in the gaps in the roster with mid-level free agents. That will change. Beane knows what he is doing.

Couldn't agree more. What a horrible roster Beane and McDermott put together this year. They only made it to the AFC Championship game. Amateurs....

Couldn't agree more. What a horrible roster Beane and McDermott put together this year. They only made it to the AFC Championship game. Amateurs....

Yep, I agree. I thought we were roundly outcoached last night. I'm sure the coaches will learn from it and do better next year just like they learned from last year and improved. Just don't understand the slings and arrows today. We were in the AFC Championship game and lost to the best team in football. I don't get the sky is falling attitude that many here have. I wish the whole team would have played better. I wish we would have won the Super Bowl this year. I wish a lot of things. I just can't look at this amazing season and feel too disappointed. The team fell short last night. Just like KC did the first year Mahomes and KC went to the AFC Championship game and lost to the Patriots.

Beane doing what Beane does. I have faith in this front office to keep the Bills in contention for a Lombardi going forward.

The entire team struggled yesterday except for our rookie kicker. (I'll cut him some slack on the missed extra point considering the pair of 50+ yarders) The team will learn and get better just like after losing to the Texans last season. Hopefully KC will have to make some tough choices due to their cap situation (18 million over) and their roster will be a bit less formidable next year. All in all, a fantastic season and I agree with Beasley, there is nothing for Daboll to apologize about. We made the AFC championship game and lost to the best team in the NFL in their house.

Two young star QBs. Only one ticket to the Super Bowl. A little extra curricular activity from Josh, Mongo, and Dawkins to get some bad blood brewing. The next 10 years are going to be great. Go Bills!!!

I love those statistics. I think those stats tell the Josh Allen story better than any other you could come up with. It has been amazing to watch him getting better week to week since he was drafted.

I agree, The WRs definitely have helped Josh this year. No argument. I just think Josh has taken that next step and is playing QB better in every facet of the game and would still be playing at a high level without Diggs. I don't think his numbers would be as good without Diggs. I think we probably agree more than we disagree on this one. Just more a matter of degrees. 🍻

I just disagree that the WR corps is responsible for Allen playing so much better this year. Has the WR corps helped Allen? Of course it has, but that is not the first, second, or third reason reason he is playing at an elite level. I am going to list a series of improvements Josh has made and you tell me which ones Diggs, Beasley, Brown and Davis can take credit for; A. No more Hero Ball. B. Changing into the right play at the line of scrimmage. C. Adjusting protection at the line of scrimmage. D. Looking off safeties and pump faking DBs to get the WR open. E. Developing touch on his throws, not every throw is a 100 mph rope now. F. Amazing pocket awareness, shifting and moving in the pocket to keep plays alive G. Not running as soon as pressure arrives but keeping his eyes down field and throwing strikes. H. Dramatic improvement on throws when on the run to his left and right. I. Went from near worst completion percentage when blitzed to the best. Just my 2 cents. 🍻

I thought there was zero chance he would sit for this game because of the concussion. I always thought his turf toe was going to be the bigger issue. That's a tough injury for a QB. Hard to run, hard to throw if you can't push off on your foot.

What do you mean? This hire checks off the Fat Twin diversity box.