Inigo Montoya

I think what it boils down to is that most sports broadcasters and journalists are lazy and just go with the conventional wisdom and don't want to put in the time and effort to see if the conventional wisdom about Allen is correct or not. They listen to the same pundits we do and heard all of the flaws in Allen's game just like we did. On this board many of us spent some time and went back and watched film of Allen playing in Wyoming and at the Senior Bowl and throwing at the combine and at his pro day. We followed Allen's performance in the training camp practices open to the public. We wanted to have an informed opinion about Allen, but having an informed opinion takes a little bit of effort. Do you think they did all that to prepare for this game? Of course not The word out of the draft was that Allen has a rocket of an arm but was inaccurate. He was probably going to be a huge bust. With that framework in place they see everything through those lenses. Get used to it because until the evidence becomes overwhelming and shows that narrative is incorrect, that's what we are going to continue to hear week after week. Their inaccurate reporting and skewed perspective against Allen isn't malicious, it's just lazy reporting.

Don't be fooled, she's a dude....

I have worked in the busiest ER in my state for the last 21 years. Over those years I have learned a simple truth.... God loves drunk people. They never seem to end up as hurt as you think they would considering what happens to them. They must all be assigned an intoxicated guardian angel to look over them.

Innocent until proven guilty, but you have to admit that unless this whole thing was staged to get back at McCoy, which isn’t very likely, I don’t think that McCoy will ever step on a football field again.

Physicality

Was this really an issue that was crying out to be fixed? How many more rules can they cram into this game? At this rate, the NFL rule book is going be bigger than the federal tax code in ten years.

18th? Does your fan base do this? 1. Routinely endure the elements and temperatures so cold that they’d make a polar bear’s nuts shrivel, often while wearing little to no clothing. 2. Consume an amount of alcohol that scientists state is incompatible with life before noon, but still manage to get into the correct seat in the upper deck of the stadium like an inebriated homing pigeon before the 1 pm kickoff. 3. Make pregame bonfires using their own bodies as kindling to demonstrate their team spirit. 4. Conduct pregame ritualistic sacrifices to curry the football god’s favor by hurling themselves from great heights through folding white tables in a manner so violent and reckless that veteran members of Seal Team Six would cringe and be forced to look away. 18th? INCONCEIVABLE!!!

The OP has a point. It seemed that over the years, the Buffalo News beat reporters slowly morphed from reporting on the Bills, to being opinion writers about the Bills. Since a lot of what they wrote about the Bills ended up being negative during the Drought, they probably were not liked very much by the people at One Bills Drive and their sources inside the organization slowly dried up. I hope they bring in some new reporters who don’t have all the scar tissue that Sully and the others had after years of being immersed in following a dysfunctional team. I know there were times in the past twenty years when I got so disgusted I just had to turn off the TV and walk away for the sake of my own sanity. There were entire seasons where I just didn’t follow the Bills as closely because the team was so bad. It made me miserable watching them and it just wasn’t worth it to me. I’ve been that way with the Sabres the last few years. The beat reporters didn’t have that luxury and I think over time it effected how they covered the Bills, especially Sully. It’s time for a fresh start at the Buffalo News with some new beat reporters who haven’t been beaten down for years.

I’m D. B. Cooper.

The Darby trade was the only move that gave me pause when McBeane pulled the trigger on it. It seems funny, but I really had no problem with moving Dareus and letting Gilmore go, but trading a promising young CB, a rookie who had outplayed Gilmore, and who still had years left on his rookie contract seemed crazy to me. They drafted White and brought in free agents who got the job done. Our secondary, which I thought was going to get blown up every week, ended up being the best unit on the entire team last year. Got to tip my hat to McBeane on those moves. I was wrong and they were right.

My mistake! Thanks for setting the record straight, I edited the original post.

One of the most frustrating experiences every Sunday watching the Bills play during the Drought was the number of senseless, drive killing, or drive extending penalties that the Bills always took at the worst possible moment. That “third and long” play that was successfully defended, but a senseless late hit on the qb or a holding penalty on the other side of the field, twenty yards away from the ball, would keep the drive alive. Or the long pass play or run for the Bills that always seemed to get called back because of a holding penalty or illegal formation. It drove me crazy. How many games swung on those plays, that lack of focus and discipline on the part of the Bills? I think one of the most important things that McDermott has done is to work on cutting down on those self-inflicted wounds. I believe that effort is an under appreciated factor in finally ending the Drought, and it’s the sign of a good coaching staff and a clear sign that the culture is finally changing in Orchard Park Below are some stats from Marrone and Rex Ryan’s tenure and the first year under McDermott to illustrate that point; NFL Team Rank; Penalties Per Game; 2014 - 31st 2015 - 32nd 2016 - 24th 2017 - 10th NFL Team Rank; Penalty Yards Per Game; 2014 - 29th 2015 - 32nd 2016 - 22nd 2017 - 10th You just can’t win in this league if you are not a disciplined football team. McDermott is creating a culture of accountability and is building a roster of high character players who will buy into that culture. I think the elimination of senseless penalties is one of those changes that flies a bit under the radar compared to some other football metrics, but I think it was a big part of last year’s success and one of the main reasons I’ve become a big McDermott fan.

Sammy just never got it going here in Buffalo and I think it was the right decision to move him when they did. I'm not going to take anything away from him, he is a talented receiver and has a high ceiling, but with his injury issues, and the price it was going to cost to keep him, getting that 2nd rounder and Gaines was the right move by McBeane. I think that foot injury is going to plague him his entire career. Those foot injuries just never seem to get better.

I don't mean to rip the scab off the Great TT Debate, but the bottom line is that TT is a serviceable NFL QB who can win games in this league with a fair to middlin' supporting cast. I think Cleveland will be happy to win 5-6 games this year and I think TT is definitely able to do that for them. He might not have been our "Franchise QB" or our "QB of the Future" but he is a QB who can win some games for a team and that's all Cleveland is looking for. I wish TT the best of luck.

Fair enough... But what if the Bills had hired Belichick eighteen years ago instead of Gregg Williams, and the Bills had won multiple Super Bowls over the ensuing years and been the most dominant team in the league for more than a decade, do you really think you'd feel the same way about our coach Belichick?

Agree, more than that, he was brought up in the Belichick offense that changes weekly to exploit their opponent's defensive weakness. Some weeks they throw to the wide outs, the next week they run the ball forty times, the week after that the tight ends are the focal point, sometimes the backs are catching passes all game long. Their offense is never the same two weeks in a row. That's why I have never used any Patriot in my fantasy football league except Brady for the last ten years because the offense seems to go through a different player every week. I wonder why more teams don't do it this way? If you can put together a roster of capable players (no small thing I know) the Belichick Way has been shown to be consistently successful over the long run. Like most here I don't like Belichick, but you have to give the devil his due. A little bit of Belichick at One Bills Drive might not be a bad thing.

I'm placing this entire message board on Double Secret Probation!!!

I didn't recognize it was Jim Kelly at first when I saw the picture, it finally dawned on me a couple of minutes later that it was him. Give Jim some time to get some beer and wings back in his system and put some weight on, and he'll be back to his old self. That man is tough as woodpecker lips. He'll beat this too. He knows we're all pulling for him.

Dez must be getting desperate. I imagine Buffalo has got to be near the bottom of his "Places I'd Like To Play" list...

I am on a one man crusade to end the charade of "boneless wings" that is spreading across America like a zombie pox. They are not "boneless wings", the damn things are chicken nuggets. It just doesn't sound as cool for a gruff looking lumberjack to turn to his buddy and say, "Ned, lets head down to the bar and knock back a few cold ones and eat some chicken nuggets...."

I think we all just need to accept that we are going to take a step backwards this year. We are right in the middle of a rebuild despite our recent playoff cameo. McBeane fortified the defense and grabbed their qb this year. I think next year they will focus on the offense in free agency and the draft. The following year, the 2020 season, year 3 of the Beane Era, hopefully we will be a team ready to compete consistently. Hopefully that will be the same year that Tom Terrific hangs up the cleats. This team has some holes on it's roster this year, no doubt about it. I hate to think about two more seasons of 7-9 football in Buffalo, but if that's what it takes to build a winning foundation for this franchise for the next decade, I think it will be worth it. It's been twenty years since we had a good team. I can wait two more.

I agree. He may be our Wes Welker. He was injured and I think that kept him from breaking out onto the national radar. He is one of those shifty water bug receivers that is so hard to cover off the line. That first step is so fast they have separation almost immediately. Could come in handy for a QB behind an O line that can't give him a lot of time for routes to develop.

I'd like to see the Buffalo dropping some organic matter out of its backside onto a small Patriots helmet.

Some other questions I have about Terry Pegula now that we're asking... Why does Terry Pegula list his business address as Area 54, Nevada Desert? Also, was Terry Pegula in Dallas, Texas on the early afternoon of November 22nd, 1963? And lastly, does Terry Pegula have six fingers on his right hand?

It's hard enough for a young player transitioning to the pros and dealing with being under the media microscope when you become the "Face of the Franchise." It's even more difficult when the local sports media decides that you are a bust before you have taken a single snap and begin to champion your down fall. For all the talk of how great the Bill's Mafia is, there are definitely segments of it that have been scarred by the last twenty years and seem to enjoy complaining about how bad the Bills are more than they enjoy cheering them on.