The Red King

Honestly, the tweet will be mentioned, Allen will apologize to AJ, AJ will make some comment to lighten the mood, the two will have a small laugh about it, and that will be the end of it.

Whose said I was optimistic? The plan for 2018 is to make the defense into a meat grinder that keeps us in the game while hoping our offense can score enough to win. At this point I'm expecting a mediocre to good offense. Remember, just 10 pts. would have gotten us a win vs. the Panthers and OT vs. the Jags. I think our D is better then last year and think our current O, warts and all, still can put up at least 10 on anyone.

I lost faith and interest in WGR when the Bills made the playoffs for the first time this century. One of them, think it was Bulldog, then actually went on a rant because this season cost us draft positioning. I...was in shock after that and have felt no compulsion to tune back in since then.

Three picks into the draft and I think Beane's plan for the Bills is coming into focus. It's obviously a multi-year project, but talk of this upcoming season being a sacrifice or a wash is about as accurate as last season being a tank job. The off-season and draft have helped reshape the roster, and the culture. Players who were seen as problematic or lazy are being shipped off and replaced with solid, hard workers. We passed on Rosen because he lacks the character that Buffalo is after. Last season the Bills overachieved with a "Us vs. the World" mentality, with each player being a cog in the machine. Beane and McD are looking for players with a matching mindset. Rosen whined about not being picked in the top #3, Phillips makes it sound like he's unworthy to breath the same air as a player like Williams. Character. The plan for the future is rapidly shaping up as follows: 2018 - Same plan as 2017. The defense has been beefed up with FA pickups and draft picks. The idea being, defense keeps them in the game, offense scrapes out a win. AJ will lead the offense while Allen takes the time to learn and develop. We can only hope the offense and defense are better then last year's. I think they're going to surprise people and contend for a playoff spot, but I don't think they're going to be an elite team quite yet. 2019 - Endgame. With the defense far more secure, a vast amount of freed up FA money and Josh Allen ready to take the reigns...the Bills focus on offense, buying and drafting the tools to put around Allen so he can succeed. The defense will still be the Mean Machine from 2018, but the offense will be shaped for Allen. The team shifts from relying on that defense and hoping the offense can at least put up enough to win...and instead looks like a proper elite team which finally looks every bit as dangerous on the offensive side as it does on the defense. ...at least, that appears to be the plan. Time will tell if it works. I'm just excited we have a plan, rather then throwing darts at a dart board hoping something sticks. What's more impressive is how this plan seems to be keeping us at least competitive even when rebuilding from rubbish. We're going to be a better team this season then people expect. After all these years it is wonderfully refreshing watching a front office with an actual plan, successful or not.

The Bills overachieved last year, heart and chemistry being a part of it. They were the underdogs with a "Band of Brothers" feel to them. I'm getting the feeling that character is very much at play with these draft picks thus far. Yes, the usuals are talked about...ability, filling a hole and such...but there has been a lot of talk about how all three fit the team's chemistry. This pick just galvanizes the suspicion. This kid is a work horse, leaving it on the field every play. Remember when the Sabres were "The Hardest Working Team in Hockey"? At this rate the Bills are going to be the hardest working team in football. Love this pick.

Was poking around nfl.com and at the bottom is the latest poll "Which team landed the best QB in the draft?". The options? Baltimore Ravens Cleveland Browns New York Jets Arizona Cardinals ...just...wow. Baltimore on the list instead of Buffalo. They honestly think it's more likely Baltimore got a better QB then us?

The more Rosen speaks, the better I feel about Allen. Good lord this kid is an arrogant juicebag, and I see that leading to problems down the line. Rosen says he's pissed he was passed over, and will make those teams pay. Allen on the other hand, said he'll make the Bills seem like geniuses. Similar sentiment, both an "I'll show them" mentalty, but one is bitter and spiteful, the other far more positive without actually taking a shot at thd other teams. Read Rosen's comments carefully... Seriously? You are a first round draft pick, chosen tenth overall, living the dream many kids will never get a chance to fufill, and you honestly thought you'd have to screw on a smile? Such an arrogant, entitled little twat. I wish the Cards the best with him.

People using misleading topic titles, stating opinion and speculation as fact, is exactly why this board has become insufferable.

Nor I, but you know how rabid the "no cost is too high" crowd is here.

The draft started already, or did the OP come back in time in a TARDIS? Maybe they got tomorrow's newspaper today, like in Early Edition. If none of these happened, then the OP is mistaking speculation for fact and posting one as the other.

If he doesn't grossly overpay to move up, expect a good number of "Fire McBeane" threads tomorrow. >.<

The only way they would know this is via mind reading and/or wiretapping. This is speculation. That being said, I certainly hope it's true.

Same reason they gave up a ludicrous number of draft picks to move up. Buffalo's move up to #12 sent them into full panic mode, so they pulled the trigger early and grossly overpaid. The Jets acted on panicked impulse, the Bills are acting with a plan and composure.

Were it me, I'd walk up to The Imperial March from Star Wars, turn to the commish and Force Choke him.

I needed this right now.

I can't see a trap game. Last time Rodgers played Buffalo, he didn't just have a bad game, he was outright humiliated, like national exposure humiliated. I think Rodgers brings his "A" game to this one no matter what.

I'm curious, what two wins did the Bills "luck into" last season?

Lol! Never. My father ingrained in my head that you stay with your team, even back in the 2-14 years.

As I noted earlier, Beane is willing to take short-term losses if they lead to bigger long-term gains. Reminds me of how another AFC East team conducts business.

It's easy to say this draft is drawing more excitement out of Bills fans then any in a long, long time. I think it's because we have something we have not recently. Hope. True hope. The feeling that we are on the precipice of potential greatness again, finally. And with it comes fear. We know how fragile that hope is, and how key to it this draft is, and while QB is the hot topic, the other picks are still quietly crux. If Beane nails this draft the Bills could be a powerhouse, and quickly, too. Of course, if he doesn't nail it...that dreaded mediocrity that has plagued us from 2000 up until last season...that mediocrity we are all paralyzed with fear over. And if he botches the draft, well, top pick in 2019, here we come. What impresses me about Beane is, that playoff drought was killer and it left him with a very touchy, very volatile fan base. One bad season, two? It's easy to get fans to just sit tight, be patient, trust the process and let a GM do their job. Seventeen? We want results. Immediate results. Any single move a GM makes that doesn't look like it immediately makes us better gets scorched on talk shows and message boards. I mean, look at these boards. There are already a couple people that want Beane gone after he "allowed" the Jets to trade up to #3. The pressure on a NFL GM has to be brutal, but the pressure on a Bills GM has to be soul-crushing. It would be far easier to make flashy moves without direction, to grab sexy players to appease and excite the fans, to placate them and put bodies in the seats. That is what we had for a long time, and that is what kept us mired in the muck. It would have been easy for Beane to do the same, but he didn't. He sat down and came up with a long-term plan. Since taking over he has been making moves based on what he believes will help the team instead of basing them on how he thinks Bills' fans will react. Getting rid of players like Watkins and Darius took a serious pair of stones and the backlash from fans was almighty. I remember discussions of tanking the season, and I remember Beane standing up there telling me they were most certainly not tanking the season. I rolled my eyes, as most of us did. Of course he'd say that, and a GM lying to Bills fans would be nothing new. But then we starting winning. The team started gelling, developing chemistry, culture. The started overachieving, producing a playoff run that was inconceivable before the season started. All of a sudden the moves were making sense and the Darius trade showed that Beane was willing to take a short-term hit for a long-term gain. This wasn't throwing darts at a board. There was a plan here, a real plan, and we were already seeing benefits. And even after the season ended, the moves continued. But these weren't random strikes, it was a methodical plan. He moved Taylor, added to draft capital, and when other teams were breaking the bank overpaying for mediocre free agent QBs, Beane waited, remained patient, and nabbed AJ for the equivalent of pocket change all while still moving withing striking range of a top QB prospect. It's too early to tell how good a GM Beane will be. But I like what I've seen. Whether it works or not, we finally have a GM with a fully detailed long-term plan already in place. He is willing to do what he feels he has to in following that plan and makes moves not to make the fans happy, but rather to make the team better. He's willing to endure upsetting our touchy little fan base because he knows if his plan works, in a year or three the Bills will be an elite team again and the fan base will worship him. Will it work? I don't know. But the fact that we actually have such a plan and a GM committed to it has me far more optimistic for this team's future then I've been in a long, long time.

Amen. This thread has drift off-topic, reigniting the Johnson/Flutie debate and drifting into TT commentary, and yes I was guilty of helping derail it, too. Regardless of opinions on Flutie or Tyrod, Johnson's comments referred to by the OP were distasteful and says a lot about him. Even after 20 years he has not come to terms with what happened and still wants to put blame anywhere but himself. He didn't ride the bench his whole career. He got out onto the field. He played. He started. And in the end he simply didn't perform well enough to keep the starting job. That's on him, not on Flutie, not on Flutie's son. C'mon Rob, man up and take a little responsibility.

I love how some people say Buffalo had a bad team, backed into the playoffs and didn't deserve to be there. Remembber, Buffalo made it instead of the Ravens because of the strength of victory tie-breaker. Their nine victories were over teams with a combined better win-loss record. Then they play their first playoff game in the 21st century on the road, losing by only seven points to a team that went on to beat Pitt at Pitt and then almost beat NE at NE. Yeah, they really showed they didn't belong, right? As for prime time, Buffalo has no storylines atm. What is the pull? The national draw? Recently, and especially last year, our storyline was The Drought. That was the national draw. Were the hard-knock Bills finally going to break the longest playoff drought in pro sports? A lot of people were keeping an eye on the Bills nationally by Week 17, rooting for the underdog, hoping those poor slobs made it in. And they did, of course. But what now? The Drought is over. From a national standpoint, from an outsider standpoint, what is currently compelling about the Bills? What will attract viewers? No big-name QB, no high-octane offense, the only real (one-sided) rivalry got a MNF game this year. Also, keep in mind Buffalo has been terrible in prime time. Factor all of that in and tell me, if you worked for the NFL, would you give the Bills more then one prime time game this year?

The crux is, when the Bills needed 4th quarter comebacks, Flutie was able to deliver. Tyrod couldn't. That's the difference between them. Crunch time came, Flutie doubled down and looked sharp. TT on the other hand looked lost every time he had to run the two-minute drill with the game on the line. ...and I still have my 1st and 2nd edition unopened boxes of Flutie Flakes in the kitchen.