VW82

I agree OP. I would never normally say that but McBeane have put Allen (and themselves) in such a tough spot that depending how the season plays out they may have no choice. If they'd just brought him along slowly and waited until second half of the year to start him, no one would be calling for his head in 2018. But as it stands, Allen is going to have 15 games to show he's the man (or not). That's more than enough time. If he doesn't show significant progress then I think you move on from him. They may even have to bench him part way through the season if it gets ugly enough, and that almost never works out for the QB. He's just so raw, who knows how this will go. All we can do is hope Allen overcomes this impossibly bad spot he's been put in.

Not only that but Aikman was the number one overall pick and considered ready to start right out of camp. Manning was the number one overall pick and considered ready to start right out of camp. Allen was considered raw at the draft, a bit of a reach at 7, and seemed no where near ready to start coming out of camp. The better comparison is Goff. Even though he was taken at one the Rams knew he needed time, so they had Case Keenum start those first nine games then put Goff in when they were out of it and the pressure was off. He sucked, predictably, but the consequences weren't as big at that point so no one was calling for his head. He got reps in a less stressful environment and was able to take that experience into year two when the Rams were able to put a much improved team around him. I thought his was our plan too, but McBeane would rather throw Allen to the wolves I guess. The national media is just dying to give this kid the bust label, and you know fans will turn on him if he doesn't look good before the end of the year. I can't recall a team putting their unproven rookie QB in this tough of a spot.

Coaches will seemingly do anything to protect a QB's confidence. Pete Carroll apparently traded, cut, or didn't re-sign several veteran members of the Seahawks this off season because they dared to question Russell Wilson. Countless teams over the years have held their rookie QBs back from starting in order to not expose them to the potential of immediate failure or adversity before they were ready, including the Browns, Cards, and up until Peterman crapping the bed, the Bills, this year. Clearly the NFL thinks you can ruin QBs. Sometimes sports leagues have medieval thinking. I don't think this is one of those times.

12 emphatic head nods 9 scrambles for his life 47 aggressive hand claps from his coach 8 really really hard throws 2 extra really really hard throws to Kelvin Benjamin (he drops both) 7 pats on the butt 3 TD celebrations 1 very needed win

It was only one game. We have quite a bit of evidence from last year that this is actually a fairly decent defense. Are there holes? Yes. Our edge rushers aren't great and we're short one good outside corner. But there's talent and a nice mix of vets and young players. Give it another week or two. The offense put the team in some really tough spots, not to mention they couldn't move the ball AT ALL so the D was gassed by mid second quarter.

Kaep has been out of football for 2+ years and would be a huge distraction at this point. Also, now that we've named Allen QB1 you don't want to turn around and immediately give him a vote of no confidence by signing a guy who's perceived to be good enough to take his job. That needed to happen before Allen was named starter. At this point, you want JA to be the undisputed guy that the locker room rallies behind. McBeane made their bed and now they have to lie in it.

You're missing the point. If McBeane gives KB a giant contract at the end of the year then we'll know they're frauds. I really doubt that happens. They traded for KB because we had no WRs, he was a known quantity, and was cost controlled for two years. I'm saying those guys weren't players to build around based on everything we learned about them during their stints in Buffalo. Again, you want to pay your team leaders. You don't pay your malcontents or non-leaders if you don't have a strong leadership base in the locker room which Buffalo didn't. And you can think it's BS but fact was that Sammy was always hurt, and kind of one dimensional if we're being real about it. Dareus was frequently out of shape and in trouble with the law. Shady has legal issues. This was a team without a real core that was built for 3-4 years ago. Bills needed a reset in the worst way. What was the alternative? Pay those guys, be capped out in perpetuity and watch us go 7-9 with TT for the next five years? Where/how were we going to get a new QB? That trainwreck would have gotten far uglier than this one will be. At least now we have a couple of kids that might be worth building around. But like I said it remains to be seen whether McBeane can actually pull this off. So much depends on Josh Allen.

Sammy was always hurt, and then washed out in LA. He's been a huge disappointment, and was angling for a giant contract from us if you'll recall. Gilmore signed for 65M. Never was a leader and wasn't even that great a Bill tbh. Definitely not worth that money. It's different when you have Brady and Belichick in your locker room. I'm sad we didn't keep Woods. His contract was totally reasonable and that one looks like a misfire but players also have to want to stay. It's not like we would have franchised him. Bottom line, you pay your leaders that you want to build around and we didn't have any (outside of the old guard). The core of the team was old and needed a reset. It was a huge problem, and now at least that's been addressed (in theory).

I know, I know. But again, it was just a collection of players. The leaders of that team were Kyle Williams, Eric Wood, and Shady who are all old and either no longer here or on their way out. You weren't going to be able to build around any of the other guys we were paying, so I get why they did what they did. It's really hard to find high character leaders who also have the talent, but it's so important you get them (and we paid out the nose to do so unfortunately). We weren't going anywhere with Dareus, Sammy, et. al.

Yup it's another in a long line of attempted rebuilds. But it's different from the Rex Ryan era which was mostly re-tool around veterans. All we can do is hope McBeane bets correctly on their guys. I actually like McD as a coach. Players seem bought in. We'll see if they can get the offense straightened out. Even if they're successful it's going to take at least 2-3 years to get this team back to the playoffs. They're starting from the ground up with very little young talent to work with.

I would have agreed with this before McD made the Allen announcement but at this point I think we're riding with what we have. If you bring in RG3 now, all you're doing is making Allen look over his shoulder. It's a vote of no confidence right out of the gate. If it had been done beforehand they could have said Allen is still working and developing behind the scenes and RG3 could have started. The way it is now, at least Allen will have the full team behind him (until he craps the bed). That extra confidence and support will help out a lot over the next couple weeks or until he starts having success. The moment he looks like he's losing confidence, then you pull him and swing a deal but before that point.

No their plan was a good one (i.e. accumulate enough assets that will allow you to pick your future captains). Pretty sure their intent is to move away from a collection of talented players (Whaley era) to more of a team building approach where the guys and chemistry compliment each other. But you need cornerstones first. The issue is did they get the right guys? That part remains to be seen. Also, I think they badly miscalculated Allen's market. I bet they could have stood pat at 12 and he would have been there. Hard to know for sure though. The o line was bad luck. I'm sure they thought they'd have Richie and EWood for another year or two. That has to be a priority next off season along with WR. I have faith McBeane can find patch work solutions for the D until we can rebuild that side too. We're not nearly as far away there as week one would suggest. No man, we're definitely rebuilding. McBeane traded away virtually every good Whaley era player and brought in patch work solutions, then we used our draft capital to buy our captains of the future which they plan on rebuilding around. This is a classic rebuild.

According to pro-football reference, Peterman is the 13th worst QB since 1950 based on passer rating (currently 25.7 over five games) for QBs with at least two starts and 10 passes attempted. As for Bills, he narrowly edges out Brian Brohm (15h) and Ed Rutkowski (16th) as the worst rated Bills ever. Edit: Buffalo also has Dan Darragh and Gary Marangi in the bottom 33. Bills are dominating the WOAT list. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/play-index/psl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=combined&year_min=1950&year_max=2018&season_start=1&season_end=-1&pos[]=qb&draft_year_min=1936&draft_year_max=2018&draft_slot_min=1&draft_slot_max=500&draft_pick_in_round=pick_overall&conference=any&draft_pos[]=qb&draft_pos[]=rb&draft_pos[]=wr&draft_pos[]=te&draft_pos[]=e&draft_pos[]=t&draft_pos[]=g&draft_pos[]=c&draft_pos[]=ol&draft_pos[]=dt&draft_pos[]=de&draft_pos[]=dl&draft_pos[]=ilb&draft_pos[]=olb&draft_pos[]=lb&draft_pos[]=cb&draft_pos[]=s&draft_pos[]=db&draft_pos[]=k&draft_pos[]=p&c1stat=gs&c1comp=gt&c1val=2&c2stat=pass_att&c2comp=gt&c2val=10&c5val=1.0&order_by=pass_rating&order_by_asc=Y

No they traded McCarron because they thought Peterman would be a decent option to keep us afloat for the first half of the year while they coached up Allen (presumably to start once Peterman and the team eventually faltered). If they thought Allen was ready he would have started week one. He's only starting now because they misjudged Peterman so badly. I wish people would stop misrepresenting the situation. It's irritating, and puts undo expectations on our rookie who needs time and patience, and for the fan base to not get its collective hope up to the point where they turn on him if/when he doesn't experience early success. 3. I mean, his completion percentage and passing yards in that game would seem to be at odds with him being on point, just sayin 4. I agree KB needs to catch that, and he's had several other drops throughout preseason and game one where "touch" wasn't nearly the issue. I can see why Carolina fans were so frustrated with him.

Young started the final five games his rookie season. Steve DeBerg started the first eleven in which they were 1-10. I think everyone on this board would be ok if we waited to play Allen until the second half of the season when we're already out of it and pressure is off. Also, Steve Young took a ton of needless hits early in his career before he figured out how to play and eventually all the concussions caught up with him. Terrible example.

I agree. I can't think of too many QBs who came into the league with accuracy issues and went on to become franchise guys. Most successful ones of that ilk get it done with their legs.

People seem to be having issues identifying the things Allen is doing well vs. struggling with so let's try and clarify. 1. Getting through his progressions. This was a big problem in his lone preseason start, which Allen even admitted. Things are going too fast for him to keep up. It's why he held the ball too long and why he gave up so many sacks in that game. You could tell he / coaching staff had made an adjustment for second half vs. Ravens by having him use an internal clock so he'd have a better idea when it was time to throw away or scramble regardless of where he was in his progressions or even how the protection was holding up. This is a fail safe for young QBs and not ideal for a number of reasons, namely that you altogether pass on potential opportunities outside of three seconds. 2. Pocket presence. This is closely related to the first point. The problem is Allen doesn't yet have the ability to sense where the rush is coming from while still looking down field, so he's either getting sacked waiting for someone to get open, or he's not seeing guys get open because he's looking at the oncoming rush. You'll notice on several occasions he got bumped by one of our o line (who got pushed back into the pocket because they suck!) and immediately tucked the ball and scrambled. Compare this to someone like Brady or even Ryan who sense one side of the pocket is collapsing and step up or to the side before getting nudged, all while still looking down field and completing a pass. 3. Accuracy. Allen was terribly inaccurate in the preseason, routinely throwing behind, in front of, over the top of, and every which direction but at our receivers. This seemed to have improved some vs. Ravens. We can talk all we want about playing vs. second stringers who weren't playing hard given the score, but he still made some impressive throws. 4. Touch. Everyone killed Benjamin for that dropped TD but that was at least partially on Allen. He has a tendency to throw everything 100 mph, and in that instance there was no need to gas it like that. The window wasn't that tight. We've seen him do this a bunch already over the course of preseason. 5. Making pre and post snap reads. Allen is clearly struggling to diagnose where the rush is coming from (let alone the coverages) and so our o line is frequently gettng overloaded, but it was frustrating to also see that missed opportunity with Shady on the RPO at the goal line. I have no idea what Allen was seeing (other than runway for Shady to the end zone) on that keep and resulting incompletion. My point is the kid is clearly still working on mastering basic fundamentals of playing QB. Let's all keep this in mind while he's being thrown to the wolves on Sunday.

I'm clearly a little emotional about this subject lol so there's some hyperbole in that statement, but all things considered - everything we heard coming into the draft, in the mini camps, in training camp, what we saw in preseason, what we saw on Sunday, his inconsistent pocket presence, his habit of pulling the ball down and scrambling rather than keeping his head up and looking down field, his accuracy issues, the fact he got beat out by Nathan Peterman, etc., etc. - I'm sorry but he's clearly still very raw at this stage. Maybe he develops into a franchise guy. I won't claim to be smart enough to say either way, but I can't remember ever seeing a QB who looked this raw getting thrown into the fire this early and it having worked out. Hope I'm wrong.

Anyone else pick up on McD refusing to say whether he'd stick with Allen going forward? So I guess his plan is to just re-evaluate after every game and play musical chairs with his QBs. I'm sorry but this reeks of incompetence. This is such a bummer.

How about the fact that Allen himself said that he wasn't ready after the 3rd preseason game. Or that anyone with two eyes can see that Allen isn't ready. He's big, has a strong arm, and he moves well. He also has no idea what's going on out there. It's like he's learning a new position. This is insanity. I'm going to be so mad if we ruin him.

Excellent post. This absolutely is organization incompetence at the highest level and with the biggest stakes given the player, the position, and the investment Bills made. It makes my blood boil that McD doesn't even have the integrity (or cajones) to actually answer questions let alone admit he F'd this up. Where's the accountability? How can you expect accountability from players when you dodge it with everyone else. Despite the initial round of Carolina retreads last year, I was pleasantly surprised by our new coach (and by extension our new GM). It looked like they had a plan to build a TEAM, not just a collection of talent. Although I didn't agree with the ridiculous use of draft capital or the actual picks, that plan still kind of made sense coming into camp. But this situation - having no playable QBs besides Allen, and then starting him WAY before he's ready - is almost fireable in my eyes. If it works out, it'll be through sheer dumb luck.

Obviously not. McBeane screwed up this situation badly. The best move IMO would have been to sign or trade for a QB who could at least get us through this murderer's row of games. Then you start Allen when the pressure is off. They're taking a giant risk putting him in such a bad position, and I think it speaks very poorly of the men in charge. Sincerely hope Allen is mentally tough enough to get through this without losing his confidence, or getting seriously hurt.

Agree on everything you said except for Allen being ready. I would have signed or traded for someone. As it is, we're starting Allen. This could get really ugly, really fast. Hope the kid proves me wrong.

If McD starts Allen on Sunday then he'll have lost me. You guys think vets in the meeting room will be advocating for Allen. You forget just how raw he looked in camp and in preseason. The team knows he isn't helping them win at this point either. McD has two choices for week 2. Build Peterman back up to give him one more chance, or sign or trade for a competent QB. We'll still wind up losing but you might keep the locker room for another few weeks before the wheels comes off. Allen can play half way through the season when we're officially out of it and the stakes are low.

Wow this turned into a KB hate thread fast. I think JA is going to continue to struggle with dropped passes until he learns to put some touch on his throws. That dropped TD by Benjamin was an absolute rocket. He should have caught it but it wasn't the easiest throw to catch. Allen had several like that in the preseason too. Also, is JA going to take any heat for taking away Shady's sure fire TD in the 4th? Can't believe he called his own number there on the RPO when McCoy had an open lane right into the end zone. Kid needs time to work out the kinks. Let's allow him to come along slowly and develop at his own speed.