NoHuddleKelly12

It’s one thing to come up short if you’re giving it your all every play—being a non factor on purpose with a rookie needing all the cover he can get, absolutely irredeemable to let your bros down like that on the field—might as well Vontae yourself on out of town at that point https://billswire.usatoday.com/2018/10/03/sean-mcdermott-kelvin-benjamin-zay-jones-effort-buffalo-bills-offense-wide-receivers/

Great thread/topic, thanks for posting--hopefully the staff actually getting paid to sort through issues like this is burning the midnight oil to make it happen.

Clock is definitely ticking. I feel like I'm solidly behind the regime and have been so from day 1, and won't jump ship over issues that I can see are not totally on them (e.g. career ending injuries, retirements, bad cap room situation from before, etc.) in between some of the good things that have changed from previous administrations (emphasis on accountability, culture, increased draft capital and future financial room for FA's), but I also don't have blinders on, and they can't count on like-minded fans not to turn on them eventually if things don't noticeably trend up over time--this still isn't Cleveland, after all.

I can’t speak for other people. I thought it was a pretty extreme floor that helps to understand just how bad it can get even with a good nucleus in place. That is all.

How that guy has lasted winning 2 games in however many seasons shows that the Browns do not judge their staff on a merit based set of criteria. How else can it be explained? And don’t tell me it’s a talent issue too, because they have consistently had top 5 draft picks and have had wads of cash for FA signings during his tenure. They almost can win now in spite of him, because of this. Mayfield will probably keep Hue there regardless, for the next 10 years though provided he’s at least serviceable. Schedule this year so far has definitely not done us any favors! Also don’t understand how we ended up with such a skewed home/road location differential to start the year from the powers that be.

I feel similarly, but also feel like we’re playing Russian roulette with Allen’s ACLs very week he goes out there with the cupboard so bare in terms of his protection...just have to get him through this year in one piece!

Long overdue recognition. Tip of the cap ? Thurman. Loved collecting his cards that routinely boasted “total yards from scrimmage leader” in his prime

You sir, have offended 80’s playbooks everywhere. Daboll is stirring up his very own special brand of hot sauce, which knows of no similarity to any era that I’m aware of.

I really felt like Richie was a feel-good redemption story with the Bills, and loved what he brought everyday. Definitely what the line needed (needs). However, I also think it’s pretty obvious he has a lot of issues that can’t be blamed on the Bills as an organization. Mental instability that I really hope he gets the treatment for that he needs. This may be a bridge too far, but would it shock anyone if at some point down the road some of that is discovered to have come from a lifetime of playing football, that he is one of the unlucky ones?

I got suckered in as a kid because I grew up just around the bend (literally) from East Brady and JK's larger than life welcome to my town sign (see below for typical snowy, overcast winter's day there) piqued my interest in who he was and the team he played for. Unfortunately (depending on how you look at it) they were so freaking good back then, it was easy to jump on the bandwagon, and my loyalty was forged (partially by having to endure the slings and arrows of being in Steeler country) forever to this day. Obviously I'm hanging on because the taste of JK/Bills success was so sweet (minus the excruciating SB losses), I need to feel that at least once more in my lifetime.

Definite potential to be even better than Talley or Conlan were, based on what he brings to the table with his physical skillset--pair that with maturing linebacking smarts, and there's no ceiling for this guy anytime soon

There was definitely a lot of interest in Edmunds, I highly doubt he would've lasted much later in the 1st: https://billswire.usatoday.com/2018/07/03/buffalo-bills-linebacker-tremaine-edmunds-was-nearly-a-miami-dolphins/

Has anyone taken a look at the Jets and/or Cardinals boards to see what kind of measured, composed thoughts and insights their fan bases are up to?

We could use some serious upgrades in the OC department to maximize whatever supporting talent around Allen that there is. Someone else commented that it would not be a good look for McD to fire his 2nd OC in 4 games such that it probably wouldn't happen, but it also was not a good look to have to pull Peterman after a half of football (twice) after inserting him as the starter (twice), and yet, he did it for the good of the team, regardless of how it made him look. So I'm not convinced that McD isn't capable of pulling a plug here or there if he thinks that it's necessary regardless of his own ego. The bigger question is how does it affect his credibility with ownership as I'm sure he originally sold Daboll to Terry at the time of hire...

Hilarious. Torture numbers and they’ll admit to anything. Next thread please!

^^^^Bingo.

Normally don't put much stock in anything that Rodak puts out there (his articles are usually ghost-written by Captain Obvious for starters), but I'm listening... I know it's a pipe dream, but would you still feel the same way if they were traded for semi-decent offensive linemen who could instantly buy JA an extra .5 to 1 second in the pocket?

I'll take Tebow

Hey it would be incredibly boring if we all agreed on this, and I for one don't want to attack anyone who voices concerns with Allen. He's by no means Kelly of any of Kelly's years here yet. Instead, he is what he is--a rookie in his first couple starts who's going to screw things up hopefully a little less than he gets things right over the course of this season, but is also incredibly gifted, more so than anyone around here since Kelly retired, therefore all of the hope/hype. But IMO any real analysis of how he's doing so far, has to also start with what he has to work with any given Sunday: http://www.oleantimesherald.com/sports/pollock-blaming-allen-for-bills-loss-misses-point/article_8a74cec6-c534-11e8-8182-8bc9caac653b.html

Again, my point was that rookie QB's, regardless of whether they end up turning out alright or not, will have uneven (and in some cases, outright putrid) results during that rookie campaign (always exceptions I know, such as Marino, Roethlisberger)--era played in doesn't affect that general truth (see also Manning's first couple stat lines/record rookie year). I chose Aikman's example for the simple reason that his was so astonishingly bad. And while we're on the subject of rookie campaigns, Sam Darnold as a "can't miss" most "pro-ready" QB allegedly of this draft, is enduring his share of Jets fans already calling him a bust. Really? https://empirewritesback.com/2018/09/26/new-york-jets-sam-darnold-bust-talk-ridiculous-even-jets-fans/ We can say the same thing for Allen

I'm about to hopefully get a "After he tackled the quarterback, he was giving him the business down there" call of my own??

Even the great Belichick has been known to flub talent evaluation (lately he repeated the Coleman mistake of an experiment)--it's an inexact science, hence the continual turnover in the league at the GM position. How many 1st round busts litter the history of the league again? Get the QB right, and most all else will be forgiven. If history shows that they did hit right on Allen, nothing else needs to be said.

I will grant you there are many questions that need to be answered by this regime--what answers they provide will hopefully pay off quicker than later, but this year is looking more and more like moral victories at most can be hoped for.

I'm not trying to compare eras or discuss how much those are the same or different. All I am trying to point out, is that the overall circumstances faced by rookies who carry high expectations, can be overwhelming and appear to produce a bust, when just a little bit of patience could go a long way. This is not to say that automatically having patience will produce good results, as we still don't know obviously how all of this will play out with Allen. But there are comparisons to be made with future HOF QB's having to take their lumps, regardless of era played in.

Maybe it's the eternal optimist in me, or simply refusing to believe that the Bills could screw up QB again after Kelly, so I took the liberty of digging a little bit into the rookie seasons of another HOF great QB that others have also posted about as a point of comparison, Troy Aikman, who endured (and his fanbase by extension) one of the most cursed rookie campaigns (1-15) of all time in 1989 before hitting SB glory (starting with 2x against our beloved Bills of course). As a side note, his supporting cast in 1989 already included a lot of the names some of you old enough will remember from their SB run, including Ken Norton Jr., Jim Jeffcoat, Daryl (Moose) Johnston, Mark Stepnoski, et. al. Oh, and that one win? Aikman wasn't even on the field for that, as Steve Walsh, the other QB Dallas drafted that year since no one was 100% sold on Aikman coming out either, started for 5 games while Aikman sat injured. So take heart fellow Bills fans, and let these quick hits of why Aikman's rookie year will still wind up as worse than Allen's (through Week 4, was for sure) hopefully make you feel a little less jumpy this morning: (1) Local media hated the 1st round pick: http://thecomeback.com/freezingcoldtakes/nfl/troy-aikman-dallas-cowboys-draft-blew-it.html Nothing that happened in 1989 would have done anything to make Al Carter of the Houston Chronicle think that he was barking up the wrong tree...probably a good thing that he didn't have a Twitter account back then to whip up the fanbase into a further frenzy with his "hot" takes of how Aikman was a bust. (2) For a proud franchise which was used to a dynasty of success under Staubach and Landry, going 1-15 in 1989 was actually almost inexplicably worse than going 3-13 in 1988, yet the Cowboys managed to do just that, and Jimmy Johnson somehow survived without being run out on a rail.(The patience paid off Bills fans...) (3) Week 4 of the 1989 season featured the Cowboys going down in flames to the Giants, 30-13, dropping them to 0-4 on the year, and, Aikman left the game with a broken finger, and lost valuable starting reps for the next 5 weeks after that. (Can you even imagine this happening to Allen yesterday??) (4) Aikman's gaudy statistics, especially his completion % and TD/INT ratio in the games that he did start that year, would make even Peterman blush. How would all of you enjoy watching a 52.9% completion rate, double the picks with 18 versus 9 TD's, and a paltry 6.0 yards per completion average?? http://www.nfl.com/player/troyaikman/2499369/careerstats (5) Aikman's O-line surrendered 19 sacks where the pounding he took set the stage for his chronic back and concussion issues which dogged his career. Here's a nice "lookout" block from the interior of his line in 1989 as a visual aid: However, it is also undisputed that the nucleus of the line in 1989 resulted in excellent line play in the years following. Final Note: before "Peterman threw 5 picks" points this out for me, Steve Walsh appears to have been a more serviceable backup to Aikman than Peterman is to Allen--so there's one point where maybe the analogy comes out worse for us. But other than that, who in 1989 could have foreseen what was to come based on what happened Aikman's rookie year? FYI, his numbers his sophomore campaign weren't a ton better, but there was steady improvement with the patience shown.