Phil The Thrill

I don’t get it Of course, but this says nothing about leaks. To me it’s referring more to the end of Eason fiasco, where they put ALynn in a terrible position to answer questions without preparing. Ditto for Doug Whaley’s end of the year presser which was terrible.

It would make sense. The Whaley “rogue” story seems like it would’ve come from Rex or a member of the coaching staff.

Tim Horton’s

Prisco is actually very high on the Bills and Josh Allen.

It seemed like for a period between 2013 until the end of 2016, there always big stories related to Bills coaches/personnel leaked in the media. Many of these came from local beat reporters. It started shortly before the Doug Marrone hiring and really exploded while Rex was coaching. Here are a sampling of a few stories which made their way to the press. It should be noted that not all of these stories could be confirmed as legit: - Doug Marrone’s blow-up with Russ Brandon/Doug Whaley - Marrone walking out of the war room when Whaley traded and drafted Sammy Watkins. - Whaley going “rouge” and cutting Fred Jackson - The playoff ultimatum made to Rex Ryan - Rex Ryan’s firing the morning an important game versus Pittsburgh (and 2 weeks before he was actually fired) These leaks were non-apparent when McDermott took over the team in 2017. The same beat reporters who reported some big behind-the-scenes stories, now mainly focused on the football product. Did we ever find out where the leaks were coming from at OBD? What did McDermott do to all but eliminate these leaked stories which were so rampant in the media before the season began?

Even at his age, he’s still going to help Pittsburgh. I think they’ll be a good team

If he has to get suspended, let’s hope it happens in 2121

2 games? 4 games? What do you think?

This is a really tough one and I’m not sure what the right answer is. On one hand, based on his play there’s no doubt CB deserves to be on the wall. But the charge against him was pretty bad and is probably taken more seriously in 2020 than it was back in 1997. Marv’s point that Bennet paid his debt to society by serving jail time and also staying trouble free for 23 years is worth considering as well. I think in the end, the potential backlash and negative PR that the Bills would face for putting CB on the wall, would greatly outweigh any of the benefits. So IMO the decision to exclude him is playing it safe from a PR standpoint. The difference is that OJ was on the Wall already before the 1993 Brentwood murders. I highly doubt they would put him on the Wall after the trial.

Reed had a lot of advantages that Moulds never did - the biggest was probably HOFers like Jim Kelly, Thurman, Lofton. For that reason, I do think you can make the argument that he’s #1 You’re right though, Reed was able to serve as a competent #2 during the final years of his career. Moulds seemed to fall off a cliff once he left Buffalo.

I came across this on social media the other day. Eric Moulds was quite possibly one of the more underrated WR’s of his time. He put together several great years, and while he made 3 Pro-Bowls, I feel that he was never in the conversation as one of the best WR’s in the NFL during his prime. How about Bills history? I know many will rightfully place Andre Reed on the top of the list of great Bills WRs. It’s hard to argue given his longevity production and HOF status. But I think you might be able to make the argument that Moulds is a close second. Maybe even the best WR in Bills history. You can argue that Moulds was more explosive than Reed ever was. He probably was bigger, faster and more athletic too. By the time he came into his own in his own, he was clearly better than Reed. He also was hindered somewhat by suspect QB play at times, and teams that underachieved. What always surprises me is the yards that Moulds racked up in year 3 - almost 1400 yards on 67 receptions. It’s crazy to think he sustained a 20+ YPC through the season. I just think that Moulds was somewhat of an underrated both by the Bills fan base and the NFL. So where do you rank Moulds among the greatest WRs in franchise history?

Seemed like a good dude... RIP

I’ve read that the Rockpile was known as one of the worst stadiums in the NFL back in the day. There was a documentary on Buffalo that said it

He played one season and then was out of the league in year two...oh yeah great pick Whaley!

This was a good article but the title is a bit misleading. His hack is.....there is no hack?

I think you’re higher on Allen Robinson than the rest of the league is.

I don’t get how he had a Bills hat so quickly. I’m the video showed wearing a Bills hat at the time of his selection. I know the picks usually are announced a few minutes after the selection is made, but he obviously had a hat in his house

He’s a fringe #1 like John Brown was last year. You disagree?

Not really.... At the time there were many questioning these moves. How many analysts felt that EJ Manuel was a franchise QB? How many thought that trading 2 #1’s for Sammy Watkins was a wise move? Who felt that the huge deal given to Charles Clay was wide? Many were skeptical of these moves in the present. The only ones who loved them were Bills fans, though they’d change their minds months later. Doug’s track record in the draft is NG

I think we’re talking about one specific area where Doug had success. That was finding players off the street that could come in and contribute. I’ll give you that - he did an excellent job within that niche of scouting. But Doug’s draft history is suspect at best. - Is that why he drafted EJ as a franchise QB? - How about when he doubled down on EJ and traded 2 #1’s for a “generational talents like Sammy Watkins? - How about wasting a 2nd round pick on Cyrus Kuandjio? - Or a 2nd on Reggie Ragland? How about Doug’s big free agent signings like the terrible deals he gave to Marcel Dareus or Charles Clay which badly hurt the team. So if you want to say Whaley is better at spotting street free agents, I can give you that. I still don’t feel you can use factual evidence to definitively say he’s a better scout than Beane. I agree 100%. Either the Pegulas were sold a bill of goods by an old football executive or they wanted to give Doug a second chance because they liked him. In either situation it was the wrong move

But you are basing this purely on your own speculation. There’s absolutely no evidence to suggest that Whaley is better at scoring that Beane, other than the fact that Whaley has experience in scouting. Experience alone doesn’t correlate to knowledge or success - ask Whaleys right hand man JIm Monos who was out of the league and selling cruises. Again, how do you explain the fact that Beane has been more successful than Whaley in the draft? We don’t know the involvement to which GM scouting which player. All that we know are the sections and the production on the field. To that extent, Beane has been much more successful than Whaley.

Can you really say Whaley is a better scout than Beane though? Stack their 3 drafts as GM next to each other. Also I feel that you attribute the success of their drafts to the team and not to Beane. Seems like you’re throwing out a lot of generalizations here. The bottom line is that it was a crappy situation created by the Pegulas for keeping in place a lame duck GM during a draft when 2 franchise QB’s were on the board when the team selected.

I agree it was a bad decision, but I think the Pegulas might have been given advice by one of the former NFL personnel figures they allegedly were informally consulting with (maybe Polian?) There’s an old school philosophy that if you fire a GM, you do it after the start of the scouting season after the draft. It happened to John Dorsey in 2017 as well. The belief is that you A. Don’t throw away a year of scouting d B. don’t risk a disgruntled ex GM sharing your draft strategy with competitors. This belief does exist. Of course, like I said, the Pegulas also might have wanted to let Doug finish out the year as a personal favor.

It was reported that Whaley loved Trubisky too. To be fair, you never know what’s legit or what is planted info. I have a different take on McDermott. As an unproven coach, you usually have 1 shot at taking a QB. Knowing how thorough McDermott is I don’t believe felt confident in the ability to draft a QB himself and he didn’t trust Whaley (rightfully so) Or his staff’s info. Of course, it’s easy to at one hindsight that he should’ve drafted a QB, but I don’t blame him for making a practical decision. So knowing that Whaley was on the way out, and knowing that he’d be on a transition year with the roster, he decided to punt on the QB situation also this: Pegula reportedly loved Mahomes...for real

There’s no doubt about this. Here’s what I wonder though: - Was McDermott given the assurance that Whaley was a lame duck after the draft? I remember at his press conference he said something like “I’m comfortable with Doug Whaley as GM” as though it had been a fed line. - Did the Pegulas hope things would work out with Whaley, only to be convinced by McDermott that he needed to go? Then in either of these scenarios, did the Pegulas keep Whaley until after the draft out of respect or because they were scared he’d leak draft info?