TheCockSportif

Hope that Brandon is a frugal guy, and again, hope that he never touches another Buffalo sports team again, or is prominent in the area again... ever.

Speaking of Brandon? Glad that dude is gone once and for all. I grew sick of hearing about him. Good on Fitz though. Had EJ been able to manage his crisis of confidence then he too would probably still be in the league somewhere.

Kind of agree. It was a comedy of errors, and this could be said for the Bills from 2000 until 2016 (give or take). Nix gave a huge extension to Fitz then found himself needing to get the money back to draft other talent and to sign FAs. I don't blame EJ for having been drafted that early; that was on the Bills. Sadly for EJ -- he was just not a good QB.

I totally agree that this was a Whaley/Nix debacle. Nix painted himself into a corner with Fitz's contract extension as memory serves, and when he asked Fitz to renegotiate after 1+ years, Fitz was like, "nope." To your point, organizational ineptitude at the time brought us EJ.

Oh god. EJ is back on the board. In any case, the Bills had to pick somebody for the position in 2013 (as they should have from 2010 on). Whether it was EJ or whether it was Geno Smith, the team would be in the same spot with regard to yet another wasted pick. Of course, we can all draw this conclusion with the benefit of hindsight. Lost decades of competitive football due to horrible scouting and a horrible FO/coaching regime did this team in. EJ was just the exclamation point on top of it all. Just my $0.02 obviously.

Mindset. There's really no reason to hate this word, but it's super overused. By itself it's not really a cliche, but it's said enough that it's become one.

I'm not sure that it's accurate to say that SD moved because of issues with local government alone. Both parties acted in the hopes of funding a new stadium, but in the end government punted and there was a referendum. If memory serves, even Rams' ownership considered helping foot the bill for a new stadium in SD.

No, I'm not here really whining about anything, much less not having drafted Mahomes.

Does it really matter now though, Joe? I was as shocked (and disappointed) as anybody else when the Bills didn't draft Mahomes. But at some point it doesn't matter anymore. For me it was shortly after that draft -- where you realize that as a fan all you can do is to hope that riding with Peterman and Taylor was a bridge to drafting another QB in the first round later. Which they did.

Watkins had his moments, but when you look at the value of the pick, in particular given his injury history, and given what he disclosed about his effort here during an interview when he was with LAR, a change needed to be made.

Watkins, though. Yes, I was gobsmacked when he got drafted with that crazy trade of picks. And yes, I was surprised that they tried to bolster the raw potential of EJ Manuel (that was sarcasm) by drafting Watkins. Still, people have to let this go. Different ownership. Different FO and coaching regime. Beane hasn't been lights out on the O side of the ball, but most certainly he didn't Whaley his FA or draft choices. It's been probably 30 years since this organization did anything rational, and the past couple of years has shown that they are willing to part with dead weight. While I'm glad that Watkins is gone, I think of his non existence here in the same light as Mahomes not having been the pick in 2017. Time to move on. Groin OUT!

I could easily see the Pats doing a montage of Tom Brady with the song "Tears in Heaven" playing in the background. That song was about the death of a child, as you all are probably aware. And yet the Pats I perceive to be that tone deaf.

This, exactly. I initially thought that AB had buyer's remorse after having landed in OAK -- dollars be damned -- and also after the Pats almost certainly interfered with him when he was in OAK and was looking for an out. But the fact that he crapped the bed with the Pats as well is a testament to what happens when an organization ties itself to talent alone -- and doesn't take into consideration the aspects of character and/or of professionalism. AB is deeply flawed, and who knows the reason for this. Maybe he has CTE (I hope not for his sake) or maybe he's just an insufferable human being. Who knows? I suppose that what shakes out in 2020 will be our guide.

Nobody wants to choke the cash flow or anything that you have mentioned. I was riffing.

Don't choke the chicken. Let it breathe.

What a ride. (That was sarcasm.) Looking forward to next year, and I say this in earnest. See you all on draft night and the day after!

Correct on all counts. He totally worked himself out of a job (and it was well deserved, again, with the benefit of hindsight). Still, the Bills had a GM in their employ when the HC was hired. Not only was a GM in their employ when the HC was hired, but they kept the GM through the draft. I quibbled with a certain person because they argued that the Bills had no GM and no HC -- when the Bills had a GM, or at very least in title, before the HC was hired. The Browns have no HC and no person who holds the GM title currently. Plus, it doesn't matter that Whaley might not have had a say in the coaching search. He was still GM when the HC was hired. And again, Whaley was GM, at least in title (and he was still drawing a salary) for the 2017 draft, so it's absurd that someone would argue that the Bills had no HC and GM at the same point in 2017. This argument is demonstrably false, and that is where I took exception.

Semantics? No. Plain English? Yes. Fact: The Bills had a GM on January 11, 2017 when McD was hired. Fact: The Bills offered Doug Whaley an extension on January 10, 2016, and fired him on April 30, 2017. Fact: Beane was hired by the Bills on May 9, 2017. The Browns have neither a HC nor a GM currently. This was demonstrably not the case with the Bills in 2017, and that was the nature of my remark before. Cry semantics all you want, but you were wrong. Doubling down on being wrong just puts you on airlock. See ya!

I don't know why you are arguing this point. Whaley was fired right after the draft, and he was still GM at that time. Sure, he may have been a figurehead, but fact remains that the Bills still had a GM when the HC was hired.

Not as I recall. Actually, not at all. McD was hired while Whaley was still GM. Then Whaley "humans should not play football" Whaleyed his way out of the joint. Then they hired Beane.

I just read that they're going to hire a HC first... and then a GM? Yeah, the source was ESPN, but the Browns are an ESPN-grade organization.

Yeah, my apologies for this. I had way too much holiday cheer last night and was not using my head, obviously. This morning was rough, although I was due; this was the first NYE in probably 15 years where I was over served (by my wife, who made an endless supply of these killer Old Fashioneds :-) ). My output on social media yesterday, as I reviewed it today, wasn't as bad as I'd thought after I emerged from the fog. So I suppose that's good. The teams that come to mind are KC and STL for WC champs, and the same grouping plus Cleveland, Tampa Bay, and Colorado as "small market" teams who have appeared in the WS. Source of info is this to determine market sizes for baseball teams. Hope you've had a great holiday season!

*raises eyebrows*

Maybe they hired 4 "computer folks" to keep their Windows 10 up to date. I kid, I kid, and it was a few short years ago that the Bills would've bragged about the same kind of nothingness.

Aces High, baby. And I went with 17-16 Bills.