JohnNord

The “learning to fall” premise is flawed. He can try to tuck his chin all he wants but most of the time he’s not going to have any control with how his body hits the ground - especially when other players are on topic of him. It’s different in WWE as the wrestlers (who also tuck their chin) know when then are going to fall and have a high degree of control of their body.

ErieCountyBills is still about this!

All you need to do is to look at the fact that the Bills restructured Diggs this off-season. That essentially makes it impossible to get rid of him for the next 2 seasons. You can read into any comments you want, but the Bills don’t make that move if there was some concern about Diggs.

But I do believe that what happened with Cowher directly influenced the types of HC candidates he brought into Buffalo

Beck Waters aka Hapless Bills Fan

This is mostly true. He was forced out of Pittsburgh after a power struggle with Cowherd. So when he became GM he hired young, inexperienced coaches that wouldn’t pose any threat like Cowher did. Ironically, after Donahoe Ralph Wilson felt burned. For the rest of his time in Buffalo he refused to hire a GM that he didn’t personally know or have a relationship with already. That resulted in the comical hires of Marv Levy, Russ Brandon and Buddy Nix ugh

Not true… Beane traded a 1st round pick to acquire Diggs. The problem with Whaley is that he couldn’t see that his QB was trash… He took players off the board and made the draft picks… that’s why you can’t give Whaley credit for 2017 like the OP did

The only draft picks that matters in a rebuild

This premise is flawed from the start because omitting Allen from the equation is like saying “if you removed the Norwood FG, Marv Levy is a Super Bowl winning coach.” 🙄 Not all of these draft picks are of equal value. The #1 priority of most GM’s is to find a franchise QB so IMO it’s unfair to remove the most important pick from his resume. Also Whaley and Donahue whiffed baldly on QB, so that should also be factored into their score. Another flaw is assigning the 2017 draft class to Whaley. It was reported that while Whaley and staff did scoring, McDermott set the board and made the picks so I don’t feel it’s fair to attribute that players to Whaley. The other point is that the book has not been written on all of Beane’s picks. There’s a chance Davis, Oliver, Rosseau and Brown (ugh) could have good years. If that happens, Beane’s drafts look a lot better. Aside from this, if your main point was that Beane has been slightly better than Donahoe and that Whaley’s draft were really bad, I would agree. Of course the biggest difference is that he nailed the only pick that matters as a GM, whereas Donahoe did not. There are plenty of area where you can find fault with Beane as a GM but fortunately the big gambles he has taken on Josh have paid off and succeeded

Von has toxic positivity! It’s a good sign he’s practicing w/o a brace though I wouldn’t be surprised to see him start the season on PUP

How has Andy sacrificed defense?

It’s not really a good question. They restructured Josh’s contract because they were over the cap. The #1 problem with the Bills roster IMO is their failure to develop the defensive line. They spent 3 premium picks on DE and at the end of 2021 had no pass rush so they overspent to get Von Miller. When he was active he gave the Bills what they were looking for, but of course, he tore his ACL. They’ve tied multiple premium draft picks and a very high salary into DE and as of today only have a decent player like Greg Roseau to show for it.

I agree that the situation in Buffalo was dysfunctional, but I also don’t think Whaley was that good as a GM or even that much better than Buddy Nix who I thought was terrible. His strength was pro player evaluation and he made some very nice under the radar FA signings, but he was very bad at team building, not good with the cap, and probably worse than Beane at drafting. There seemed to be no long term strategy and he was about taking the big swing for present w/o considering the future implications. I also don’t think Doug had the wherewithal or knowledge to recognize/fix the dysfunction at OBD. Say what you will about McDermott but he drained the swap in less than 4 months. It was a completely different organization when he took over. IMO Whaley was in over his head as GM and probably should have stayed in scouting/pro personnel where I think he’d be an asset. It is telling that Whaley has not worked in the NFL since his firing in 2017

Like you said, you can do this with so many players. To add fuel to the fire I remember reading an article from Tyler Dunne where he said Terry loved Mahomes 🤣 The bigger question is, should Terry have fired Whaley along with Rex? Because the whole situation in the winter of 2017 was not ideal in anyway for the Bills. The entire Whaley/Russ Brandon/Scott Berchtold regime was filled with leaks to the media. McDermott wisely didn’t trust any of the incumbents and he was given the autonomy from Terry to make any change after a complete evaluation. I get the impressions that Terry was advised not to fire the GM until after the draft, as there’s a thought that you don’t want your scouts/GM sharing. It’s also hard to hire a new scouting staff and GM in January and then do all the personnel/scouting stuff but it has been done before. From McDermott’s perspective he 100% made the right call. You sometimes only get one shot at a franchise QB. Rather than taking a gamble on intel from the lame duck, untrustworthy GM, he stuck to what he knew - defensive backs. He found an All-Pro and also received a #1 pick to help draft his franchise QB so I’d say it worked out. It does make you wonder if Beane gets hired along with McDermott in 2017, if they take the big swing to draft Mahomes or Watson and start “the process” a year earlier.

I hope so… the timing just seems a little considering that Jessie broke the news over 2 months ago. You would think they would have scheduled this event earlier

I thought it was weird that they doubled down on DE but I didn’t mind because the talk was that Boogie Basham was a high floor type player. It uh…wasn’t true. This is all hindsight though…I don’t remember anyone being surprised by the move.

Didn’t the Giants drop everyone in coverage and dare the Bills to run the ball?

I hope this doesn’t mean that her condition has gotten worse. The fact that the news broke 2+ months ago and they are doing a service makes me wonder. Hopefully that’s not the case

Like I said, I didn’t follow the team as closely as I do now and I was younger then, but I don’t remember any reports linking McGahee to Buffalo. As far as the interest in Roethlisberger, that came out months after the draft. It wasn’t common knowledge beforehand. If there was talk about Buffalo wanting a QB, I wasn’t aware of it

I absolutely hate the Bernard pick. Waste of a 3rd rounder

This is a big “If.” Many of us have questioning Dorsey’s play calling and creativity

Both of my choices are Tom Donahue picks: 2003 Willis MaGahee This was a complete surprise for me as Travis Henry had a monster year. I even remember ESPN (probably Kiper) saying this was a luxury pick that the Bills roster wasn’t in a position to make. Willis was a good though not a great running back. The selection was not worth the gamble or the 1 year recovery. 2004 JP Losman I didn’t remember any chatter about the Bills taking a QB so the Losman pick came as a surprise. Trading away a 1st rounder in 2005 and whiffing on Losman made this a brutal selection was the final draft pick TD would make as GM.

The sad part is that there are 70+people who know what he’s saying is BS but desperately want to believe his lies.

WNY will always be fortunate for Ralph’s philanthropy but as an NFL owner he was very cheap and he was the biggest reason for the hellish 17 year drought

Check your DM’s