PBF81

That's how Beane's been stocking the OL since he's been here.

Plan? Since when have we seen anything along the lines of an obvious plan? Anytime questions are asked, the answer is "Trust the Process." A plan, that's something altogether different.

Clown? LOL You're making a great case for the starting role. Sounds like you think that Diggs at two or three much less 6 times the price is the better overall option over a better player. Noted.

I hear ya, but here's what pushes me over the top. I have difficulty explaining why anyone capable of allowing "13 Seconds" and repeatedly having their Defense ...,, I'm not even sure how to phrase it, but get entirely neutered for lack of a better explanation, in the playoffs, again, as a rule, not an exception, does not have terminal flaws that will either never be corrected, or will take so long to correct that the time involved to do so simply makes no sense. Remember, "Trust the Process." For how long? What, two decades? Blindly? Because we aren't even seeing a method to the madness. This is like shoot-from-the-hop central. If we saw some actual progress in "The Process," the most critical of us might agree to not call for their heads, but there is none. In fact, Beane has now lapped himself in the cap issue dept. and the team is A, not even the best it's been on their watch, and B, nowhere near a steady-state in terms of a core of players. Our core is on the cusp of leaving or aging out, not that it's even that great to begin with. Edmunds, gone, good but hardly phenominal. Poyer, aging and costing out. Excellent, but FA, draftee. Oliver, again, good not great, one year left. Von Miller, all the risks played out. He's done here. What's left? Not much. Milano at LB. Nothing worthy of note on the DL. Rousseau regressed over the last 8 games. Diggs is griping. No proven RB on their entire 6 year watch, 5 for Beane. So where exactly has this "Process" that we've been asked to trust led us? If not for Allen neither McD or Beane would still be here. They'd have served the same 3-4 year terms that their predecessors did. The Process certainly hasn't led us to the AFC CG consistently.

Wow, that's pretty dire. I can possibly see that though. I can't imagine that Pegula's going to allow this to continue like this much longer. Terry's preoccupied, and he tends to want to be hands off, but he also strikes me as someone that once he gets pissed and resolved, watch out.

Seriously? LOL Come on now ... OK, put whatever numbers you want from his contract to it and change them, then ask yourself the same question. In fact, let's say Diggs for the 5 year $72M contract he originally signed with Minny. In fact let's say $10M/season for Diggs. Which is better? Jefferson 4 years for $15M Diggs 4 years for $40M My position has not changed one iota. Even at even money I'm taking Jefferson, but it's nowhere near even and when they made the trade Beane obviously knew it. Everyone knew that we would have to restructure and it was going to cost us more. Diggs had the leverage and I'm sure that it was discussed between his agent and Beane.

Great point! There needs to be a measure of to what extent a player contributes relative to his contract value.

And as I've mentioned a bunch of times, imagine Allen on some of those former teams, or with Lynch/Jackson for example. No question we'd have made the playoffs back then, possibly even unseated the Pats on occasion. McBeane are fortunate that they hit on that. Nothing else that they've done would have even gotten us a wild card. This team without Allen would have been low end for what we had from '96 - '17.

... or RB or TE. Knox is OK but far from impact. When he's on he's great, which is three or four games a season. When he's not he's invisible, which is the other dozen. We don't need a Kelce, but 45-50 YPG would be nice.

Agree with your entire post, but this will be Oliver's last season too, and while he's no great shakes on the DL, who do we have to fill in after him right now? No one, mediocrity. We'll see what happens this draft, but if it's not that home-run that we're all hoping for, the flaws in "The Process" from all angles and sides are going to become glaring. I mean we're any one of a few players going down away from maybe 5-12. Allen for sure, Diggs, Milano, Dawkins. Any one of them goes down, good luck to us. I'm not anticipating much from Von Miller either. And who knows if White's ever going to return to even average much less greatness. He was terrible when he came back.

Let's not forget that entirely inexplicable as well as inexcusable loss to the Jags in '21 too, and while that wasn't a playoff loss it cost us homefield vs. the Chiefs in that critical season.

Is it? Which would you rather have? Which do you think lends itself better to overall team/cap management? Diggs @ $96M for 4 years Or Jefferson @ $15M for 4 years As much as I like Diggs I know which one I'm going for. Better player for far less money. i.e., not the same as a 1st-Round pick. 1st-Round picks don't get paid like that. How do you know it's not McD on a saddle on top of that spigot?

Great piece! Good find. I thought his paragraph here was the most relevant; That word "reactively" Is entirely key. That's how they've built this team, reactively. Just under half. 45.5%

The reason why we don't have enough money to keep anyone from our earlier drafts is because we've had to purchase our talent via free agency. You cannot simply pay top dollar for all your players. But when you don't draft well you have no choice. People are catching on. Part of why we have to keep Edmunds is because we've made no sincere effort to even stock ourselves with a 3rd starting LB. Instead we're told that they're system only needs two. OK, now they'll only have one, and I don't think that Edmunds is coming back under any circumstances, who'd want to play in our 4-2-5 system like that as a LB with skills and talent. I wouldn't want to and in reading between the lines it seems as if he realizes that if he's going to achieve his goals in the NFL then it's going to be elsewhere with better coaching in a classic 4-3. But you hit on one of the primary reasons as to why it wouldn't surprise me to see us not win the division this year. We now find ourselves in the position of absolutely having to draft a LB, or only having Milano as any kind of LB on the team that's of starting caliber. Why? Because Beane has neglected the position for four seasons. We haven't had 3 starting caliber LBs since Lorax was on the team. But we really need OL-men, an OT in particular, and a top interior OL be nice too. And even if we did draft a LB, I have no idea whether this is a weak or strong year for LBs, but if it's a weak one, then we'd likely have to reach. Under any circumstances, I'm not sure that relying on a rookie LB on a team with only two starting caliber LBs, in a weird system (4-2-5, if that was even deliberate, which I'm skeptical of) hardly seems like the most odds-on approach for playing well. Since McBeane hadn't noticed, that lack of LBs is a huge reason why average RBs often tear us to shreds and why most teams outperform their average rushing production against us. Our defensive stats are skewed by us shutting down poor rushing teams, but teams that can run the ball typically do so without much issue against us. Cinci ripped us a new one in the playoffs. Without Mostert Miami didn't even have a decent RB in the game. Mixon had a great game against us. Cinci put up 172 rushing yards on over 5 YPC. BTW, they're trying to make Edmunds do on D what Allen does on O, but Edmunds isn't quite that good. I think he's better than he's shown here, but the system has held him back. And after Edmunds walks, what if Milano gets hurt? LOL Then what.

That's exactly right. Let's use that pick as a contrast. Minny got Jefferson, who's better than Diggs, but let's just say that they're equal for the sake of discussion. They got Jefferson for 4 years on $15M. OK, so they renegotiate after 3, it's still better than the $96M Diggs has for 4 years. There's no comparison, so exactly, it's not at all the same. It's throwing in the towel, admitting that you can't draft, and buying a top player at top dollar. That's a far cry from getting comparable play on Jefferson's contract.

As to the OL, chemistry is also huge, and if you keep swapping our two or three OL-men each season it doesn't give your QB a chance to develop that chemistry that for example Kelly had with his OL back then. For a GM to not understand that, ... SMH ...

Playoffs ... Edmunds: 0 Sacks, 0 QB Hits, 1 TFL Bernard: Nada Ford wasn't even on the team, Brown didn't play well. Singletary 110 yards from scrimmage in both playoff games combined, 0 TDs Cook 52 rushing yards on 3 ypc, 1 rushing TD in both games Moss wasn't around Davis had one good game against Miami but did almost nothing against Cinci Knox 85 yards and 1 TD in both games combined Rousseau 0 sacks, 0 TFL, 1 QB Hit in both games combined Epenesa Nada Oliver 1 sack, 1 TFL, 3 QB Hits in the Miami game (Thompson), Nada in the Cinci game. Basham 1 sack, 1 TFL, 2 QB Hits in the Miami game (Thompson), Nada in the Cinci game Phillips was long gone That's what you're defending. Meanwhile, Cinci's draft picks from 2018 - 2022 had great games against us. I'm guessing that a bunch of Miami's draft picks from that same time frame did better overall than ours did. Either way, a couple of players had good games against Skylar Thompson. No one else did at any time.

Play? We get all of our big plays from the most highly paid free agents. Poyer, Von Miller, Diggs, Morse, Hyde when he's on the field, or players that preexisted Beane. Milano, Dawkins, White. The players that I just listed did next to nothing in the playoffs.

My biggest issue with it all is that there appears to be no strategy to build the team. These guys just keep drafting over themselves every year on the DL as if the picks and time to put a championship product on the field are endless with our originally drafted players never falling off ala Singletary and Edmunds. What are they trying to do? To me it seems that they're desperately trying to get pass-rushers drafted. Well, how many years are they going to use a 1st or 2nd round pick to get one? What about the LBs? We haven't had more than two starting caliber LBs over the past three or four seasons. Do they draft any? Not really. What, Bernard? Edmunds is gone now. What's the plan? Start Milano in 4-1-6 or 5-1-5 and then convince us that that's what they've had in mind all along. LOL What if Milano goes down? What, every Tom, Dick, and Harry RB logs 150+ on us rushing? I mean what's the plan? They seem to draft players as if they're playing fantasy football or some video game or something. I don't see any plan whatsoever to bring it all together given the holes that we have at LB and have had for several seasons now, that's only on D. Offensively, LOL, I guess we're in for more 1 or 2 year $3M a season signees for the OL, so that once again Allen has absolutely no familiarity with any chemistry up front again. There is no strategic plan for building out the team. It's all hodgepodge. That's what we're seeing and that's where the frustration is coming in. I mean I remember when they drafted Epenesa, who the scouts said was more of a run-defending DE, but our team, smarter by half, told us that he was a much better pass rusher than he showed in college. LOL, well he's apparently a much better pass rusher than he's showing here in Buffalo too. People, fans, media, they see this. They're not all stupid.

To start, the knock for drafting is on Beane, not McD who has his own balls to shag in defending horrific gameday coaching. "13 Seconds" and our "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" Cinci game D as two prominent examples. So let's not include 2017 then since that wasn't Beane's Draft. Sure, there's irony that it was by a country mile our best one otherwise, but let's focus on the five that were Beane's. Also, let's focus on those rounds above. I haven't seen a single post here complaining that our 4th thru 7th rounders haven't turned into All-Pros. More, much more, is expected from our first three rounds in days 1 & 2. So, under Beane ... Round 1: 4 on Defense, & Allen, and one of the defensive picks a major trade-up. Round 2: 2 on Defense, 3 on Offense Round 3: 2 on Defense, 4 on Offense But that's not what people are criticizing specifically, it's what we're getting for our draft picks. I put up the Cinci draftees as starters the other day in another thread, a good chunk of their team is filled with high performing players that they drafted in those same years. It was impressive. Who do we have that's high-performing in our drafts as such? No one really besides Allen. I'll post our 1st thru 3rd rounders in the starting roles, besides Allen, and ask yourself is that good? I'm going to include players that have or are about to depart. Without them it gets even worse. OL: Ford, originally taken to play OT, but can't even play G. OL: Brown RB: Singletary RB: Moss RB: Cook WR: Davis TE: Knox DE: Rousseau DE: Epenesa DT: Oliver DT: Basham DT: Phillips LB: Edmunds LB: Bernard If we had to start all of those guys, how would we do? How would our OL be with Ford and Brown both on it as starters. Davis is a borderline starting caliber WR, but nowhere near a #1. At best on D we have streaky performances by Oliver, Edmunds, and Rousseau, but none are consistently very good, and Edmunds now is gone, also part of Beane's duties. They were terrible in the playoffs if not invisible. That's what people are concerned and critical about. We can't keep getting that lack of value in our draft picks. As someone else put it in one of these threads, our blind squirrel Beane needs to find a nut, possibly two, in this draft. You cannot possibly build a team like that. Going the free agency route is a big part of our present problem. You know what you're getting and you pay for it. Good management requires finding good players in the Draft that you can have on relatively cheap contracts for 3-5 years. Beane's not good at that.

You would think, but honestly, other than Allen you'd think that after 38 other draft picks we'd have found a nut by now too. No such luck. Pretty bad "luck" for a GM that's considered to be so good.

We can't buy everyone was the point. How about drafting well. And when you have to buy all your key players what does it say about your team management. Not much. Beane really needs to hit a home-run draft for a change. No role players, no drafting guys to change what they do once they get here, no being cute to try to show everyone how bright you are, just draft a player and put him in the spot he played in college and hope that we get top play from him. ... for once.

Once again, what, we need the top skill position players in the game to "allow McD to succeed?" How about drafting our own RB, ... oh wait, we did that, got Singletary, Moss, and Cook, ... my bad. Seriously tho, do we really need to buy the top players to make our team work? Just put together a solid draft for once Beane, and save your job and make us happy too!

Allen's easily the most athletic QB to come to Buffalo, he may be the most athletic QB in NFL history. He's definitely in the conversation. Kelly wasn't as athletic, perhaps Kemp or another was close, but they weren't as good as Allen is otherwise. See my post above about Brady. Belichick wouldn't have replaced Bledsoe with Brady if Mo Lewis hadn't made that decision for him. Then on top of it he kicks us in the nuts by trading Bledsoe, one of the worst playoff QBs of all-time, to us. Everyone said he was nuts to trade in the division, I said he was genius at the time. LOL Here's my thing with Allen and his brain-farts as you put it, we don't know how he'd be playing if he had an offensive line that was better than a bunch of journeymen 1 and 2 year signees, changing significantly every single season since he's been here, or with decent overall direction otherwise. I'd like to reserve final judgement on Allen's ultimate potential until I see him play with the same OL (for the most part) for at least two seasons, and with play-calling and competent coaching otherwise where he doesn't have to not only overcome the absence of a running game, but the defensive lapses of allowing 30-some points regularly in the playoffs either.

OK, so I took a few of the top TD producing career QB/Coach combos and here's what's up. Holmgren inherited a 4-12 team made the playoffs in seasons 2-5 going to the NFC CG in his 4th and winning a SB in his 5th, all with Favre. Belichick, who had been 5-13 with Bledsoe in NE and 36-44 over five seasons in Cleveland, 41-57 total, had his Asst. OC Mo Lewis bench Bledsoe and put Brady in, and won the SB immediately in his 7th season. Before that he had no QB even approaching Allen's talents. Dungy made the playoffs in four of his first 6 seasons in Tampa with three different QBs. Dilfer, Shaun King, and Brad Johnson. Imagine if he had Allen. Then he went to Indy, where he made the playoffs all 7 seasons that he was there, went to the AFC CG in his 2nd season there, and won the SB in his 5th season, with Manning. He won the SB with the 23rd ranked D. Sean Payton won a SB with Brees as his QB in his 4th season as a Head Coach. Mike McCarthy inherited a 4-12 team with a well-past prime Favre, and with Rodgers starting his third season, McCarthy won the SB in his 5th season with Rodgers. People are comparing Reid with McNabb to these guys, but put any of those QBs or Allen on Reid's Eagles back then and he wins one or two. As it was he inherited a 3-13 team, went to the playoffs 10 times, four times to the NFC CG and once to the SB, with McNabb and Vick. Put Allen or any of the above on those five teams and I'd say he comes way with two or three SB wins. Did any of those coaches do something as egregious as "13 Seconds"? Or leave their defense in the end zone sipping tea against the Bengals? LOL McD has had 5 seasons, and unlike the above, he's now regressing, and, he's had top defenses. Whatever the situation is, he's created it. His only notable playoff season was two years ago in 2020. He's lost in the Divisional Round in the two seasons since. Again, this is his and Beane's mess. Firing the Safeties Coach who had Hyde out all season and Poyer between out and hobbled, LOL, is hardly ante-ing up on grabbing the bull by the horns in the accountability department.