Coach Tuesday

Rex has almost admitted (and strongly hinted) that he and Whaley never saw eye to eye. I'll try to dig up the quotes.

Still processing all of this. Pegula hired/retained/fired two green GMs (Whaley and Murray) who were, essentially, scouting experts, not team-builders or CEOs. He gave those GMs undefined roles and thrust coaches on them who were not qualified and with whom they did not get along. These were recipes for failure. So in both instances, the firings seem a bit unfair. That all said, wrt Whaley, this almost had to happen. Even though he may have been set up to fail, he did not do himself many favors by butting heads with two successive coaching staffs and by taking the wrong risks at the wrong time. Some of it was bad luck (injuries to Sammy and Ragland) and some of it was just plain ill-advised. To me, it wasn't the QB issue that doomed him, it was coming out of last year's draft with absolutely NO HELP for the 2016 roster. Yes there was bad luck involved but it was also not the year to spend two picks on players known to be injured (Listenbee and Shaq). Getting three players poached by the Patriots in two years (and having to fill those holes through the draft) was also a black mark on his tenure. And I'll say it again, regardless of whose fault it was, the lack of short-term and longer-term strategic planning was clear to outside observers. Time will tell if they've now got it right. Pegula may be a kinder version of Dan Snyder or he may finally have learned how to run a sports franchise. We'll just have to see. EDIT: I'll add that horizontal power structures, which Pegula professes to prefer, lend themselves to political infighting. We've seen evidence of that with both the Sabres and Bills (LaFontaine; Brandon). Pegula needs to get that sh- under control and weed out the snakes or neither franchise is going anywhere.

Elway didn't do him (or his uncle) any favors. Chad would've been in a much better spot as a UDFA where he could pick his destination. Making his nephew the last pick in the entire draft actually is kind of a "FU" to Jimbo.

Right??

Keep an eye on this guy.

I think he's a box safety.

Echoes of the Jauron years.

I guess the difference is that in the past they did the same thing, but claimed to "let the draft come to them" a bit more and for the most part. So they'd end up overdrafting certain players because of need. But it's admittedly a slight difference and after all, they did trade up for TJ Graham because Nix wanted a speed receiver, and they traded up for Ragland because Rex wanted... I don't know what Rex was doing actually. Regardless, they definitely drafted to patch holes this year, which is not a long-term recipe for success.

Not true. It relies on Lbs who can drop into deep zones and can cover large areas.

That's what happens when you draft for need and it's a weak class for the position you need. That said - I think you're too down on the player.

You can set your watch to it!

Um.......

I completely agree with your take on this. The only ray of hope I see is that it seems they may indeed be cleaning house this offseason and bringing in a new scouting department. If they don't trust their existing scouts to evaluate quarterbacks, it somewhat makes sense to grab an extra 2018 1st and to give McD a year to get his feet under him. I get the sense that this is almost a tank year in Terry's mind.

Yup. The strategy this year was interesting. They clearly were targeting specific players, to fill specific needs, and if your'e doing that it makes a ton of sense to jump around. And they seem to have done a good job of anticipating exactly where those players needed to be picked. Landing the three guys they wanted - who clearly they anticipate will be Day 1 starters - plus an extra 2018 #1, can hardly be considered a failure. That all said, this was widely considered a deep draft, with starter-quality players being pushed down into the later rounds. And the Bills have a lot of holes. If McD truly "trusted the process," wouldn't he rather accumulate 3rd, 4th and 5th round draft picks and rely on the scouting department to find quality roster depth? But the sense I'm getting is that they don't trust their own scouts. I'm really starting to wonder how much the scouts were involved in this draft - it seems like this was a coaching staff-driven draft (i.e., Zay was known to the WRs coach; Dawkins was high on Carolina's board); White and Jones are both "McDermott-type players"). They really may be about to clean house.

Linebacker???

No but for real - if Whaley gets canned next week and McD brings over a few Carolina guys, the dots are gonna get connected fast...

That's certainly what it looked like.

IF you're going to draft for need, you should be moving around the board like this - it's the only way it makes sense.

How does Whaley still have his job?

Jones sounds like Josh Reed to me...

I love me some Butt. What was the question?

I absolutely could see them drafting King (or another CB) at 44. I could also see them drafting a RB and WR with their next two picks, meaning their first three picks would be allocated to the 3 positions poached by the Patriots...

Refreshing to hear your take on White (although I agree with you about passing on a QB yet again). But does the dude have a second gear? I just don't see elite closing speed, although I'm not great at evaluating DBs.

Football Outsiders says "beware": http://www.footballoutsiders.com/nfl-draft/2017/backcast-2017

Agreed. Every year they wait for the QBs to fall to a particular spot and every year, they end up missing out on QBs. It's frankly insane.