Ed_Formerly_of_Roch

OK, right team, wrong guy!

I could live with it as a one time thing, but overall I think overall the NFL HOF is too easy to get admitted too while MLB is too hard for selection.

Wasn't he the guy who head butted the goal post in some game?

The one thing that may slow down Allen's development is all the churn on the O-line. Likely during camp will different players going ion and out, then even once the line is set will take some time to jell. The 2 things that will help some are the most experienced guy is their center so he may help settle things down and excluding Ford, the rest are vets with quite few years under their belt. But still overall, may take some time and that could hurt Allen some the first few games.

I just see a path where the O-line looks real good in run blocking and are giving Allan enough time, but he's missing guys left and right. And Singletery looks like a good signing. At some point, could even see them switching to Barkley if that were to happen at least for a couple of games. But while the amateur fan would be calling for McD's head, think you still look at say the problem is one guy, and with the high failure rate of rookie QB's personally I think would be crazy to then can him and start over again.

I think an interesting thing to know, (which likely we will never know) is how many Bills players will some how see this,and the next time Jackson shows up in the locker room, he'll find about 50 bottles of blue cheese dressing in his locker.

Why do you think there's low odds in that? What I mean by rest of team looking good, the defense was already looking good last year, so slight improvement there or even stay the same. If the O-line looks like they know what they are doing, the new players look solid, Knox, Brown and Beasley look like good signings, and Singleley the RB looks like a good pick. Granted if Allan struggles bad it would be hard to evaluate the WR either way, but regardless of Allens play can certainly judge the defense, O- line and RB.

If I look at Yeldon, Croom, and Bolden, I'd rank Bolden last of those three as far as what overall strength they can give the team so would rather see one of the other two kept over him and go with just 5 WR. Can make the argument to that Croom is kind of a WR type of TE anyway. Wouldn't be shocked to see Sirles kept instead of Teller as he can play guard and tackle. If you're only keeping 8 lineman, better be versatile. Same with keeping Neal as a CB, he could still play safety, so maybe cut one of the safeties then and have Neal as the 4th safety. Could you get away with J Johnson to the PS? Would he clear waivers?? May depend on his pre-season level of play

I think that completely wasted Lawson's rookie year and carried over to his 2nd season. Last year was the first time he even came close to looking like a high drafted player. Will see what this season brings.

Was that the surgery that Lawson had his rookie year? He still played part of it thought I thought??

I'd think a huge major bad season like less than 3 wins more than that likely gets him at least a fourth season to start. If next year by Nov, they are like 2-10 then maybe gets the boot then or by year end. Beane likely survives and hires a new coach. GM's usually get at least two coaches to burn through. Extended Playoffs this year likely gets him extended or a .500 record this year puts in a wait and see what next year brings. 9-7 or better next year probably gets him extended then. Also depends alot on what happens around him. Lets assume Allen's a bust but the rest of the team is looking better, then maybe he stays. The failure rate of rookie QB's is easily 50% so firing a guy for picking the wrong QB would be really dumb and shows the likelihood of any future success is low as the owner would be clueless to fire for that reason.

Yeah so what, it still about talent regardless of how you acquire it. In fact could argue even more important now as if you screw up on FA signing, the cap hit can mess you up for the next few years. In the case of Payton, he won the Super Bowl was it around 2010, since then hasn't been back and had some years they didn't make the playoffs 7-9 three years in a row and 4 out of 5. Last year was much better and should have been i n the Super Bowl, why, because he finally got some talent on the defensive side. I'll grant you Bellichick is the exception, but still question what would he have done without Brady.

I think it's the opposite, it's all about talent. Look at how many teams over the years never won, the team gets a new GM, fixes the roster and they start winning. A few examples, NY Giants, from the early 60's to around 1980, lose every year, bring in George Young, they start winning, NY Mets, bring in Frank Cashen in the early 80's and they turn around years of losing. Detroit Red Wings were bad from around 1960 till they brought in a new GM, think it was around 1990 or so, then started winning again. A couple close to home, Marv Levy went to 4 straight Super Bowls, admittedly never won any, but 4 straight has never been done by anyone else. Does that make him the greatest coach of all time. I wouldn't put him in the top 10 and if I thought some more, probably not even the top 20. Scotty Bowman won 4 Stanley Cups in Montreal as coach, but he wanted to be the GM too so comes to Buffalo, roster was made over twice in the years he was here, but they never came close to winning the Cup. If it's all about coaching how could he not have won? There are a couple of exceptions like NE where they have never had that much overall talent, but even there could argue he does have the best QB in the league. I do think coaching may get you a couple more wins each year in the NFL, and will agree you typically need top level coaching to win it all, (likely the Bills problem in the 90's) but without the players you won't go anywhere. In the case of poor talent coaching may not even generate any additional wins, just makes them play better.

But the problem there is offensively could be 7 of the 11 starters are new. So it's the same system, but how well will the new players execute it. May depend alot on how many nicked up players during pre-season and how much time all 11 have to work together. On the other hand new players does make it a bit tougher for NY too as they don't know exactly what the new players will do in the system. Defensively same players for the most part, same system, so do give the Bills the advantage there. And the defense was good to start with, where as offensively the team struggled last year overall.

I think for many kids in particular the average ones, once they hit around 12 or 13, the kids will tell the parents to shut up, you're embarrassing me. But the real superstars are playing on these travel teams and there all the parents are doing it, so it's no longer embarrassing, it just becomes the norm. Organized sports is likely worse as there the parents are paying for the kids to play and at the high levels with paid coaches, the parents indirectly are paying the coaches salary. I'd think school sports would be a little easier as at least the school does have some control over access, at least at practices and things. And then parents see these as examples and figure if it's OK for them to do it, it's OK for me too. I use to ref HS and club volleyball. That wasn't too bad as often the parents didn't understand the rules enough to even know what's going on to complain. And most often when they did scream and yell it was on something that if they actually knew the rules would have realized it was legal. I also thought volleyball was easier to control as other than maybe golf, it's the closest thing to a non contact sport. I think thats where the trouble starts, soccer and basketball are probably the worsted as in theory they are non-contact sports, But in reality far from it and things can more easily escalate out of control from there.

True, but too many here also don't get the idea of a columnists job. As soon as they write something negative, the gloves come off. It's worse than calling their girlfriend ugly. Yes, that is likely the case, though even the pessimism is better than the "I've got to be right" crowd.

I'll go out there a couple years and pick Ford!

Completely agree with you about being proven correct is the most important thing. But that goes both ways too, for example people who stated they shouldn't draft Allan will hope he fails to say I told you so, but never publicly admit that. They will state; "I hope he does great, but don't see it happening" The day if he were to get cut, then all their old posts will pop up saying "I told you so!" But then you have the other side who blindly defend the team, if a writer puts out an article stating the team is doing good, like the article from Simms about Allen, he's a great writer, but say anything bad, he's just a hack. Or state anything negative and be told you can't prove that.

That would be great if it happened and they answered as that would be tampering, likely get their 1st round pick! Sorry but no way that's happening unless he does very poorly here the next year or two and for whatever reason Buffalo encourages him to look elsewhere. But that's not the work it usually works. What could happen is McD calls up Rivera and offers him a job. But even that not likely immediately as Ron will get the rest of his contract $$ from Carolina anyway as long as he stays un-employed. Certainly some assistant job in Buffalo is going to pay less, so Carolina would still be on the hook for a big part of his salary.

I'll go under as 9 is a big number for a rookie particularly on a team that struggled last year in that area. But would change my vote to over if they still somehow were to sign Clowney or someone of similar ability.

I don't know what planet you're from, but here on earth people do use the past to predict the future with a decent amount of certainty in many cases. Your whole argument with the other poster is you that just because they were lousy last year, until they play this season, you have no idea how they'll be. So teams draft players based on how they played the prior season with a different set of rules and a playing in a completely different environment. But they still somehow use that data to draft. Based on your comments though past performance means nothing so then as I suggested why not just pick names from a hat. Just as much chance as getting it right according to you. In January you turn on the TV and listen to the weather and they say a high of 23, do you think we don't know that, it could be 90 today. Granted a much higher change of it being cold in January than the Bills receivers not improving some. Though I'd say there's a better chance of having a warm day in January than the current Bills receivers finishing the year in the top 5. I don't recall the exact words the poster said that you are arguing he stated it as a fact, but that's a stretch. It's hard for anyone to say more than 2 words about anything without it coming out as if they are stating a fact, but in reality 90% of the time it is more of an opinion so really no all that bothered by him stating it as a "fact". Just like the weatherman who states it will be 23 today and he's stating in a factorial manor and instead it's 25, does that mean he's completely clueless, I don't think so. Do I think the group will improve yes, top 5 no, and honestly would be less surprised to see no improvement than top 5. So enjoy your time on whatever illogical planet you're from that uses no past history to predict the future. Good luck with that!

One last time to you too since you also don't seem to get it. First off I wasn't even the one who stated they are at the bottom right now. My response was to you who is arguing because they haven't played the season yet, it's wrong. Was it really stated as a fact or an opinion. If you look at prior years stats and they put the new players towards the bottom, and last years players were also near the bottom, it's not a reach to state that they likely are going to be at the bottom again. And if it's stated in a factual manor, hard to argue against it. Since you ignored my comment the last time I'll ask again, if past performance can't be used to judge expected future performance, why do they hold a draft every year. Based on your logic, they should just pick names out of a hat! Why does everyone in the world except you use past performance to draw conclusions? Why is the whole world wrong??

So are you saying that if they are not ranked #32,, they can't be bottom. IMO and like ly the opinion of most people any unit ranked below say 25 is at the bottom of the league. So it's quite possible they can improve and still be in the bottom and even if they moved from 25 to 20 that's improved, but still not impressive. But again with adecent year from Allan, they could move up maybe 15 or so. So if no one can predict the future and it's silly to even talk about it according to you, why do NFL GM's coaches, scouts, etc even bother to have a draft every year. Why not just pick names out of a hat and that's the team you go to? Would save teams a huge amount of money as apparently no one has any idea what's going to happen anyway.

you don't need to see the future to know as has been pointed out, their career stats are far from overwhelming. Will the unit be improved yes. If Allan also continues to improve this group could look much better. I'm a believer that more often than people realize the QB makes the WR's look special so if Allan is the real deal, we may be just one true WR away from an elite group.

Actually not needed, just signed a bunch of real estate documents and they were all done via electronic signatures. Probably was the best penmanship I ever had too I might add.