dave mcbride

To repeat, I was not a Yankees fan then. I'm talking about *teams I actually rooted for*. The old Yankees weren't my problem. The Bills have always been my problem. As to my larger point about the Yankees teams that I have rooted for: are they not among the best run and most stable organizations in sports? The Bills cycle through coaches and GMs like there is no tomorrow, and all they do is lose. But that's irrelevant anyway: I don't root for the Cowboys or Raiders. The Cowboys are hardly dysfunctional either - they have been to the playoffs something like 10 times in the past 15 years.

wha ...? His foot may actually be fine now. None of us know.

I think this is an optimistic assessment. You may prove to be right, but I've read so many predictions about the Bills doing what many thought sensible - keeping Whaley on, matching Gillislee, etc. etc. -- that I don't have faith that this is anything other than what it suggests: he's not in their plans. I hope I'm wrong. The foot might be worse than we know about, of course.

Vic C's account sounds plausible to me - http://buffalonews.com/2017/05/01/vic-caruccis-bills-wake-call-new-gm-wont-change-structure/

? - Cashman has been gm for 20 years. Girardi is in his tenth season. George has been dead nearly a decade. They haven't had a losing season in over two decades. And i didn't root for the Yankees in their last dysfunctional period (late 80s-early 90s). Indeed, alongside the Patriots, the Steelers, and the Spurs, the Yankees have been among the most functional sports franchises since around 1995.

Great piece! Since none of us were at the league meetings, I'd say none of us could have written it. It's a great piece by a good sportswriter. The bills are about the most dysfunctional organization i have ever rooted for, and it's not close.

I generally agree, but if their is a distinct trajectory of improvement in the most recent games, that's worth noting too.

Fair enough! One last thing though - the Bills have not beaten Pittsburgh in this century. Most of the games have been total domination by Pittsburgh.

Defense was a lot worse; Taylor was OK (that is, not bad) in a bad situation. He didn't dominate or carry to the team to victory in an adverse situation; that I'll agree to. Otherwise, that's my view and I'm sticking with it.

He'll always be Opie to me.

It's like you're not accounting for the fact that the Steelers were very good last season. They were a far better team - both in terms of overall talent and especially in the realm of coaching. Haley made a fool out of the Ryans that day despite the bad picks that Roethlisberger ill-advisedly threw. The Steelers dominated time of possession from their very first drive even though they didn't score.

I think he played OK against a good defense (11th in defensive DVOA). He wasn't great, and he wasn't horrible. They basically had no chance to win because the Bills defense was so bad. Let's not forget that. The Steelers ran 73 plays to the Bills 48 and had the ball for nearly 40 minutes. Also, the Bills' pass blocking was wretched that day; their line was eaten alive. I'm not saying he played great, but he hit a bunch of nice longer throws that day and didn't wilt. He played hard to the end. They never really had a chance to come back, but it's not as if Pitt stopped playing D out there. It ended up being a one-score game despite Pitt's total dominance.

It's not just one game; it's the last three games he played in. In all of them, he had a rating of 100+. He wasn't perfect in all of them, but no one is perfect. The trajectory points upward, but maybe it's just random statistical noise because of weak competition. We'll know for sure once the 2017 season is underway. At the end of the day, his lifetime QBR with Buffalo is 94.2.

It is the case that Sammy Watkins started getting healthy near the end of the season. Let's not forget that for much of the season, the WR corps was among the league's very worst.

I went with Trubisky.

Agreed about Peterman's arm: http://blogs.ourlads.com/2017/03/16/quarterback-ball-velocity-at-nfl-combine-2008-2015/ . But check out Watson. Pretty grim. Maybe he overcomes it, but it's a warning sign ...

Just got a new kitten!

I generally agree that you can't wait forever, but you have to trust me here: next year's QB crop is almost universally regarded as a LOT better than this one. If they had drafted Mahomes, they would not draft another one high up next season. You are of course aware of this goes. It's not like they didn't draft anyone this year - Peterman is not a horrible prospect by any means.

I don't know enough about Mahomes, although I'm distrustful of the conference and system he played in. I'm not a believer in Watson, although I could end up being wrong. Regardless, if they're REALLY being strategic about drafting a qb, then what they just did - accumulating a first for next season that they can parlay with their own to move up - is the way to do it. The 2018 draft is without a doubt a better qb draft than this one, at least from the perspective of today. There are three big-time prospects (Darnold, Rosen, and Allen) who would have probably all been drafted in the first round if they had come out this season.

Good comparison. Interesting fact: although Plummer's stats were just OK with Denver, they went 39-15 in the games he started for them (2003-06).

I agree. Mahomes is just a guy who is not TT, and TT is the real issue. Like a say above, TT ended the season with three straight games of over a 100 qb rating. I can see McDermott and Dennison looking at that and saying, "explain to me again why you're trying to run this guy out of town?" When views on the qb are that divergent, the situation is unsustainable. Another thing about Taylor: regardless of the flaws in his game, he is a gamer willing to play through pain and a serious, no-BS grinder. That is absolutely the sort of player SM has said he wants.

Conversely, if Taylor plays like he did in the final 3 games of last season (qb ratings of 100.1, 105.2, and 118.4), people won't care about Mahomes. As I've said elsewhere, the offense is set up for Taylor to succeed this season: he'll be throwing to a healthy Watkins in a contract year, a better, bigger #2 WR in Jones; and a TE who he clicked with really well late (15 catches on 17 targets in the final 2 games). There is also a potential ly big upgrade at RT and an elite RB to feed the ball to. Plus Dennison is a pretty solid coordinator.

My view: he fired Whaley because he trusts McDermott to make the right move more than he does Whaley. McDermott came on board in January and couldn't create a board on his own, so he had to use what he had (plus maybe some bits and pieces from the Panthers' board, but I digress). Whaley did the board for him because that's his job. Whaley isn't an idiot, and he and scouting group's reports were probably regarded by SM as essentially reliable for most players. They're going to disagree on some things, though, and as I've said elsewhere, the wildly differing views on Taylor are at the root of everything. If Whaley wanted a qb, it just shows again that he wasn't invested in Taylor. McDermott is, and Pegula, regardless of his view on Mahomes, deferred to McDermott and let him make the decision. Not hard to understand. To reiterate: I think differing views on Tyrod Taylor are pretty much at the root of everything. I'm not passing judgment on the player one way or the other; I'm just saying that the dispute surrounding TT is ultimately what laid Whaley low. It is been dividing this team for a while now, and we hit critical mass late this past season. Time will tell whether Whaley was right or not.

The 2016 one is pretty interesting, especially re: Dak Prescott: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2016/qbase-2016 .

He did let the football do the work. It says he liked Mahomes but didn't interfere.