BillsVet

The days of being "Billsy" ended when McDermott showed up. No more swinging for the fences without it being part of the bigger plan. That's not to say they will be perfect from now on or the previous personnel people were completely terrible. I'm confident the current personnel people from McBeane down know they need a QB who can make throws from the pocket and it'll take a move up to do it.

Excellent points here. Yeah, there will always be holes on a roster that could be improved. Roster turnover being what it is, you've got to continue finding starting talent every year. And most of the time picking the safer to project positions isn't drastically improving the team's W-L record. Yet, the fastest way to consistently winning 10+ games a year is still finding your QB. Middling around drafting other positions when you've got a glaring issue at QB isn't going to transform this team into a 1 or 2 seed in the AFC. Going deep into the playoffs is the goal. And now you've got your perennial top AFC teams seeing their elite QBs getting older. NE isn't going to feature Brady forever. Roethlisberger has hinted at retirement in the next few years. Rivers is 37 this year. Where the AFC was strong 5 years ago, it's not so much now. The time to go for it is now if they deem one of the top prospects is their guy.

Operating from a perspective of fear because every QB could bust is not a strategy. It is a guarantee you'll fail though. I'm not keen on Jackson because athlete QBs rarely translate their college play to the NFL. That said, I don't see Jackson as a carbon copy of TT. That's simply a conflation

Schein’s prognostication would be another collective punch to the stomach for Bills fans.

Quentin Nelson is by many accounts the best guard prospect to come along in a while. A team with a need at the position isn't taking him at 5 even if he is BPA. This is a nuanced topic and shoe-horning it into a black or white thing is absurd. Indianapolis has an OL issue, but there's no way in heck they take Nelson 3rd overall. This debate of BPA or need has to factor in positional value. It's great to have interior DL, Interior OL, non-pass rushing LBs, safeties, and RB's who are perennial pro bowl players. It's better to have them at the positions which game outcomes more, particularly those in the passing game: QB, WR, perhaps OT, top pass rushers, and CBs who can cover. And those guys are getting drafted, even if a lesser prospect, ahead of the top guard available.

If Cadet comes back, Buffalo has to be the league leader in 29 yo+ running backs. Story of this thread though might be OP beating the usual suspects with this thread.

Zay Jones is considered a "solid starter" now? Based on what? I'm sure someone will say he was injured but he's got potential. Parcells used to say potential means you ain't done anything yet. A team banking on Zay Jones as a 2nd WR is gambling big time. Buffalo has no dependable stretch the field receiver. All of them are short to intermediate types. And Holmes? He caught 3 TDs last year and 13 passes. He's not what I'd consider "good" as a 4th/RZ WR.

I get that people want a sure thing QB if they trade up, but no such player exists most years. When you risk nothing, it's unlikely you'll gain much. To use a baseball analogy, you never get hits if you don't take the bat off your shoulder. Buffalo has entered the draft for far too long looking to walk or get bloop hits. That, to me is what taking defensive players or the 4th/5th QB off the board. It is a loser mentality and one that is less likely to get this team from being a perennial 8-9 win team that tries to back into the playoffs into a 11-12 win team.

Ah yes, genius Buddy Nix. He had 'em all fooled!

Or, Fitzpatrick returns to Buffalo as the bridge QB for a conditional 7th rounder. And is backed up by Peterman. Given Bortles' contract, $10M might be on the low side for a bridge type, if that's what they choose.

When this happens you always feel for the player and think how it may inhibit or prevent them from playing professionally. But the bigger picture is, perhaps it's a blessing they know something they might not otherwise be aware of.

The thing with statistical analysis is the past does not always predict the future. There's obvious risk to trading assets to move up, especially when your team is thin elsewhere and those picks could be used to reinforce areas like OL, DL, LB, and perhaps WR. At some point this team needs an answer at QB and it's unlikely to come through UFA, at least in a cost-effective manner.

What will be telling about Whaley is whether he gets interviewed for a front office position after the draft. If he's going to get a look it should be then.

Delirious. Soon to be 30 year old backs with 2600+ career touches don't have a lot of value especially with the contract he's on right now.

Perhaps a Ford Taurus. Only the SHO version.

So awesome a job that he was fired and still isn't working in the NFL. That, and Buffalo's dead-cap space is among the league's worst among other things.

Then the whole mindset of winning now and winning later was just happy talk. (EDIT: They) did "win now" by going 9-7 last season, but it sounds as though McD wants to set the bar low and hope to surpass those expectations. There's no doubt Whaley left this team in a massive whole. A top heavy and aging roster with no real answer at QB among other things. That said, the old expectation is it took 3-4 years to rebuild is garbage. McD may not be saying that here, but going 6-10, 7-9 in 2018 ain't getting the job done.

I understand trying to build a solid criteria to determine which QB to take. At the same time, while head of the Dolphins in '08, BP decided to take Jake Long over Matt Ryan. Long is now retired and Ryan is among the better NFL QBs. There's risk involved taking a QB and sometimes even good GMs fail in that respect. Ozzie Newsome taking Kyle Boller in '03 comes to mind. The point is, being scared and going the safe route leads to perpetual mediocrity.

Fair enough. There's no question that the front 7 wasn't good enough last year and I wouldn't expect Buffalo to ignore that to go all-in on the QB. The draft picture should be a lot less cloudy after the first week of UFA.

Jacksonville's DL featured DE Yannick Ngakoue, DT Malik Jackson, DT Abry Jones, and DE Calais Campbell. That's a 3rd, 5th, UDFA, and a high dollar (4 yrs 60M) UFA. They started 16, 16, 15, and 16 games respectively. And yeah, they dealt for Dareus, giving up all of a 6th in return. One guy there acquired using premium resources. Philly's main LBs were Bradham and Mychal Kendricks, who started 15 and 13 games respectively. The former was acquired in UFA on a 2 year 7M contract (!) and Kendricks was a 2nd round pick. Not huge resources there for a team with a pretty good defense. Bradham is a UFA next month. New England's OL? Solder, Joe Thuney, David Andrews, Shaq Mason, and LaAdrian Waddle (in the SB) who replaced Marcus Cannon at RT. That's a 1st rounder, 3rd rounder, UDFA, and 4th rounder, street FA, and 5th round pick. Drafting RBs, interior OL, LBs, safeties, and DT's early is not how you rebuild. Those positions do not influence the outcome of games enough to use premium picks, particularly when you've got needs at QB, in the pass rush, and perhaps at CB. Deferring a decision on the latter will keep your team mediocre, which is what the Bills did for more than a decade.

Anything, good or bad, is possible. There are plenty of people who seriously or jokingly have talked about "trusting in the process" but it still applies. McDermott learned a lot this year about himself and this team in terms of their ceiling without a QB. I'm confident both he and Beane know this team has a lot of holes, but none bigger than the QB. They will not pull the same shenanigans that Levy/Brandon/Nix/Whaley did by kicking the can down the road, banking on mediocre veteran types or picking a QB out of desperation. I get why people doubt the franchise, but thankfully the decade of bad GMs from 2006-2016 is over. People aren't hired in their 80s, business managers, scouts masquerading as a GM, or a guy more concerned with saving his job. The question is not whether McBeane have a plan, it's whether theirs is a good one.

I didn't say not to improve the LB or DT positions, just that spending first rounders isn't what will make this a strong team. From a resource allocation perspective I'll find LBs and DT's later in the draft and use premium picks on the hard to find positions. And if that means trading up for a QB then so be it. Few people know who plays DT for the Jaguars. Or, who the LBs are for Philadelphia. Or New England's OG's or safeties. McD didn't trade down so far last year to make sure he had the picks to get a DT or LB. He knew it'd take more draft capital in 2018 to move up for, I suspect, the QB. Whether that happens now is another matter but I can't see this team entering the coming season without a QB prospect. Besides, I wouldn't be depending so heavily on rookies to come in and provide the difference in the front 7 like you are.

There's no reason to worry about the prospect of not finding a new QB this off-season. McBeane will address the position

Drafting interior OL, LB, DT, or S high without being much better at QB is a recipe for failure or, even worse, mediocrity. Those are nice to have positions, but spending premium draft picks on them is typically not the answer. Players there don't effect the final score enough in most cases to be worth first round picks. I'd rather see Buffalo aggressively pursue the QB and fill those positions in with your 2-4th rounds or medium priced UFAs. Problem is, they've drafted poorly beyond round 2 for a long time and haven't found the value there.

The wild card game Bortles flat out stunk. As the game wore on Buffalo's defense could continue to focus on stopping the run and did so. IIRC, they stacked 8 in the box on many downs knowing Bortles couldn't beat them in the air. If you're speaking specifically about the Buffalo Jacksonville game (which you were) both QBs were very poor. If anything, defense and poor offense were equally the reason for the low final score.