Cash

A convincing win might get be back on the 2016 bus, but with my hand on the "request stop" button. I don't expect a convincing win; I expect a loss that feels like we could have or should have won. Next most likely outcome IMO is a loss where we're never really in it. But I also wouldn't be shocked if the Bills beat the Steelers then lose to the Browns. I will say right now that if the Bills play 4 complete games down the stretch and win them all, I'll consider the season a success whether they make the playoffs or not. A complete game would be one where both offense and defense look good in all 4 quarters, and special teams aren't atrocious. Doesn't necessarily mean a blowout, because the other team might be playing well, too. But I'm done with moral victories -- if we look great but lose because Roethlisberger and Brown were ridiculous, the Bills still suck. I've already cut them a lot of slack this season (and many others), and there's no more slack to cut.

I'm not at all excited about this, but I don't totally get the hate that's being thrown around. In our last game, we started Justin Hunter and Walt Powell at WR, with Brandon Tate as the 3rd WR. Woods did wind up playing, but it seemed like he was only available in the case of an injury (which, of course, happened), and didn't look healthy. And that's the full list of active WRs on the Bills last week. We won't have Sammy Watkins back for at least 3 more weeks, and quite possibly longer. (Even if he comes back, I have no confidence he stays back for very long.) Who knows if/when Goodwin comes back, and even if he does, he's not very good. Tate may miss significant time. Woods might not get back to 100% all season, and even if he does, it probably won't be until after the bye at least. Our only non-WR weapons in the passing game are Clay and McCoy, and both of them are banged up as well. So I think it's fair to say that we need help at pass catcher, and specifically at WR. Given that, what options are truly better than bringing Harvin back? Maybe trading for Alshon Jeffery, but that's all that comes to mind. (More on that later.) Signing Harvin doesn't preclude the Bills from calling up the Ed Eagans and Dez Lewises of the world, nor does it preclude them from signing some dude off another team's practice squad. If (when?) Harvin flames out, those kind of moves will still be in play. But Harvin has more upside than a Lewis or Eagan type. And, since he was with the team last year, he has more familiarity with the offense than most options would. I'll go on record as saying I don't expect much impact from Harvin - but I'll be happy if I'm wrong. I think the most likely scenario is that he makes a couple of nice plays, but doesn't do much consistently, and then gets injured at some point, or possibly phased out if Watkins & Woods both get healthy. But even in that scenario, how is that worse than any of the other options available to the Bills? Do people really think there's some star receiver out there waiting to be signed? Lastly, re: Alshon Jeffery. At the right price, I wouldn't have minded a trade for him, but it's not even close to a guaranteed success. First, he's been very injury-prone the last couple years. Second, he doesn't know our offense at all. Third, it would cost draft picks to get him, and maybe more than he's really worth. (If Chicago made him available, but only for a 1st or 2nd round pick, I don't think that's worth it.) And finally, he's a free agent after the year. If he walks, you might get a comp pick for him (as long as you don't plan to sign any free agents), and that could be good, especially if it's basically the same pick you traded for him. If you sign him, that's a lot of $ tied up in an injury-prone player, and could cause problems with Watkins - I doubt either guy would be happy being the 2nd-highest paid WR on his team. Having said all that, if they traded a 4th or lower for Jeffery, I'd say it's worth the downside, but I get why that might not have been possible.

Poor Fitz.

I'm late to this thread, but just wanted to show my appreciation for a classic.

I'm sure Felton will catch on somewhere else, and I wish him the best, but I'm not very surprised or disappointed by this. You can't give a FB the most expensive contract at his position unless you're going to play him a lot. I don't recall the playtime stats from last year, but the Buffalo News reported Felton's a few times - it was something like 12% of snaps. Way too low to merit his salary, whatever it was. I tend to agree with NoSaint, that Felton was part of Plan A, which was semi-scrapped once Shady became available.

I would add that Dion Lewis is NE's starting RB in pass formations, and his backup is James White. Couple of softballs to start with, but I'll confess that I don't know any other team's backups on defense.

I was going to reply with something flippant like, "if we need someone to beat the crap out of women, I'm sure we can find a cheaper option," but I like this response a lot more. Hardy is either a monster, a tragic figure, or both. But even if you don't care morally about employing such a person, it's still a bad idea just on the selfish front. Hardy would be a negative asset. Classic fan logic - can't blame a guy for trying.

Exactly. I get the sense that Roman would ideally prefer to play a 2nd TE or FB much more often than a 3rd WR, but he wants a lot of different personnel groupings regardless. It's hard to say for sure who played more, the "3rd WR" or "2nd TE", because Hogan started a few games due to injury, and Harvin/Woods were kind of the co-3rd WR the first couple of games. Plus Mulligan went from 2nd TE to cut, with an O-lineman sometimes replacing him. I took a quick look at snap counts last year, and per-snap, the Bills averaged 2.33 WRs, 1.28 TEs, 0.27 FBs, and 5.10 OL. That doesn't just mean that we ran 3-wide sets 33% of the time, because we ran some 0, 1, and 4 WR sets, but I feel confident in saying we had 2 or fewer WRs on the field [EDIT] at least half the time. Last year (and this year, unless Dray turns out to be better than I expect), our non-Clay TEs were really bad. Like, probably should've been a 3rd or 4th TE level. I think we all overrated Gray because of the way he burst into our consciousness with his first 2 catches, and because he's a good guy with an interesting backstory. And when Harvin was still healthy, our WR corps was pretty good. Even after he and Goodwin went down, it was still (IMO) much more talented top to bottom than our TE corps. And yet Roman still played a 2nd TE (or Felton or Kouandjio) at least as much as he played a 3rd WR. Other than Martellus Bennett, I don't recall seeing any TEs out there this offseason that would really move the needle, so I'm not upset with the Bills FO or anything. But I think that as long as we're running this offense, it makes sense to think of the 2nd TE as at least as much of a starter as the 3rd WR. I think if we ever get 2 starting-caliber TEs, you'll see them both play 60+% of the snaps.

Agreed -- it's not like the Bills' staff was the source of the diagnosis or anything. Having said that, I like this pick even more now!

Heartbreaking. Always loved McGee!

Seems like he's an interior pass rusher? Why that rather than a nose tackle type?

Carson Wentz : Eagles Jared Goff : Rams Ezekiel Elliot : Cowboys Laquon Treadwell : Titans Paxton Lynch : Browns Bills Pick (bonus) : Darron Lee

Right. Even a hypothetical perfect LT would only be able to stop 1 defender per play. Until a player comes along who can single-handedly neutralize the entire pass rush, a player who can reliably create sacks is more valuable than a player who can reliably prevent sacks. My takeaway is that preventing sacks comes down to coaching/scheme, QB awareness, cohesion/teamwork, and talent level of the weakest link. A singular bad O-lineman can kill your whole offense, but a singular great O-lineman doesn't lift it that high.

It looked to me like the first guy pulled up to avoid a penalty -- even without a fair catch, you still have to give the opposing team a chance to catch the punt. He wasn't fully able to stop and made incidental contact, but he was clearly trying to avoid hitting/tackling the returner. I think the second guy saw his teammate pulling up like that and figured that he'd missed the fair catch signal, and so pulled up as well. Yikes.

That's good, but I still haven't quite forgiven Wade for hiring his weed dealer to replace DeHaven.

Did this guy really need to respond to this thread to let us know how he felt about the OP?

No, not technically, though it is a common misconception: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbon_whiskey Even the places on the Bourbon Trail explain the definition: "The Federal Standards of Identity for Distilled Spirits (27 C.F.R. 5) state that bourbon made for U.S. consumption must be: Produced in the United States Made from a grain mixture that is at least 51% corn Aged in new, charred oak barrels Distilled to no more than 160 (U.S.) proof (80% alcohol by volume) Entered into the barrel for aging at no more than 125 proof (62.5% alcohol by volume) Bottled (like other whiskeys) at 80 proof or more (40% alcohol by volume)" Anyway, I think Mularkey is a severely underwhelming choice for Tennessee, which is good for the Bills but bad for football fans in general. I think Mariota is legit and they have a pretty solid D. Improve the O-line a bit, add a couple of skill position weapons, and assuming Mariota progresses, they could be a very solid team for years to come. Out of all of our candidates last year, I wanted Rex first, and Hue Jackson second. He's done a very nice job with Cincy's offense, and going 8-8 in one year as the Raiders' head coach is practically a Super Bowl appearance. He's certainly a much more appealing candidate than Meathead on paper.

Not a bad post. I tend to agree for the most part. I'm a lot less enthused now than I was when Rex was first hired (I was also hoping we'd hire him), but I do see reasons for optimism. The D showed flashes of success last year, and was great-not-elite in Pettine's similar system 2 years ago. They're definitely going to lose some talent -- possibly up to 3 Williamses -- but it's plausible that the D could still be significantly better next year. A combo of the players better understanding/buying into the scheme and the coaches better understanding the players and adapting the scheme or playcalling accordingly could mean a big improvement. On offense, the hope is that Taylor improves in his 2nd year as a starter, and 1st year taking all the 1st-team reps in camp and preseason. Add in some better health at the skill positions, and this could be a low-end top 10 offense. Of course, things could get worse on both sides of the ball, but I'm not melancholy heading into the offseason like I have been in a lot of recent years.

I got the same take as dave did - I saw that our defense is 6th overall in seconds/play against, and 2nd(!) in "situation neutral" seconds/play against. I don't know how much of a league-wide trend there is, but Brown's comments about teams hurrying up against us seem to have some merit. I also notice that Dallas is currently dead last in offensive seconds/play. It'll be interesting to see if they try to hurry it up against us as well. I'd go a step beyond and say that the D has frequently seemed not-ready against regular offense, not just hurry-up. It's been very frustrating to watch all season. We've had similar problems getting play calls in on offense, but I feel like it's been significantly worse on defense. Probably due to the substitution factor. I don't have a problem with matching up personnel, but Mario had a very legitimate beef talking about how we've frequently been running guys in & out while the other team is breaking their huddle. That's unacceptable to me, and I can't believe that it's the fault of the players. I don't know if it stems from slow decision-making by Rex and/or Thurman, poor communication relaying the decision to the players, or both. To me, the nadir was that Ryan Griffin TD we gave up in the Houston game. Yes, Houston did technically snap it before they were set for a full second, so it should've been illegal procedure. But that doesn't excuse any of the following: 1.) Houston had plenty of time to snap the ball legally and still score a TD to either side of the formation. 2.) Even if Houston had waited the full second, there would've been 1 Bill covering 2 eligible receivers to the offensive left and 0 Bills covering 2 eligible receivers to the offensive right. 3.) 0 of the 11 Bills on the field seemed like they had any clue what the defensive play call was supposed to be. I strongly doubt that Brown had gotten the play call yet. 10 guys were basically in the defensive huddle when the ball was snapped, and none of them was in the process of moving anywhere else.

But is it a Blue Ribbon Committee?

Good for Matt Cassel to at least get some extra money after we jerked him around like we did. Note that I don't miss him and don't particularly think the Bills should've done anything different, but as a human being, I felt bad for him & his pregnant wife.

See, I think this (somewhat) reinforces hashtag's point, but not his/her name-calling. Byrd, Levitre, & Poz all certainly panned out as well or better than could be expected. And all left for too much money. In each case, the Bills were right to let them walk rather than match or beat the offer in question. But at the end of the day, the Bills hit big on 3 second-round picks, but all of them were just 4-year rentals. I think hash's point is that a team shouldn't draft guys in the 1st/2nd round unless they're willing to sign those guys to big 2nd contracts if they pan out. All 3 of those did pan out, but none of them was worth a big 2nd contract. I think things are a little more nuanced than just "only draft big-ticket positions high", but positional value is definitely something that should be taken into account at the top of the draft. And this thread has really highlighted why the Bills have been mediocre or worse for so long: they've had a bizarre run of draft failure, where almost all of their big-ticket picks have been busts, and almost all of their "good" picks have been players at small-ticket positions, many of whom never re-signed with the Bills. Short of just picking all busts, that's really the worst-case scenario for an extended draft run.

My hope is that we already took care of the second part by losing to Jacksonville. Hope, not expectation.

I think hashtag's point is that the players themselves were pretty good - hence pointing out that all of them are still active NFL players. The Bills also have a few good examples of correctly prioritizing positions, but poorly identifying players: Aaron Maybin, Mike Williams, JP Losman, and Erik Flowers come to mind as 1st-round picks at big ticket positions who didn't make it. All were out of the league very quickly after leaving the Bills. (I'm one of the last 3-4 EJ semi-believers, but even I'll admit that he's probably going to be on this list in a year or two.) If you want to include DT as a big ticket position (debatable), then you could add Torrell Troup and John McCargo in as well. And since hashtag included WR in the list as well, let's also include James Hardy. Great positional priority for all of these, and all (ostensibly) filled a need to boot, they just weren't good enough players.