Ronald Darby - Not Good Enough for this Scheme...

[bouds]

So we dumped a young cost controlled CB for a 3rd round pick and a WR that will be a free agent and barely plays due to injury.  We dumped him because he didn't fit our scheme, and yet all night long he clamped Dez in off man zone coverage.  I don't get it?  Gaines will be a free agent and might walk, so what did we actually gain from this trade beside a 3rd round pick?  Ironically we'll end up using that pick on a WR or CB.  It's unreal, I know Darby had a down year in 2016, but he looked excellent tonight and it amazes me how fast he was dumped by the current regime.  I have no faith in these bozos, they've created so many holes that we need to fill in the offseason.

 

Scheme over talent will be our undoing.

[Virgil]

Also, we've dumped our zone scheme on the outside in favor of man coverage  Something Darby was good at. 

It makes less and less sense as time goes on

[26CornerBlitz]

Just now, Virgil said:

Also, we've dumped our zone scheme on the outside in favor of man coverage  Something Darby was good at. 

It makes less and less sense as time goes on

 

But the Bills have the history making Jordan Matthews at WR.  BTW, he's a deep threat too. 

[Virgil]

No matter how you look at it, these players didn’t magically get better when they left us not become terrible coming to us. 

 

We havr much bigger issues 

[Sweats]

Its amazing to me that this coaching staff deemed players as not good enough for our roster, shipped them on out of here and then got peanuts for them in return.........and these same players who werent good enough for our roster are lighting it up elsewhere.

 

It just sickens me.

[Foreigner]

Missed your thoughts about the game, but I guess this mess it is too depressing for all of us

[bouds]

I mean we're relying on hitting on a bunch of draft picks in order to rebuild.  How's that working out for the Browns?  No team amassed more draft ammunition than the Browns, and yet I'm pretty sure after watching Wentz tonight Browns fans are willing to give back some of those picks for Wentz.  

 

Listen, I like building through the draft, but it seems as if we created holes for no reason at all, I just don't get it.  Will we find a CB in the 3rd round as good as Darby, maybe, it's possible, but nothing's a sure thing when you're going through the draft.

 

Drives me nuts.

[Manther]

11 minutes ago, Virgil said:

Also, we've dumped our zone scheme on the outside in favor of man coverage  Something Darby was good at. 

It makes less and less sense as time goes on

That's true in makes less sense as time goes on and in the long run

[Virgil]

3 minutes ago, Foreigner said:

Missed your thoughts about the game, but I guess this mess it is too depressing for all of us

 

Its up.  I just took a depressed nap after. 

[Klaista2k]

I hate to say but McDermott and Beane are in over their heads.

 

From day one they have been getting rid of all our top talent and adding these injury prone bums.

 

They will be gone in a couple years and we'll be starting over yet again.

 

[chris heff]

Traded away young talented players to prove they are smarter. Two guys that have never been anything other than someone's assistant. Arrogant and stupid.

[Buffalo86]

Are we basing this off of just tonight's game for Darby?  It's only the second game he's dressed for all season.  I admittedly wasn't thrilled with that particular trade, though it might seem better if Jordan Matthews didn't pick this year to start falling apart. 

 

38 catches, 653 yards,  6 TDs.  Those are the season stats that Sammy is on track to compile, and the Rams get to worry about signing him to a new deal.  I think a 2nd for that was a pretty good deal.

 

We have guys running the team who have never done it before, so there's bound to be some mistakes.  Their choice of OC was probably bigger than either of these.

 

[bouds]

It's more about watching Darby play in a scheme that's similar to ours, and thinking, wait wasn't Darby jettisoned because of scheme fit?  That and he had a really good year as a rookie, still young and cost controlled.  I look at the current roster and we need another CB after this season ends, and well that means spending the draft assets we've accumulated on a CB, but we had a CB so that leaves me scratching my head.  It's like we're going around in a circle.  We may able to find a better CB than Darby, but we might not, so what was the point of the entire trade?

Edited November 20, 2017 by bouds

[26CornerBlitz]

 

[popcornpam]

18 minutes ago, chris heff said:

Traded away young talented players to prove they are smarter. Two guys that have never been anything other than someone's assistant. Arrogant and stupid.

 

You wonder why the owner signed off on that. Seems like the owner is in over his head. He better hire a football guru!  He seems to be very gullible!

[The Frankish Reich]

I do see that Darby continues to be the best wing man (Cris Carter style) in the NFL:  http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/21468900/ronald-darby-vouches-jameis-winston-says-accusations-tampa-bay-buccanerers-qb-just-not-true

The Darby trade made sense to me when it looked like the new regime was punting on the 2017 season. This is Darby's 3rd season, and next year will be a new QB transitional year at best, so he'd have been gone before the team's anticipated competition window opens in 2019. But then some of the other moves that seem present oriented (Benjamin) make me wonder... I hope the new regime has an idea of where all this is going, but right at this moment I'm starting to wonder.

[chris heff]

8 minutes ago, bouds said:

It's more about watching Darby play in a scheme that's similar to ours, and thinking, wait wasn't Darby jettisoned because of scheme fit?  That and he had a really good year as a rookie, still young and cost controlled.  I look at the current roster and we need another CB after this season ends, and well that means spending the draft assets we've accumulated on a CB, but we had a CB so that leaves me scratching my head.  It's like we're going around in a circle.  We may able to find a better CB than Darby, but we might not, so what was the point of the entire trade?

The point of the trade was to show how smart they are and to bring in a WR so they could trade Watkins too show how smart they are.

[The Frankish Reich]

1 minute ago, chris heff said:

The point of the trade was to show how smart they are and to bring in a WR so they could trade Watkins too show how smart they are.

I'm afraid there's a lot of that going on. The Smartest Men in the Room syndrome again.  Any GM/coach can tank a team. Any GM/coach can try to make small incremental improvement to make a 7-9 team a 9-7 team. But only we, Messrs. Beane and McDermott, can remake a team in our image, remain competitive, and completely rebuild all at the same time.

[RyanC883]

23 minutes ago, 26CornerBlitz said:

 

 

if by excellent coverage he intended to say excellent un-called PI in the endzone.  

[Utah John]

I think they were worried that Darby would follow Gilmore out the door in free agency, and we'd get nothing in return.  Also he did have a less good year last year compared to his rookie year.

 

He's playing OK for Philly but keep in mind he's playing behind a much better, more aggressive D line that puts a lot more pressure on QBs. 

 

I don't know what kind of influence he was in the locker room.  Could be he simply wasn't committed to Buffalo and may have let out that he'd be leaving when he could.

 

As to the overall team, they're pretty bad, but this is exactly the team that we thought we'd have at the start of the year.  It's only because they played over their heads and got some lucky breaks that we started thinking playoffs this year.  That was never the expected outcome for the year.  It was fun while the mirage lasted, but that's all it was, a mirage.  The Bills are being built to win in 2019 -- get through this year, draft a ton of good rookies and pick up FAs next near, and have a good team ready to win in 2019. 

 

It isn't wait until next year, it's wait until the year after that.

Edited November 20, 2017 by Utah John

[JMF2006]

4 hours ago, The Frankish Reich said:

I do see that Darby continues to be the best wing man (Cris Carter style) in the NFL:  http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/21468900/ronald-darby-vouches-jameis-winston-says-accusations-tampa-bay-buccanerers-qb-just-not-true

The Darby trade made sense to me when it looked like the new regime was punting on the 2017 season. This is Darby's 3rd season, and next year will be a new QB transitional year at best, so he'd have been gone before the team's anticipated competition window opens in 2019. But then some of the other moves that seem present oriented (Benjamin) make me wonder... I hope the new regime has an idea of where all this is going, but right at this moment I'm starting to wonder.

 

The question is "who was in the front seat"?

[87168]

5 hours ago, RyanC883 said:

 

if by excellent coverage he intended to say excellent un-called PI in the endzone.  

That's all you could muster? Darby should have never been traded. Period. Same with Gills. We still don't have a number two back. Maybe Cadet will take that role, but again, this coaching staff created holes that were already filled with talented players. Makes no sense.

[BuffaloBill]

6 hours ago, The Frankish Reich said:

I do see that Darby continues to be the best wing man (Cris Carter style) in the NFL:  http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/21468900/ronald-darby-vouches-jameis-winston-says-accusations-tampa-bay-buccanerers-qb-just-not-true

The Darby trade made sense to me when it looked like the new regime was punting on the 2017 season. This is Darby's 3rd season, and next year will be a new QB transitional year at best, so he'd have been gone before the team's anticipated competition window opens in 2019. But then some of the other moves that seem present oriented (Benjamin) make me wonder... I hope the new regime has an idea of where all this is going, but right at this moment I'm starting to wonder.

 

 

This is the issue.  The Bills are trying to do too many things that appear to be at odds with each other.  They would have been better off acknowledging this is a rebuild year and overhauling the entire roster.  In retrospect this should have included letting Tyrod walk.  If he is not a fit for your scheme why retain him when you let so many others go?  

 

“The Process” has gone off the rails over the past three weeks.

 

With all of that said, I think Beane and McDermott get a pass on this season.  They need to have a stellar draft or the situation will be exceptionally ugly. 

[Nuncha]

Love posts about guys that aren't here anymore.  Accept change and move on please.  

 

I'm surprised there haven't been any "If Rex were still here" posts....

Edited November 20, 2017 by Azucho98

[Gordio]

7 hours ago, bouds said:

So we dumped a young cost controlled CB for a 3rd round pick and a WR that will be a free agent and barely plays due to injury.  We dumped him because he didn't fit our scheme, and yet all night long he clamped Dez in off man zone coverage.  I don't get it?  Gaines will be a free agent and might walk, so what did we actually gain from this trade beside a 3rd round pick?  Ironically we'll end up using that pick on a WR or CB.  It's unreal, I know Darby had a down year in 2016, but he looked excellent tonight and it amazes me how fast he was dumped by the current regime.  I have no faith in these bozos, they've created so many holes that we need to fill in the offseason.

 

Scheme over talent will be our undoing.

 

 

Totally agree, these clowns think they are so smart, they created so many holes on this roster by their own stupidity.  I don't care what anybody says, trading Watkins was a mistake, trading Darby was a mistake & the biggest mistake of all might of been trading MD.  The defense has been horrible since he has left town.  & they virtually gave him away. 

[EmotionallyUnstable]

14 minutes ago, Azucho98 said:

Love posts about guys that aren't here anymore.  Accept change and move on please.  

 

I'm surprised there haven't been any "If Rex were still here" posts....

 

If you were paying attention, you'd know his issue is not with the player, but with the move the current office made. So yeah, it extremely relevant considering that history is the best indicator of the future. It shows a lot of them, they're beliefs and pricess. 

 

I'd love to see a running list of moves, from trades to personnel to starting roles, that could be reviewed wholistically. Maybe in isolation moves may look good or bad, but I'd be curious to see how they look meshed together 

[PABillsfan23]

Some people can’t just let things go.  Pretty sad 

[SoTier]

2 hours ago, Utah John said:

I think they were worried that Darby would follow Gilmore out the door in free agency, and we'd get nothing in return.  Also he did have a less good year last year compared to his rookie year.

 

He's playing OK for Philly but keep in mind he's playing behind a much better, more aggressive D line that puts a lot more pressure on QBs. 

 

I don't know what kind of influence he was in the locker room.  Could be he simply wasn't committed to Buffalo and may have let out that he'd be leaving when he could.

 

As to the overall team, they're pretty bad, but this is exactly the team that we thought we'd have at the start of the year.  It's only because they played over their heads and got some lucky breaks that we started thinking playoffs this year.  That was never the expected outcome for the year.  It was fun while the mirage lasted, but that's all it was, a mirage.  The Bills are being built to win in 2019 -- get through this year, draft a ton of good rookies and pick up FAs next near, and have a good team ready to win in 2019. 

 

It isn't wait until next year, it's wait until the year after that.

 

I disagree.   This team has been much worse than any Bills team has ever been over the course of any three games in its history -- and that history includes some pretty terrible teams, and no, this wasn't the team that "we thought we'd have at the start of the year".   Most fans thought that the Bills would at least be competitive with most teams even if they didn't win a lot.  This team is uncompetitive, and it's uncompetitive because it's been deliberately stripped of almost all its younger talent in a matter of months, and that talent has been replaced by rookies and scrubs.  A poster yesterday stated that the team was the equivalent of an expansion team, and that seems about right.  It's going to take a whole lot longer than a couple of years just to bring the talent level up to where it was when McDermott and Beane came on the scene, especially if they're the ones doing the talent selection.

[LEBills]

I wasn’t excited to see Darby go. The third round pick we draft better be amazing...

 

the one thing that is a positive is that we don’t have to be embroiled with James Winston’s antics as Winston always ropes Darby into defending him. 

[DriveFor1Outta5]

48 minutes ago, BuffaloBill said:

 

 

This is the issue.  The Bills are trying to do too many things that appear to be at odds with each other.  They would have been better off acknowledging this is a rebuild year and overhauling the entire roster.  In retrospect this should have included letting Tyrod walk.  If he is not a fit for your scheme why retain him when you let so many others go?  

 

“The Process” has gone off the rails over the past three weeks.

 

With all of that said, I think Beane and McDermott get a pass on this season.  They need to have a stellar draft or the situation will be exceptionally ugly. 

This ^ Guys like Watkins, Darby, and Dareus hadn’t  helped us win anything. An argument could be made that we should have kept them to build around, but it’s not as if we lost consistently great players. I was on board with the trades in the beginning. Somewhere along the way, the process became muddled. It didn’t make sense to let Watkins go, only to trade for a receiver. We were said to be accumulating draft choices. Why would we give them away in a win now move ? Why keep a very “non-process” guy like Incognito? Why keep McCoy on the roster? He’s a guy who is too old to be part of future success. The process seemed like something that hadn’t been seen in Buffalo during it’s early stages. At this point,  the process seems to have no direction. 

Edited November 20, 2017 by DriveFor1Outta5

[CountDorkula]

8 hours ago, 26CornerBlitz said:

 

But the Bills have the history making Jordan Matthews at WR.  BTW, he's a deep threat too. 

He is also never injured, He will be more productive than Sammy because of it....

 

He is Mr. Reliable..........

[unclepete]

The Bills are a joke. Darby always looked good. Young talent shouldn't be discarded. You adjust your scheme to fit the talent. Not gamble on the draft. We drafted and developed Woods, Dareus, Watkins and Darby just to watch them flourish elsewhere in their primes. McDermott isn't a Bills fan so he hasn't had to endure this ineptitude. But you don't see Belichick trading away prime talent. He just adjust his scheme to maximize it. What a joke

[BuffaloBill]

24 minutes ago, DriveFor1Outta5 said:

This ^ Guys like Watkins, Darby, and Dareus hadn’t  helped us win anything. An argument could be made that we should have kept them to build around, but it’s not as if we lost consistently great players. I was on board with the trades in the beginning. Somewhere along the way, the process became muddled. It didn’t make sense to let Watkins go, only to trade for a receiver. We were said to be accumulating draft choices. Why would we give them away in a win now move ? Why keep a very “non-process” guy like Incognito? Why keep McCoy on the roster? He’s a guy who is too old to be part of future success. The process seemed like something that hadn’t been seen in Buffalo during it’s early stages. At this point,  the process seems to have no direction. 

 

 

McCoy is still a good player who produces and Incognito was coming off an excellent year.  I do believe the Bills are being bit hard by yet another set of scheme changes that do not fit their roster.  I fear that instead of being one draft away from turning this mess around they are probably 2+ away.  The most fundemental issue is that they must identify their QB.  This is a tall order in a league where there are many teams looking for an answer at the position.  

 

 

[Doc]

What is the issue here? Gaines has played more games than Darby and has played very well for the Bills.  Meanwhile the Eagles defense had done just fine without Darby for most of  the season.

[Marty McFly]

 

A lot of these moves seem ego driven. Thats the worse part. This is a business not a shlong swinging contest. When you tank or rebuild you keep young talent, pro bowl talent and let go of overpriced talent. Seems they did the opposite.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

8 hours ago, bouds said:

So we dumped a young cost controlled CB for a 3rd round pick and a WR that will be a free agent and barely plays due to injury.  We dumped him because he didn't fit our scheme, and yet all night long he clamped Dez in off man zone coverage.  I don't get it?  Gaines will be a free agent and might walk, so what did we actually gain from this trade beside a 3rd round pick?  Ironically we'll end up using that pick on a WR or CB.  It's unreal, I know Darby had a down year in 2016, but he looked excellent tonight and it amazes me how fast he was dumped by the current regime.  I have no faith in these bozos, they've created so many holes that we need to fill in the offseason.

 

Scheme over talent will be our undoing.

 

I've been struggling increasingly hard to  trust in personnel decisions of the current FO.   Early in the season, our D was looking good and it was like "Darby who?"
Now that our D is being rolled from endzone to endzone, their personnel decisions are looking increasingly suspect, going back past Watkins and Darby to the off-season decisions to let Woods walk and put a low tender on Gillislee. 

Something has happened in the locker room too, our D is increasingly "phoning it in" with no pride.

 

That said, it's easy for a CB to look great when his DL is making the QB play "run for your life"

[Helpmenow]

9 hours ago, Sweats said:

Its amazing to me that this coaching staff deemed players as not good enough for our roster, shipped them on out of here and then got peanuts for them in return.........and these same players who werent good enough for our roster are lighting it up elsewhere.

 

It just sickens me.

The players who aren’t here have probably all spoken up to management and now are gone

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

We drafted him in the 2nd, and got a third and a player for him.  He became expendable when we traded for Gaines.

 

 

darby also missed 8 weeks with injury...

[BigBuff423]

9 hours ago, Virgil said:

Also, we've dumped our zone scheme on the outside in favor of man coverage  Something Darby was good at. 

It makes less and less sense as time goes on

 

Yeah, it was unpopular, but I understand the move with Sammy....I did not understand the Darby move at all. Regardless of the Matthews exchange and 3rd pick...although, b/c we gave up a 3rd for Benjamin, I suppose it was more like Darby for Benjamin, but still...don't think moving Darby was a smart move.

[Nuncha]

1 hour ago, EmotionallyUnstable said:

 

If you were paying attention, you'd know his issue is not with the player, but with the move the current office made. So yeah, it extremely relevant considering that history is the best indicator of the future. It shows a lot of them, they're beliefs and pricess. 

 

I'd love to see a running list of moves, from trades to personnel to starting roles, that could be reviewed wholistically. Maybe in isolation moves may look good or bad, but I'd be curious to see how they look meshed together 

The "current office" has been here for what 11 months?  I don't think its quite time to throw them under the bus.  Perhaps they actually know what they are doing.  Only time will tell.