Could Pulling the Trigger to Soon Have Changed the Path of the Future ?

[stinky finger]

On 10/18/2018 at 7:54 PM, Mr. WEO said:

 

I'm gonna go get the papers.  Get the papers...

 

Quite possibly the best movie ever.

[Mr. WEO]

Just now, inaugural balls said:

 

Quite possibly the best movie ever.

 

 

Thank you!  Jeez!  I was wondering if anybody....

 

But you are correct.  The fact that it is on cable nearly every week does not dilute its greatness---and that's the true test.

[Captain Murica]

McBeane is screwed if Allen doesn’t pan out, and more than likely if Allen is good it would be inspite of McBeane. They have the philosophy that you need to be ground & pound because you play 3-4 games a year in cold weather, and there is no way you can pass the ball in cold weather with wind. Hence why we ended up with Allen over Rosen because he has the arm to pass in the weather in WNY. I’m usually one to look on the positive side of things when it comes to the bills, but I think more and more McBeane will end up like the rest due to their own stubbornness. 

[LeGOATski]

3 hours ago, OldTimeAFLGuy said:

 

..DEFINITELY has proven himself as an NFL commodity while Allen is CERTAINLY a proven bust............thank you for the insight....OR....incite.........

Your words. Not mine.

 

Rosen obviously looks better so far.

[row_33]

On 10/17/2018 at 3:42 PM, fansince88 said:

Where did you pass @50%?

 

All through high school and university

 

you needed 80?

 

 

[fansince88]

7 hours ago, row_33 said:

 

All through high school and university

 

you needed 80?

 

 

I started in public school. Grade school you needed a 70 to pass. HS you needed a 65. In 8th grade I transferred to a private school and yes....I had to have an 80 average to pass. They had much higher standards. My point is I don't think any school at any time in the USA do they consider 50% a passing grade.

 

[Ronin]

On 10/17/2018 at 2:19 PM, T master said:

As far as it taking 4 picks to get Allen i'm not seeing where or how that came into play

 

Not sure what you mean by "came into play," but the "math" of the situation is simple.  

 

We entered the Draft with 6 picks on days 1 & 2.  

We had the 12th and 22nd overall and in the 1st. 

We had the 53rd and 56th overall which were the 21st and 24th picks in the 2nd round. 

We had the 65th and 96th overall which were the 1st and 32nd picks in the 3rd round.  

 

That's 6 picks on days 1 & 2.  Think about what kind of strides they could have made in rebuilding the team with those 6 picks.  Just that, don't defend what they did, simply consider the alternative to what they did.  Those types of draft opportunities rarely come around.  

 

I loved the Edmunds pick, but they could have had him freely with the 12th overall.  They chose Phillips with their 96th overall, meaning quite simply, that at the end of the day, the net cost to acquire Allen was the other four picks.  

 

As such, Allen was the most costly QB in the Draft,  and by a country mile.  No other team gave up nearly what we did to get "their guy."  the Browns and Jets gave up nothing to get Mayfield and Darnold except their own 1st round picks.  Rosen was the second most costly and Arizona merely swapped 1st's and gave up an extra 3rd and 5th to make that swap.  

 

The cost, at the end of the day, to aquire Allen, was astronomical.  That's all fine-and-dandy, and regardless of whether any of us are in agreement or not, the simple point remains that when you trade that much and ignore ALL of the other offensive needs not to mention a bunch of defensive ones too, in a grand opportunity to make enormous strides in rebuilding a team that you just inheritied, YOUR (their) decision had better justify itself or you're toast.  

 

If Allen doesn't work out it'll make the play/move to get Watkins seems trivial in comparison.  You simply don't make a move like that  and declare that a player was "your guy," have him not work out and then not expect to be fired much less be subject to intense criticism which includes whether or not you're competent.  

 

Having one pick in each of the first three rounds and a bunch of extra picks on day 3 in this forthcoming Draft isn't even close to the same.  As I've always maintained, McBeane will now sink (more and more likely with each passing week) or swim with their draft strategy to acquire Allen, which means simply that Allen had better become a top-10 (at least) QB in this league fairly quickly, or at least demonstrate that he's even remotely capable of that feat, or they're toast.  Right now it's arguable whether or not he's the worst QB in the league, so he's got a helluva ways to go, he's not even playing as well as Taylor and is in historically poor territory alongside the offense.  Even with this supporting cast his numbers should be what Taylor's bottom-dwelling numbers were last season if he's even half of what McBeane seems to think he is.  The thing I'd be concerned about the most if I were an Allen apologist, which I'm not, is that his sole strength was his arm-strength, yet, his YPA are DFL in the NFL.  In short, there's not even remotely been a manifestation of this strong arm.  Amidst no other real core strengths coming in, I'd say that's an enormous issue regarding his future development and promises of success.  

 

It's incredibly unreasonable for anyone to suggest that they should get three or four seasons to "see if Allen develops."  The reasons why he won't, if he doesn't, are immaterial.  They're reasons of McBeane's own making regardless.  The fact that Allen was easily the riskiest draft prospect in the Draft does not help them.  

 

Either way, Pegula's hand may be forced sooner rather than later anyway.  McBeane are taking heat, have not proven anything at their current levels of employment, but more relevantly, appear to be on the cusp of losing the lockerroom, which if that happens they're both "dead men walking."  As it is, they're going to have a devil of a time attempting to lure value free agents to the team w/o paying a premium, at this rate no one's going to want to come here.  80M in cap space, or whatever, can easily vaporize on just a few players, and they're far more than "a few players" away from being competitive.  I won't even go into the notion that it'll be alongside a looming future stadium issue.  

Edited October 26, 2018 by TaskersGhost

[Rigotz]

Is there a way to filter out and block all threads that have a spelling error in the title?

[Ronin]

On 10/18/2018 at 6:09 PM, familykwi said:

This is the kind of comment I cannot understand.  When did the draft become a precise and predictable event? 

 

Early draft picks are evaluated as close to cannot miss, or having measureables that cannot be passed on.  Obviously there are plenty of misses.

 

Late picks are guys who have some pros and some cons and teams hope they all outperform their draft position.  Some do, many don't.

 

Why assert that YOU KNEW that a late round pick wouldn't be good?  Way to go Nostradamus!  Great call.

 

I think every owner should fire every GM and coach who's ever missed on a pick.  Obviously missing on one means they don't know what they're doing across the board.  

 

Since McDermott hit on Tre White, we should just draft DB after DB.  At least they're good at that.

 

Maybe we stop acting as though a long term plan to build long term success may take more than one draft.  We cannot continue to have it both ways.  The playoff monkey is off our back DESPITE every analyst predicting this team to be bottom barrel last year.  After two games this year, we presented as one of the worst teams in recent history.  Low and behold, we won 2 of the next 3 and were in a position to win a 3rd.

 

Clearly not everything is perfect.  Time will tell is "the process" worked.  Just PLEASE fess up later if you turn out to be wrong now.  I hope to hear from you in a couple of years.

 

Feel free to lay low until then.

 

I've been nailing this team for years with my "negative" takes.  Yet, here we are, exactly where I warned we would be at the rate things have gone over the past decade-plus.  

 

Either way, unlike with most here, it's not about me being right or anything of the sort, it's an analytical discussion of the Bills.  I realize that gets lost on many readers, but many understand.  

 

My point on "a 5th rounder failing," remember when many here claimed he was really a 2nd or 3rd rounder (if not, go look it up), but again, the point being that McBeane WHIFFED on that in spades.  But they learned from their mistakes, right?  Hardly.  They continued to try to shove a square peg into a round hole until it become embarrassingly blatant how ridiculous they looked attempting to do so, nationally that is, not simply with fans more knowledgeable about the Bills.  Put another way, when the most superficially oriented NFL fans got it, only then did our illustrious McBeane & Co.  

 

Think that through.  

 

It won't take "time to tell if the process is working," it isn't.  Anyone that's watched, and paid any significant attention, to the NFL over the years and other teams, etc., should realize full well that one simply doesn't take a team like the Bills, with no long-term talent on the roster, much less putting up any significant numbers currently, and turn it into a winner within two or three seasons.  Particularly given some of the mindboggling moves that McBeane have made.  Moves like paying Lotolulei, heralded by many here and elsewhere as a great pick-up in the offseason when any truly unbiased knowledgeable person could very easily see by a quick visit to ALL of the analytical sites that the signing was a complete NOTHING signing and a waste of money & caps space.  

 

Naturally there'll be a poster or two insisting that one had to have seen Lotolulei play, as if they spent last season and prior seasons watching the Panthers with all eyes on Lotolulei.  

 

I've been ranting since prior to last season that the time to trade Shady was then, when he may have actually fetched a 1st-round pick, ... not that  McBeane and their process would know what to do with it, but talking about geniuses, now all of a sudden everyone's talking about trading an injury-laden 30-year old RB, when again, anyone that's ever paid much attention to the NFL should realize full well that the odds of a 30-plus year old RB doing much of anything are remote.  Again, not bully for me or anything, I don't care about that, but it says something, quite a bit in fact, when people getting paid millions don't understand that much less are able to grasp that simplest of historical factoids.  

 

But hey, I suppose that it was more important to make the playoffs last season, as a direct result of the unlikeliest of passes in another game altogether, than it was to build for the future.  And frankly,  how come no one noticed that last season "wasn't a rebuilding year," but their second season is?  We've been through that with other lame coaches and GMs that again, quite frankly sucked here.  

 

You're either rebuilding or you're not.  Levy came strutting back to OBD as a GM and proudly did the same, announced boldly that "the future is now," and claimed that the team was not rebuilding, before the following season stating that it was rebuilding.  I mean who does that except people that haven't a clue?  

 

The core point here is that no, not everyone has to "wait two or three seasons before knowing what's going on."  Sometimes you can look at collegiate performance, ascertain against whom it succeeded or did not, how, and why, etc., and determine everything that you want to know.  Instead, people simply look at high level accolades like many did with Zay Jones & Watkins, two horrendously easy bust predictions, and figure that hey, they were "great" in college, at least w/o considering the details, so they must be great in the NFL.  More accomplished WRs, Hardy to name one, who's had Ryan and the Falcons offense throwing to him, came from SC, yet they've done nothing.  So why on earth would a gadget slot WR playing in a ridiculous spread offense, very often playing from well behind and with plenty of garbage time stats, and sometimes featuring 5 WRS, be good in the NFL.  People that can't see through simple things like that are the types that buy bridges site and title unseen.  Same for Watkins, a player that made living off of bubble-screens in college, plays that simply don't work in the NFL, so why isn't that predicdtable, because it was, again, to anyone understanding that simplest of things.  Clearly the bottom line here is twofold, A, most people don't understand that.  B, most people never even look that far in their analyses, which is why all of these so-called "draft experts" all have the same 40 or so players ranked in their 1st-round projections.  

 

What the better teams have are people in their front offices that understand those things, clearly our FO isn't like that.  Beyond clearly neither are McBeane.  Wishing and hoping that they were or will be, or that they'll suddenly and for no foreseeable reason gain that knowledge and/or pay attention to it would be foolish.  

 

As to time, that's a luxury that they simply no longer have.  If McD can keep the focus of the lockerroom all season he'll be doing great.  It not, oh well, next man up.  But there too, it's clear that the Pegulas don't get this stuff either, so what are our hopes that they'll be able to identify, and then subsequently hire, people that do?  It's a valid question but a depressing one to think about.

 

Again, it's not about me, or you, or any fan, it's about a discussion as to why so few NFL people, you know, the ones that some of us as intelligent fans that have actually paid attention to other teams and situations  over the years in the NFL, are constantly being told that they're "experts" despite their ignorance of some of the most trivial and essential tenets of team-building, actually know what they're getting paid millions to know, much less try to figure out after they get paid that much.  

 

Food for thought.  

 

This "come back and see" nonsense has been goinng on since Polian left and it's gotten beyond old.  

 

Edited October 26, 2018 by TaskersGhost

[Jauronimo]

Its kind of like the age old question about if you go back in time and unknowingly have sex with your mom can you really be your own dad??  Trippy.

[familykwi]

First, love the Jauronimo pic.  Nice.

 

I don't watch much college football, so I cannot pretend to have any idea how good any of those players are coming in.  More than the individuals chosen, I don't like the regular trend of trading away multiple picks to select a coveted player when there are stats that show trading down contributes far more to long term success than trading up.  That trend continued not once, but twice in this year's 1st round, so that worries me.

 

Otherwise, the process of trying to build while trying to win now has never led to much good, so if there is a long term process in place, then I think it needs to be seen through.  I think last year's playoff appearance unrealistically raised expectations despite a poor roster that sustained more losses than it had gains this off season.

 

This year, I'm pleased to see the defense as a whole perform better than it did to end last year, especially against the run.  Not every game has been a masterpiece, but there have been moments by young players that are encouraging.

 

Offensively, yikes!  That's a hot mess.  The line still needs upgrading, Benjamin seemed worth the price tag, but has failed & Zay doesn't look worthy of a #2.  Allen came with notable concerns and we gave up multiple picks to watch those concerns show themselves on the field.  Peterman must look other worldly in practice, because his assignment to the roster is perplexing.

 

This year is was last year was supposed to be.  I don't think all of our problems will be solved in one more off season either, but I hope with a solid draft and smart (depth) spending with salary cap relief we'll have a much stronger core.

 

I cannot argue your point that McBeane has made suspect moves, but I don't sit in on the planning meetings to fully understand the motivation, nor logic behind each move.

 

What I want to do is sit back, watch my team play and hope that each time that I do, I see something that makes me want to do it again the next week.  I went to the Minnesota game and after the Charger loss, I had NO reason for optimism.  That game changed my perspective.  The Indy loss was rough, but the NE game was not the typical drubbing, so hope springs eternal tomorrow.

 

I'm just saying that the process will take years to see through if they are in fact smart.  It's not going to be a week to week thing, so I'm recommending we all settle down a bit and look for the positives and stop acting like the sky is falling.  We KNOW we're not great, so we need to stop assessing this team as though greatness is regularly attainable.