Josh Allen is all that matters

[Dr. Who]

10 minutes ago, Jerome007 said:

Yes. By design. To get that elusive "franchise QB". That draft was considered the year of the QBs. Way too early to know if it was the right decision, but it was well worth the risk, and made sense. People have criticized the Bills brass, whoever it has been, for only "stocking the cupboard" but never addressing the most important position, QB. They did. What is the right move? Nobody knows yet but you can't fault them fort going all out. Next year and 2020 they have lots of draft picks and big money. This will decide what the future of the team is. That and Allen of course.

This is a credible argument if you think Allen is a rational pick (I do.) When you are arguing with a fella whose subtext is always that Allen is likely to bust, the underlying presupposition tends to color the overall assessment.

[John from Riverside]

2 hours ago, TaskersGhost said:

 

OK, to state the obvious, but again, my point being that there's no way that within a reasonable amount of time McBeane can turn this thing around.  No one could, not even Polian in his prime, it's an impossible task.  

 

The only hope that McBeane have is if Allen, remember, "their guy," whom they traded what they traded for regarless of what we call it or what label we affix to it, has to turn out to be a real ringer or they're toast.  We still won't be good for several seasons if he is, but at least they may earn some goodwill and another season or two beyond next one.  

 

One needs some vision, something that is sorely lacking in analyzing football at all levels, in order to view the current situation objectively.  In hindsight, I'd been saying for the past year trade Shady while he still had a value, on paper anyway.  Instead, we hang onto him until, predictably, we see an age-related downturn in his performance that's typical for RBs his age, in fact not only typical but likely.  Now he has no value despite what fans say or opine about.  No one's going to trade for him based upon his past performance, he's finished as a primary ball-carrier.  He'll have some future utility as a receiver out of the backfield ala Larry Centers.  

 

Some people may blame the OL for his demise, but that then doesn't explain why Ivory, also 30, has averaged nearly half-a-yard more per-carry or why Murphy, a journeyman RB is averaging nearly 2-and-a-half yards/carry better.  

 

This year's "vision" component is noticing that the core of why the defense is playing well are players on the cusp of being out of the NFL, and frankly, lucky to be playing at the levels that they are this season.  Lorax and Kyle will both be 36 next season and are living on borrowed time.  Hughes has some seasons left but is clearly in his back-9 and has only one season left on his contract.  Take them off the D this season, as it will be soon, and this D goes from average to well-below average.  

 

This team is getting worse before it gets better and 10 picks with most being on day-2 isn't going to remedy that regardless of how well they draft.  

 

 

It’s not just 10 picks

 

its 10 picks and 90 million in cap space

 

remember that this defense is pretty much set and the drafted qb is in place

[MAJBobby]

On 11/7/2018 at 12:16 PM, BuffaloBillsGospel said:

 

So far i haven't read 1 positive response from you since being on this site, not 1, are you just trolling or can you not handle sports? I'm trying to figure this out.

 

You actually need better reading comprehension then. 

[Ronin]

On 11/9/2018 at 1:04 PM, John from Riverside said:

It’s not just 10 picks

 

its 10 picks and 90 million in cap space

 

remember that this defense is pretty much set and the drafted qb is in place

 

I completely disagree.  That take demonstrates the same lack of vision that got us here. 

 

Who are our top performing defensive players? 

 

Answer:  Lorax, who's shown up now for two 1/2-seasons and is 35, Kyle, who's fortunate he's not injured and who is also 35, neither of which are long for this team.  Then Hughes who'll be 31 next season and in the last year of his contract.  

 

After that the rest of the team doesn't even have 10 sacks, only one player, Trent Murphy, has more than 1 sack with 3.  

 

I'm not really sure how that translates to being pretty much set.  Seems to me that we need to look at replacing the core of the top performing parts of the D.  

 

So I would argue that point staunchly.  As to 10 picks, who cares, all the extras are day-3 picks, and even if they could simply draft offense, they're still easily a couple of seasons away and that's assuming that they draft better than they have.  

[LSHMEAB]

On 11/9/2018 at 8:46 AM, Dr. Who said:

This is a credible argument if you think Allen is a rational pick (I do.) When you are arguing with a fella whose subtext is always that Allen is likely to bust, the underlying presupposition tends to color the overall assessment.

This is exactly correct.

 

I happen to disagree with regard to Allen, but this is the underlying subtext to many posts.

[26CornerBlitz]

 

[Rocky Landing]

Being a Bills fan is exhausting.

 

At some point, this "building a winning culture by continuing to lose" strategy has to change.

[Alphadawg7]

On 11/9/2018 at 8:27 AM, jrober38 said:

 

I don't think this makes sense. 

 

He sold off all our good players for picks, and then used those picks to overpay according to the draft value chart so that he could trade picks and move up for specific players he wanted to draft. 

 

Reality is that the Bills could have had 2 first rounders, 2 second rounders, and 3 third round picks. If we held on to each of those picks, the "farm" would be well stocked right now. We desperately need a sweeping infusion of young talent to this team and it didn't materialize. 

 

Instead, we walked away with Josh Allen, Tremaine Edmunds, and Harrison Phillips, and the Bills' "farm" of young talent is one of the worst in the league as a result. Allen is super risky, Edmunds looks great, and Phillips is just rotational depth at this point. 

 

We had an amazing opportunity to stock the cupboard, and instead we decided to go all in on two guys. 

 

Why do people still bring up this draft value chart that’s old and out dated and not remotely close to any kind of exact science?  It’s literally one coaches opinion from 90’s that media and fans now treat like gospel.  Teams trade outside of that chart every single draft.  

 

And sorry, but we got a steal being able to trade up 3 times in the first round (twice to get to 7 and once to get to 16 to get Edmunds) without giving up a single future pick. 

 

And whats all this nonsense about we traded all our talent away?  What a bunch of hypocritical BS.  For the last few years, all this board did was b*tch about Sammy, Marcel, Tyrod and Darby.  Now you guys act like we gave up some sort of SB roster.  Sammy was gonna walk for free, Darby was meh and coming off bad year, Tyrod was never taking us any further, and Marcel was a head case.  

 

We didnt trade all our talent, we got value for guys headed out the door regardless who were all underperforming here.  And none have done much since leaving here to prove it was a mistake.

 

Shocking how out of touch some people’s narrative is around here.  We finally got a young top QB prospect, we already have an good D for him, and now they will start building the offensive pieces around him with a cleared out cap and the draft the next two years.  

 

And...we made the playoffs AFTER dumping those guys.  

Edited November 21, 2018 by Alphadawg7

[Thurman#1]

On ‎11‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 1:01 AM, TaskersGhost said:

 

I'm not sure that 90M goes as far as you think it might in that regard. 

 

Either way, a wealth of NFL history suggests that it's not a team's prowess in free-agency that determines how good it is, teams must draft well in order to build their teams.  

 

McBeane swapped out the opportunity to bolster a good chunk of the team in exchange for Allen.  [Fact]  

 

What happens now will clearly hinge upon that decision.  

 

 

 

And a whole bunch of other things. It'll depend on how well all their decisions come together. It's a wildly complex system.

 

Agreed that drafting well is the most important thing. So far - leaving Allen as an unknown out of it - they appear to have drafted quite well, I think.

[Thurman#1]

On ‎11‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 1:27 AM, jrober38 said:

 

I don't think this makes sense. 

 

He sold off all our good players for picks, and then used those picks to overpay according to the draft value chart so that he could trade picks and move up for specific players he wanted to draft. 

 

Reality is that the Bills could have had 2 first rounders, 2 second rounders, and 3 third round picks. If we held on to each of those picks, the "farm" would be well stocked right now. We desperately need a sweeping infusion of young talent to this team and it didn't materialize. 

 

Instead, we walked away with Josh Allen, Tremaine Edmunds, and Harrison Phillips, and the Bills' "farm" of young talent is one of the worst in the league as a result. Allen is super risky, Edmunds looks great, and Phillips is just rotational depth at this point. 

 

We had an amazing opportunity to stock the cupboard, and instead we decided to go all in on two guys. 

 

 

Agreed that he was stretching it. But you are too. He didn't sell off all of his good players for picks. We're the #1 defense in the league for Pete's sakes, they have some talent.

 

And yeah we could have kept more picks. But coming out of that draft without a potential franchise QB would have been a massive massive mistake. And they didn't know how much it would cost to trade up for one of the top four.

 

And the Bills young talent has looked really good, actually. Just young. A ton of room for development as years pass. And guys like Milano, Taron Johnson, Wyatt Teller, Zay Jones, Dawkins, Jordan Phillips  and Tre'D who you're leaving out because they don't fit your narrative shows the weakness of your argument. Our young talent has been pretty damn good. It's not having enough older experienced talent that has held us back so far ... and that's how things generally look early in rebuilds.

 

Way too early to say this rebuild will succeed. No way to know. But they have a good young group of talent in place that has a very decent chance of growing together and being quite good, though yeah it will depend on the guys they continue to bring in and how/if this group, very much including Allen, continue to improve.

[downunderbill]

On 11/6/2018 at 4:50 AM, billsfan11 said:

Serious question and not trolling.

 

 If Dalton doesn’t complete that throw to Boyd, do you change your views on Mcd and Beane?

 

Because IMO the Bills playoffs was a complete fluke last year because of so many factors, and them making the playoffs in 2017 is irrelevant to the potential success for the future . In my opinion.

 

 

 

They won 9 games just like any of the other teams that missed out. They may have had luck on their side but they had to be in the position to take advantage of that luck in the first place.

Beane and McDermott deserve the chance to build the team they are trying to build. If they make no significant progress after next year, then make the change. A fan base that constantly calls for a new coach/GM every two years before they can even set things in place is a fan base that deserves another playoff drought.

[HOUSE]

At this point all that matters is winning football games and Matt Barkley is the best option TODAY

[26CornerBlitz]

 

[Rocky Landing]

4 minutes ago, 26CornerBlitz said:

 

Let me quote McDermott here: "... he's certainly grown during his time out."

 

This contradicts some of the sentiments expressed on this thread that Allen won't develop unless he is on the field. 

 

My concern is that he gets brought along too quickly on the field with a team with WRs that he can't trust to make plays, and an O-line that can't adequately protect him. It would be a shame to see him learning to scramble too quickly, not trust the pocket, not acquire pocket presence, not be willing to sling the ball, when the situation called for it, or turn into another Captain Checkdown.

[row_33]

7 hours ago, HOUSE said:

At this point all that matters is winning football games and Matt Barkley is the best option TODAY

 

not necessarily....

 

mostly...

 

 

[Ronin]

17 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

 

And a whole bunch of other things. It'll depend on how well all their decisions come together. It's a wildly complex system.

 

Agreed that drafting well is the most important thing. So far - leaving Allen as an unknown out of it - they appear to have drafted quite well, I think.

 

Leave Allen out of if and they essentially have nothing from their drafts on offense.  

 

Drafted OK on D, horribly on O. 

 

Defense

 

2017: 

 

1/27:  White, great pick but in a draft fairly deep with DBs, also, gotta question building the team A, defensively first in this modern era, and B,, from the secondary in as opposed to from the front-7, particularly since the only era of great Bills football was predicated upon the D starting with the front-7.  

5/163:  Milano, good pick, particularly for a 5^th, but the team needs better players than him to build a winner.  Also, very inconsistent. 

6/195:  Vallejo, not a good pick, but a 6^th so little was expected.  He’s not even with the team anymore.

 

2018: 

 

First of all keep in mind that in this past draft they originally had 9 picks with 2 each in each of the first three rounds.  Everyone’s raving about 10 picks next year but there are only one each in each of the first three rounds, three fewer than this year originally, and the other 7 are on day 3.  (see below)  So in short, this year’s draft was better  in terms of the picks, by a long shot, than next year’s, and we see what they got from this one. 

 

1/16:  Edmunds, who I was all over prior to the Draft and whom they could have had w/o trading up had they not made that enormous all-in trade to get Allen.  They should have grabbed him with the 12th and used the other 4 picks and taken Rudolph who IMO is clone of Mahomes.  Shocked that he lasted til 3.  We may never know however.  

3/96:  Phillips, an OK pick for an OK player, again, a whole team full of guys that play at his level ain’t gonna get it done. 

4/121:  Johnson, similar here.  Good pick, particularly for a 4^th rounder, but it’s not like he’s playing like 1^st or 2^nd rounder should be. 

5/154:  Neal, similar here again, particularly for a 5^th. 

 

So defensively very good but not extraordinary or anything.  Solid tho. 

 

Offense

 

Here’s where the issues lie.  They’ve been horrific. 

 

2017: 

 

2/37:  Jones, complete whiff here.  Jones is a backup caliber WR.  For an early 2nd-rounder he should be approaching 1,000 yards and 8 TDs this season regardless of the QB, particularly on a team that's bereft of any other good WRs.  He’s also succeeding this season largely in garbage time.  He’s the epitome of inconsistency and ¼ of his entire production, and half of his whopping 2 TD total, was in that weird Jets game.  Below-average player and considering that he was a mere 5 picks removed from the 1^st-round, particularly with what I thought was the obvious choice on the board with Smith-Shuster, it was a horrible pick.  He’s not even starting material, a 3^rd WR at best and on a good day. 

2/63:  Dawkins, an average player at best right now.  Not performing to 2^nd-round standards. 

5/171:  Peterman, we all know that story. 

 

2018: 

 

1/7:  Allen, supposedly a deep-arm asset but currently has the lowest YPA of any QB in the league including all the pedestrian ones.  IMO the lesson there is that the NFL isn't built around the deep game at the complete expense of the short-medium game.  Has never had a penchant for being able to manage the short-medium game which makes his prospects all the more interesting.  Either way, they went all-in on Allen considering that they turned an original 5 picks ranging from 1/12 to 3/65 into Allen and Edmunds, and when they easily could have had Edmunds for one of those picks, making Allen costing the other four in essence.  This is about all that they have to show for their offensive drafts and right now I wouldn’t bet a plug nickel on that working out favorably.   We can hope however.  And why not, that's all we ever have, is hope, usually false hope.  

5/166:  I’ve seen the highlight reels of his good blocks, but like most highlight reels, they’re highlight reels.  He’s also got some real stinker play.  Jury may be out since he’s really not played much, but that’s the best we can say right now, that the jury’s out. 

6/187:  Lucky to be on the team, likely not beyond this season. 

7/155:  Proehl, no longer on the team.  Is he even playing now? 

 

Either way, there isn't one player drafted offensively that has even come close to making an impact.  

 

Given that they need offense, and essentially all 10 other positions on offense, or at least 8 or 9 of them, I’m not sure this will be going anywhere, particularly with a bunch of day-3 picks.  Back out the day-1/2 picks and here’s what’s left from their first two drafts overall on day 3 of both Drafts: 

 

Defense:  Milano, Johnson, & Neal

Offense:  Peterman, Teller, McCloud, & Proehl 

 

Two of those seven aren't even with the team, the remaining two offensive players, one's likely not long for the team and the other's a complete jury's-out thing.  Defensively, OK but we'lll need players much better than them if we're to be a competitor in the playoffs.  

 

Still encouraged/optimistic? 

 

12 hours ago, HOUSE said:

At this point all that matters is winning football games and Matt Barkley is the best option TODAY

 

What's more important, winning a few games the remainder of this season, or winning games next season?  

 

That's what it comes down to.  

 

The more games we win now the further back we'll be drafting which will significantly impact the positions of the three picks we have next year, one each in each of the first three rounds on days 1 & 2.  

 

We win now, so what.  Who cares.  Isn't the goal to make the playoffs and be competitive in them?  We have a shot at neither barring literally a miracle.  

 

There's going to be further turmoil and upheaval if we don't at least go 8-8 next season, and the way that the offense currently is, and given that this league is dominated by offenses, it's going to be enough of an uphill battle as it is.  

Edited November 21, 2018 by TaskersGhost

[BullBuchanan]

On 11/5/2018 at 11:27 AM, 2003Contenders said:

 

I agree with you. Additionally, I would like for the Pegulas to do what they were originally reported to be doing when they took over a few years ago -- that is bring in an experienced and impartial guru as an "aid" to the existing front office. Now that the offense has completely bottomed out, someone who knows what the hell they are doing needs to come in here as an architect to help set a solid foundation.

 

What exactly would this person do day to day? If your GM can't handle whatever those responsibilities are, why are they your GM?

6 hours ago, 26CornerBlitz said:

 

What makes someone have a strong "command of the huddle" and how does that translate into winning football games? I've heard this everywhere regarding a ton of teams the last year, and virtually never before that.

[Warcodered]

3 minutes ago, BullBuchanan said:

 

What exactly would this person do day to day? If your GM can't handle whatever those responsibilities are, why are they your GM?

What makes someone have a strong "command of the huddle" and how does that translate into winning football games? I've heard this everywhere regarding a ton of teams the last year, and virtually never before that.

Getting the play/responsibilities out to the other players in a quick and clear manner I would guess?

[BullBuchanan]

1 minute ago, Warcodered said:

Getting the play/responsibilities out to the other players in a quick and clear manner I would guess?

Right, but is that really a skill? McDermott talked about NP's great command of the huddle, too. Unless your name is Billy Joe Hobert, I would expect every QB in the league to know the plays and be able to quickly call them. In my eyes it's kind of a "I thought we punted well" sort of statement about a player.

[Ronin]

13 hours ago, BullBuchanan said:

What makes someone have a strong "command of the huddle" and how does that translate into winning football games? I've heard this everywhere regarding a ton of teams the last year, and virtually never before that.

 

We're getting closer.   Before we were winning the preseason.  Now at least we're into the actual season.  

 

Maybe one of these days someone will actually have command on the field after the ball is snapped.