Again people..... This is the first year of a REBUILD

[Augie]

I feel I’m fair and balanced, even if I lean toward to the hopeful side. How people can live their lives being miserable about something where they are no more than a spectator is beyond me. If you have no control over it, don’t let it get you too worked up. Good rule to live by. Have a life, people. 

 

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year to all the folks here. 

[greenyellowred]

3 hours ago, H2o said:

What are you talking about? 

 

About the Bills? Year one they shed the dead weight in 3 players (Watkins, Darby, and Dareus) while adding draftpicks(along with adding KB, Matthews, and Gaines). Clearly not the gutting we saw this past offseason due to letting players walk along with the untimely losses of two key starters on the OL. They then kept the rest of the team intact in 2017 and rode the wave of the inspired defensive play, along with a timely Andy Dalton TD pass, into the playoffs. It was not the overhaul you see in a rebuild like you saw in 2018 after they evaluated what they had in 2017. 2017 was e v a l and 2018 began the rebuild. 

 

The point is the Bills will dominate next year. You can expect a wining record just like the Rams did in Goff's second year. You need to lighten up and enjoy the process.

[vincec]

The Bills are AT LEAST half a dozen starters away from playoff contention and that doesn’t get fixed in one offseason. This idea that next year will be the true test makes no sense to me. I really wish they didn’t decide to start over from scratch last season, but they did. Given that it’s going to be two or three more years to rebuild the roster.

[Elite Poster]

On 12/24/2018 at 3:56 PM, JoshAllenHasBigHands said:

I guess I forgot about the year those coaches took us to the playoffs in their first season.

 

Marrone 9-7, Rex 9-7, Sean McClappy got lucky.

 

You would be a fool to think otherwise. 

[without a drought]

When was this started? 2001?

[Thurmal34]

At some point there has to be a plan that is actually stuck to, for better or worse.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

So to the folks bringing up examples of extended rebuilds that worked - reminder that unrestricted FA beginning in 1992 changed the timeline for building a team quite a bit.  The cold hard football fact is that these days, the players one drafts will either want to be paid the big bucks, or will walk to another team in 4 years.  That, plus the salary cap, means the window for building a top competitive team is small.  FA want to play for contenders.

 

For that reason, the complete "tear down and build up with our guys" has been the less successful strategy recently, than the Wade Phillips "if you have guys who can play, and your scheme can't use them, maybe your scheme is the problem" philosophy.

 

On 12/24/2018 at 7:37 PM, row_33 said:

Thats not a merry gentleman resting

 

Damn straight. 

 

This is a thread with a lot of potential for good football discussion - can the tear down, build up multi-year rebuild succeed under unlimited FA and the salary cap?  Are there examples of successful modern rebuilds that took three or more years?  And where are the Bills, compared to that?

 

I hope to hear some opinions on both sides.  If it goes back to "Is" "Is not" "yo mamma!" "No yours" it's Lockville time.  I just deleted 40 posts, and I'd rather be Merry, and Resting.

 

Merry Christmas to all, and to All a Good night!

[GreggTX]

I've been saying this for a while now, but I'm losing confidence in both Josh Allen and Edmunds. Neither of them has progressed, despite claims to the contrary. Allen has the worst accuracy of any Bills QB that I've ever seen and I've been a fan since 1960. Edmunds appears to have the necessary physical assets, but is making absolutely no progress at all. In fact, their performance levels have slightly declined since opening day.

 

On top of that, Zay Jones will probably not be a #1 or even #2 WR and Dawkins showed no improvement in his sophomore campaign. Phillips and T Johnson showed some promise, but they aren't the future of this team -- Allen and Edmunds are.

 

With Allen's problems, I think it will be difficult for the Bills to attract top tier talent this offseason. I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

 

Beane's 1st draft didn't go very well, so I have to hope he can do much better this next time around, but 2 1st round busts in 1 year doesn't give me much confidence in him.

 

Well, they'll have plenty of ammo this offseason, so let's hope they learn from their mistakes and do much better this time around.

3 hours ago, Elite Poster said:

 

Marrone 9-7, Rex 9-7, Sean McClappy got lucky.

 

You would be a fool to think otherwise. 

 

Rex 9-7???

[John from Riverside]

13 minutes ago, GreggTX said:

I've been saying this for a while now, but I'm losing confidence in both Josh Allen and Edmunds. Neither of them has progressed, despite claims to the contrary. Allen has the worst accuracy of any Bills QB that I've ever seen and I've been a fan since 1960. Edmunds appears to have the necessary physical assets, but is making absolutely no progress at all. In fact, their performance levels have slightly declined since opening day.

 

On top of that, Zay Jones will probably not be a #1 or even #2 WR and Dawkins showed no improvement in his sophomore campaign. Phillips and T Johnson showed some promise, but they aren't the future of this team -- Allen and Edmunds are.

 

With Allen's problems, I think it will be difficult for the Bills to attract top tier talent this offseason. I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

 

Beane's 1st draft didn't go very well, so I have to hope he can do much better this next time around, but 2 1st round busts in 1 year doesn't give me much confidence in him.

 

Well, they'll have plenty of ammo this offseason, so let's hope they learn from their mistakes and do much better this time around.

 

Rex 9-7???

I disagree with your opinion on this

[Hapless Bills Fan]

9 minutes ago, John from Riverside said:

I disagree with your opinion on this

 

Fair enough, why? (speaking to the "Allen has the worst accuracy" point)

 

I'm "all in" that completion percentage doesn't tell the whole story with regard to accuracy, but we've had a "goon squad" of WR before, under Chan say, so it surely reflects something.  Allen does seem to have the lowest completion percentage of any Bills starter in this century including Ryan Fitzpatrick in 2010 (not good enough at 58%) , Rob Johnson, Trent Edwards, JP Losman...I think the worst any of them came in was 55%.

[John from Riverside]

Just now, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Fair enough, why? 

 

I'm "all in" that completion percentage doesn't tell the whole story with regard to accuracy, but we've had a "goon squad" of WR before, under Chan say, so it surely reflects something.  Allen does seem to have the lowest completion percentage of any Bills starter in a long stretch including Ryan Fitzpatrick in 2010 (not good enough at 58%) , Rob Johnson, Trent Edwards, JP Losman...I think the worst any of them came in was 55%.

A couple of different reasons

 

Because in all honesty.....you watch the games and the balls SHOULD be caught......the balls are often right on receivers.....he is not throwing to them late..he is not throwing too far behind them.....they are in places where NFL receivers SHOULD make those catches......how many catches should be touchdowns this year are not to Kelvin Benjamin.......right where a NFL receiver should be able to make that play

 

Because his ball velocity is hard to handle.....and I do NOT want him to slow it down.....the ball velocity he is using is allowing him to fit the ball into tight windows...it is allowing him to put the ball anywhere on the field and have a chance to make a play after the catch it.....I want our receivers to ADJUST to him instead

 

And last but not least.....Josh Allen is a downfield thrower.....and the farther the throw...the more the percentage of catch goes down BUT  Josh has once again been putting those balls in positions where a NFL receiver should catch it.....a PLAY MAKER should catch it.   I dont care about the sun.....that was a VERY catchable ball Josh through to our speed guy on this past Sunday and if he catch that....he probably scores

[BillsFan1988]

On 12/24/2018 at 10:56 PM, JoshAllenHasBigHands said:

I guess I forgot about the year those coaches took us to the playoffs in their first season.

Mcd taking us to the playoffs last yr is equivalent to a homeless man finding a dollar playing the cash 3 winning some money and getting himself some booze, hookers and dirty hotel to sleep in. Lool. It was a fluke. The team was lucky last yr not good. 

[billsintaiwan]

We need to Vance Johnson, Ricky Nattiel, and whoever else used to catch balls from Elway out of retirement.

[Thurman#1]

On ‎12‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 6:03 AM, nuklz2594 said:

we have been rebuilding for 20 years.  

 

 

No, we have rebuilt twice in that 20 years, the Donahoe rebuild and the Nix rebuild. Both went forward without getting us a franchise QB. Both were failures, but all the other years have been reloading and reloading and "we can get there with Tyrod, we don't need to rebuild" repeated reloads.

 

We have been consistently mediocre and worse for 20 years, but it has not been a 20 year rebuild.

Edited December 26, 2018 by Thurman#1

[Thurman#1]

7 hours ago, H2o said:

What tare you talking about? 

 

About the Bills? Year one they shed the dead weight in 3 players (Watkins, Darby, and Dareus) while adding draftpicks(along with adding KB, Matthews, and Gaines). Clearly not the gutting we saw this past offseason due to letting players walk along with the untimely losses of two key starters on the OL. They then kept the rest of the team intact in 2017 and rode the wave of the inspired defensive play, along with a timely Andy Dalton TD pass, into the playoffs. It was not the overhaul you see in a rebuild like you saw in 2018 after they evaluated what they had in 2017. 2017 was e v a l and 2018 began the rebuild. 

 

 

Not buying that. It's been a rebuild since McDermott got here.

 

But not a complete rebuild, you're right in that sense. They have avoided doing that, both years.

 

But they have been rebuilding for two years. It took them two years to shed the cap problems they had but in 2017 they lost more than Watkins, Darby and Dareus.

 

Robert Woods, Stephon Gilmore, Marquise Goodwin, Zach Brown and Robey-Coleman leap to mind, on top of Dareus, Watkins and Darby. That's the start of a cap-cleaning rebuild.

[Thurman#1]

17 hours ago, The Drought said:

When is it going to be the last year of the rebuild?

 

 

It's a good question, though all you'll get are guesses, positive, negative and maybe a few more realistic ones.

 

I did some research a few years back on successful rebuilds. Plenty of rebuilds are not successful, and so far we just don't know which will be the case here. 

 

But I looked at successful rebuilds going back 30 years or so and basically found that the lion's share of successful rebuilds took four years or more. The average was around 4.3 years if I remember correctly. Very few became obviously successful in three years. Bill Walsh was one of those glorious exceptions, though, winning an SB in his third year after 2-14 and 6-10 seasons. So it is theoretically possible, but unlikely. And the ones that did become really good teams in their third year tended to have brought in their QB before their first year. 

 

I know people don't want to hear this, but even with some real improvement next year, becoming a top ten team just isn't very likely so early.

[JoshAllenHasBigHands]

1 hour ago, BillsFan1988 said:

Mcd taking us to the playoffs last yr is equivalent to a homeless man finding a dollar playing the cash 3 winning some money and getting himself some booze, hookers and dirty hotel to sleep in. Lool. It was a fluke. The team was lucky last yr not good. 

 

You’re right, the team wasn’t good. Which makes It even more impressive that he got nine wins out of them. We really are on the right track with him.

6 hours ago, Elite Poster said:

 

Marrone 9-7, Rex 9-7, Sean McClappy got lucky.

 

You would be a fool to think otherwise. 

Yeah, it wasn’t luck.

[row_33]

1 hour ago, JoshAllenHasBigHands said:

 

You’re right, the team wasn’t good. Which makes It even more impressive that he got nine wins out of them. We really are on the right track with him.

Yeah, it wasn’t luck.

 

Well.... if that’s what you consider football excellence, the best you have seen in Buffalo, I feel sorry...

 

 

[BillsFan1988]

They were saying the same thing about Adam Gase in Miami after they got the bounces and got into the playoffs in 2016. Look what thats been like the last 2 yrs. U cant consistently win with turnovers and fgs in todays NFL . Mcd is not the answer .

[JoshAllenHasBigHands]

1 hour ago, row_33 said:

 

Well.... if that’s what you consider football excellence, the best you have seen in Buffalo, I feel sorry...

 

 

 

I don’t see me saying that in any of my replies. An inability to process what you’re reading may explain why you’ve always been so out of touch. Just a thought.