John Warrow’s High Praise For Beane & McDermott Regime

[BADOLBILZ]

3 minutes ago, SoTier said:

 

This list smacks of simply repeating excuses circulated by the Bills FO to cover their collective backsides for making poor decisions. 

 

 

 

 

In fairness to John..........he's a journalist and he follows a team that has had a bad PR department and a FO that has had a bad relationship with the media for decades now................Beane is extraordinary at making people feel comfortable dealing with him and it makes it exponentially easier to sell his goods to the media.      In most business environments you are constantly fed the soft touch.   It's sales 101 and is something you learn to filter out..........but it's kinda' new for people who follow the Bills for a living though.   

 

You can see the McBeane sales job in John's framing of points.    He clearly wants to believe McDermott and Beane.   And that's fine.......we all do.........none of us are here to root against the FO.........but the question isn't whether McBeane are sincere it's whether they are actually good enough to separate the franchise from the pack of mediocre-to-bad teams that they always find themselves in over the past couple decades.    

 

Actions speak louder than the sales pitch.........as you point out later in your post, there have been lot's of mistakes and many of them are clear repeats of past failures.   If there is one thing we should know as Bills fans by now it's what DOESN'T work.    And for all the DNA talk the organization has the same record as it had after two years of re-build under Marrone and two years of re-tool under Rex.    

[BADOLBILZ]

2 hours ago, teef said:

Yet another poster that’s tons of fun. 

 

 

Man.......the passive aggressive "get off my lawn" stuff is really taking it's toll on your one-liners.  

 

 

[teef]

1 hour ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

Man.......the passive aggressive "get off my lawn" stuff is really taking it's toll on your one-liners.  

 

 

Don’t be upset because I call you out on your drama. When you decide to post like an adult, you’ll be treated like one. For now, the adults are talking.  Take a back seat. 

[Logic]

4 hours ago, Shortchaz said:

It’s the off-season, so of course the Bills are better ?.

 

not to be Debbie downer, but this is part of the pattern for NFL teams and it’s by design. The team is trying to sell tickets. Everything is going in the right direction yet we’re projected to win 6.5 games. 

 

As a fan of football it’s hard to not be excited about the unknown, but if I’ve learned anything from being a fan of the Bills, my expectations, which have historically been based on what is put forward by the front office and repeated by the press, rarely match reality when the season starts, e.g. the first two games of last season.

 

 It’s fun to talk about and excitement will continue to grow until the season, but my expectations for this season are 6.5 wins. I’ve moved to the “show me” stage of my fandom.

Any time someone starts a sentence with "Not to be a Debbie Downer", I just immediately stop reading. 

[BADOLBILZ]

14 hours ago, BillsFan4 said:

Love all the info @john wawrow. Thanks for sharing! 

 

 

I will add that it's good to see the members of the board treating @john wawrow in a more civil manner than they would have years ago.   Not that he's new but he doesn't always get as involved in discussions as this. 

 

I guess I gotta' give a tip of the cap to moderation on that.     In the Beerball days some of the circular jerkulars would have encircled a media member just to show that they don't care who he is.    We can agree to disagree on Bills matters.

48 minutes ago, teef said:

Don’t be upset because I call you out on your drama. When you decide to post like an adult, you’ll be treated like one. For now, the adults are talking.  Take a back seat. 

 

 

What are you talking about?    ( Man it's worse than I thought.)  Lighten up, Franny.

 

 

[John from Riverside]

3 hours ago, SoTier said:

 

This list smacks of simply repeating excuses circulated by the Bills FO to cover their collective backsides for making poor decisions. 

 

Don't give me this "They never anticipated losing Wood and Incognito" BS.   Yes, Wood's force retirement was an unexpected blow, but Incognito was 36 years old.   A competent FO anticipates that 36 year old OLers just might not be around too much longer ... or, heaven forbid, OLers might get injured.   Despite losing Incognito and with John Miller having struggled in 2017 and Vlad Ducasse being a career bottom-feeder OG, the Bills finally got around to drafting their one and only 2018 OLer at the end of the fifth round.

 

Technically, the Bills had Tyrod Taylor and Nathan Peterman on the payroll at the beginning of free agency, and then traded Taylor to the Browns a day after the FA began.   McCarron was signed after Taylor was traded.   If FA WRs chose to sign elsewhere because of the QB situation, that's on Beane/McDermott for choosing to have such inexperienced/incompetent (Peterman) QBs on the roster.

 

Saying that "they were committed to only spending only so much in free agency, because the objective was to free up as much room under the cap as possible" says that they -- Beane, McDermott, Pegula, all the bean-counters at OBD -- were perfectly okay with spending huge amounts of draft capital to get a first round QB but weren't really interested in seeing him succeed.  How is that significantly different from the way that the Donahoe or the Brandon/Levy/Jauron or the Brandon/Nix/ Whaley regimes operated -- exciting the fan base with individual FA signings or draft picks but never building a quality team to make those signings worthwhile?

 

As for re-signing Woods, I doubt that the Bills ever had any expectations of doing so.   Woods was simply too good to settle for whatever the Bills were willing to offer him.  The last top class WR that the Bills drafted and re-signed for the current market rate for #1 WRs was Eric Moulds.  While Lee Evans was also re-signed, he had never played as well as expected.  

 

It wasn't a case of they couldn't "afford" to re-sign Stephon Gilmore, either.  It's that they chose to not to do so because that's been the Bills practice for decades: draft first round DBs, develop them into top players, and let them walk away in FA rather than pay them.  Only first rounder Leotis McKelvin, who was never more than a competent DB, was re-signed.  Winfield, Clements, Whitner, and Gilmore all left because the Bills decided to draft their replacements rather than pay them.  

 

One of the big reasons that I'm not sold on the Beane and McDermott regime being any more successful than their predecessors is that they've done so many things the same way they've been done in the past.  They seem to be carrying on the tainted legacy of Russ Brandon of putting the making more profit ahead of winning more games.  Before he was hired by the Bills, Brandon's claim to fame was gutting the Florida Marlins the year after they won the 1997 World Series (Fire Sale ).   That shouldn't be surprising since they were both hired while he was in charge of the team, so it's likely they share his views about paying for players.  From your post, it certainly sounds that way, which to my mind doesn't bode well for building a winning franchise on their watch.   The way the entire QB situation was handled in 2018, from not providing Allen with an experienced QB coach to the get-go to keeping Peterman on the roster long after it became clear that the team wouldn't play for him to waiting a month for Anderson and to finally getting around to signing a somewhat competent backup QB only after Anderson got injured doesn't scream "this organization is going to do whatever it needs to do to win games".  It says just the opposite.

 

I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not jumping on this bandwagon until it proves itself.  I've been fooled too many times before by the Bills.

Mistakes were made.....good moves were also made.   At the end of the day it always pointed to THIS offseason (and it doesnt matter whether poster's agree if it was the only way to skin a cat or not....THIS WAS THE WAY McBEANE DECIDED TO DO IT.......win or lose....its on them and they deserved the right to do it their way because it was THEIR ASS ON THE LINE and not the armchair GM's out there.

 

So we will see.....Im feeling pretty good about it right now.

[JohnC]

1 hour ago, ScottLaw said:

I know what they did. I don't need a history lesson on what they did.

 

I've just questioned the approach that so many fans claim was the one and only and best way to go about things because Beane and company tell them so. That is all. 

Let's look at the results that you are so highly critical of. In their first year McDermott got a stripped down to make the playoffs for the first time in a generation. Are you going to complain about that? In the second year this regime in accordance with their rebuilding approach made a decision to in bulk absorb the cap so the next year it would have the flexibility to aggressively engage in the free market. That's exactly what happened this offseason.  So what is your complaint? 

 

This regime publicly and repeatedly stated what their strategy was in rebuilding the roster and cap structure. You and some others believe that they should have taken a more incremental and less disruptive approach. That's a reasonable position to take but it was an approach that this regime decided not to take. You may be disgruntled and dissatisfied with their strategy but that was the strategy that they publicly stated they were going to do, and then did it. 

 

(note: I had a problem with the highlighting function. I did not deliberately intend to highlight. )

Edited May 17, 2019 by JohnC
highlight problems

[Dr. Who]

1 hour ago, JohnC said:

Let's look at the results that you are so highly critical of. In their first year McDermott got a stripped down to make the playoffs for the first time in a generation. Are you going to complain about that? In the second year this regime in accordance with their rebuilding approach made a decision to in bulk absorb the cap so the next year it would have the flexibility to aggressively engage in the free market. That's exactly what happened this offseason.  So what is your complaint? 

 

This regime publicly and repeatedly stated what their strategy was in rebuilding the roster and cap structure. You and some others believe that they should have taken a more incremental and less disruptive approach. That's a reasonable position to take but it was an approach that this regime decided not to take. You may be disgruntled and dissatisfied with their strategy but that was the strategy that they publicly stated they were going to do, and then did it. 

 

(note: I had a problem with the highlighting function. I did not deliberately intend to highlight. )

Don't worry. ScottLaw still isn't going to hear you.

Edited May 17, 2019 by Dr. Who

[JohnC]

23 minutes ago, Dr. Who said:

Don't worry. ScottLaw still isn't going to hear you.

His problem has less to do with hearing as it does with his thinking. 

[Dr. Who]

35 minutes ago, JohnC said:

His problem has less to do with hearing as it does with his thinking. 

Some kinds of thinking lead to an inability to hear.

[LSHMEAB]

17 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

You would have spent the money, LSHMEAB? Fine, whatever. They couldn't have done that and follow their plan. Which involved getting the cap in excellent order by this year.

Yes. I would have done everything possible to retain Woods and moved some money around elsewhere. I would have kept Watkins and not acquired Kelvin Benjamin. It would have been great if they were organizationally in position to draft a QB, in which case they would have cut Tyrod making the salary cap issue ENTIRELY moot. 

 

The point of my contention is that they COULD have kept Woods and I believe the cap stuff is completely overblown. They couldn't have kept Gilmore. That I'll concede.

 

For better or worse, they made these decisions. I like many of them and question many of them. Their fate will ultimately be tied to wins and losses. I think we can all agree on that. They decided to tear the whole thing down and start from scratch. The last time we did that was back in the early 2000's with TD. It almost worked.

 

McDermott did an amazing job with a below average roster in 2017 and actually made the playoffs, albeit at 9-7 and one & done. Last season, McDermott eked 6 wins out of a TERRIBLE roster. This is the season I want to see it all come together. I'm really not down with the whole 5 year plan.

 

I'm actually higher on McDermott than most. The blowouts are alarming, but the end result has been a win total that surpassed the talent level. What I want to see now is the talent level rise to a point where surpassing expectations means 10 plus wins and not 6. They've certainly upgraded the roster, but by how much? How will these pieces fit together? That question will be answered this season and ultimately determine whether the plan is working or not.

[Gugny]

10 minutes ago, ScottLaw said:

McBeane could work out and turn the franchise into a perennial winner, but I think pumping the brakes and being critical to this point as a Bills fan(considering their dreadful last couple decades)is well warranted.... and it's not like they haven't had their ***** ups as has been pointed out(and ignored by many) on this message board.

 

So you should probably stay out of the conversation.

[Gugny]

1 minute ago, ScottLaw said:

So should you.

 

They cut EJ years ago brother.???

 

Yes.  I liked EJ.  You like no Bills.  You hate the team.  You hate the organization.  Your narrative is downright ***** tired.  If it's a shtick, then find another one.  Or go to another team's fan site.

[eball]

2 minutes ago, ScottLaw said:

The narrative right after Rex was canned by just about everyone was their was plenty of talent on the roster and they needed to invest in a franchise QB and better coaching.

 

Rex was just a fat, walking disaster here as a HC.

 

McDermott and Beane turned what could've been a ONE year reload into a 3 to 4 year rebuild that may or may not work. 

 

 

And here you are, right on cue with your 2nd tenet of TSW posting: complaining about the rebuild rather than what you wanted to see happen. Wahhhhhhh. 

[JohnC]

4 minutes ago, ScottLaw said:

They took an approach to blow up the roster and rebuild the team which may or may not work. 

 

Some here make it the gospel that this was the ONLY WAY to go about things and that a 4 year rebuild was a necessity and that the Bills have already arrived. The reality is it wasn't at all and I know you get absolutely destroyed if your critical of the new "top 5" regime, but to this point, like the regimes before them, they've been mediocre to bad.

 

McBeane could work out and turn the franchise into a perennial winner, but I think pumping the brakes and being critical to this point as a Bills fan(considering their dreadful last couple decades)is well warranted.... and it's not like they haven't had their ***** ups as has been pointed out(and ignored by many) on this message board. 

?

 

Come on John. Coming from the guy who's been preaching that the tire fire that are the Sabres should stay the course?

I'll repeat the general point I have said about McDermott and his hiring. He was hired based on how he would differently run the football operation compared to the prior Whaley regime . He presented a plan that was the antithesis of the Whaley approach and was the candidate who was hired based on that plan. Now you and some of your associates act surprised that the designed plan that he laid out prior to his hiring was actually implemented

 

Was there a different and better approach? That is a hypothetical question that can't be answered. What I can say is that in his first year with a stripped down team he made the playoffs for the first time in a generation. You might find fault with that outcome but I don't. This offseason the Bills were in a cap flexible situation that enabled them to be aggressive in the free agent market. Again, that was part of their plan regarding restructuring the team's cap structure. You may consider their endeavor a failure but I consider it a success. 

 

With respect to the hockey team you obviously were not paying attention or misunderstood what I was advocating for. I have said for a long time that there was no quick fix to the problem of the lack of talent on the roster. I have steadfastly emphasized the necessity of developing the young talent in the system and adding talent when you can. I am more optimistic than most of the hockey team's near future prospects. And by the way I thought the Krueger hire was a terrific hire. 

[LSHMEAB]

29 minutes ago, ScottLaw said:

The narrative right after Rex was canned by just about everyone was their was plenty of talent on the roster and they needed to invest in a franchise QB and better coaching.

 

Yeah. Narratives tend to change as decisions are made. THAT'S what they needed to do.

 

I would have preferred a different approach, but they've got a shot to see this through and I'm hopeful that they know what they're doing. This is the year the plan should bear fruit. I'm gonna have very little faith if 2019 is another middling year.

Edited May 17, 2019 by LSHMEAB

[Gugny]

4 minutes ago, ScottLaw said:

I was replying to John and you jumped in. If you don't like my posts put me on ignore. 

 

Seems like you are the one crying. You complain about my posts all the time but don't ignore me? 

 

There's a trend, here.

[eball]

11 minutes ago, ScottLaw said:

I was replying to John and you jumped in. If you don't like my posts put me on ignore. 

Seems like you are the one crying. You complain about my posts all the time but don't ignore me? 

 

I actually believe most people are capable of reasonable thought, so I keep giving you an opportunity. You’re testing that hypothesis. 

[BADOLBILZ]

5 hours ago, Gugny said:

 

There's a trend, here.

 

 

Is it that Jacob de Grom got shelled tonight and you had a tantrum moments later in the thread?   

[Thurman#1]

7 hours ago, LSHMEAB said:

Yes. I would have done everything possible to retain Woods and moved some money around elsewhere. I would have kept Watkins and not acquired Kelvin Benjamin. It would have been great if they were organizationally in position to draft a QB, in which case they would have cut Tyrod making the salary cap issue ENTIRELY moot. 

 

Yeah, you're wrong about that.

 

Again, they were in crappy cap shape. 

 

And if you would have kept them in crappy cap shape if you were GM, that's fine. I find it hard to care even enough to send up a short prayer you're not the GM. It's too obvious why you're not. Not acquiring Kelvin Benjamin is supposed to save us all the money to get us out of cap trouble? Um, he was on a rookie contract. He cost us a bit over $1 mill while he was here. Keeping Watkins would have cost us a ton, as would the rest of your moves. You'd have had us right back in the cap crap and unable to do with the OL what Beane has.

 

Which is fine. But it also points out why nobody's paying you to make football decisions.

 

 

 

7 hours ago, LSHMEAB said:

 

The point of my contention is that they COULD have kept Woods and I believe the cap stuff is completely overblown. They couldn't have kept Gilmore. That I'll concede.

 

For better or worse, they made these decisions. I like many of them and question many of them. Their fate will ultimately be tied to wins and losses. I think we can all agree on that. They decided to tear the whole thing down and start from scratch. The last time we did that was back in the early 2000's with TD. It almost worked.

 

McDermott did an amazing job with a below average roster in 2017 and actually made the playoffs, albeit at 9-7 and one & done. Last season, McDermott eked 6 wins out of a TERRIBLE roster. This is the season I want to see it all come together. I'm really not down with the whole 5 year plan.

 

I'm actually higher on McDermott than most. The blowouts are alarming, but the end result has been a win total that surpassed the talent level. What I want to see now is the talent level rise to a point where surpassing expectations means 10 plus wins and not 6. They've certainly upgraded the roster, but by how much? How will these pieces fit together? That question will be answered this season and ultimately determine whether the plan is working or not.

 

 

Yeah, I got your point. You're right they could have kept Woods. At the cost of being in worse cap shape. You're wrong that the cap stuff was overblown.

 

Again, Beane told the Pegulas at his interview that they were in crappy cap shape and that they were going to have to suffer, and promised that he would get them in excellent cap shape by the start of this season. The Pegulas were right with them, and it is one of the reasons they hired him. If they hadn't liked that idea, they'd have hired someone else, someone with views closer to yours. But they didn't. 

 

So you may not be down with the whole five year plan. But the Pegulas were very down with the understanding that the first two years were going to suck, and that the whole thing would take time.

[Thurman#1]

6 hours ago, ScottLaw said:

The narrative right after Rex was canned by just about everyone was their was plenty of talent on the roster and they needed to invest in a franchise QB and better coaching.

 

Rex was just a fat, walking disaster here as a HC.

 

McDermott and Beane turned what could've been a ONE year reload into a 3 to 4 year rebuild that may or may not work. 

So should you.

 

They cut EJ years ago brother.???

 

 

That may have been your narrative. It was not "just about everyone's." But it was also a lot of people's narrative as each of our coaches have gone for the last couple of decades. We're so so so very close. We don't need no stinking rebuild. Just a reload and a few tweaks. And it's been wrong every time.

 

Sure they could have reloaded. Not likely to have worked very well, though. Acting as if a reload would have been a one-year sure thing is absolutely ridiculous. We weren't all that close. And we were in horrible cap shape, which would have hamstrung any attempt at anything.

[Thurman#1]

16 hours ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

In fairness to John..........he's a journalist and he follows a team that has had a bad PR department and a FO that has had a bad relationship with the media for decades now................Beane is extraordinary at making people feel comfortable dealing with him and it makes it exponentially easier to sell his goods to the media.      In most business environments you are constantly fed the soft touch.   It's sales 101 and is something you learn to filter out..........but it's kinda' new for people who follow the Bills for a living though.   

 

You can see the McBeane sales job in John's framing of points.    He clearly wants to believe McDermott and Beane.   And that's fine.......we all do.........none of us are here to root against the FO.........but the question isn't whether McBeane are sincere it's whether they are actually good enough to separate the franchise from the pack of mediocre-to-bad teams that they always find themselves in over the past couple decades.    

 

Actions speak louder than the sales pitch.........as you point out later in your post, there have been lot's of mistakes and many of them are clear repeats of past failures.   If there is one thing we should know as Bills fans by now it's what DOESN'T work.    And for all the DNA talk the organization has the same record as it had after two years of re-build under Marrone and two years of re-tool under Rex.    

 

 

 

Puh-leeze. 

 

Like the Bills haven't been doing the exact same thing, very well, since probably the '70s when PR started to become a science? Yes, Beane is good at PR. But the Bills PR department has been good for a long time, though they had less to work with sometimes, for example in the Gregg Williams air horn days and with Rex in the prime of his ridiculousness.

 

And you're right that they have made mistakes. It's just that their good moves have greatly outnumbered them. Which is something new.

 

Oh, and that's nonsense that Marrone was a rebuild. Obvious nonsense. The rebuild came under Gailey. Marrone was reloading, as was Rex. And reloads have a massive structural advantage over rebuilds in the first couple of years. Rebuilds look terrible the first couple of years, it's the nature of the beast. Of course Rex and Marrone had better records. If that continues the next couple of years, it will indeed be a horrible sign, but so far it's S.O.P. for rebuilds. If anything they have done a ton better with Ws than rebuilds usually do.

 

Actions do indeed speak louder than words. Which is the real reason this new regime is a breath of fresh air. They're doing things the smart way, consistently. It's so different from Bills as usual. Do they still have to prove themselves? Absolutely. But a regime that understands best practices and uses them is not the usual thing for this franchise. You're dead right, though, that we'll have to see from results. But this is the most hopeful I've been since Wade.

[Phil The Thrill]

14 hours ago, Gugny said:

 

Yes.  I liked EJ.  You like no Bills.  You hate the team.  You hate the organization.  Your narrative is downright ***** tired.  If it's a shtick, then find another one.  Or go to another team's fan site.

 

Gugny is spot on here with his take on Scotty.  

13 hours ago, ScottLaw said:

I was replying to John and you jumped in. If you don't like my posts put me on ignore. 

Seems like you are the one crying. You complain about my posts all the time but don't ignore me? 

 

John schooled you by the way.  You lost the argument big time

[HappyDays]

On 5/1/2019 at 6:58 PM, ScottLaw said:

these guys didn't come in their and blow up there respective teams

 

Uh the Rams definitely blew up the team. I mean did you not pay any attention at all to what they'e done? They've been trading for players and using up cap space with reckless abandon since 2017. They're a bad example anyways because Les Snead has been the GM there since 2012 - doesn't that go completely against the narrative you're trying to prove? But since McVay took over they added Woods, Watkins, Cooks, Fowler, Peters, Talib, and Whitworth.

 

Yeah, almost exactly the same team as Jeff Fisher had. Other than the 3 new starting receivers, the new DE, the 2 new starting CBs, and the new starting LT. And a rookie QB entering his 2nd year. And going from $21 million in dead cap in 2016 to $10 million in dead cap in 2017. Does that remind you of another team Scott?

Edited May 18, 2019 by HappyDays

[JohnC]

16 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

Uh the Rams definitely blew up the team. I mean did you not pay any attention at all to what they'e done? They've been trading for players and using up cap space with reckless abandon since 2017. They're a bad example anyways because Les Snead has been the GM there since 2012 - doesn't that go completely against the narrative you're trying to prove? But since McVay took over they added Woods, Watkins, Cooks, Fowler, Peters, Talib, and Whitworth. Yeah, almost exactly the same team as Jeff Fisher had.

The Rams drafted their franchise qb a year before McVay arrived. The first priority the savant offensive-minded coach attended to is put his young qb in a position to succeed. Talent was added to the receiving corps through free agency and the draft (as you noted). And the offensive line was bolstered with two quality veteran pickups (as you noted). That upgrade in the line not only helped  protect Goff but also helped their highly drafted back, Gurley, in the running game. Or from an overview perspective the organization made it an important mission to put their qb in a position to succeed. 

 

If you look at what has transpired this offseason for the Bills the focus has followed the same Ram formula of emphasizing in putting their young qb in a position to succeed. What this regime did over the past couple of years is shed players and contracts. They were willing to accept a punishing cap hit last year to be in a position to be very active in the free agent market this offseason  And it must also be noted that in the first year under this regime it made the playoffs for the first time in a generation. Some people are bothered by the implementation of their rebuild strategy. I am not. It is not surprising that not everyone is going to agree with a particular approach to rework the roster. But what is refreshing is to see an organization that has had a sordid history acting in an ad hoc manner now acting more coherently and strategically.

[Gugny]

1 hour ago, JohnC said:

The Rams drafted their franchise qb a year before McVay arrived. The first priority the savant offensive-minded coach attended to is put his young qb in a position to succeed. Talent was added to the receiving corps through free agency and the draft (as you noted). And the offensive line was bolstered with two quality veteran pickups (as you noted). That upgrade in the line not only helped  protect Goff but also helped their highly drafted back, Gurley, in the running game. Or from an overview perspective the organization made it an important mission to put their qb in a position to succeed. 

 

If you look at what has transpired this offseason for the Bills the focus has followed the same Ram formula of emphasizing in putting their young qb in a position to succeed. What this regime did over the past couple of years is shed players and contracts. They were willing to accept a punishing cap hit last year to be in a position to be very active in the free agent market this offseason  And it must also be noted that in the first year under this regime it made the playoffs for the first time in a generation. Some people are bothered by the implementation of their rebuild strategy. I am not. It is not surprising that not everyone is going to agree with a particular approach to rework the roster. But what is refreshing is to see an organization that has had a sordid history acting in an ad hoc manner now acting more coherently and strategically.

 

This is spot on (to me, anyway).  

[LSHMEAB]

14 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

. Not acquiring Kelvin Benjamin is supposed to save us all the money to get us out of cap trouble? Um, he was on a rookie contract. He cost us a bit over $1 mill while he was here. Keeping Watkins would have cost us a ton

 

It would have basically been a wash. Watkins was on a rookie contract as well. We payed KB 8+mil last season on his fifth year option. Watkins 5th year option was 11+MIL. With the benefit of hindsight, it wasn't a smart move. I liked Watkins and never liked Benjamin. Pretty sure SW would have helped Josh quite a bit more than than KB last season, but it is what it is. Allen doesn't seem to be phased by much and GM'S can certainly recover from mistakes.

Quote

 

So you may not be down with the whole five year plan. But the Pegulas were very down with the understanding that the first two years were going to suck, and that the whole thing would take time.

I agree that the Pegula's are bought in and they'll almost certainly get a 4th year barring a disaster. 5th? No guarantee there. I think they've positioned themselves relatively well to have a breakout season in 2019. Much of it hinges on Allen. If Beane nailed that, he'll deserve all the praise that's heaped upon him. This is the season I would expect a top tier regime PRODUCE. But that's just me; a random fan on a message board. Terry and Kim have the keys to the car.

Edited May 18, 2019 by LSHMEAB

[BADOLBILZ]

14 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

 

Puh-leeze. 

 

Like the Bills haven't been doing the exact same thing, very well, since probably the '70s when PR started to become a science? Yes, Beane is good at PR. But the Bills PR department has been good for a long time, though they had less to work with sometimes, for example in the Gregg Williams air horn days and with Rex in the prime of his ridiculousness.

 

 

 

You have no idea what you are talking about......the Bills PR had been a mess forever until McDermott and Beane arrived.

 

Scott Berchtold in particular was awful and no tears were shed at his dismissal(except maybe by a couple people he was leaking info to).

 

GM's like Polian, Butler and Donahoe were anything but fan and media friendly.   Since then it's been a mixture of road scouts in charge and guys who were just doing Ralph a quick favor in the role like Russ & Marv(with an assist from Modrak in Jacksonville) and Buddy.   

 

It all came to a head when the Pegula's ended up looking utterly ridiculous around the Rex firing.

 

That's where your PR department is supposed to step in and tell the owner that you can't wait a week to even ADDRESS an in-season coaching firing and then put a road-scout GM on the podium to answer all the questions while they peer out from behind a curtain wondering how it's gonna' sound.    That's what your PR folks are paid for.  

 

McDermott and Beane deserve credit for quickly addressing the PR department.    And Beane is very much in tune with PR himself.   He's not going to get in front of a mic and say ANYTHING like the PR challenged Whaley("humans shouldn't play football") or the stand-offish Tom Donahoe or a John Butler literally telling fans to not show up to games if they don't like the product on his TV show.      

Edited May 18, 2019 by BADOLBILZ

[BADOLBILZ]

7 hours ago, Phil The Thrill said:

 

Gugny is spot on here with his take on Scotty.  

 

John schooled you by the way.  You lost the argument big time

 

 

 

Are you that "Philster" guy that used to stalk the Jills?

[K-9]

16 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

Yeah, I got your point. You're right they could have kept Woods. At the cost of being in worse cap shape. You're wrong that the cap stuff was overblown.

Two main factors contributed to not being able to retain Woods: his desire to go home and play and, more importantly, his reluctance to play another year with TT at QB. We would have had to grossly overpay just for him to consider staying. Not saying he wouldn’t have turned down an inflated offer, but it would have put us in a worse cap situation than we were already in.

Edited May 18, 2019 by K-9

[JohnC]

1 hour ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

You have no idea what you are talking about......the Bills PR had been a mess forever until McDermott and Beane arrived.

 

Scott Berchtold in particular was awful and no tears were shed at his dismissal(except maybe by a couple people he was leaking info to).

 

GM's like Polian, Butler and Donahoe were anything but fan and media friendly.   Since then it's been a mixture of road scouts in charge and guys who were just doing Ralph a quick favor in the role like Russ & Marv(with an assist from Modrak in Jacksonville) and Buddy.   

 

It all came to a head when the Pegula's ended up looking utterly ridiculous around the Rex firing.

 

That's where your PR department is supposed to step in and tell the owner that you can't wait a week to even ADDRESS an in-season coaching firing and then put a road-scout GM on the podium to answer all the questions while they peer out from behind a curtain wondering how it's gonna' sound.    That's what your PR folks are paid for.  

 

McDermott and Beane deserve credit for quickly addressing the PR department.    And Beane is very much in tune with PR himself.   He's not going to get in front of a mic and say ANYTHING like the PR challenged Whaley("humans shouldn't play football") or the stand-offish Tom Donahoe or a John Butler literally telling fans to not show up to games if they don't like the product on his TV show.      

Do you want to know what was more ridiculous than the incompetence showed trying to explain the firing of Rex? It was the owner/s hiring of Rex in the first place. It didn't take long for the predictable boondoggle to be on display for the world to see. His grotesque incompetence and tiresome clown behavior on the sidelines were no longer cute. This wasn't so much a PR catastrophe----it was a football/business catastrophe. 

 

Do you want to know when the PR department starting acting more professionally? The answer is when the football side of the operation conducted itself in a more rational and professional manner. No longer were stupid and contrived explanations made to explain the chaos in the football operation and the gross ineptitude on the field. The obvious point of demarcation of change was when this new regime took over. 

 

I agree with you that the PR department markedly improved under McBeane. That shouldn't be surprising when now only a few people were controlling the messaging that comes out of that office. And that message is easy to communicate when every one is on the same page. McDermott and then Beane were brought in to remake the organization. From top to bottom they took control and professionalized the operation. There are always some leaks in a large organization but for the most part there is a tight chain of command. My point is when your football people at the top know what they are doing then everything else follows. 

[LSHMEAB]

16 minutes ago, JohnC said:

Do you want to know what was more ridiculous than the incompetence showed trying to explain the firing of Rex? It was the owner/s hiring of Rex in the first place. It didn't take long for the predictable boondoggle to be on display for the world to see. His grotesque incompetence and tiresome clown behavior on the sidelines were no longer cute. This wasn't so much a PR catastrophe----it was a football/business catastrophe. 

The hiring was actually genius from a PR perspective. Season tix skyrocketed and the Bills were suddenly an "interesting" team. It was an awful football hire and that predictable boondoggle ensued, but it definitely worked from a bottom line perspective.

 

As you said, football disaster. Those were some talented teams.

[Nextmanup]

20 minutes ago, LSHMEAB said:

The hiring was actually genius from a PR perspective. Season tix skyrocketed and the Bills were suddenly an "interesting" team. It was an awful football hire and that predictable boondoggle ensued, but it definitely worked from a bottom line perspective.

 

As you said, football disaster. Those were some talented teams.

Football disaster, eh?  Rex won 15 games in a bit less than 2 seasons with the team.

 

McDermott?  15 wins in 2 seasons as well.

 

 

[LSHMEAB]

1 minute ago, Nextmanup said:

Football disaster, eh?  Rex won 15 games in a bit less than 2 seasons with the team.

 

McDermott?  15 wins in 2 seasons as well.

 

 

A disaster in the sense that those teams were far more talented than the teams McDermott has coached.

 

Rex turned a great defense into a below average unit. I guess you have to give him credit for his offensive hires, but he was supposed to lead the defense and he failed miserably. That 2015 offense was good enough to win 10+ games with an above average defense. The only thing that really changed between 2014 and 2015 was the defense going from Schwartz to Rex. When a DEFENSIVE HC turns a great DEFENSE into a below average one, I consider that a coaching disaster.

 

 

[HappyDays]

46 minutes ago, Nextmanup said:

Football disaster, eh?  Rex won 15 games in a bit less than 2 seasons with the team.

 

McDermott?  15 wins in 2 seasons as well.

 

McDermott and Beane came into a bad team on both sides of the ball promising to repair the salary cap and build a long term contender. It was well understood that there would be a couple painful years. Rex came in to the #2 defense and promised to improve to #1. This upcoming year is where the team really needs to show improvement.

[BADOLBILZ]

6 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

McDermott and Beane came into a bad team on both sides of the ball promising to repair the salary cap and build a long term contender. It was well understood that there would be a couple painful years. Rex came in to the #2 defense and promised to improve to #1. This upcoming year is where the team really needs to show improvement.

 

 

At the time of Rex firing in 2016 the Bills were 7th in the NFL in scoring and had accumulated the least turnovers ever thru 15 games since the AFL/NFL merger.

 

In addition to protecting the football and scoring.......they lead the NFL in BIG PLAYS created AND RUSHING for two straight years.

 

So no.........they weren't a bad team on offense.

 

They were also a talented team on defense.

 

Go back to the time of Rex firing and find ONE instance where anyone said the Bills were just a bad team on both sides of the ball.

 

The consensus was that they were underachieving..........mostly due to Rex poor stewardship and forcing his increasingly difficult to execute defense on a group that didn't fit the scheme.

 

     

[Gugny]

18 hours ago, LSHMEAB said:

The hiring was actually genius from a PR perspective. Season tix skyrocketed and the Bills were suddenly an "interesting" team. It was an awful football hire and that predictable boondoggle ensued, but it definitely worked from a bottom line perspective.

 

As you said, football disaster. Those were some talented teams.

 

At the time the Bills set a personal record for season ticket sales.  That's when I started to wonder whether the Pegulas were in this game for the right reason.  They took a winning team with a top 3 defense and dismantled it with one hire.  But, hot damn, they made them some money.

 

I'm less-skeptical now, since the hirings of Beane and McDermott (mostly Beane).  This seems to be the best, most professionally, run organization since I've been a fan.  I'm optimistic that the Pegulas learned that their primary role is to keep the checkbook open and leave the hiring and firing to the GM they put in place.

 

That's a refreshing change from RCW and the first couple years of the Pegulas' tenure.

 

Edited May 19, 2019 by Gugny

[stinky finger]

8 hours ago, Gugny said:

 

At the time the Bills set a personal record for season ticket sales.  That's when I started to wonder whether the Pegulas were in this game for the right reason.  They took a winning team with a top 3 defense and dismantled it with one hire.  But, hot damn, they made them some money.

 

I'm less-skeptical now, since the hirings of Beane and McDermott (mostly Beane).  This seems to be the best, most professionally, run organization since I've been a fan.  I'm optimistic that the Pegulas learned that their primary role is to keep the checkbook open and leave the hiring and firing to the GM they put in place.

 

That's a refreshing change from RWC and the first couple years of the Pegulas' tenure.

 

Good post!

 

Beane and McDermott offer stability that this organization has needed badly. I believe many good seasons ahead for this regime. There's a different feel to it and I like it.

 

  

[Rocket94]

14 hours ago, LSHMEAB said:

A disaster in the sense that those teams were far more talented than the teams McDermott has coached.

 

Rex turned a great defense into a below average unit. I guess you have to give him credit for his offensive hires, but he was supposed to lead the defense and he failed miserably. That 2015 offense was good enough to win 10+ games with an above average defense. The only thing that really changed between 2014 and 2015 was the defense going from Schwartz to Rex. When a DEFENSIVE HC turns a great DEFENSE into a below average one, I consider that a coaching disaster.

 

 

I wanted Schwartz as HC. I just felt a good momentum. 

[Gugny]

15 minutes ago, Rocket94 said:

I wanted Schwartz as HC. I just felt a good momentum. 

 

At the very least, pay him well (like teams do for Wade Phillips) and hire a HC who has the same defensive philosophy.  All water under the bridge, now.  But the Bills were headed in the right direction while Schwartz was DC.