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Inside track on Lawrence after 2 weeks?


4merper4mer

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If the Jets get #1, they'll have to trade Darnold. But if he continues playing like he is, nobody's giving up a 2nd for him. Even if they only get a 3rd rounder for him, that pick could be used for an IOL to help Lawrence. I could see a team like the Steelers or Bucs giving a pick for Darnold to groom for a year & take over.

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On 9/24/2020 at 10:53 PM, Augie said:

 

If they could trade for a decent owner, that would be a HUGE win! Until that change happens, I don’t see much good happening. 

 

Agreed.  It starts and ends at the top.  There has to be a real commitment to winning from the ownership before a team can start to move forward.  Bills fans have seen that in spades over the last quarter century.

 

On 9/25/2020 at 8:27 AM, Rochesterfan said:

Additionally, I think it was in the Athletic- there was an excellent article about how the Jets window has been screwed up and how important that is to winning.  The critical winning windows look at Coach contract length, GM contract length, and QB Contract length.  The Bills screwed this up for years also, but the Jets have been in Hell with this the last decade.

 

You retain a GM and let them hire a coach - the GM wants to be more aggressive as his seat is getting hot, but the coach wants his own guys and QB.  They start to build, but then the GM is fired in 2 years and a new GM comes in.  Now the coach is getting on the hot seat, but the GM wants to build and therefore trades for more picks and basically sets the Coach and QB up for 1-2 bad years and then you reset the coach.  Now the new coach wants his players and the GM has wasted his safe years and you see the cycle repeat.  The Jets are still in that cycle as Gase does not seem sold on Darnold nor Bell - so Joe Douglas has to move on.  If they fire Gase and draft Lawerence/Fields - they have a chance to set up a 5 year plan where the GM, Coach, and QB all have about 4 years to make it work.

 

I believe they screw this up by retaining Gase after this year (lots of term left on his contract) and try to let him and Joe Douglas build together until the fans totally revolt (as Bills fans did with Jauron as HC).  Just my opinion, but I think the hardest thing to do is to get the Coach/GM/QB window aligned and set so that everyone has enough time to implement a plan and grow a team.

 

I disagree.   The team ownership has to have a commitment to winning, which means hiring the right GM and giving him the means to be successful.  Moreover, it's not "coach/GM/QB window" hypothesis but more commonly "GM/coach/QB window".   In either case it's just too simplistic.  Certainly the Bills are not an example of how not to manage it because their problem for most of the 2000s was the quality of their ownership (Ralph Wilson)/owner's surrogate (Russ Brandon) who were both primarily concerned with maintaining/increasing team profitability.  The current Bills regime struggled much like previous ones had while under the control of Russ Brandon acting as the owner's surrogate until 2018.

 

Russ Brandon was either the official or defacto GM for the Bills from 2006 through 2018.   Except for the Rex Ryan era (2015-2016) when new owner Terry Pegula apparently gave Ryan a blank check to hire coaches, Brandon's philosophy of putting butts in the seats and pennies in the coffers counting more than winning football games ruled the team.  Marv Levy was simply a figurehead.  Buddy Nix and Doug Whaley were glorified talent scouts.  When Brandon controlled the purse strings, the Bills head coaching hires -- except during the Ryan regime -- were either newbies (Marrone, McDermott) or retreads (Jauron, Gailey)  -- and their assistants were largely bottom tier because that was all the budgets would allow.  In the salary cap era, controlling non-player payroll is one area where NFL teams can limit costs, and that was a strategy the Bills employed under both Donahoe and Brandon throughout the 2000s.

 

I think that  Beane had more power than any previous Bills GM since Tom Donahoe because of the change in ownership from Wilson to Pegula -- including the ability to hire scouting and other support staff -- but he still had to toe the fiscal line set by Russ Brandon as head of both the Bills and Sabres.  The firing of Brandon in 2018, enabled Beane became a GM in fact, not just in title.  He reported directly to Pegula. He was able to set more realistic budgets for assistant coaches.   In 2017 and 2018, McDermott hired pretty good defensive assistants, but his offensive and special teams assistants were definitely bottom tier, likely because there wasn't enough budget to hire better ones.  Almost all of the offensive and special teams assistants except for OC Daboll, were replaced in 2019.  The 2019 coaching hires included an experienced QB coach whom both Beane and McDermott knew, Ken Dorsey, which enabled Josh Allen to start developing into a competent NFL QB.  The explosion of the Bills offense in 2020 is directly linked to better coaching in that we see crisp play with relatively few mistakes, young players contributing to the game early on because they've mastered basic pro skills, etc.

 

Moreover, finding a QB isn't enough.   Beane, McDermott, et al have also supplied Allen with the talent he needs to be successful -- and with defensive talent to enable the Bills to win football games with regularity.   For the first time in the 2000s, the Bills have re-signed most of their "homegrown" talent like White, Dawkins, and Milano instead of letting them walk away in FA and using the draft to fill holes.   They've added reasonably priced second and third tier FA vets, and then they traded for a bonafide top NFL WR. 

 

I think that the Pegulas have figured out that they've got a good GM and a good HC and are letting them run the football team without worrying too much how much profit they make.   Winning is priceless.

 

On 9/25/2020 at 9:18 AM, HOUSE said:

Well well a draft thread in September....

 

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Yes it is because the Bills aren't in the discussion!

 

 

 

 

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