thurst44

Ryan Davis has been a solid performer in the league, or at the least a great depth player. He had 10 sacks over 2014-15. That said, I'd rather not trade Hughes.

They also were mostly not running or throwing towards him when he was in the game, as far as I could see, and mostly he appeared to be dropping into coverage (and for what it's worth, they weren't picking on him). There was one 20 yard (or so) pass thrown over his coverage, and he had the nifty stop behind the line on a run on 4th & inches. I'm curious to hear what Cover1 and the people who analyze the film say. Interesting thing to keep in mind: the last drive (where the Eagles scored), he was not on the field and it was one of the few changes from the earlier drives.

Wow, a player says nice things about our team and we mock him and tear him apart. I know it's been a rough 17 years (been a fan through both the championships and this drought), and a weird week between the trades and the ugly pre-season game, but this may not be as bad a team as we are saying. I understand negativity with this team, but maybe we can be a bit less toxic in our negativity.

Is a player allowed a bad pre-season game? He actually was playing well at the end of last season. Not saying he should not be criticized, just that maybe we should not be so rash to run a guy out of town who has played as well as any QB we've had since Kelly, save maybe Flutie (admittedly this is a low bar). He played horribly last night, even on the rare plays where he had time, and it should be concerning, but let's see what the next nine days can do about that (and the atrociousness of the pass protection).

This is a fantasy football guy with no apparent ties to the Bills inside thought that I can see. He even says "I expect..." Why are we all acting as if this is gospel as to the thought processes of the Bills? This would not be in line with the trades of last week as those were not tanking moves since there were good players coming back. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but this seems like shellshocked Bills fans (and I'm seeing this on FB too) treating an opinion as fact after a rough, ugly pre-season game.

I've been a Seantrel Henderson advocate (and he deserves better than his treatment of the league), but he may have played himself right off the team last night. It felt like he was getting blown up (or penalized) on more than half the plays. Everyone who played RT didn't look much better either. Run blocking was its usual above average, but pass protection was an absolute disaster. Cordy Glenn can't come back fast enough. I'm also definitely a fan of Tyrod and feel he's done way more than a lot of people recognize, but last night's performance was an abject disaster. Even though he was running for his life, when he did have time he missed receivers, sometimes by an absurd length. The defense, on the other hand, deserves accolades galore. Lorax was everywhere, as is his style, running down people from behind, stripping out the football. Can't say a bad thing about the defensive line. I penciled in Poyer as the potential TBD whipping boy of this defense, but he played well against the run, pass, and had his name called on a bunch of plays. Credit to Ragland (who was stuck going out into coverage on so many plays and was beat at least once) on a nifty stop behind the line on 4th & inches -- also noticed he was out there on ST, which many have noted that his lack of ST play as a reason he will be shipped or cut. What is it with the Bills and penalties? Through roster and coach turnover, they seem to continually have this same problem despite all logic. Hopefully, McD has a plan and similar to the practice of the other day, he's trying to get the passion out then rein in the sloppiness, but man that was hard to watch last night.

The Bills were playing strong football at that point of the season, and if you want to wholly dismiss Brissett, look at what he did to playoff-bound Houston the week before. No one is saying that teams with great cultures don't lose games, even to lesser teams.

Ok, I'm a big fan of Watkins (and vocally advocated drafting both he and Darby before the Bills even had them), but they didn't just get draft picks in these trades. Essentially, they got two guys of approximate same age and experience who have accomplished similar results in the league, and now have as many as seven picks next year in the first 100 in what some have contended to be the best draft class in years. Are the ceilings of Watkins and Darby higher than Matthews and Gaines? Almost certainly. That's the chance you take in a trade like this. Could it blow up in the Bills' faces? yes, I agree. If they win at least 9 games this year (which is way more possible than people on this board think, IMO) and acquire good players with the picks, then I don't care what Watkins and Darby do. In fact, I like both players, so I wish them well. Maybe it's not visionary, but it's definitely intriguing, and feels like the sort of trade the Pats would have made.

(1) No injuries (2) Tyrod driving the offense down the field with ease on at least one drive. (3) Reggie Ragland playing like he did most of the last game (once he got going) and hopefully dispelling these rumors of his Bills demise (4) A couple dominant stops (3-and-out or close) from starting D (5) A sack from Shaq Lawson would be fun to see

I had a dream a couple nights ago that I missed the Super Bowl and it was Bills-Cardinals, so I'll go with that one.

Let's say it's 23 tds to 7 ints with 600 rushing yards (and 7 tds) and a 105.0 qb rating? That would be an extension of his final five games into a full season. It's not spectacular, but he would be one of the highest rated qbs (for what that's worth), and if the offense is playing well (we made the playoffs and even won a game in the original proposed scenario), why would you want to change it for a shot at a rookie qb who based on recent high picks will likely not be any better, would more likely be worse, and would probably set us back? Why not use the bevy of picks to continue to bulk up the team? Bill Barnwell is right: criminally underrated.

He played mostly in the third quarter. From some of the McD comments, I suspect the coach was trying to build up his confidence as he comes back from injury and learns a new system. We gave up 90 yards rushing in the game. How is that getting "gashed"? That would have been good for 6th in the league last year over 16 games. They had 3.1 ypc if my calculations are correct. Are you just basing it on that one edge run where RR took a bad angle? Dude's allowed one bad angle in the first pre-season game of his career. Man, when we have the knives out for a player, we're kind of relentless.

Um, did BronxBomber write a title then forget about it and write a completely different post. I was excited by what I thought the premise of this post would be: predict the BN headlines for the day after game 16. However, it's a praise Matthews post -- not a particularly bad one and reasonably argued (although i'm guessing against the standards of a new post). My thoughts are that Matthews might only get 600-700 yards, but still be very useful based on the offense we are going to be running. That said, I'm posting based on what I thought this was about. 1-1-2018 Headline: "Bills Fall To Dolphins in Meaningless Game As Most Starters Rest For Playoffs" Less Optimistic: "Bills Rout Miami To Climb To .500 As Countdown To The Draft Begins"

Can we please, please, please stop this revisionism. Maybe you have a point against Ragland, but this one is not it. He was not simply a Rex guy, nor was he even anything remotely resembling a stretch. Maybe it's not you, but someone here has repeatedly talked about him as a 6th round talent. For crying out loud, there was not ONE mock draft that I saw that did not have him in the first round. http://www.nfl.com/draft/2016/profiles/reggie-ragland http://walterfootball.com/scoutingreport2016rragland.php https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/draft-pff-scouting-report-reggie-ragland-lb-alabama http://draftwire.usatoday.com/2015/12/30/everything-you-need-to-know-about-2016-nfl-draft-prospect-reggie-ragland/ Those were the first 4 scouting profiles that came up, pulling out a Buffalo blogger as that could be biased knowing he was a likely pick for us, and the worst one of the bunch points out in the first couple sentences that he could play in both the 4-3 and the 3-4. He might not make it (look at Aaron Curry for a higher pick LB who couldn't miss and did zero), and while it's unlikely, weird things are afoot and he may be a surprise cut. However, your repeated argument is just plainly not true.

Seymour has played solid football for a rookie, Shareece Wright and Leonard Johnson are actually very respected veterans, and the cornerbacks played pretty outstanding last year. EJ Gaines has played two decent years. At safety, I agree it's a concern, but Rambo played that part quite effectively a couple years ago. If Hyde gets hurt and/or Poyer bombs, maybe one of the unknowns pops up. As for LBs, I'm concerned, but were you concerned when Zach Brown and Lorenzo Alexander were going to be starters? Preston Brown has been stepping up like his rookie season, Humber seems to be playing well. Hodges has played quite well in his career (83 tackles, 3 sacks, 2 ints last year) and I'm sorry but I'm not yet giving up on Reggie Ragland yet. He had a much better pre-season game than people are giving him credit for (or at least less bad), and contrary to some people's revisionist opinions, he was highly regarded and more than just someone "Rex wanted." Sure, a lot of things need to go right to be a great team, but it would take a lot more to go wrong to be historically terrible, and I still am a bit baffled as to a 5-11 ceiling. Side note: before we decide who is a "starting caliber" LB (and without even getting into the tale of the Lorax that's only one year old), let's consider this character study. Let's say you just signed a LB who in his first five seasons had 3 sacks and averaged roughly 20 tackles per year...would you be happy about acquiring him? What if you were told you were picking up James Harrison going into his prime? Ok, it's an extreme example, but LBs with seemingly light resumes having solid or even Pro Bowl seasons isn't that rare. Heck, it happened on the Bills (you could argue twice) just last year.

Let's keep in mind that last year, Watkins had fewer than 500 yards and Darby was lit up like a torch. I really, truly liked the players and it pains me to see them go, but I don't see this as that impactful on this season as people think.

Really? Why particularly this year?! LeSean McCoy's still there and has better blockers. The Bills were the #7 points-scoring offense last year with WRs getting hurt every week (and Watkins mostly not playing)? There's a good chance this defense is better with a healthy Lawson and Dareus and McD/Frazier taking over from the Ryan Family Circus. I can see expecting a 7-9 or 6-10 season, but why would you feel this team is historically bad when it's not much different than last year's, except maybe better (or at least more sane) coaching?!

Do I "like" the moves? No. I can't stand them. I have a Watkins jersey and still feel like when he gets it all going in the right direction, he'll be a top 5 receiver (possibly THE best). I was rooting for Darby to be the pick in 2015 before the draft. Do I believe they are trades that make the Bills better overall? Absolutely...or, well, probably, anyway. The players have huge upside and have shown flashes, but the way the team is made up (especially with the focus on the run game), it doesn't put as much of a dent in the team (Darby may just go the way of Kiko & the Byrd) as people may think for the 2017 season. Plus now they have an insane haul of draft picks. If Tyrod collapses, they can target a future stud QB (although not rooting for that as qbs are such a crapshoot). If he improves his throws up the middle (looked pretty solid at that yesterday...granted most of those were to our former WR) and has a top season, well then we have a good problem to have and hopefully are stocking up with the bevy of picks. Frankly it seemed bemusingly Belichick-ian (surprising people traded, draft pick stockpile, team still at relatively similar position for next season. So, which way should I vote?

I'm sure the convo has gone way beyond this here, but as much as I don't like these moves on first glance (i'm a huge fan of watkins and his was my first jersey after adamantly not getting one for roughly 40 years of my life), it actually feels more Belicheck-ian than tanking. If you start seeing Dareus, Shady, and others on the block, they're tanking. If they were tanking, they wouldn't then acquire a guy who is at the same point in his career with more yards in said person's NFL career.

I don't even know what to say. Finally broke down and bought a jersey with Watkins. These moves are not the end of the world, nor do they seem totally blind, but gotta say I'm pretty attached to Sammy, plus it will be extra painful if he does follow the stat/career arc of Julio Jones...

When we doubt Jonathan Williams, remember Gillislee didn't do much his rookie season either -- in fact, they had the exact same ypc average. I love MG and would rather the Pats not have signed him, but he filled in marvelously when Karlos Williams seemed like a loss, and JWill could very well thrive behind Shady and a line that was one of the best run blocking units in the league and could be even better with the additions of DiMarco and Dawkins (and/or a healthy Cujo or Henderson). I've definitely been wrong before, but I highly doubt that the loss of a backup running back will be the difference during the season.

I'd say I'm mildly optimistic, but don't really fit your metric. I'd say playoffs are a decent possibility as is a bit of a mess to sort out. It looks like a tough schedule, but as we saw last year, that can be an illusion. There's a lot of talent and intriguing possibilities throughout the roster -- really only place I have a hard time seeing a clear path for success is the secondary (which may be the worst place to have holes in a passing-dominant league). If Dawkins and Zay start strong, Watkins and Shady stay healthy, and Tyrod builds on how he was playing in his final 5 starts, this could be a hard offense to stop. Also, as long as players remain healthy, and play at-or-near their potential, I have far fewer worries than most about the front seven. We may be underestimating the impact of our top three picks from last year. While this feels like a .500 to slightly above .500 team with promise, I can see a 14-2 shocker breakout season (see Falcons, Panthers) more than I could see a 2-14 disaster.

Or a tackle whose estranged father was a Hall of Fame basketball player since Demetress Bell

Marcus Sayles kinda fascinates me. Beyond having a very odd knack for blocking kicks, he did run a fast 40 and had a lot of interceptions, albeit at a DII school.

First off, stop labeling people who have watched games and come to a different conclusion as you about a QB with 47 tds and 15 turnovers in first two seasons as a starter "fanboys." (i wouldn't call you a tyrod "hater"). Second, it's funny how when I talk to fans of other teams, I so often hear "you've got a good quarterback there" and most are shocked that so many Bills fans want him gone. Why don't we see how it plays out and root for whoever is at qb to have a great season.