Utah John

I said before the season, and I'll say it again. It doesn't matter who plays QB if they don't fix the O line. With the exception of Peterman, who's a walking disaster. In his case it doesn't matter how good the O line is. Face it, the O line we see is the O line we're gonna have all year, unless someone gets hurt and then it will get worse. The WRs we see are the WRs we're gonna have all year, with the exception of Kelvin Benjamin who will be cut, traded (good luck with that) or IR'd for some imaginary injury. The good and also improving defense will all be back next year, except probably for Kyle Williams who at some point will hang them up. WRs are fairly easy to find and plug into the system. Interior O line players have a lot to learn but it does happen a lot that rookies come in and perform. I'm optimistic about next year. This year, let Allen play and learn as much as he can. People were suggesting trading Shady for a variety of reasons, and all we'd likely get for a 30 year old RB would be a 4th. That's what Fitz would cost. Would anyone seriously propose trading Shady for Fitz? Come on.

This season was over when Wood and Incognito both left, and the steps Beane took to replace them were too little to take seriously.

Look for Watt and Clowney to come up big. Fixed it for you, unfortunately.

He's rounding into form just as his rookie contract approaches its end. So a guy can tank it for a couple of years, then find religion and improve a lot in order to cash in on free agency.

"We attack success." You have to understand the context of the comment, but that's a guy who wants to win more than he fears losing. That attitude will actually hurt his team from time to time, but he's going to win a lot more times than that. Of course it helps to have the weapons.

The main thing to me is that Allen seems not to be letting his rookie mistakes define himself. He's not an ineffective QB who will never get better. He's a rookie QB from a second-rate college conference learning the game behind a poor O line with terrible WRs, and the Bills are 2-2 in games he's started. He isn't cocky or depressed, he's an even-keeled guy the Bills can build around. Let's go from there and see how things develop.

TD Mike fit the Bills offense when he was here. No RB in the league is going to be successful with this team, now that Wood and Incognito were replaced by Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. With the failure to repair the O line so devastating, the best thing for the Bills and McCoy now is to trade Shady to a legitimate playoff contender and give him a chance for a ring before his career ends. We should be able to get a fourth or better, and Shady is a good teammate who deserves a better last couple of years. Ivory is a much more powerful runner who can get four yards out of nothing when Shady would get stoned. With a good O line, Shady is a much better player, but that situation isn't coming back soon.

What happened with Whaley is that the Bills had a great defense under Schwartz, and were building a good offense. And then the Pegulas brought in Wrecks, NOT Whaley's idea. Whaley was building the team we needed and Wrecks ruined it. It was the amateurs Pegula bringing in a big-name, low-talent coach, and not Whaley, who destroyed what we had going.

Shady has done everything the Bills could have hoped for. There is no way the Bills make the playoffs this year, not after losing Wood and Incognito. Shady is not a power back who can move the pile -- he needs an O line to give him chances. The only problem is, optics. The Bills can't say they're trading Shady to give him a chance to play in the SB with another team, because that acknowledges the obvious, that this year's team sucks. The process is a good thing but if the whole team sees Beane throwing in the towel, the gung-ho attitude will vanish in a heartbeat. Also the Bills would get only a low round pick for an aging rent-a-RB. He might still be good but two years from now, probably not.

This is correct. If the Bills had done their jobs, the trick play would not have worked. And while we're at it, before Brett Hull scored his no-goal (which shouldn't have been allowed), a Sabre went right past him, attempting to poke check the puck away, instead of flattening Hull and ending the opportunity. And for that matter, the exhausted Sabres hadn't had a decent scoring chance since the third period, and sooner or later one of the Stars would have scored.

Need to get Shady in space. Hmmm, when did we hear that before? It was when C.J. Spiller was here, before he got hurt. Chan Gailey used to find ways to use him. Cherck the old tapes and see if any of those plays might work.

I had the same thought, but the skill set is different. What I was wondering about is whether he'd like to try fullback. Or even running back. Oh for the days of Refrigerator Perry. Unstoppable in short yardage situations. So we get Shady playing WR and a DT playing RB. Let's try Jordan Mills at LB, what could go wrong? The issue no one seems to be addressing is our bad D line. Could it possibly be at least partly due to Kyle Williams not being Kyle Williams anymore?

With our crappy O-line, this might be the only way Shady sees green grass. But if he's going to be playing a lot at WR, he's got to learn all the adjustments that WRs are expected to make depending on the defensive alignment. Shady is a smart guy but that's a whole lot of new stuff to learn while still keeping up with the game plan for the RBs.

What I remember from the snow game is relief. The Bills should have won easily but nearly handed the Colts the game. A loss there and the season would have been really over, and we'd be talking about a 20 year drought this year.

It's the same for all players and in all positions. Teams hold on to a few of the draft picks from four years ago, the ones they really want to keep. This year it looks like the keepers (past the end of the rookie contracts) will be Allen, Edmunds, and maybe Harrison. How many from the past few drafts will they want to keep? White, Milano, Dawkins...? This dismal drafting performance will be good news in a couple of years when the Bills are able to let most of their subpar players walk, if they can get good offers elsewhere, or stay for low-end veteran contracts. Teams that drafted better than Buffalo will have a much harder time keeping all their players moving off their rookie contracts. The real crunch will start when the accumulated keeper players from several drafts in a row, all get to the new contract point at the same time.

"It doesn't matter who the QB is, if they don't fix the O line." I posted that sometime during the preseason, and it's still true. Tuel wasn't that bad, it's true. He was a lot better than Peterman, but that's a very low bar. Colin Kaepernick, who is probably washed up by now, would be an upgrade over Peterman. Dan Darragh was bad but by the time he took the helm the entire team was terrible. The Bills collapsed in 1968, only two years after losing the championship to KC to play in the first SB. They drafted OJ after the 1968 season, and the Bills were so bad that OJ looked like a bust the first two years. It wasn't until Saban came back and rebuilt the O line and Joe Ferguson came in and they got Rashad that the team turned around. Darragh was part of the problem in those years but he wasn't the whole problem.

If you want a nightmare scenario, for me it's that the Pats do a Colts move, collapse in the right year, and get to draft Andrew Luck right after having Peyton Manning (in my mind, the GOAT). Luck hasn't really panned out, but he's a good franchise QB. If the Pats can draft the replacement for an aging Brady, the juggernaut could come back to life in a couple of years, and last for another decade. Let the Pats win on Sunday and five more times. Let them taste sitting home in January and not getting a top pick as compensation.

What I saw in the Minn-LA game was two outstanding QBs throwing perfect pass after perfect pass, and often beating good coverage by putting the ball exactly where it needed to be. I'll grant you there were also a lot of wide open receivers but even then the QBs hit them in stride most of the time. I would like to see the rules changed to allow defenders to make contact down field, and to do more to disrupt pass receiver routes. And for heaven's sake let defenders sack QBs without penalties. Either that or have the QBs wear flags and call them sacked if the defender can pull the flag off.

I think the Bills struck gold last year with Hyde and Poyer, and there isn't enough money on any team for a third starter-caliber/starter-pay safety. Otherwise I hope the Bills would have pursued Reid. I had forgotten about Da'Norris Searcy, who played four years for the Bills. He was a free agent this spring and settled for backup money at Carolina. Possibly he's lost a step, but the younger Searcy would have been a great pickup as a backup safety for the Bills. I am not sure that's true. I think his age and his skill set limitations are what are really working against him now. OTOH his kneeling has kept him in the public eye after he probably was washed up as a QB. The kneeling will probably provide a longer-term payoff and a social-justice cred he couldn't get if he'd waited to retire before speaking out.

I shudder to think what this guy is going to do if the Bills win the Super Bowl.

I was 12 during the 1968 season and learned some harsh realities of life. As a younger boy, I idolized Cookie and Kemp and Sestak and Shaw and Maguire and Golden Wheels and Byrd and Day and McDole and Jacobs and Stratton and Gogolak and Saban, and their success had me thinking that as a boy from Buffalo, I couldn't be stopped. We beat Boston for the East, and then we beat San Diego for the championship, and life was going to be good. Over the next few years, the team and the city collapsed. Bethlehem Steel left Lackawanna, Trico moved to Mexico, and in 1968 the team became the epitome of suckitude. They couldn't even win the OJ lottery, due to that exciting win over the Jets. But fortunately at the end of the season, Philadelphia totally screwed up and lost out on the top pick (as I recall, getting a tie in their last game, but I can't be sure) and the Bills got OJ while Philly got -- Leroy Keyes, I think. Some guy who was orders of magnitude less a player than Simpson. But in 1968 I realized that relying on a football team for my sense of self and my happiness was stupid. I had to find my own way and my own success. That was a hard lesson for a junior high kid from West Seneca, but it's a lesson everyone has to learn. How sad it must be to be a kid growing up a Patriots fan, who never has to learn that lesson until too late in life.

All those CBs were outstanding, but I think our best CB ever was Butch Byrd.

Brady has looked like he was done every September the past 3 years. Then they win the SB and he's MVP. I don't think Brady's the problem for the Pats right now.

I NEVER root for injuries. Those players are people, with families. I remember the Bills losing to the Fins 20 times in a row. 0 for the 70s. It's hard for me to root for the Fins. Before then it was the Boston Patriots and the Bills who fought it out every year for the chance to play San Diego for the championship. Then later the NE Patriots and their dominance over the Bills, who found creative ways to lose. So I hate them both but if I'm thinking the Bills have a chance for the playoffs, I'll pull for Miami now. If the Bills aren't actually contenders, my biggest fear is that NE does like Indy did after Manning, crashing at the right time and drafting Luck. It would be horrible if the Pats get Brady v2. So this means hoping the Pats win this game and 5 more, and get a mediocre draft spot.

There's no reason to think Allen won't work out as a QB, but he could be a killer TE.