Ronin

Don't be retarded. So what you're saying then is that if Taylor regresses this season, let's say he pulls an RGIII, that this team would draft a QB in next year's draft? Please say no, that's not what you're saying and prevent yourself from coming across that way. We'll see, I trust nothing from the rumor mill involving OBD, that crap's been wrong far more than it's ever been right. Let's see, but for a team low on quality WRs that couldn't afford a decent WR for a million or two tops, to think that they just got Taylor to sign for a significantly low commitment would render Taylor a fool. Taylor hasn't earned a franchise QB contract, but he's worth more than getting nothing significant guaranteed and a contract in which the team can cut him w/o consequence after this or even next season. We'll see, but I'll bet your wrong on this as you usually are.

LOL Alright wise guy!

The thing is that we should know after this season whether he's worth keeping around or not. If not, this still sounds like it's going to hamstring us for at least two more seasons. Seriously? You went here? This just in, 3,000 yards & 20 TDs when Kelly did it meant a whole lot more. Back then 30 TDs in a season was a whole lot. Now it's 40 or more.

I hear ya, but very respectfully, that's nonsense. On a normal team, yes, likely, but not here. Whaley's fully on record as owning the Manuel draft pick and there hasn't been one consequence. Trading away an additional 1st-rounder and 4th too for Watkins despite Watkins' inability to stay healthy has also had no consequence. So far he still have plenty of defenders and apologists after this year's draft debacle with Lawson. The guy has more lives than Morris the Cat. This team under Wilson and no less under Pegula is more concerned about hiring people that it likes for the top spots in the administration than it is about hiring effective or competent people. I don't see that changing under Pegula, if anything it seems to have gotten worse.

It's a HUGE gamble. If Tyrod slips this season ala RGIII, a very distinct possibility, then it will mean that we won't draft a QB in a draft that should have several good ones again. I don't have an expectation here as to Taylor, I can see him really stepping up, staying about the same, or busting out. It will be interesting. If he doesn't earn this extension though I fail to see how Pegula can keep Whaley around if he wants to have any respect at all in league circles. Of course if Taylor really steps it up then all involved will look good obviously.

Does this cast in the FO strike you as having learned anything from anyone?

That should be the subtitle/motto to TSW right there.

Take Brady away from the Pats since 2001 and you can subtract 4 wins every season. Easily. Belicheat's defenses in NE have simply not been that good. They're overrated because in many games their opponents were forced to throw in the 2nd halves of games, something that fed right into helping NE, but that was Brady's offense putting up 20-some points in the 1st halves and threatening to score on every drive. No one fears NE's defenses anymore. No one.

Assuming that these guys are smarter than all fans is a mistake. The problem with fans is that most run purely on opinions and buzzwords relegating facts, data, analysis, trends, patterns, etc. to the trash bin. Some of them definitely don't possess common sense. That makes sense to a degree, but still, who's going to play the wides? Woods is not a great candidate for that. That's the question that no one in the thread will answer, and for good reason, it was a deliberately overlooked area of need in the offseason. We couldn't spend a relative pittance on Hogan who at least would have brought back some continuity, so now we're left with our pants down in terms of options. This of course also assumes that Sammy's going to be fine injury wise. That's a horrible wager to undertake. This entire discussion is going to be a "sounds good on paper thing." The bottom line is that you need talent at positions, including WR. We have marginal talent on a good day after Watkins. Our genius GM yielded entirely to our all-talk coach that's obsessed with defense in the Draft and otherwise dropped the ball (PI) bigtime in the offseason at WR. I know I know, we didn't have the cap. Whose fault is that. Once again, the revolving door comes back around to kick our GM in the ass despite that a minority sees it that way. Last season we had the 28th ranked passing offense. I don't see that improving. If Sammy's injury woes continue, in one form or another, I think we're looking, easily, at 32nd this season. The question will then become how good the D and running game will be. The D isn't looking even average right now or likely to even hit the 15th ranking that Ryan got from it last season. The running game is going to have trouble without a decent passing game. Add it all up ... Of course during and after the season the crocodile tears express is going to be crooning for Whaley & Ryan because of injuries, as if we're the only team with significant injury issues. Last season the Panthers lost Kelvin Benjamin (another topic altogether) and still went to the SB. So that's it then in your world, Sammy's going to do the work of 3 WRs?

OK, we'll bite, then where does Woods, who's a classic slot receiver, play? Who plays the splits? What, Listenbee, Goodwin, Lewis? 2 Slot WRs and no wides. I'm curious as to your take there.

A somewhat subjective question, however, here are some facts to consider prior to determining one's answer/thought in the matter: Brady was a 6th round draft selection. Belicheat did not put in Brady over Bledsoe by choice. The implication here is that he didn't see anything particular in Brady. Belicheat was 5-13 with the Pats while Bledsoe was under center. He's been 15-19 with anyone but Brady under center there and no playoff appearances. Some say that he made this argument obsolete by going 10-6 in 2008 with Cassel under center. But consider, the Pats beat no team of consequence in the regular season that year, (my opinion), missed the playoffs (fact), and had the easiest schedule in the league that year. (fact) With Cleveland Belicheat was 36-44 with only one Jauron-like playoff appearance, and frankly, with a performance there a carbon copy of Jauron's 35-45 in his five seasons in Chicago. In Cleveland, with Testeverde as his starter for 3 of the 5 seasons there, the most he could get from Testeverde was a below average 17 TDs/10 INTs, worse in the other two seasons, despite having top receiving talent in Michael Jackson, Keenan McCardell, Andre Rison, and one of the best receiving backs in the league at the time in Ernest Byner. The very next season in Baltimore, Ted Marchibroda, whose head coaching record in the '90s was horrendous, got 33 TDs/19 INTs from Testverde with similar talent. Two seasons later on the Jets, under Parcells, whom many claim Belicheat is better than, Testerverde had his best season ever with comparable talent and posted 29 TDs/7 INTs with Testeverde at the age of 35. Belicheat is supposed to be a defensive guru, and there's no mistaking it, he was as a DC. But as a head coach it can easily be argued that he's uncerachieved with the talent he's had. When he had top-notch defensive talent in the early aught years his defenses ranked 17th, 6th, 17th, 1st, 2nd, 17th, 2nd, and 4th in scoring and 20th, 24th, 23rd, 7th, 9th, 26th, 6th, and 4th in yardage thru 2007. Since 2008 his defenses have ranked 8th, 5th, 8th, 15th, 9th, 10, 8th, and 10th in scoring D, and 10th, 11th, 25th, 31st, 25th, 26th, 13th, 9th in yardage. For comparison purposes, Parcells' Ds in NY ranked 16th, 8th, 5th, 2nd, 13th, 9th, 2nd, 1st in scoring, and 5th, 11th, 2nd, 2nd, 7th, 11th, 5th, 2nd in yardage. With a fraction of the talent that Belicheat has had recently, Parcells in NE had his Ds perform about the same as Belicheat's have over the last five seasons. Belicheat and his Pats have, verifiably, been in the easiest division in football hands-down during the Brady era. Not only has there not been a bona fide decent QB on any of the other three teams, playoff appearances by them have been rare and short-lived. The Bills have not made the playoffs during the Brady era. The Jets have made it 6 times on notably lesser talent and with QBs Testeverde at the age of 38, Pennington, and Mark Sanchez twice. The Jets are 6-6 in the playoffs during that interval. The Fins have made the playoffs twice during that time span with Fiedler and Pennington and are 0-2 in the playoffs during the Brady era. It should be noted that the Pennington-led offense without any notable WRs whatsoever, comparable to what we are w/o Watkins now, won the division in 2008 over a Cassel-led Pats despite the Pats having had the easiest schedule in the entire league that season. Those are the facts with the couple of noted opinions. Having three QB-less teams in your division that typically wouldn't have a shot at the playoffs even if they were in any other division doesn't hurt either. No one seems to ever factor that in. How would the Saints be perceived if they had been in our division since 2001? Or the Ravens, or any other number of fairly decent yet not "Pats-like" teams during that era? How would the Pats have fared in a tougher division, say the NFCN for example during the Brady era? How do you know this about Brady? What's Belicheat's track record with other QBs? HINT: The short answer is subpar What's your basis for those comments on the D? Pure opinion? Agree, and Levy was sorely outcoached in that game as well as in the other three SBs. Nevertheless, look at the talent that Belicheat had? He had four of his defensive starters make the Pro Bowl. LT alone is enough to swing games. It's a difficult argument to suggest that he overachieved with that unit and collection of talent in the same manner that it's a difficult argument to suggest the Ryan overachieved in Baltimore and Ray Lewis and Ed Reed among many other exceptional defenders on a similar unit.

Or not getting a decent starting WR given Watkins propensity to be hurt, or addressing the right side of the OL given the circumstances there. Glad he gave the keys to the family sedan to someone off to blow four months salary in the candy shop of his choice. Real leadership on Whaley's part. Yet, many here continue to support him and claim he's doing a great job. The man's a buffoon, an ignoramus. A cat with 9 lives. BTW, uticaclub, .... great name!

Who's Taylor going to throw to this year? I'd love to see a breakdown by player how you think his passes in quantities will be distributed. ... when you have a moment. Shoot me a PM to let me know you've done that, I'm highly intrigued. Anyone going to cry over that if we can't post a winning season?

Not only that, going into the draft you have one decent WR that's A, injury prone, and B, currently nursing a serious foot injury. Absolutely nowhere did I read in our list of draft needs a WR. Who in their right mind looked at the rest of the WR roster and decided that WR wasn't even a secondary much less a primary need? Who did that? It should have been at the top of the list. The reason why it wasn't is because we have Roman, a second-rate OC that's stuck in the '90s with his offenses. He hasn't produced a top-10 offense yet as an OC. On top of that, you know that the D isn't going to carry the team, largely because Ryan took a top-5 D and had it play below average, to start. You know that the performance of the team this season is going to come down to offense and largely dependent upon Taylor's development. So you do everything you can to assist Taylor in achieving that, right? Right? WRONG! Not our team. Not Whaley & Ryan. No, they decide that an injury-prone WR that can't be relied upon to stay healthy and then a cast that makes the Browns' WRs look like Jefferson, Joiner, & Winslow in Air Coryell in their heyday is adequate. Naturally Clay's "going to have a bigger role." Yawn! Wake me when that happens. People that are astute see clearly what's going on here. There is absolutely no vision or no master plan, every offseason it's shoot from the hip and react, not be proactive. Manuel, Watkins, and now Shaq, the three players taken with Whaley's 1st-rounders are a bust, unreliable, and a complete unknown on top of possibly being unreliable. That alone should be enough to condemn Whaley. Especially this year's smarter-by-half approach to drafting Shaq. We knew better except we didn't. That should have a price. In Pegula world it won't.

Say what? Our top 5 WRs were Watkins, Woods, Hogan, Harvin, and Easeley. Harvin was signed exactly for the reasons that fridge cites, a lack of planning and vision on Whaley's part. It's been a perpetual theme since he's been in charge. They couldn't sign a low-priced WR like Hogan, so now we have no depth. Right, got it. Watkins always has injury issues and this season is no exception. But any fool knows that you don't go and trade away next year's 1st-rounder for a WR of all positions. That doesn't even address the 4th thrown in too. Woods started 9 games and played in 14, we were 6-8 in those games, meaning we won the two he didn't play in. Maybe he's just not that good. Harvin also had an extensive injury history. That was known. Then you dig to Easeley, the kind of WR that can be found on waivers any day of the week. Taylor played in 14 games. You make it sound as if he went out in week 4 and stayed out. McCoy was available for 12 games and we were 3-1 in the games he missed. Starting TE was Clay and he wasn't anything of consequence such that it was like losing Gronk. We were 2-1 w/o Clay. Those are pertinent facts. You may want to reformulate your argument. Also, every team loses players to injury, it's an expected part of the game. Whaley apologists talk as if we're the only team affected by injuries. If anything, without our top playmakers we performed better? ... or at least won more games? How can that possibly be? Figure that out, then apply that line of thinking to the argument in generaly. How about strength-of-schedule, or in our case weakness-of-schedule. Does that factor in anywhere in your analysis? If not, it should, and you'll see this season why it should.

It should have been questioned before the ink had dried. Manuel, 2 1st's and a 4th for Watkins, Shaq Lawson's situation which was entirely predictable except to Whaley apologists. But wait, Pegula only gave it to him so that he could fire him and Ryan while on the same timeline. Who actually believes this nonsense. That GM effectiveness exercise that Pro Football Weekly did revealed Whaley as the worst GM in modern Bills history, using the criteria that they laid out which was sound. Which of Whaley's 9 lives is he currently on.

OR, it's called discussion. In one camp we have a whole group of people defending the team's leadership starting with Whaley. They insist what's always the "sunshine, rainbows, and lollipops" angle to everything. Again, two days ago many here insisted, not guessed, but insisted and chided those thinking otherwise as "chicken littles" etc., that Ragland's status would be an F5. Well, that turned out to be cataclysmically wrong. The pschological case study here is the one involving as the control group those that think that Whaley's doing a good job while acknowledging all of our woes but merely chalking them up to bad luck. It's petty and childish for people to suggest that other fans actually relish and enjoy injuries. It's kind of like a parent, except different, watching your team make strategic errors time after time while having to sit by idly and "let them learn," espeically when those "kids of yours" are exorbitantly paid "professionals." It's even more frustrating and aggravating to hear people applaud them when you know that they're destroying that that they've been entrusted with. Adding insult to injury of course are the mindless minions of those doing that supporting that with whom apparently the futility of this organization over the last two decades has gone, apparently, unnoticed.

Yeah, pretty much. Largely thanks to a GM that shouldn't even be here anymore. it's unfortunate, because the major mistakes that this team makes are typically trivial ones and very easily avoidable. Good post!

Uhhh, OK, I still don't see anything "prolific" in the parts that you bolded. Simply having an All-American season is hardly being prolific. Otherwise, you can ignore "only 10%" of whatever, but that's a pretty huge thing to be ignoring. The rest is just a whole lot of he doesn't suck. An argument can be made that he's prolific as a run defender, but when you factor in another part that I bolded ... ... that certainly creates some doubt as to how much of his performance was exclusively him vice his overall defensive unit, which was more prolific than he was as college defenses go, and suggests that you at least have to factor that in. Like I said, good GMs factor that in, ours leans the opposite direction. Either way, I think we can easily agree that he's clearly not prolific as a pass-rusher and the schtick there isn't even necessarily projected as above average for an NFL starting DE. So I suppose that the definition of prolific varies from yours to mine or otherwise, but the point was that after he comes back from surgery, he's not going to have improved any of those things, plus, he'll have recover to concern himself with as well, and shoulder, not knee, which is far more complex and likely to have to have revision surgeries of one kind or another to boot not to mention more likely to not be closer to 100%. He's no shoe-in. Also, think about it, every draft everyone thinks that all the first rounders are going to shine, for whichever team, when around half are always busts, and of the remaining ones, they play to varying levels otherwise rendering the odds of any given 1st-round draftee becoming what the team expected at the time of the draft as being significantly less than 50%. Suggesting that we're somehow exempt from that makes no sense, you know that. So that's my point, the odds of either Ragland or Shaq turning out to be this force that we're all hoping is significantly less than 50%, the chance that both of them turn out that way is significantly less than 25%, based on proven NFL Draft post-mortems, i.e. statistically supported. When you factor in the issues that our team has had in drafting players, for sure no beneift of the doubt can be given them. I mean look at this draft, the whole world knew that Shaq was damaged goods, but not us, we know better than the slew of the rest and were going to show them all wrong. Well, the ones with egg on their faces is our FO and Ryan. This is what happens when they try to be smarter-by-half. It usually comes back to kick you in the ass. No matter how you slice it, Shaq has never been considered a prolific pass rusher. Slide it up to the NFL level and that's hardly going to improve. Hardly Nice tangent however. What I'm doing is placing credibility or lack thereof, onto certain posters or general categories of posters, who continue to blather out anything that they want as if this is the Oprah show, just believe whatever you want and your dreams will come true, all while defending what outside of Buffalo circles, and only subsets therein, has become entirely indefensible.

I don't think so. As a DE if he were prolific he'd have been a guaranteed top-10 selection. I'll throw in some statements from three high-profile draft sites, nfl.com, cbssports, and PFF. CBS Sports is down, but you wont' find anything there either. Do those sound "prolific" to you? They don't to me. As with Alabama, which is whey few of their drafted LBs ever live up to expectation, the talent levels at Clemson too are so overmatched with their opponents in college on the team level that the individuals always look better than they are. A good GM would compensate for that. Many of them do. Ours does not, in fact, ours leans the other way. Also, all that everyone's been screaming about since last season is our lack of sacks, well this surely doesn't fit that bill.

LMAO Oh, you answer them. Unfortunately, just like this post, there's never any substance. And I say that almost literally, you rarely post anything besides "Captain Obvious" stuff that's substantial. So far in all of your responses to me you've said not one dam thing substantial. You came close by insisting something along the lines that all the scout and draft experts had Ragland as an above average pass defender. When I asked you for the credible links there you've come back with nothing. I mean seriously, did you just pull that one out from between your cheeks, or did you have one or two in mind? I haven't seen any and his own college coach's assessment even addresses the same. You haven't produced one, all you've done is pulled a Joe Peschi in Cousin Vinny, "everything that guy just said is BS." Nice! And you can't see any issues. LOL Again, that's what makes this place so amusing. But somehow you know better than everyone else on the planet. You aren't really Doug Whaley by chance, are you? Anyway, unlike you I actually have a plateful of work here, so sorry if I can't humor your lack of substance any longer, but work's gotta get done.

That's odd! Just two days ago anyone suggesting that Ragland's injury appeared to be quite significant was chided that there'd be an F5 and treated like a moron. Funny how that works here. I guess facts and circumstances do actually come into play, oddly enough. LMAO The time you expend on pure drivel and nonsense is flabbergasting. There's football discussion and there's crap, you post primarily the latter. Opinionated nonsense.

As they say, you make your own luck. Everyone, EVERYONE, knew fully about Shaq's shoulder status. But apparently the opinions of Ryan's son at Clemson led the charge and "forced" Whaley to draft him. The Bills always play their hands as smarter-by-half and get screwed, and then scratch whatever little noodles they have to scratch while forum fans make excuses for idiotic and negligent decision making. And btw, now we have a slew of people here talking about how Shaq and Ragland are going to come back gangbusters next season. Well this just in, sitting most of a season, or even half of it, or in Ragland's apparent situation the entire thing, doesn't exactly grease the skids for the following season, it merely adds additional questionmarks to a questionmark that already existed, at least in Shaq's case. Either way, when you make dumb decisions and the risks of those play out, it's hardly bad luck. It's reaping the fruits of stupidity and negligence!

ROFLMAO Show me all the reports to the contrary from credible sources. Man, dense or what. You're your own worst enemy. And what now, 150 tackles is good coverage? You're a laugh riot! Really, you're your own worst enemy.

Can you, ... can you see where this is going to go? Frankly, I thought I already had laid out the conclusion after posting numerous facts that you completely failed to address. That's the human nature part of this forum, and others, that I find so intriguing. Look, I realize that you don't like me or my posts and argue with just about everything that I put out, hardly ever using any counterarguments much less actual facts, usually simply with emotional outbursts and absolutely nothing concrete, relevant, germane, or remotely pertinent to my original points. Your posts are literally, as in dictionary-defined, retarded. Let's take your post above, it's filled with absolutely nothing but opinionated gibberish. The post that it responded to the team's stated methodology in researching Shaq. Then I made a comment about how decisions relate to the risks taken. Then I commented on the blatant fact that several positions of need weren't even addressed in the draft. Needs that even most here are now claiming as glaring yet for which I was condescended to at the time of the draft by the same posters. Then I pointed out the known fact that Ragland isn't strong on his pass-coverage skills to say the least and then implied that his starting cohort at ILB doesn't either, also blatant knowledge. Then I went on to mention that neither of our safeties is known as primarily as a cover safety, also factual. I implied the fact that Adolphus Washington has no significant experience whatsoever playing DE but that's where our genius visionaries are going to start him. Then I went on to describe the futility of the Bills as a franchise outside of the Polian era, also factual and backed up as such. Then I went on to state the obvious, or what should be obvious although I realize you won't get it, that the odds of either Shaq and/or Ragland's chances of success in the NFL are no greater than for any other players drafted in rounds 1 or 2 as they were. Then I stated that Shaq wasn't prolific at Clemson, when he wasn't. And yet you come back with your response above. Is that all that goes through your head when reading something like that? Wait, don't answer that. You know the adage about keeping one's mouth shut. If you do, then expect a response from me. Again, your post offered absolutely nothing of value to anyone besides emotional nonsense. You, like the majority here, are nothing but a one-liner machine with an attention span that makes even the most ADD people proud. Either way, all those facts put together, and more, paint a certain picture of this franchise in its current state. Only in your world is Whaley exempt. Yet, you don't mention a word of any of that, ignore the conclusion, and then claim that "you know where it's going." Honestly, ... And no, I didn't post this for your benefit, I posted it for the benefit of others. Yeah yeah, continue on with your mindless nonsense in response to my posts, as BillsVet stated about another post, I'll expand to the majority of posts here, its symbolism (and style) over substance, and you're one of the generals in that Army. So keep up the good work partner!