BADOLBILZ

I think he was helped off the field after the high ankle sprain and never returned..........was put on IR a week later. But he was nagged by a bunch of injuries all season and favoring them might very well have caused the high ankle sprain. I agree he is very important to what they do.......I really hope they do not release him. Would love to see he and Diggs healthy together for a full season because I really think his deep speed opens things up for Diggs. When he's not in there Diggs gets turned into a dink and dunk option. When Brown is on the field suddenly Diggs' routes are ran out past the sticks instead of in front of them.

And you were one of the people rooting for the Bills to tank in the summer of 2017 too. They had one of the oldest rosters in the NFL in 2017............if they had tanked it would have undermined "the process". Tanking is for teams with a coaching staff on the way OUT...........

Gillislee didn't pan out with NE but the difference between he and Tolbert's pay was only around $1M. Tolbert and the Bills offense were a mess. Gillislee didn't regain his form in NE........but he did drop the dagger TD into the Bills in the 2017 game in NE where the Bills had jumped out to an early lead. I know.......too emotionally disturbing for most of you to remember. As for the draft pick........Milano is an excellent player so kudos to Whaley I guess but I'm not sweating not being able to project that Milano would be there and a good off-ball LB 140 picks into the draft.😆 Trading pick #91 in that draft to move up for Zay Jones was foolish though. I was high on Trey Hendrickson as a developmental DE with that pick in round 3 and sure enough he came off the board shortly after that and the Bills weren't in position to get him. I am sure you don't know who Hendrickson is but he is one of the leagues very best pass rushers. Would have killed it in the Bills system. But hey they did also get "Nate Favre" out of that trade as well.

Having $30M in cap space isn't much.........so getting $10M-$15M wiggle room isn't much, Doc. And yes, it's a big issue in 2022.........but in 2021 they will no longer have the options they had in the past two offseasons with $80M in cap space..........things like letting two $10M players go at a position and replacing them with three $8M players...........they are actually going to have to start bringing up depth players to replace proven guys like Milano and Williams and finding some diamonds. Their OL has basically 5 veteran free agent level paid players........their 3 man WR corp are all big dollars........and their starting secondary are all $6M plus players. That kind of excess is not sustainable. They aren't even paying the QB yet and they are up against it so as @Coach Tuesday said........they are going to have to get more efficient.

I know you remain a Whaley/Rex defender but as I said at the time.......unnecessarily extending McCoy into 2018 and 2019 was dumb. His Eagles contract ran thru 2017.......and that's where ANY of his usefulness as regular NFL RB ended. He was SHOT by 2018. I know at the time you said he was the "Tom Brady of running backs" who could play great into his late 30's.......that take was hilarious.😆 And no I never declared that McDermott was going to be Jauron 2.0. In the summer of 2017 when you and others were vehemently insisting that McBeane were trying to tank and get a very high draft pick.....I said no way.........their intention was to Jauron-ball the team into contention. There was no way they were going thru all that culture building to totally undermine their message by tanking. And Jauron-ball was exactly what they played. Protect the ball, play a defensive style to prevent big plays and shorten games and hope that your opponent made more mistakes than you. It worked out.......particularly in road games at Carolina, Atlanta and KC where QB's made late mistakes to secure Bills upset victories. Dick Jauron went 13-3 with that style once. It can work sometimes but it also puts you in position to GET BEAT as often as anything so that's why DJ was always around .500. I did say that I thought they should have tendered Gillislee a $2.3M one year contract. He lead the NFL in ypc and short yardage conversions in 2016. That was the extent of it. You thought the Bills rush offense would still be just as effective with Mike Tolbert and Dennison as they were in 2016..........you couldn't have been much more wrong. They were terrible. Dennison could have tried to keep the same system in place or just run more inside zone at least............he did not.........he got fired immediately after a playoff season with years left on his contract.

Major injuries happen in every season to NBA players or MLB players too. Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Kyrie Irving, DeMarcus Cousins.....all "max" contract players......all missed seasons recently and/or currently. Then think of all of the pitchers who end up getting Tommy John surgery. Nearly 20% of all pitchers end up getting TJ. Injuries happen in every sport. QB career expectancy has exploded. Instead of guys built like LB's in Kelly and Marino enduring the punishment and flaming out at 36-37..............now we have much more slightly built soft tossers like Brady and Brees playing at a very high level into their 40's. The NBA is the only real good comparison to QB pay-potential........guys like Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen or DeShaun Watson now have the potential to earn $30M-$40M type money for 15-17 years.........great NBA players who enter the league at 19 have the potential to make that kind of money. In MLB you basically play 6 years(plus any years of minor league service) to reach unrestricted free agency between the ages of 27-30. And 30 teams have 10 positions each that a player could earn $30M playing if they are great enough. So 14 out of 300 MLB starters/aces make top dollar. In the NFL 10 of 32 starting QB's make top dollar. Profiling as a starting QB made it much easier for top baseball prospects like Mahomes and Kyler Murray to choose football. I will say this though..........in MLB a glut of talent caused by massive amounts of foreign players and youth baseball enrollment in the US skyrocketing has created a minor league system with a bunch of formerly-MLB-worthy talent in limbo and that surplus has really turned the pay scale of the league into much more of a have and have-not situation. In football.........there are more capable QB's than ever. The talent level is night and day from 15 years ago. For example......last years leading yardage passer is a backup QB in New Orleans this year. If the trend continues........2-3 stud QB's entering the league every year + top QB's playing for 20 years = that will alter the pay scale.

You don't save cap room letting contracts expire, TFP. The prospective cap figure for the following year does not include expired contracts from the previous season.

See the response above

The Bills are already up tight against the cap in 2021 even before Allen hits the $25M-$30M salary cap figure in 2022 though. Williams, Feliciano and Milano are UFA's this winter..........Diggs is going to want a new deal very soon.........Beasley and Brown are entering walk years.........Edmunds option for 2022 will be over $10M if they don't extend him before that. Beane has his work cut out for him.

Stefon Diggs was the #2 overall WR recruit in the nation in HS. He wasn't under anyone's radar. Injuries, a talented WR class and questions about his personality pushed him way down the board.

Two things that happened: 1) Top QB's started getting paid better than any US athletes short of the very finest in the NBA. 2) The game got a lot less violent for QB's around 2010. That made playing QB a lot more interesting to some really great young athletes(and their parents). Football is still a game of attrition at most positions but QB's now can play longer and at a higher level than just about any position in sports.

So basically you think Beane let's Allen play out his full 5 year rookie deal...............when Mahomes(and Tre White for that matter) got extended after season 3?

Yep.......he's started out some games hot but I think it's very important to get him in a groove early in case he's not. Wasn't happy at all with the game plans against Tennessee and KC where Daboll seemed too interested in running the ball early when he had a QB averaging over 9 ypa and runners getting less than 4 ypa. It's a lot different when you have a QB averaging in the low 6 ypa range and backs getting 5.5 like the 2016 Bills.

1) Exactly. 2) LOL

"It's like a miracle! Keep it in perspective though. How dare people bring up mistakes? But realize that nothing has yet been accomplished. In closing how can you not enjoy this journey? Do it because it could all be an illusion then you would be sorry." Have I driven you home from a game before?

I hope they win the SB this year with a QB on his rookie deal.......as I said I think that this season was their best chance to maximize their roster talent/depth.........and that would be like how it worked out for the Seattle and Philadelphia SB winning teams. Doesn't mean they CAN'T get better.........but as those other teams can attest, after the cap room dries up it gets more difficult to keep the roster stocked. That's where we will be able to see how McBeane stack up against organizations like New England, Pittsburgh, Seattle and New Orleans who managed to remain contenders for long periods of time with serious salary cap constraints. The flip side of that........as I've mentioned.......is that when you win and have a franchise QB you should be able to have chances to get a few good, winning-motivated veterans on favorable contracts that weren't an option in the past. Also......winning has a way of extending careers of important veterans you do have. The Bills of the 90's benefitted from that kind of synergy. In the 2000's the Pats have been huge beneficiaries of this. Players will endure a lot more punishment for a longer time if they feel certain they can win. In Buffalo we have become accustomed to players like Aaron Schobel calling it quits or quickly opting out of lost seasons for surgery etc...

You see humility would be a good approach for the Bills fanbase as we hopefully enter an era of playoff success. That's obviously NOT gonna' happen. Hurt people hurt people. It's part of the reason we have such backlash against me basically saying "I approve of Beane being extended but he needs to do better in some regards". This is not a harsh take in anything less than a battered fan environment. But hurt people ALSO make good TV..........so Bills fans will at least be fun for the nation to watch climb the SB mountain again.

Sure but very rarely on TSW. The amount of hotly contested takes of import that I've been spot on about on this site over the past 22 years even surprises me. I'm the GOAT in that regard here and it's not even close. As I've told @GunnerBill though.......the key to being right is not trying to have some kind of take on everything.......it's having your strong public takes on things that you have warranted confidence in. When you try to have a take on everything your winning % falls precipitously and you run the risk of being actual-NFL-GM-level-right..........which is basically a flip of the coin for the most part.

I'm quick to counter extreme positions. I'm very much in the middle being as objective as possible...........and that really inflames unabashed homers who fluctuate from one extreme to another over the past 20 years. So happens that right now many homers are counting their chickens before the regime has even hatched a single command performance in any of 9 games played against their chief division rival or in the playoffs............so the content I am responding to is extremely out of balance with the reality. The journey is the reward.......being in a hurry to crown them runs contrary to that, IMO. It's been said the McBeane are self critical and driven to improve...........if they are that way why should the fanbase "just be happy" with modest success?

1) Honestly.......what is with the ridiculous straw man arguments?😆 I've literally never said anything about just getting young QB's and starting over when their contract is finished. I get that some of you are frustrated that I am so blunt about the errors the organization has made.........but I assure you I've never suggested that Josh Allen should be a one contract and done QB with the Bills. And Shaw.........who are these teams that you think have this approach? Just because Carson Wentz and Mitchell Trubisky are falling on their faces doesn't mean that was part of any plan. Everyone wants a QB who plays and dominates for 15+ years. 2) McBeane have CHANGED their philosophies on team building numerous times. Went with Dennison......failed.......went with a very different system in Daboll. Thought big WR's were the solution.......failed......and did a 180 to smaller, faster WR's who get open quicker. The list goes on. And what I really like is that the corrections they've made are in tune with what I thought they should have done in the first place. Now I want to see Edmunds used more on the edge........and we actually got a peek at that Sunday. And I've been an advocate of using more active players at the 1 tech.........and they are doing that and that too is yielding results now. I don't really see any major team-building philosophy discrepancy.

Are you sure you don't work for The Boston Herald?😄 Belichick is a PRIME example of overcoming a mountain of bad personnel decisions with great coaching and QB play. Seriously some of you would be suicidal if a big market media covered the Bills.........they aren't nearly as even handed as anything I've said in this thread.

They most certainly weren't just "lucky" to get Josh Allen. They were lucky that they managed to pass on Mahomes and Watson and THEN got a shot at a player with Allen's skill level at pick #7 the following year. As I've said many times and in defense of Allen when the critics were labeling him a failure..........in many if not most of the 30 drafts prior to his selection Allen would have gone #1 overall.

At least 3 of Marrone and Rex's teams should have made the playoffs.........greatly underachieving with the talent on hand is why Rex got fired..........sometimes coaching and player errors undermine the work of the personnel departments.........that was mostly the case in the Houston mess. But you could point to a lot of personnel mistakes that greatly contributed in the 6 losses to Belichick........or the loss to Jacksonville in the playoffs. I'm not sure what cherry picking one poorly coached and played game out of 9 accomplishes.

The hyperbole about "my complaints" is pretty laughable.........I just give an honest assessment.........and I've probably paraphrased the "you have to be making bad decisions constantly to not be competitive in the NFL" quote from Belichick 50 or more times in the past decade on this site. You don't have to have been anywhere near perfect to be a SB contender in the NFL. But you do make a good point in the first highlighted.......other than drafting Allen their biggest accomplishment is getting the organization functional. The Pegula's were utterly clueless about how to operate an NFL team..........they eschewed good advice from NFL counsel...........they gave a guy with one foot out the door like Rex Ryan $25M guaranteed and undermined years of draft and development work on defense in the process............as you said it was "largely dysfunctional". Say what you want about the process..........but at least there was a process for decision making instead of the mercurial stewardship they walked into. As for the last highlighted point.........I don't think like that.........the objective of this violent and competitive game is to win the SB......not just to finish as 1st loser or 11th loser by one and done-ing in the playoffs. But the journey is the reward. Some people are just a bit too emotionally invested in the game to be objective about it. That's not necessarily how everyone else has to be to enjoy it.