BADOLBILZ

And it was so long ago that it was a much different NFL then. Dude is going to be 62 years old next year. That's not what teams are going to be looking for.

Arthur Blank is probably too nice of a man to be a great owner. An a-hole like Bob Kraft would have fired Quinn and not let Kyle Shanahan out of the building. He waited about 2 years too long on both Mike Smith and Dan Quinn. As systems get so much easier to implement I think head coaching changes will happen even more frequently in the NFL............it's not quite like the NHL where they take the coach's temp every day and can fire them at any time........but the automatic 3 years and multiple down years after a good year before firing thing is probably going to be a thing of the past.

Are their any Erhardt/Perkins OC's around with terrible track records? I root for Daboll but worrying about losing him after his struggles to distinguish himself at his numerous previous NFL OC jobs(and here until now) is really going out of your way to find something to worry about. There is a very good chance that his departure(which I don't necessarily believe is imminent) could lead to the hiring of a naturally better OC..........the way Charlie Weis leaving for Notre Dame lead to the Pats promoting Josh McDaniels and really elevating their game offensively. If nothing else there won't be a shortage of candidates and having a stable HC and front office and a winning franchise with a young QB should give the team a very good choice of candidates.

Oh firing scouting staffs and changing your GM from within after the draft isn't uncommon at all. That kind of succession happens a lot. Hiring a new coach in January and then waiting to bring in HIS general manager from another organization right after the draft is not. That was being sold as 3D chess and really it's just something you'd expect the Jets to do..........but of course not until the incumbent GM spent a bunch of money on players the coach didn't want.

That was my thought..........Georgia kid.........I am sure he and his family would love for him to be a Falcon. If the Falcons are close I wouldn't be surprised to see him threaten to pull a Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck and return to Clemson if he doesn't like the prospect of where he might have to go.

What was hilarious was the selling and subsequent buying of the excuse that "the Bills just didn't have enough time to evaluate QB's" that offseason. Whaley wasn't a good GM but it wasn't for a lack of effort from he and his staff wrt college scouting. I've literally never heard another organization even attempt to make that ridiculous excuse for passing on a QB before..........it was just that McD didn't trust the evaluation work the Bills staff had done from June to January. If anything Jan-May is far too much time to finish the evaluation of every prospect. The other great sell was the theory that the Pegula Bills were ahead of the curve waiting to hire their new GM in May......and that a lot of teams were going to start doing that.🙄

Long before McDermott ever came here and told us to "trust the process" I was telling people on here that the draft is a process, not an event. You gotta' have systems in place to prevent fundamental and "heat of the moment" errors. If they had them.........then they were flawed. That trade was bad. With respect to the Lamonica trade error........which happened at a time when the Bills roster was trending down sharply.......the Mahomes pick trade was probably the single worst transaction in terms of potential impact in team history. But one of the great things about the way the NFL is set up is that teams are given plenty of opportunities to right themselves after making bad decisions. I liked the Allen pick for the same reason I wanted them to draft Mahomes.............the potential upside was tremendous.

Always tryna initiate a fight with me because @SDS won't let you ban me. Just do your job better.........the bullying and threatening folks is getting older and more tired than you at 7pm every night.

Like I said........only a gullible idiot would think that McBeane weren't a package deal and that they didn't actively discuss the direction of the team that offseason. The Panthers were upset that their draft information was compromised but the relationships in that organization were as tight as can be and they were happy for McDermott and Beane and certainly weren't going to sabotage them over some shared scouting info. Every complex organization has secrets and Beane certainly knew all of them so retribution for that transgression likely wasn't even a consideration let alone asking the NFL for them to be "slapped HARD".

Indeed. And the Chiefs weren't some team that wasn't expected to be in playoff contention.........they were picking 27th and returning most of their team! Trading back to #27 and only getting the #22 pick next season was not even close to good value...............they basically traded back 16 spots.......needing a QB and with QB's on the board with first round grades.........for the value of an early second round pick in that years draft. The trade looked poorly thought out and executed with far less than due diligence at the time and it hasn't aged well. In 5-6 years when Mahomes is in his prime and Tre White is winding down his career or a cap casualty and Tremaine Edmunds is out of the league(he can't take the beating in the middle) it will really look like an all-time train robbery by the Chiefs. But hopefully Josh Allen can cover up for that brain-lock of a trade.

The Chiefs totally FLEECED the Bills in that trade...........and the gap is widening as Tremaine Edmunds struggles. The Bills didn't get Josh Allen from the proceeds of that trade. They got Tre White and Edmunds. Tre is very good but the gap between the value of any CB and a record setting, league MVP QB that lead his long suffering franchise to a SB victory is an absolute chasm. Allen was acquired with the Bills own 1st round pick plus multiple trade ups........none of which were related to the Chiefs trade either. What made the trade even worse was that the Texans then immediately traded up with Cleveland............and the Browns got the #4 overall pick out of that deal while the Bills just got the #22. Even at the time it was obvious that the Texans figured to be the much worse team. It's inexcusable that they didn't just leverage the Chiefs offer and trade with Houston. But perhaps that happens when you are perpetrating a charade where your GM is actually just a dude making phone calls for the HC, who is actually making the decisions. But as I have said..........it's better to be lucky than good. In the McDermott tenure the Bills have had the opportunity to draft QB's who won the last two league MVP trophies and 4 of the 5 most high value trade assets(all QB's) in the entire league. In 3 offseasons they've had more chances at top shelf QB talent as the organization had in the prior 4-5 regimes combined.

I thought you were ordering "honey" wings there. Either way.......creepy story turn.

I used the term "McBeane" for the obvious reason that either one or both were in charge of the Bills personnel decisions since McD was hired. But, fwiw I am not foolish enough to believe that Beane wasn't involved in the decision making of the Bills in the 2017 offseason. Particularly during the draft........where the Panthers were openly convinced that McDermott had Carolina's board in hand. They were a package deal from the outset and frankly, only a gullible idiot would think otherwise.

It's almost surreal how the Bills once seemed to have never been in position to draft top QB's and suddenly they were falling into their laps. Buffalo used to have an NBA team and in their existence they were the same way...........in their 9 years I believe they drafted or acquired 4 young players who would become future HOF's.........guys who were NBA MVP's and scoring leaders from the mid-70's to mid-80's. And they drafted or traded for a host of other really good young players. They moved to the west coast and became what are now the LA Clippers and basically have never drafted one in the 43 years since..........despite picking at the very top of the draft dozens of times. McBeane's luck even extended to a guy like Metcalf............in most years, even with the red flag with his neck........a talent like that gets picked in the late teens. Like Randy Moss or Jevon Kearse. Metcalf on a nine route is the least coverable targeted route in the NFL.........and it's not close.........something that would have been perfect for the huge armed Allen. That miss should have been monumental...........but then the following season Diggs becomes available and he's arguably the least coverable WR in general in the NFL now. So they got there on their second chance. My concern is that they've not made the most of their luck............which looks like a first world problem when you are winning. But they've wasted some assets with decisions where I just really thought they had bad processes in place. I know you aren't as sold on Beane as you are McDermott and maybe part of that is because deep down you see how lucky Beane has been as well.

Beane thought for sure that Ford was an immediate answer to the right tackle problem. He's a guard. Like I said at the time. That's not nonsense.........it's exactly what happened. In his defense.........he found Williams and Nsekhe in free agency who are actually good and not expensive right tackles when they are in there. Really what we are talking about with decisions like passing on Metcalf for Ford is probably the difference between a franchise making a quantum leap to the top of the talent heap because of an abundance of shrewd moves versus simply joining the ranks of legit contenders. They could have scored higher with foresight.........as opposed to making mistakes and then doing well to correct them with other moves or in hindsight. I will say one thing that is astonishing about McBeane though.............they are incredibly lucky. Not "residue of design" kinda' lucky.........their fortune wrt to personnel options just presenting themselves is amazing. If you ranked QB's by their current trade value...........McBeane had the opportunity to draft 4 of the 5 most valuable players in the entire league! Mahomes, Watson, Jackson and I think we can now put Allen in there. That's like some 5 man fantasy league kinda' draft opportunity. Russ Wilson would be the other top 5 trade value guy IMO...........and Buddy Nix missed on him but that was about the only legit shot at a franchise altering player they got a look at in their 7 years in charge. They had very little margin for error. Beane has had a bunch.

That's record time for the old "I love our coaching staff but we all know they can't develop players like everyone else" response. Well played.

It made sense to go with Oliver when they did. It made no sense to pass on Metcalf for Cody Ford. Might have seen a big jump in Josh's passing LAST year had they taken DK. Also Ford being used as a guard last summer helped push Wyatt Teller off the roster.........so there is that. I understand people who say that is all hindsight but when you reach for needs early in the draft...........especially at positions of modest $ value like guard or even right tackle........sh*t happens. At least he is better than Cyrus Koundjio I guess.

Unfortunately for Marty he is the patron saint of upset losses against the spread in the playoffs. Vegas has a line stat that ranks Marty as the all-time underachieving coach in the post season with 4.3 wins below expectation. And he was 0-8 in 3 point games in the playoffs..........which the "modern equivalent" would now be 1 score games...........in which McDermott now finds himself 0-1. That 0-8 is amazing and probably impossible to do without some bad luck. I agree that it really mostly came down to being out-quarterbacked........10 of his 13 playoff losses were to future HOF QB's. But he did very often have the more talented team overall..........he was very good at working in conjunction with his GM's to accumulate talent. He had excellent personnel in Cleveland, KC and San Diego.

I'm told the hardest hit Peyton Manning ever took was falling down the stairs at the Big Tree. Definitely an "if those walls could talk" kinda' place back in the 90's.

1) We can agree on that. I believe he is now 1 for 13 on challenges. "Often wrong" is *probably* an understatement though. 2) He is also 0-6 versus his chief rival and the best gameday coach in the league...........and "on paper" he should have won at least a couple of those........he has been clearly outcoached in all of those games. Which is really the point........ the bar is set very high in this division. Some lament that but I think that's a good thing. "On paper" he should put the broom on Belichick this year and the psychological edge gained by overtaking the best organization in the NFL should allow them to bypass other steps in the championship process. FWIW..........I clamored for Marty to be the Bills HC when they had chances. Ralph just refused to acknowledge his existence. Something went down there, I always assumed he must've had a relationship with one of Ralph's daughters or something when he was a player(and simultaneously actively preparing to become a coach).

I mean, on the road, in the playoffs if you are conceding the run mid-way thru the 3rd quarter via personnel and scheme decisions with just a 2 score lead against DeShaun Watson.......when your offense has stopped being a threat soon after you pumped it's brakes........you are asking for the momentum to get flipped. It's an emotional game. The team takes on the identity of their coach and his decisions. I am sure you would agree with this as a general statement........it's kind of why you have been so supportive of his hiring from the outset, is it not? Then why wouldn't it matter in an actual game? It matters. Yes, they should have still won the game. Execution is almost ALWAYS the reason a team ultimately loses. And the Texans didn't pitch a perfect game from that point on out.........they dangled the victory out there like Shady dangles the ball after catching a screen pass. But plain and simple...... McD is not good on gameday. He's gotta' get better in that regard or Josh Allen just needs to go Mahomes and drag him past that. That's not a massive indictment.......Andy Reid needed Patrick Mahomes to ease his burden to overcome his tendency for in-game playoff misfires. Being a great decision maker in the moment as well as otherwise being a high quality football coach are not necessarily two things that naturally occur very often.

Yeah if you are looking at his Chargers years then the Schottenheimer comp I am talking about is before your time. Like I said, by that time Schotty and his teams in the playoffs were a charicature of the previous failed iterations........ like Marv's teams in the Super Bowl after XXV. Marty in Cleveland and KC didn't so much get "conservative" in the playoffs as he was just trying to do what worked in the regular season. Predictability + intensified playoff effort from the opponent yielded diminishing returns. And when things that normally work do not.......those players get nervous. But like I said...........if he had John Elway instead of Bernie Kosar then things would have been different. Elway dragged a much more conservative Dan Reeves to 3 Super Bowls with a lot less talent than those Browns. As for McD.......I think he did choke in the playoff game last year. Not being more aggressive trying to score before the half and then not being aware and reactive to the Texans switching their offensive focus to the run in the 3rd quarter were killer in-game mistakes...........and the latter was the result of the former.........not threatening to expand the lead gave the Texans the peace of mind to be patient and take what the defense was giving them. THAT is where the game turned. He coached the Texans off the mat. Like I said though..........I expect he learned his lesson from that.

Yeah he should round into form at some position about the time he hits free agency. Ford is a prime example of the flawed logic of over-drafting a tweener OL......tweener as in not a sure-fire first round pedigree but more potential than most third day picks. Ultimately since all but the exceptional ones usually take 3+ years to develop now, the math is not in your favor wrt getting on-field returns commensurate to the value of that draft pick before they reach free agent status.

The Titans should get draft pick fines or something painful but not game result related. There really is no reason to forfeit games. And I can't see the $ hungry NFL wanting to give away ANY telecasts and the millions associated with each of them. Players certainly want to get paid too. Obviously. No sense cancelling games just to make sure that the 7 month offseason(way too long as it is) is compromised. Stretch the season by a few weeks.

Marty-ball used to be not-so-secret code for conservative football.........especially in the playoffs where Marty coached his usually much more talented teams into surprisingly close games and put them in unnecessarily pressure packed situations where they were then more worried about losing than focused on winning. It eventually took on a life of it's own with the Chargers where his teams just panicked in the playoffs. I am not sure that McD will continue to fall into that trap............I think the lessons learned and analytics gathered from decades of guys like Marty and Cowher and even Andy Reid having teams underachieve in the playoffs should and will serve as motivation for McD to not coach his team into unfavorable circutmstances. I hope anyway.