BigBuff423

I think this paragraph provides a little insight as to why Daboll has earned the respect of his players and the coaches around him and why it is just too early to complain about him as an OC and play-caller: "Entering the Jets’ game, Buffalo used the highest amount of unique offensive lineups in the NFL and the second-fewest percentage of plays ran featuring its most common lineup. What does that mean? No team in the NFL has ran more plays with different personnel packages than what the Bills have and there are very little tendencies to gather given the variety of plays ran from different groupings." Now, I'm not always a fan of complexity and I certainly think it can be as much a detriment to the team as it is a benefit. But, this should slow the narrative that Daboll is just an incompetent designer of plays or calls a rudimentary game. However, IMHO, much of this complexity of looks IS due to the lack of play-makers they've had on the team and the difficulties on Offensive line. If / when the Bills address WR / TE / C / RT via FA and Draft next year, I could see some of the playbook being pared down a bit to make it easier on Allen with the presumption the play-makers have the ability to execute the plays without so much trickery or visual manipulation. Time will tell. But I've been a Daboll supporter and this insight gives me reason to continue in that same vein of thought.

At least it solves the Allen v. Barkley debate. And of course it's the only that really makes sense for the team long-term. I didn't see the play where Milano had to be put in the concussion protocol. But, that's two starting LBers in the last few weeks that have needed that time to heal. Sad, but timing couldn't better with the bye week as it seems to take more than a week to clear the protocol.

I don't think it's as drastic as McD needs to be fired. It's not an easy call due to Josh Allen needing to play to get better. In short, Barkley did what we hoped Derek Anderson could have done a few weeks ago: be good enough to help the Defense. But, once Allen started any game, this became the season to establish next season. Allen's development is the key to this franchise and him playing only facilitates that development and therefore, sets the course for the franchise for the next three years without question and either for better or worse, arguably the next 10 years. In short: if Allen is 100% healthy, and ONLY if he is 100% healthy, Josh Allen should start against Jax and every game thereafter. JMO.

Beane has admitted he should have signed Derek Anderson or someone like him as soon as AJ was traded. He admitted that but went on to explain their rationale in a WGZ interview, if you're interested. I found it on Twitter, but not sure how to locate it. If you follow Aaron Quinn from The Athletic, he linked it. However, trading AJ after the big comeback in the final Pre-Season game notwithstanding, sometimes we fail to appreciate the decisions made in context. I did not think Peterman would as good as his Pre-Season showed nor did I think he would be THIS bad AFTER having a strong Pre-Season. Honestly, what could the coaches do after they promised the QB that played the best would win the job? We often forget just how good Peterman played in the Pre-Season and to Beane's credit he fully admitted he needed to learn from this. It's not often you'll see a GM admit their mistake so openly and take responsibility for needing to learn from it, but that's what you want. Nobody has all the answers. You can look across the league and see just as many mistakes by great HCs and GMs as their successes. They figure out what works sometimes by seeing what doesn't and then learn from it. If you're interested in getting a more balanced approach to Beane's viewpoint, I would recommend the article. It's helpful to put things in context. There's no excuse by him or anyone else for not bringing someone else in after AJ was traded, but it does provide context.

Great idea by the OP: a tremendous and profound debt of gratitude for all those and their families who have lived the life of service through our Armed Forces. Every sacrifice made, from moving to saying goodbye to loved ones to the tragic force of injuries sustained - every ounce of suffering by you and those who love and know you, have made the honor of the Constitution of these United States gleam with pride and power across the globe. Thank you, eternally in debt - thank you for all you've done. I hope every Vet gets the support and recognition they are justly due. I hope not a single Vet, no matter how young or old, ever feels left behind, because the battlefield of life is longer and equally treacherous as the one they served on and can be just as harsh. Take care and God Bless America and her soldiers.

What is great IMO, is when people (on this board and in life) are ready to write a book on a Rookie after one year, let alone a few games. Foster, like Allen, Teller and Milano last year can D-E-V-E-L-O-P.....it's an amazing thing. You know, they come in the league looking like Rookies and then lo and behold, with some coaching, training and time .....get better. So, I have NO idea if Foster can sustain this limited success - but I DO know he looked much improved. If that carries from one week to the next, awesome. A true #1, I don't think that's in the cards based on size, but hey - ya' never know. We should be thanking the football gods for Tremaine Edmunds getting healthy, as that allowed Ramon Humber to be released and Foster promoted on Saturday to be able to play. Timing is everything.

For all the frustrations the Buffalo Bills will give you, and for all the senseless drama the NFL will give you sometimes, these are the kinds of stories that truly make football special. When you see the Vets, or those suffering from crippling illnesses, or like Pancho struggling to cling to life, and football becomes the bond which ties us all together, it's amazing. Football is so much more than a game with 22 men on the field, it is about family, traditions and shared camaraderie among like minded people. From sons and daughters, to brothers and sisters, to neighbors and friends in the neighborhood and playing pick up games of football in the autumn leaves, it permeates our communities and becomes the talk among the water coolers, the friendly chiding of rivalries of friends, and the center point of television entertainment while dinner is cooking. It is just so much more than "a game", and I think it's great that the Bills gave him a venue to be a part of something bigger and more important that just one Sunday afternoon. I love football....for all those reasons. Go Bills!

I, for one, appreciate your candor and willingness to come onto this forum for a mea culpa and give Beane credit during this difficult year. So, it's a minor thread to pull at, but regarding the bold portion, to be fair - did we really expect much different? You are technically accurate in that the team is not performing as we would like, but when Richie and Wood left abruptly, did we really think the Offensive line was going to be stellar? And while Beane himself admits he made the mistake of not having a guy like Anderson once they traded AJ, to give John Wawrow credit as he asked the question on a platform few of us can do, what were they supposed to do other than that? And playing a Rookie QB, who then gets injured and they're forced into this carousel of poor QB play (until Barkley yesterday), could we have seen how bad KB has played? He was an important piece for a few key plays to getting to the playoffs last year and he had a great Pre-Season, could anyone have expected him to be as bad as he has? And Zay has really shown drastic improvement, but it takes WRs a couple years before they demonstrate their full potential AND he was playing injured all year last year - so we didn't know what we had. To the point, it is a worse team - Offensively - but we expected this, didn't we? And in recent articles Beane has said what some of us have been saying: he had a plan and wasn't going to abandon that plan due to injuries or retirement, they're going to ride out the season with what they had and take the hit this year. 2019 is the year we get to see Beane's shackles come off for Cap reasons and not needing to trade so much Draft capital for the QB position. Let's wait and see before we presume he's made the team worse in terms of development. Just my .02.

I'd take the Minnesota dome over anything else out there right now. I think it's spectacular.

He already has....Luck has lit the NFL up in terms of passing yards and TDs thus far this year, here are his stats for 8 games: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/clt/2018.htm#all_passing No. Player ▼ Age Pos G GS QBrec Cmp Att Cmp% Yds TD TD% Int Int% Lng Y/A AY/A Y/C Y/G Rate QBR Sk Yds NY/A ANY/A Sk% 4QC GWD 12 Andrew Luck 29 QB 8 8 3-5-0 225 342 65.8 2187 23 6.7 8 2.3 42 6.4 6.7 9.7 273.4 96.2 65.4 10 76 6.00 6.28 2.8 1 1

I'll say this, while it's hard to watch on Sundays right now, McD and Beane have given me the most confidence they have a very detailed plan and are executing it at any cost. The sell-out to send Watkins, Dareus to other teams while getting Draft capital is NOT something this team has done in a long time. Bills over the last two decades have a penchant for trading their Draft picks to get unknown players that have not lived up to the Draft hype. This was a reversal of philosophy, and I like it. As for Offense, we have yet to see what transpires but they have done a similar sell-out to get a couple pieces in place: LT & WR2 in year one, QB and maybe LG in year 2. The real re-shaping of the Offense will take place in 2019 and if it doesn't then IMHO, they shouldn't get the fourth year. I'm not saying I demand overnight success, but if Beane and McD don't invest in the Offense the way they have on Defense in the 2019 Off-season, then they cannot be reconciled with future success. However, I don't suspect that to be the case as I truly believe this was the plan all along. Not the retirements of Wood and Incognito, but that short of that, they planned everything else, specifically the pain to cut the Cap dead wood. I give them all of the money, Draft picks and through the 2019 season to see if their strategy shows real gains and promise or even better yet, resulted in good, consistent winning.

At this point with the Bills having their QB of the future, I'm not in for the tank. I understood it when they needed their franchise signal caller, but not now. Furthermore, putting them in the top 5 or 10 virtually guarantees a Defensive pick since this Draft is loaded with top tier Defensive talent. Picking outside of the top 10 affords the Bills flexibility to either take an Offensive guy like a C / OT or WR, or better yet to trade down with a team without costing too much since there isn't really any top 3 QBs in the Draft. Of course one will get Drafted because of the need and position, but objectively the BPA is Defensive players for most if not all of the top 10. Furthermore, Allen needs playing time and learn and grow. However, not to the detriment of his physical well-being. So, if it's even borderline or close to him being healthy to truly play the way he wants / needs to, Allen should sit. But if he's 100% healthy, then he needs to start. Allen gaining experience only bodes well for him next year and all the years that follow. Him sitting and learning has probably been a blessing in disguise, but that's not how he's going to drastically improve from this year to next IMHO. Some QBs just need the mental reps and learn how to QB in the NFL by the maturation process. He needs the experience along with the other components of being NFL Franchise QB.

A few off the top of my head: Mike Ditka - had the best Defense in the '85 Bears in the history of the NFL (statistically speaking); Bill Cowher, Bill Parcells, Tom Landry (Defensive Coordinator first with Giants), John Madden who started with Oakland as a Linebackers Coach, George Allen, Tony Dungy modernized and popularized the Tampa-2 Defense and won because of it, Bud Grant, and Chuck Noll (Steel Curtain D). Now in modern NFL, Offenses are king - driven by the QB, but to say that Defenses can't win championships or that Offenses are the only way good HCs are made, to me is overly simplistic and patently false. McD needs to have Beane get him play-makers on Offense, and I think they will get them, but it's long from determined how this era in the Buffalo Bills story will end.

Uh-huh....ok...so the countless memes of table-breaking that went so far as to have digital Brady do it on MNF is non-existent? Yeah, ok....good talk. If you try to pass the national media as a legit narrative, you've become an outsider because you fail to grasp the larger picture. That is to be expected from fans of other teams and from the talking heads at super-media conglomerates, but if you're a local fan (either living in the area or born and raised or just followed Buffalo your whole life), then you know outside opinions mean jack-diddly and they're often wrong. If you buy into it, then that perspective is part of the problem, not the solution.

Twisting words 101...well done, you aced it. Now for the advanced class of Buffoonery 201 where I'm sure you'll find others like-minded and follow the sheep led by ESPN et. al.

Agreed that the available pool of FA WRs isn't deep, but there are some decent names that the Bills would need to overpay to have on the team. Which is why I was down with trading a high pick for a WR who had a year left on their contract, like Cooper, because he's only 24 and you know he can be a #1. That said, I think the Bills cut bait with KB, Holmes and bring a couple guys like Randall Cobb or Tyrell Williams or Quincy Enunwa if any of them make it to FA and use a 2nd or 3rd round pick on a good boundary WR. They could also trade for one, like Hughes for (insert name here) because the Draft is deep at DE / DT. Point being there will be options between money to burn and Draft picks, I think they get much better WRs in the building. Here's the link to some FA WRs scheduled for 2019 Off-season but we also know many of them will be signed by their team: https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/free-agents/all/wide-receiver/ Edit: I should also add, if Pryor likes Buffalo and the Bills see him as a good fit, they could bring him back on a 2 year deal.

I didn't say I knew you, but fans clamored for the playoffs and now they want more in the second year when it's a rebuild. Not patient...patience does run out over time, it gets re-set with each new change. So, if you've run out of patience, then your issue is with the organization and not with McD or Beane. Fair enough, but that doesn't account for giving Beane and McD the time to do their job. No vision - you've admitted you didn't buy in from the beginning, so I'm not sure how we disagree when you've admitted you don't believe in what they're doing. Not positive - see the patience comment...positive is easy when things go well, it's when the poop storm dumps all over you and remain focused on the outcome rather than the stench. I empathize with your frustration, we just disagree with the points of fact.

Give me a break....put Mahomes behind this line and give him no one to throw to...is he better than what the Bills have as of right now? Of course, but he also had a year with Reid and A. Smith tutoring him. So if that doesn't alter your perception, than you've simply decided to flog McD and Beane while ignoring context. In either respect...nothing else to be said.

I'm not saying they're asking them to tank, I think the hard truth is that they're trying but can only do so much. As for KB, yup, he wasn't great last year but I don't know that anyone saw this lackluster interest in playing for this year - a contract year. Also, they didn't give him an extension, I think that means they wanted his services for the year and let him do an extended "try out" before giving him a new contract, if that was even in the discussions. Getting rid of Tyrod was less about this year and I think we can all agree, it was about getting the QB of the future while getting some trade value out of TT that was used to get their MLB of the future. Zay has been developing nicely, albeit slower than hoped but with the QB situation, can we really blame him entirely? They said they want to win now and in the future, but I really don't think much of anyone could argue that it was *less* about winning now than it is about the future, i.e. 2019 and beyond.

I think they're in these decisions together, but personally I don't look at almost anything this year except for Defense, specifically their selected players, and Allen. Everything on Offense is otherwise almost near impossible to evaluate until next year when Beane and McD can bring in quality FAs and Draft more players that fit their design. FWIW, their Draft picks are doing their part....it's mostly the other players held over from Whaley and the guys they basically just had no choice but to bring in, ala Newhouse, Bodine, etc.

But to be fair they did start the rebuild last year: they traded Watkins and Darby and got interchangeable WRs to put on the field. They only traded for KB when the team (if IIRC) was 5-2 nearing the trade deadline and thought, "Hey, this is going better than we thought, why not get a big WR?!" And his catch for a TD in the snow game was key to the playoff "get". Plus they traded away Dareus to get the dead Cap off the books *this* year because it was a two year hit. They traded Darby - not a trade I agree with, but they thought he didn't fit their scheme. Then, they didn't anticipate in their three or four year plan that they would have to replace both their starting C and LG in the same Off-season but didn't want to stay in Cap prison, so they accepted the hard decision to let this year play out and hope they can put enough together to be competitive. They build in the strength of their Defense and again hoped the Offense could do "enough" to win some games. And I understand about not needing to trade away assets to get their QB, but it's also hard to ask professional football players, especially guys like KW, Lorax and Shady to "tank". They gave it their all and it made a measurable difference, which to be honest says more about how McD can get the most of his players than what he hasn't yet done with the Offense. Additions like Poyer and Hyde were really key and Tre played out of his mind as Rookie and probably should have won DROY. All of that said, unfortunately 2018 is the year the Bills thought they would have last year.... I agree again...it's just we don't know what that is yet, except for QB: they wanted a tall, strong, intelligent QB with some raw material to mold him into what they believe he can become. So, 2019 is the year Beane and McD commit to the Offense or the following year will be the year they find new places to call home. That said, I don't think it's escaping anyone's attention at OBD how much needs to be done on Offense to feel good about the future.

I agree....in that, a HC / GM need to build an entire team to win. Now, in contemporary NFL the QB is king (of course it always has been, but much more so in today's NFL) and with a great QB, so much can be masked. But, building a team takes time and some good fortune. Montana sat a year and was pulled after the starter went 3-0 and then lost big, something in today's microwave mentality, I don't know would have happened and yet if hadn't I doubt the legend of Montana would have remained the same, due to lack of opportunity.

I know I've answered this question before, maybe not to you, but I know for a fact it wasn't too long ago.....yes, it has - as you mentioned Payton, Belichick, and then look at Holmgren, Parcells, etc....the NFL history is littered with teams who bottomed out only to rebound to great heights. Bill Walsh was 2-14 in his first year and won the Super Bowl two years later, his third as HC of the 49ers. I could go on, but history would not seem to be something you're really interested in....and I'm not throwing jabs, I'm just saying I think you're frustrated - and I really honestly understand that - but that doesn't change facts and it shouldn't change the course of action for the Bills for this year and through 2019, because that's what this whole thing is about. A 4 year plan with year 3 showing real, lasting results of improvement and good football. IMHO