hondo in seattle

How do you like the Scouting Academy? What are the most eye-opening or surprising things you're learning there?

Wise words, 2018! And if we keep our egos out of all this, we won't feel the need to attack our fellow Bills fans. It's when our egos are hurt that we lash out. I like this site best when it overflows with Bills comaraderie, not when the contest of egos take over.

This is why I'm glad the Bills rolled the dice with EJ. If you aren't willing to gamble with a draft pick, you'll never get a QB because they're all gambles. Like you, I just wish we rolled the dice on QBs more often.

This is premature. Let's see how it all plays out before concluding the FO effed up.

I agree. Unfortunately, when you're starving, you go dumpster diving. Kind of like last year with WRs, DW seems to be hoping that if he brings enough journeyman in to compete, one of them will step up and prove worthy.

Agreed. So far, Whaley has been much better at acquiring productive vets than drafting impactful players.

Agree with this sentiment entirely.

I'm worried about all those positions... except that we're only a couple days into free agency and 47 days before the draft.

You're right, coaches are humans not deities. And some of Rex's mistakes were readily apparent. Nonetheless, I laugh when fans overflowing with hubris think they're smarter than scouts and coaches. There's a lot of professional expertise in the NFL. The higher guys have been mentored and trained for years. Sometimes our second-guessing is like an amateur watching a neurosurgeon at work and questioning his choice of instruments. Of course, it's more fun when we second-guess. But when we say so-and-so is a moron and an idiot, we go too far. What the hell do we actually know? Back to Lorax, I'm happy to have him back.

I read about the Bills every day. Sully, though, I read only once or twice a year. His schtick isn't working with me either.

My take is you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't say Rex sucks and Whaley sucks. It's one or the other. The Bills have been a middle-of-the-pack franchise the last couple years. Either Rex was a good coach with a bad roster. Or Rex was a bad coach with a good roster. That's how you get to .500. If Rex was a bad coach as most assert, well, we still won nearly half our games which means he must have had a good roster. So, thank you, Doug Whaley.

Here we tended to talk those reports with a grain of salt. Though a vocal minority were convinced they were true.

When you have Brock, who else do you need?

Back in December, as we all well know, Jason La Canfora reported that the Bills had already decided to "move on" from Tyrod. Further reports from La Can suggested the FO wanted to cut ties with Tyrod and that Cleveland was a likely landing place. Is it possible that the Bills played him? The Bills wanted to renegotiate Tyrod's contract but in this super-heated QB market they didn't seem to have a lot of leverage. Just this: they knew Tyrod wanted to stay with the Bills. So they leaked information that they were ready to move on to create enough media speculation that Tyrod starting feeling some motivation to renegotiate after all. After all, if you want spurious information to go public, Jason's your man. Just one email, text or call to La Canfora would have been enough to create the necessary media buzz to make Tyrod nervous. I have no insider information, just a curious, suspicious mind.

Good find. Sounds like a great guy to have around.

Yeah, I haven't given up hope yet. Some say this draft is strong at defensive backfield. While the Bills have not been good at drafting QBs, we have shown some skill in identifying pass defenders. And free agency is just beginning.

I think you miss the point. We lost A. Williams and Gilmore. So we're all nervous about the defensive backfield. Any news is good news at this point. We know the backfield isn't good. We're just happy the Bills have signed somebody - anybody - so we won't have to line you up back there.

Howard reminds me of Spags.

Is this true - that Sully said good organizations don't give out big contracts to guys like Gilmore? I think every organization is willing to overpay a FA once in a while if it's a guy they feel they really need.

Tyrod wasn't a free agent and other teams were not allowed to show interest. He's under contract. If he had been a free agent, he would have received a lot of interest. QBs with NFL ability are rare. Even middling QBs command a lot of money and are much sought after by teams with bad QBs.

I think they want to fill as many needs now as they can so they don't need to draft multiple starters in the draft.

I loved OJ back in the day. Great guy, amazing player. But how can you vote "YES" given what he's done?

It takes a lot of courage to post something positive about Brandon on this site.

That's what we all hope. I just don't think it'll be easy, though there's supposed to be some good DBs in this draft.

Doesn't matter if we go for two after every TD.