mjt328

Yes, the Bills finished #12 in scoring in 2015, and then tied for #10 in scoring in 2016. But this was done almost entirely by running the ball. During those same years, our passing game was in the bottom-quarter of the league in every measurable statistic. Whenever the Defense struggled and we were forced to move the ball through the air, Tyrod Taylor was completely worthless. Rex Ryan ruined a Top 5 defense, which could have gotten better if the players were used to their strengths. Instead, he stubbornly forced his system onto talent that didn't fit the scheme. In contrast, Brandon Beane/Sean McDermott were forced to dismantle the offense, because we had reached our ceiling with Taylor - and it clearly wasn't good enough to consistently win in today's NFL. Not to mention, a run-heavy approach wasn't sustainable long-term anyway, with Eric Wood and Ritchie Incognito retiring, and LeSean McCoy reaching 30 years old. Unfortunately, the only way to upgrade the QB position (unless you could win the Kirk Cousins sweepstakes) was to draft one in the First Round. And 95% of the time, doing this results in a team going backwards before it goes forwards. The Bills, Jets and Cardinals are all starting rookie QBs this year, and all have been much worse than a year ago. The Browns have looked better in Baker Mayfield's brief time, but they were 1-31 over the last two years and had nowhere to go but up.

I consider the Bills a "young" team. The most important player on their roster (Quarterback) is a rookie. The guy standing in the middle of the field and calling out all the defensive plays (Middle Linebacker) is a rookie. Every single game they play this season is going to be seriously impacted by the youth and inexperience of those two guys alone. That's very significant. Compare that to a team like New England or Pittsburgh. Those teams are starting rookies as well, but their mistakes can be easily overcome by the vets elsewhere.

I voted for Kansas City. The others are all going to lose in Week 4.

Let the season play out a few more games, and give the defense a chance to turn things around. They had some very bad stretches last season too.

If the choice is between Nick Bosa and Ed Oliver, I probably have to go with Bosa. We need an edge rusher much more than a defensive tackle. It's hard to make a determination at this point though. How deep is this draft truly going to be, and what trade-down options would be available?

Brandon Beane didn't come around until AFTER the 2017 Draft. The first moves in the roster tear-down were the Sammy Watkins/Ronald Darby trades, both of which occurred during the Preseason in August 2017. That's just about 13 months ago. Calling it "Year Two" of the rebuild is quite a stretch. The main reason for the Bills regressing is that we traded away our veteran QB (Tyrod Taylor) and replaced him with a Top 10 rookie (Josh Allen). Even if we fielded a better overall roster than the 2017 team that went 9-7, the Bills almost certainly would have STILL taken a significant step backwards this year. That's what happens when you play a young/inexperienced Quarterback. The only realistic way the 2018 Bills could have been competitive this year was by keeping Taylor another season. That would have cost us the extra 3rd Round Pick we got from Cleveland, along with an additional $13 million on the salary cap (Taylor's hit was $16 million, McCarron was $3 million). Which means that we probably would have filled LESS holes on the roster, for the sole purpose of maybe competing for a Wild Card spot this year. Personally, I would rather take our lumps this season... get a Top 5 pick... and then be ready to move forward next year.

Based on the number of holes we had in the offseason (QB, WR, C, RG, RT, DE, DT, DT, SLB, MLB, CB), it was never going to be slightly realistic that we would be able to fill every weak point on the roster. It had nothing to do with the person sitting behind the desk. The Bills went into Free Agency with about $25 million in space for 2018, then raised that to about $32 million after trading away Cordy Glenn and Tyrod Taylor. Out of that amount, a team needs to keep roughly $8-10 million in reserve for the rookie contracts and emergency signings. By my counts, they had at least 12 starting spots that needed serious upgrades - without even starting to consider the depth/bench positions. A decent starting-level free agent will usually run a team between $4 and 8 million each. Big names can often be twice that amount. Do the math. At most, the Bills were looking at around 3-5 decent free agent signings at the absolute max. By the time they re-signed Kyle Williams, then added Star Lotulelei, Trent Murphy, AJ McCarron and Vontae Davis - that money was pretty much gone. To make matters worse, Ritchie Incognito retired well AFTER free agency had run its course, opening another massive hole on the roster. Now, it's definitely fair to say that McCarron was a busted signing. But the other suggested free agent options on the market (Case Keenum, Sam Bradford, Teddy Bridgewater, etc.) all signed for WAY MORE with other teams, and would have virtually wiped out our cap space by themselves. Same with keeping Taylor. Considering the fact that Beane was already planning a big move up the draft board, I think it was smart to wait and take the chance with a bargain in McCarron. We got him for $3 million. The Cardinals signed Bradford for $20 million, and he probably won't make it through the first month of the season before getting replaced by Josh Rosen. It's also fair to criticize the swap of EJ Gaines and Davis, especially after the nonsense that happened this week. And I would guess that even Beane admits this decision was a mistake. They could have brought back Gaines for roughly the same amount. My guess is that Beane believed Gaines was unreliable because of injury, and was hoping Davis was ready to return to Pro-Bowl form. It was a bad calculation. At this point, it's too early to judge the additions of Lotulelei or Murphy. Personally, I think both guys are playing OK. And the signings of Jeremy Kerley, Corey Coleman, Marshall Newhouse, Russell Bodine, etc. were basically the front office trying to get something out of the few dollars/resources they had left. This is something every team is forced to do when cap space is gone. Bottom line... This front office decided the best course for Buffalo was to rebuild from the ground-up. They didn't see a way of long-term success without a franchise quarterback. They didn't see a way of long-term success with the bloated underachieving contracts they current had on the books. The solution to both problems was trading away talent for draft picks. A season like this was the unfortunate side-effect. It just wasn't possible for us to re-stock talent as quickly as we got rid of it. Next year is completely different story.

I've read through their methodology before. It's definitely interesting, but it's still unclear at times. My opinion is that it works better for some positions, but not so well for others. A great example is with Defensive Tackles. Kyle Williams always explodes off the ball quickly. This often gives him the appearance of beating his blocker, even when an O-Lineman purposely uses his over-pursuit to help create a big running lane. He gets a big score, even though he helped contribute to a bad running play. Meanwhile, Star Lotulelei basically holds up 1-2 defenders and lets the guys behind him do their job. He never appears to get penetration, so his score remains low. Another person pointed out the problem with someone like Tre'Davious White. How do you score a guy when quarterbacks are scared to throw his way? The guy has been total lock-down so far, yet he fails to crack our Top 5.

I've always been confused about how PFF rates quarterbacks. I like Josh Allen's potential. But if he wasn't a rookie playing his first snaps in the NFL, I don't see how anyone could be rating his play very high at this point. There are numerous times he's missed open guys, held the ball too long on sacks, thrown off target and made bad decisions. Nathan Peterman's score sadly also seems too high, so maybe it's just a QB thing. Count me down as another who thinks Star Lotulelei is getting unfairly knocked. PFF seems to like DTs who penetrate in the backfield, so they have always given Kyle Williams very high scores (even when he doesn't have a good game). Someone like Star is basically a space-eater who occupies blockers. He's basically invisible on game film, not going forwards or backwards. We can argue whether that kind of player is worth his big contract, but I certainly don't think he's been terrible for us. Although Ryan Groy has definitely been our worst O-Lineman, I'm shocked that Jordan Mills and John Miller aren't on this list. They have been almost as bad. No push in the running game, constantly confused about who to block, and sometimes getting knocked onto their butts. It's been awful. Re-watching the game, I'm noticing that most of our defensive breakdowns are due to "discipline errors." Edge players not keeping contain. Linebackers biting too hard on play fakes. Tacklers take bad angles to the ball. Guys in the secondary in poor position. I'm curious how PFF rates these kinds of plays, considering that Tremaine Edmunds is not on the negative list, and Jordan Poyer is listed very high.

We've been irrelevant since the turn of the century mostly because of our quarterback situation. Although we've gotten a few decent seasons from some vets (Flutie, Bledsoe, Fitz, Orton, Taylor), we haven't seen consistent top-level play since Jim Kelly retired. The reason I use the word "irrelevant" instead of something like "terrible" - is because the Bills have NOT been bottom-dwellers for the majority of the last 15-20 years. During the ENTIRETY of the 17 year drought, the Bills had exactly three seasons with less than 6 wins. We haven't been embarrassingly bad. We've been frustratingly mediocre. Unfortunately, the constant 6-10, 7-9 and 8-8 finishes kept fooling the Bills front office into patching holes. They realized we had decent talent. So they kept treating this roster like we were a linebacker or receiver away from contending. And every season, we would see the play of our quarterback drag a fairly talented roster to the ground. The Bills would end up with a draft pick between 5-10, which of course was just far enough back to keep us from drafting a top QB or elite positional prospect. Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane were smart enough to identify the problem (lack of Franchise Quarterback). But instead of complaining that his team was in "purgatory" and hopeless to do anything about it, they set forth a plan to ENSURE they would obtain a top QB prospect in the 2018 draft. They did this by trading away talented players to other teams for draft picks. This gave them the capital needed for a trade-up, but also left them with multiple holes on the roster and too much dead-space on the salary cap to get much free agent help... this year. Without the extra picks, we probably couldn't have made a move for Josh Allen. And if you replace Allen with all the guys we traded away (Sammy Watkins, Ronald Darby, Marcel Dareus, Tyrod Taylor), we are back in the same situation we've been for almost 20 years. Honestly, I figured our fanbase would be smart enough to figure this out. But I guess not. Everyone is so worried about being a "laughingstock" or being labeled the worst team in the NFL, they forgot that we already were a joke and haven't received respect from anyone in almost two decades. Even in seasons that we win 8-9 games, the Bills are regularly lumped in the same conversation as the Cleveland Browns. If Allen turns out to be a star in this league, the 2018 season will be nothing more than a blip on the radar. This front office will have plenty of resources to build around him over the next few seasons, and you will be shocked how quickly we can re-stock this roster into something good.

I read multiple training camp reports, from each and every practice the Bills held during the offseason, from lots of different reporters. They all said the same thing: - Josh Allen was making lots of "wow" plays, but also making lots of really bad mistakes and poor throws - AJ McCarron was unimpressive, taking too many sacks and seemed to be trying too hard to avoid mistakes - Nathan Peterman was the most steady, solid and consistent Once Preseason hit, things seemed to be following the same pattern: - Allen displayed lots of talent, but his start against a first-string defense (in the third game) suggested he may not be ready - McCarron played good the first game, but was terrible in the second and fourth - Peterman was consistent in each of his three appearances, regardless of which unit he was playing with or against My guess is that Peterman is one of those guys who plays well in a controlled practice setting, when there is no pressure, he knows exactly what to expect and he's against defenders he's seen many times. Same thing when he's going against a bland preseason defensive scheme. But put him into a real high-pressure NFL game, where he doesn't really know what to expect - he panics and everything crumbles to pieces. Having that Brady/Montana-like calmness is very underrated, and something that's hard to determine in a player until they are put into the situation. It's possible Peterman gets more comfortable as time passes. But it's hard to justify waiting on a QB to develop, when he's got so little upside.

So the only options you see are giving the front office an "unlimited leash"... or relentlessly bashing them and calling for their heads after Week 1 of their first full offseason? Got it. I've made it very clear that Buffalo should take a significant step-forward and competing for the playoffs by the mid/end of next year (2019). Rebuilding is not just about age. For example, Sammy Watkins is young and talented. But he was clearly going to command a top WR contract, and wasn't even CLOSE to worth that money. At this point, Watkins is probably the most overrated player in the NFL. Even when he's got good QB play and a high-powered offense around him, his production is pathetic. At some point, people are going to recognize that he's just not very good.

I get so tired of this argument. Many of the best QBs in NFL history were drafted to the WORST franchises in the league. Bad O-Lines. Bad receivers. No running game. If you have the chance to draft a franchise QB (especially on a team that hasn't had one in 20 years), you don't ask questions. YOU DO IT!!!! What if Beane had kept those 2018 picks, and used them to upgrade the O-Line and WR corps instead? Then we get to the 2019 Draft with the #1 Pick.... and all of the prospects are terrible. Or maybe we are drafting at #2 or #3 overall and there is only one good QB available. For all the b!+ching about roster management, the Bills have a potentially VERY STRONG foundation to build the future team on. Quarterback (Allen), Left Tackle (Dawkins), Middle Linebacker (Edmunds) and Cornerback (White). If those guys work out, we could be set for a very long time.

You sound like Jerry Sullivan, thumping his chest like a cranky old man. The last 17 years are totally irrelevant. This regime walked in the door, and declared that our roster needed a TOTAL and COMPLETE revamp. Not a piece-by piece patch job like our previous GMs always prescribed. And despite dumping a good chunk of talent, they still managed to put together a more successful season than any of the clowns before them. Here's the thing that so many people on this board seem to be missing. There are two VITAL elements to a roster rebuild: Step #1 is tearing the old foundation down. Letting veterans walk in free agency. Trading picks for players. Purging the salary cap. Step #2 is the actual rebuild. Drafting better players. Filling in the open spots with veteran free agents. There is no timeline for deconstructing a team. You can do it gradually over a few seasons. Or you can do it very quickly, within a few months. Rebuilding is another story. There are 53 roster spots on an NFL team. There are 22 starting spots. Even the BEST front offices will have a tough time drafting more than 3-4 impact players per season. And how much you can do in free agency is very much constrained by the available salary cap. Beane simply did Step #1 very quickly (mostly to obtain draft capital to secure his franchise Quarterback), and it's going to take TIME for him to finish Step #2. At this point, nobody knows how the rebuild is going to go. This regime has gotten only 1-2 draft classes (depending on whether you count 2017 or not), and the newest group has played exactly ONE game. Our free agent strategy has been 90% about clearing space, and 10% about actually filling holes. People that are complaining right now, are doing so because they are miserable crybabies, and NOT because they have some unique insight into how our front office is actually operating.

If Josh Allen develops into a good QB, our current group of WRs will magically start getting open and looking better.

So from what I gather from this post, your biggest complaint is that Brandon Beane should have: 1. Kept all of his picks in the 2018 draft 2. Waited to draft his QB in 2019 Just for the moment, I will disregard the fact that Buffalo had the extra draft capital and opportunity to make the QB move this year (knowing for sure there was a prospect they really liked) - and that nobody has any clue what next year's draft order or prospect class will look like. Instead, I will simply point out the fact that you (as a fan) are extremely upset about the Bills not fielding a competitive team in 2018... and your solution is that they should have pushed off the addition of their rookie QB until 2019 -- basically extending the rebuilding process past next season as well.

The next 4-5 months will be much less stressful, if Bills fans can just understand and accept that 2018 is a rebuilding year. Josh Allen will be named the starter eventually. And guess what? Our offense is still going to struggle, and look very bad for much of the year. All the people screaming for the coaching staff to throw in Allen, will probably give him about 5 quarters of football before declaring him a bust.

Even in most blowouts, it's rare to see a team play so poorly in all three phases of the game. I'm not expecting much this season, but I don't think Buffalo will be quite this bad all year. Our special teams allowed a big punt return, had a missed field goal, a dropped snap by the punter, and then failed to jump on the ball when the returner muffed it. That's a 12-point swing on those plays alone (and more, considering the Ravens scored touchdowns after two of those mistakes). Also consider that both of Nathan Peterman's interceptions led to Ravens touchdowns as well. I point all this out, because I think the defense has a good chance at rebounding. It's hard to play when the rest of the team puts them in terrible position all game. They clearly had some coverage breakdowns, and they still struggle getting pressure on the QB. But the run defense was decent, and there were other times the secondary looked OK.

The current front office has nothing to do with anyone else who ran this franchise in the past.

Fans really need to be patient, and let Brandon Beane's plan come to fruition. If this team isn't pointing up by the middle/end of next season, then we can start talking. Until then, it's just ridiculously premature. Nobody wants to deal with a rebuilding season. It's ugly to watch, and it's easy to get impatient. But until Beane arrived, this organization was stuck in a perpetual state of .500 football, with no playoffs in 17 years and no franchise quarterback. He decided that our best course wasn't to add talent to the foundation, but to blow up the foundation and start over. Many are frustrated with the lack of talent we added this offseason, and want to blame Beane for not fielding a competitive team. But looking at our resources, I just don't see how much more he could have done. We only had so many draft picks, and it was absolutely vital to the plan for them to secure Josh Allen with the first trade up. We absolutely could not walk out of this draft without our QB of the future, and anyone who disagrees is not worth listening to. Even without the trade-up for Tremaine Edmunds, we would only have had one extra 3rd Round choice. That's it. In free agency, Beane used the little cap space he had to improve the D-Line. Maybe time will tell that he overpaid for Star Lotulelei and Trent Murphy, but I think we should give them a little bit longer than Week 1 to call them busted pickups. The Vontae Davis addition looks pretty bad so far, but EJ Gaines only played 11 games last year and is already hurt again. I can't blame them for letting him walk. After the Davis, Lotulelei and Murphy signings, we didn't have the cash to make any other splash signings. Right now, the Bills are sitting with less than $9 million in cap space. So it's not like they had a ton of money to go out and upgrade the other weak spots. We had to settle for guys like Russell Bodine and Marshall Newhouse. And for all of the complaining about the O-Line, don't forget that Ritchie Incognito retired in April - AFTER all the best free agents had been picked clean and AFTER the draft was finished. The Bills had restructured his contract and were counting on him playing this season. It's not Beane's fault that Incognito screwed his teammates over. I get it. We have big holes on the offensive line, at wide receiver and at cornerback. We will likely be starting a rookie quarterback sooner than later. We probably won't be very competitive in 2018. But that was never the plan. The plan was to develop Allen, get Edmunds some experience. Next year we have an estimated $90 million in cap space. We have virtually no players (Kyle Williams and maybe Kelvin Benjamin) needed to re-sign. And we have a full slate of draft picks.

No. Actually, the Bills have been doing the exact opposite for most of the last 17 years. This is the first complete rebuild the Bills have done since Tom Donahoe was hired after the Music City Miracle. Do you really feel like Buddy Nix (who refused to move away from Ryan Fitzpatrick) or Doug Whaley (trading extra picks to move up for Sammy Watkins) were making moves with the FUTURE in mind? Nope. If you break-down the 2017 Bills and the 2018 Bills, these are the major differences you will find: - They traded their below-average QB Tyrod Taylor for a 3rd Round Pick (robbery) and drafted his replacement in the Top 10 - They let their below-average MLB Preston Brown walk in Free Agency (oh well) and drafted his replacement in the Top 20 - They lost their best O-Line players (Eric Wood and Ritchie Incognito) due to retirement - They let EJ Gaines walk in Free Agency, mostly because he couldn't stay healthy They played all of last season (finishing 9-7 and making the playoffs) without Sammy Watkins or Ronald Darby. They only had Marcel Dareus for 5 games. They only had Cordy Glenn for 6 games.

After what I saw in preseason, I thought Nathan Peterman deserved the starting job. And I was slightly optimistic he was going to take a significant step forward from the disastrous play as a rookie. One of the things that I liked about Peterman during the preseason was his quick decision-making and release. With our O-Line struggling so bad, I figured this would be extremely beneficial to the offense. But with the real bullets flying at him today, it very much seemed (early in the game) that Peterman was holding the ball WAY too long. I just have to wonder if this is a mental byproduct of his 5-INT game against the Chargers last year. Some players look strong and confident in practice or preseason. But on gameday, they become hesitant, scared and overly careful. As the game progressed and Peterman had no choice but to finally push the ball downfield, he made very poor decisions and was extremely inaccurate. The guy offers virtually no upside as a quarterback. His arm strength is poor for an NFL passer. He struggles with anything over 10-15 yards. Any kind of outside timing route floats in the air, just begging for an interception. His athleticism is average, meaning he can't extend plays or make defenses respect his scrambling ability. For someone with his skill-set to be successful, he will need to be exceptionally accurate, extremely quick at getting the ball out and flawless in his decision-making. What we've seen instead (at least so far) is a guy who holds the ball too long in the pocket, who forces the ball into places he shouldn't and who has very spotty accuracy. Unless the coaching staff is scared Josh Allen will develop bad habits playing behind this O-Line, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't make the QB change in Week 2. And quite honestly, I wouldn't blink if they decided to cut Peterman and sign a real/experienced veteran either.

And then what about the QB position...

Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott would like us to be competitive and win right now. But they aren't going to sacrifice the LONG-TERM FUTURE of this team, for the sake of competing for a wild card position THIS SEASON. It just baffles me that so many fans just can't grasp this concept. Every... Single... Move... made by this front office in the past 2 seasons has been made with the team's long-term future in mind. Why keep a player around, if they aren't going to fit into the team's long-term plans? Especially if another team is willing to offer you a draft pick in exchange for that player? This is the question that can be asked about Sammy Watkins, Ronald Darby, Marcel Dareus, Tyrod Taylor, etc.

I found this related article just as interesting. It shows a very strong correlation between the percent of cap space used by a team's Top 10 contracts, and their point differential throughout the season. https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2018/9/6/17521424/nfl-predictions-2018-super-bowl-contenders-salary-cap-roster-balance The trick to salary cap management is balance. - If you aren't handing out enough big contracts, chances are your talent level isn't where it needs to be. - If you are overpaying too many big name players, your depth is probably going to suffer. - Teams with young QBs on their first contracts have a significant advantage over everyone else. This is also further evidence that Buffalo is in full-rebuild mode. We are currently dead-last on the list, suggesting the Bills probably have less talent than most other NFL teams (which is unfortunately hard to argue). Our highest paid player is Jerry Hughes, who hasn't had more than 6 sacks since 2014.