Kirby Jackson

Fair and figured that would be controversial. Over the last 2 years, all 3 have been better IMO. It was so hard for me to put him there but those guys have been better for 2 years. 🤷🏻‍♂️

I did the same thing. I had to remember so many times trying to get to 32. 🤣🤣 I could have switched it around 400 times. 🤣🤣

You have Purdy twice and no Saints QB. Lol, I was trying to figure out where Shough was.

Thought this would be a fun exercise. We all have opinions on different guys. Instead of using this thread to disagree with someone else’s list, go on record ranking the QBs how you see it as of today. Here’s mine: 1. Allen 2. Lamar 3. Burrow 4. Mahomes 5. Daniels 6. Hurts 7. Stafford 8 Baker 9. Herbert 10. Dak 11. Stroud 12. Goff 13. Love 14. Nix 15. Purdy 16. Geno 17. Kyler 18. Tua 19. Darnold 20. Lawrence 21. Ward 22 Maye 23. Rodgers 24. Caleb Williams 25. Young 26. Penix 27. McCarthy 28. Fields 29. Russell Wilson 30. Richardson/Dimes 31. Flacco 32. Shough

Cookie would have been the guy for sure. He too was before my time but feel like it would have passed the sniff test. I tried to limit the guys before my time to the HOFers (OJ, Shaw, Joe D). That’s not ideal but felt it was the fairest way for me. I’m always interested to hear from you guys that have been here from the start.

Yeah, I intentionally left of a TE because it would have had to leave off Thurman or one of those WRs. I just didn’t feel right about it as they were all better players. Warlick would have been my choice even though he was before my time. The Bills haven’t had good TEs in their history.

I was thinking about this differently. I was thinking, “what would my all-time, Bills starting lineup be?” The late 80’s is as far back as my memory goes. I’ve included HOFers before my time but not savvy enough to know if Sestak/Byrd/Edgerson/Cookie belong. I’ve also made some executive decisions because WR & RB have been better than TE. This is ONLY for their time as Bills (sorry TO) here it goes: QB - Allen RB: OJ RB: Thurman WR1: Andre WR2: Moulds Slot: Diggs LT: Dion LG: Joe D C Kent Hull RG: Shaw RT: House Ballard DE: Bruce DE: Mario Williams DT: Ted Washington DT: Kyle Williams OLB: Takeo OLB: Biscuit MLB: Talley CB: Winfield CB: Clemens S: Jones S: Poyer KR: McGee ST: Tasker K: Christie P: Moorman HC: Marv OC: Marchibroda DC: Schwartz

Exactly!! Kelly in hindsight is much better than Kelly at the time. Eli Manning may be a fair comp for Kelly. He was, in his era, like Kelly was in his. The Giants didn’t win as consistently as the early 90’s Bills but they managed to win the 2 big ones (that happened to be against Brady). Eli was always considered a very good QB. He was never considered Brady or Brees or Peyton or Rodgers. Kelly belongs in the HOF. I said earlier that he is like Mike Mussina in the HOF as opposed to Willie Mays in the HOF. That felt like a decent way to articulate it. He was a great player in his time but was never considered to be one of the top few players during his era. That’s Josh. Josh has been in the top tier for at least 5+ years. Kelly wasn’t ever in that top tier. That was Montana, Elway and Marino. Later in his career Favre and Young were there. Kelly was in the Warren Moon tier.

I wish Kelly didn’t predate you here. I’d be super interested in your perspective. He would call whole games pretty much at the LOS. It was wild. Josh gets that “sugar high Josh” at times. Exactly what you said would give me some pause in him doing more at the LOS. I’d say he’s good at it. Kelly was one of the best ever at it. Lol, I’m sorry and know that’s a little controversial. Hurts is a top 5-10 QB. Kelly was closer to 5 but Hurts has been elite in 2 Super Bowls. He’s won one. He may very well win another. FWIW, I definitely have Kelly over Hurts but in a few years that could change. If Hurts wins another and plays well, he has the better career IMO.

So Trent Dilfer is better than Allen? Jalen Hurts? Brad Johnson? Nick Foles? Jeff Hostetler? Those guys must be better than Kelly too because they WON Super Bowls. That’s the dumbest argument ever made. Someone said throw the deep ball earlier and that’s fair. Kelly was also elite calling the game. We haven’t seen that from Allen. When I compare players, I compare them vs. their contemporaries to avoid the “game was different back then” argument. Josh Allen is the MVP of the league. He’s been a top 3 QB and top 10 overall player for 5 straight years. Jim Kelly wasn’t that in his era. He was, and people hate this, a lot like Hurts is now. He was in the next tier of QBs and had the best roster in football. He was the right guy for them. If Josh Allen quarterbacked those early 90’s team they have AT LEAST 2 Super Bowls. If Jim Kelly quarterbacked these Bills teams they would look a lot like Bucs do now.

Fair and I always look at this through the lens of their Bills career vs. whole career. Lofton’a career was a HOF career. Ironically, TO would be WR1 if we used their whole careers. He was fine in his season here but he wasn’t the guy that took over a Super Bowl on 1 leg.

Some great additions there. I forgot about Evans candidly 🤣🤣. Your placement of him seems fair. Brown and Price were my next 2 in no particular order. Well done!!

No but I am going to question if you are judging with how you feel about one vs. how they performed. Diggs was one of the best WRs in the NFL when he was here. Lofton was a role player. He had 1 really good year in Buffalo (1991). He was 2nd on the team and 9th in the NFL in yards and TDs. Diggs had multiple years here well above that. He did that as the focus of the defense, not the 2nd best pass catcher. Diggs is an idiot. He was a much better player in a Bills uniform than Lofton. I’d love to here your argument for Lofton.

Bills Diggs is absolutely ahead of the Bills version of Lofton. It’s not close. One was the guy and the other was a role player. If you want to argue Reed over Diggs, okay, but no chance on Lofton. Moulds is in an interesting one as well but I’d probably have Bills Diggs over him. In my lifetime (at least that I remember): Reed, Diggs, Moulds, Stevie, Lofton, Beasley

If you took a Kelly/Hurts conversation to an Eagles message board, 90% would side with Hurts. “He was great in the Super Bowl when they lost and won the other.” That’s what makes it a reasonable argument. Each fan base would argue for their guy. Reasonable Eagles fans wouldn’t try to make the case that Hurts is over Allen (and yes I see the vocal minority on the internet that think Hurts should be 1). Those aren’t the reasonable ones.

I like the format now. I liked the tweak to the teams hosting too. This feels like the right number to me. Once you get beyond 12, it would be difficult to see any team below that running the table against that competition. I think that’s the underrated part. Teams that have 3 losses (or even 2 in some cases) that would be ranked like 14 are inconsistent. They likely lost at least 2 of those games to good teams. They probably play like 3 good teams a year. (I’m considering top 15 teams good). Are we supposed to believe that those teams would, go on the road, and then to neutral sites and be 3-0 vs. those quality of teams? It feels like a stretch. As an Ohio State fan, I apply the Wisconsin/Iowa eye test to it. Those are the type of teams over the last 15 years that would have qualified for an expanded playoff like this. Was it possible that 2014 Wisconsin or 2023 Iowa to win 3 games against the best teams in the country? Of course not!! Those teams would have been murdered. 12 is a good number and we still enter the playoff with a few teams that have zero chance at a title (Boise, Indiana, ASU, SMU).

All fair and it’s not denigrating Kelly in anyway (at least it isn’t intended to). He is a HOFer and he belongs there. He just a HOFer in the same way that Mike Mussina is a HOFer not in the way that Willie Mays is a HOFer. I’d argue, that he was the Jalen Hurts of his era. Hurts has been a Pro Bowler. Hurts has been an all pro. Hurts has led an elite roster to the Super Bowl multiple times. Hurts has consistently been one of the better QBs in the league but never considered at the top. The biggest difference is that Hurts has been elite in the Super Bowl. They are a lot more alike than people want to admit. If Hurts wins another, which he may, we are in for some tough conversations around here. Kelly in retrospect is much better than Kelly in actuality. The nostalgia of those teams have clouded the reality that Kelly was a very good QB and Marv a pretty good coach. Bruce was the guy. Thurman was next. Andre and Kelly were similar. The role players were outstanding and they were really good at the LOS. Those teams were so good. Much in the way though that Eagles fans want Hurts in the conversation with Burrow/Allen/Lamar/Mahomes, Bills fans want Kelly in the conversation with Marino/Elway/Montana and then Young/Favre.

There’s not one thing Kelly did better than Allen. In fact, Kelly was bad in the playoffs. Frank Reich was 2-0 in that span. Don’t confuse winning with a good QB for winning because of a good QB. The early 90’s Bills were the 2025 Eagles. The difference is Jalen Hurts is a better playoff performer than Kelly. There’s not a single thing that Jim Kelly was better at than Josh Allen. I used the Jalen Hurts argument earlier in the offseason. Jim Kelly was the Jalen Hurts of his day. He was a top 5ish QB that won a lot. Josh Allen is the MVP of the league. It’s not comparable. EDIT: I’m not sure what anyone is disagreeing with? What is there to disagree with? We can Google their statistics in the playoffs. I’m not sure that a reasonable argument can be made, skill wise as to anything Kelly did better than Allen. Toughness was Kelly’s best quality. Allen has that in spades as well. I’m not sure why the topic of Allen being better than Kelly bothers Bills fans? Honestly, it’s not very close.

Lol, I threw out $500k and thought people would think it was crazy. The more I think, and read y’all, it’s higher. It would have to be a number that changed the way I lived. $500K would lower my mortgage payments and add some nice vacations. It would allievate some financial stress and shave a couple of years off the back end of my career if invested well. It wouldn’t change my day-to-day. If I’m going to commit to the Bills never winning a Super Bowl in my lifetime, my life would need to improve significantly with the amount of money I’d be getting.

Lifetime You’re either guaranteed the Super Bowl this year or guaranteed the money and zero Super Bowls in your lifetime.

The list is clearly made by outsiders. No knowledgable Bills fan has Kelly over Allen. The top 3 are: Bruce, OJ and Josh (in whatever order). Thurman is next. Andre and Kelly are the next 2. Joe D follows them. From there, it’s a little subjective.

Sorry. It’s a guaranteed victory or they never win one in your lifetime.

This post got me thinking, “what’s the right number that it would take in exchange for a Bills Super Bowl?” Obviously, $500 isn’t the answer. The champagne I’d pop after a Super Bowl would exceed that. What’s your number? I’m thinking like $500K would be my number. That might be insane and it might not be high enough. That number is big enough to matter but not big enough to stop working or drastically change the day-to-day. I figure that this is an interesting place for this discussion because the people spending time here, in June, REALLY care about the Bills. EDIT: To be clear, you either get _____ dollars and the Bills do not win one in your lifetime OR they are guaranteed a championship this year.

That’s more than fair and I agree. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to say, “if league average QB were inserted ______ play would have looked different.” There’s no perfect method and style of play certainly comes into play. I’m just not sure that there’s a great way to account for that. That’s especially true because a bunch of teams would have been built differently with a different style of QB. Geno is a different player than Kyler but they both are around the middle of the league. The only way that I can think of is that, “Geno Smith method.” Basically, zoom out and say, “if the guy back there was perfectly average, how good would they be?” There’s different skill sets within the average guys but as soon as we start applying the best fitting skill set we are kind of taking away the point of perfectly average. Another way to look at it is if QB play across the league was EXACTLY the same, who would win? The Bills would be picking in the top 5-10 in this scenario, IMO.