msw2112

It's a luxury to have a quality QB on a rookie contract. Without that, it is difficult to make as many moves as they have made in the last couple of years in FA. The Bills should be similarly situated for the next few years - now the QB has to develop (as Goff has in LA).

Is this list all UNRESTRICTED Free Agents, or does it include restricted FAs?

Funchess was a beast as a TE his sophomore year at Michigan and looked like he was destined for greatness. He switched to WR his junior year and his production dropped a bit, but was still drafted in the 2nd round by Carolina. He then had a couple of middling years as a WR in Carolina, followed by one great year, followed by another middling year. He has a lot of talent, but I get the impression that he's not the most driven player. He also could be a bit of a 'tweener - a little too slow to be a great WR, and a little too small to be a great TE (at least the blocking part of the job). If the Bills can sign him to a reasonable contract to be a complementary player, I am fine with it. If they need to pay him big money and make him a feature player, I would take a pass. I don't think he's a bust, as he has been productive every year, but he's also not a star. He's worthy of a spot on an NFL roster.

As a Bills fan and an American, this is a tough one. Which would have been the lesser of two evils? I suppose that Trump will likely be out of office at the end of the 4 year term (if not sooner) whereas he may have owned the Bills up until his death (which could be 10-20 years).

I live in AZ and while I mostly follow the Bills, I see enough of the Cardinals to be able to agree with the fact that Rosen was surrounded by a pretty poor cast. The Cardinals' O-Line makes the Bills' look like a wall of Pro Bowlers. Fitzgerald is a great player, but well past his prime and Johnson is coming off of a serious injury and didn't have a very good year. I was pro-Rosen pre-draft and think he'll turn out to be pretty good if the Cardinals can build around him, but I am now happy that the Bills decided to go with Allen. I should add that the Cardinals' coaching was horrible. They fired their OC mid-season and their head coach at the end of his one and only season with the team. Not a pretty situation. It's rare when another team is worse off and more dysfunctional than the Bills, but that is true of the 2018 Cardinals.

I didn't realize that Pitts went to Pitt.

This fall, I was at Octoberfest in Munich, Germany. I was wearing a Bills cap. Sure enough, I heard a couple of guys scream "Bills Mafia!" and got some high-fives when they walked by.

Perhaps he could challenge Marcel Dareus to a street car race.

Tyrod was a good football player for the Bills, but had limited passing skills as a QB. He made very few mistakes, but his unwillingness to throw the ball into tight spaces or risk any kind of mistake limited his production greatly. The flip side is that he rarely turned the ball over. He was benched because he was highly unproductive in 3 straight games, not because he is black. Sadly, however, racism is alive and well and I'm sure that Tyrod and other black QB's have been the victim of it, whether the perpetrator of the racism did it consciously or unconsciously. A pretty good read on unconscious bias is Blink, by Malcom Gladwell. The book cites several studies that indicate how racism (and other "isms") grow out of unconscious bias. I like Taylor and think he's a quality guy and I wish him well. I am also glad that the Bills moved on from him, as he was not the answer at QB.

A regular season loss bothers me for a day or two. Usually it makes me a little grumpy on Monday, then I let it go. A playoff loss when there are no expectations (see last season) is about the same as a regular season game. Other playoff losses (the Giants Super Bowl, the Dallas SB where we led at the half and the Music City throwback game) still bother me to this day.

I don't know much about Lawrence, but I would be opposed to signing Clowney. Despite his immense measurables and talent, he has some injury history. Also, he was known for taking some games off during his final year at S. Carolina. When healthy, he has played well for the Texans, but not, in my opinion well enough to command the type of salary he is likely to see and get from someone ($20 M per year or thereabouts). I could see us having buyer's remorse down the road, and being saddled with the huge contract, as we were with Mario Williams and Marcel Dareus. He's just not quite enough of a sure thing for that kind of mega-deal. As mentioned above, he doesn't seem to fit the Beane model.

As mentioned above, Zach Gentry is an interesting option. He went to Michigan as a highly-touted 6'7" athletic QB. Harbaugh saw a much better future for Gentry as a TE and converted him. Although he's had a couple of bad drops this season (in particular against Ohio State), he has been productive over the last couple of years. The last Michigan QB converted to TE to play in the NFL was the Bills' own Jay Riemersma, who was a pretty good player. Gentry has a higher ceiling than Jay, as he is bigger and more athletic. Could be a good fit for the Bills.

I don't know much about Davis other than he was once a very good LB. Based on what I have seen in this thread from others who have seen him play recently, I think he'd be a good short-term signing. Likely many teams will be interested and the connections to McDermott and Beane should give the Bills an edge.

A few thoughts related to this thread: Just because Murray declares for the draft doesn't mean he is going to play football. It means he's going to test the waters, see who picks him, where he gets picked (and thus how much guaranteed money he would get) and then he would decide whether to play. Just because Mayfield has been pretty successful in the NFL so far, it doesn't mean that Murray will be successful. They are two different people and two different players. Murray is also much smaller. I don't see him being successful as an NFL QB, but like everyone else's, my opinion is just speculation. Nobody knows how it might turn out. Just because Kingsbury said "I would take him #1 overall" doesn't mean that the Cardinals will. It was just a one-off comment and he was making the point that he thinks that Murray is talented enough to be drafted at the top of the draft. It also doesn't cost him anything to be complimentary of a talented kid who just won the Heisman trophy. The sports media is just making news out of a sound bite. Kingsbury was a terrible hire who is already in over his head. He was fired because he couldn't win at Texas Tech, where he had Patrick Mahomes as his QB. How does this translate to success in the NFL? The Cardinals are reverting back to their old ways of dysfunction and foolishness. I'm hoping the Bills have moved on from that. Rosen is still an unknown commodity. The Cardinals offensive line was beyond terrible this season, MUCH worse than the Bills. Aaron Rodgers would not have been successful with that line. Also, his only quality receiver, Larry Fitzgerald, is well beyond his prime and the Cardinals coaching staff was sub par. I live in Arizona and people are not clamoring to move on from Rosen. I'm glad I am a Bills fan and not a Cardinals fan.

This is EXACTLY what I was thinking. You beat me to the punch!

I used to live in Chicago. When I did, I couldn't stand the Bears. Their fans are really obnoxious, particularly at the stadium. I took a lot of abuse attending a Bills game there, where all I did was wear a Bills hat. I didn't make any comments to anyone other than the people I was with, didn't taunt anyone, etc. Now I live in Phoenix. Cardinals fans are generally fine. If offered free Cardinals tickets, I would decline them to watch the Bills on TV, but if the Bills are not playing at the same time, I will go. I went to one Cardinals game this year - a Thursday night against Denver where I got free tickets from a friend. I am OK with the Cardinals doing well, as it creates good feeling in the community and I get a free pass from my wife to watch more football when there's a buzz about it. Overall, I am somewhat indifferent to how the Cardinals do.

I can't stand it. If having a loud sound play on 3rd down offers a competitive advantage, please come up with something else. I don't have much live experience with it, but it is extremely annoying and irritating when watching on TV.

I preferred Rosen at the time of the draft. I had seen a few games he played at UCLA and he looked like a pro-ready QB. I had never seen Allen play. When we drafted Allen, I was disappointed, but have kept an open mind. He has exceeded my expectations and I think he has the potential to be the best of the QB class. No doubt Mayfield looks better now, but he was more pro-ready coming in and he has more weapons available to him. He has Jarvis Landry, who I dislike, but think has incredible hands and is a very good WR. He has a TE from Miami who was a 1st round pick and is developing into a quality NFL player. He has some semblance of an OL and running game. Allen has none of those things right now. Assuming the Bills acquire those pieces, Allen has the potential to be great. In addition to his physical abilities, which are obvious, he's competitive, fiery and tough. He is a great teammate and leader. He elevates others and guys will want to play with/for him.

I highly recommend the book "Take Your Eye Off the Ball" by Pat Kirwan. It was recommended to me, I bought it and read it and really liked it. I played HS Football and know a lot about college and NFL football, but I still learned some new things from this book. It is dead-on in line with what you state you are looking for in your original post. https://www.amazon.com/Take-Your-Eye-Off-Ball/dp/1600783910

Let's hope we can find our AJ or JJ in the draft. Allen's stats and the offense's performance would be SO much better if the WRs could hang onto the ball. While Allen's accuracy isn't perfect, he puts a lot of balls in the "catching radius" of the WRs and these guys are not able to hang on. Even some sure handed guys like Cooper Kupp would be a huge help - we don't necessarily need athletic freaks (although an athletic freak with great hands would be nice to have).

I was tailgating at the AZ Cardinals stadium in shorts and a t-shirt. I was not very engaged with the others at the tailgate, as I was watching the Bills game on my phone. The Bills game went into OT, so I missed a good portion of the 1st quarter of the Cardinals game while I continued to watch the Bills on my phone from my seat inside the stadium. Honestly, I would have rather been at the game in Buffalo!

Let me be clear that I am not saying that Josh Allen is not, right now, as good as Cam Newton today, not as good as Cam Newton was his rookie year, or that he will have the same amount of success as Netwon has had in the NFL. There is just far too small of a sample size to predict that now. What I was doing in my first post was comparing each of the top rookie QBs this year with the established veteran who they most resemble in terms of physical stature, skill set, future potential if they pan out, etc. I believe that the best comparison for Allen is Newton. Another is Big Ben, although I think Allen is more athletic than Ben (as is Newton) and is not as accurate a passer as Ben, at this point (as is Newton). If Allen pans out and has a career like either one of these guys, the Bills will be pretty fortunate. I do think that Allen is more of a "gamer" than Newton. Newton seems to sulk when things don't go well and I will never forget his unwillingness to jump in to the pile to go after a fumble in the 4th quarter of the Super Bowl when his team was down less than a TD. I was pulling for Carolina (and Newton) to beat Denver and they just couldn't get it done.

I'd say Allen is a lot like a younger, more raw version of Newton. Newton struggles with accuracy, even as a veteran. But he is so big, athletic and mobile that he can create passing opportunities by avoiding the rush, and he has incredible arm strength, so he can make throws that others can't. Newton came from a big-time program at Auburn, so was not nearly as raw as Allen coming into the league, and if my memory serves me correctly, Newton had one of the best rookie seasons ever for a QB. Lamar isn't as big and strong as Newton or Allen, but from what I have seen (which is more his college play at Louisville - I have not watched his 2 starts with the Ravens), he is more athletic.

I'd take Allen over Darnold. Before the draft, I was a pro-Rosen guy. Now, I would take Allen over Rosen too. I was not that high on Mayfield because I thought he was an Oklahoma/Big 12 system guy, but if you look at Mayfield and Mahomes, perhaps that moniker isn't so bad any more. Maybe these guys can succeed now because the NFL is starting to implement a lot more college concepts into its offenses - spreading the field, RPO's, operating almost full-time out of the shotgun, etc. Or maybe they are just really talented kids....Sometimes comparing these young rookies to current/past players can help predict how they might perform during their careers. My first cut: Allen = Newton and Big Ben Mayfield = Brees Jackson = Mike Vick and a better version of Tyrod Darnold = ?

This is off-topic, but Foster was mentioned in the last post. How did he suddenly develop hands? He had been cut from the team, then magically re-signed before the Jests game and is now playing lights out. He always had the speed, but couldn't hang onto a ball to save his life. What happened?