Perry Turtle

AJ Green. Larry Fitzgerald. Andre Johnson. Eric Moulds. Steve Smith Sr. Terrell Owens. These are just a few of the great NFL WRs who have made mediocre QBs look good. There are many more. There are many ways to build a winning team in the NFL. Burning down the roster and expecting a rookie franchise QB to be successful is not one of them.

Looking like a well coached team out there.

Boldin looks slooow.

Drafting Watkins wasn't building through the draft? And if they don't spend the money on Watkins (or Taylor, who we'll cut when we draft our Azor Ahai QB next draft), who are they going to spend it on? Free Agents? Is that option C? Dumping elite talent for no good reason isn't the way to build a winner in the NFL.

Julio Jones and Dez Bryant have struggled with injuries over the last few years, however the WR corps for Dallas and Atlanta are much better with them on the roster. Same goes for Watkins and the Bills. The ultimate impact of losing Watkins is in the number of 8 and 9 man fronts the Bills will face. With a legit deep threat on the field, the Bills could take advantage of those situations. If they can't make defenses pay, then the running game is going to have a more difficult time.

Expectations that the playoff drought will continue for at least five more years. Expectations that it will take the Bills 4 years to rebuild the secondary. Expectations that it will take at least 4 years to rebuild the WR corps. Expectations that the franchise QB the Bills draft will spend more time running for his life and picking himself up off the turf than making plays downfield the first three years of his career.

So Bruce getting himself suspended was an example of his desire to win at all costs? Kelly blasting Buffalo coming out of college was an example of his winning attitude. Or his throwing his teammates under the bus, that was a character of winning? These guys were selfish and self-centered. If Two Bills Drive were around back in the 80s, the board would have been filled with threads calling for the heads of all of the future HOFers. Wilson, Polian, and Levy stood behind those guys during their bouts of foolishness. Levy taught them to be a team and showed them how to win. I have a feeling that that team never would have gotten the chance to mature under Pegula, Beane, and McDermott.

Eventually our Super Bowl teams were seen as having character guys, but it took many years for that perception to take hold, for good reason. Bruce was overweight his rookie year, and didn't start. He was suspended the first 4 games of the 1988 season. He signed an offer letter with Denver when free agency was in its infancy. Jim Kelly signed with the USFL out of college and made it known he didn't want to play for Buffalo. In his early years with Buffalo, he got into all kinds of confrontations in nightclubs. He called out Howard Ballard after being injured, and split the locker room. There was no internet, but there was a vocal undercurrent of fans who wanted to trade him after Reich had success in filling in for the injured starter. Thurman Thomas helped split the Bills in 1989, when he called out Kelly. The point isn't that those Bills weren't character guys, but that they were young and talented, and needed time to mature. Because of their talent, the Bills wisely did not give up on them, and had a coach that could help them develop character. If Watkins was traded because the current management team didn't see him as a character guy, well then that's disappointing, and it's not the way Polian and Levy would have handled the situation.

Mathews, Boldin, and Jones are all slot receivers. The Bills lack outside receivers. Watkins was a top-tier downfield threat. Despite the numbers, Matthews and Watkins are not equal. Especially since Matthews gained a large percentage of his yards in Chip Kelly's offense, which is nothing like the offense the Bills will run. And with Brady still going strong, and the Patriots adding to their WR Corp, the Bills should not be trading starting caliber DBs.

I would add that they already had the assets to trade up into the top 5 before the trade.

How about next year, when they get their franchise QB and he has nobody to throw to, except Zay Jones? And when the Bills secondary looks like Carolina's secondary from last season without Josh Norman? Watkins, as injury prone as he is, would have given a rookie QB a true #1 WR from day 1.

Before the trade the Bills projected needs in the draft were franchise QB, OT, LB and maybe S. After the trade, their needs will be Franchise QB, outside WR, CB, OT, LB, and safety. Another draft where OL will not be adressed thanks to other needs. This trade is more of the same. Running to stand still.

Considering the Bills already had the picks to move up in the draft (two firsts this year and firsts the next couple of years) to draft a QB, I'm still trying to make sense of trading away talent like Watkins and Darby. Matthews is a slot receiver who put up good numbers in Chip Kelly's offense. The Bills will not be running Chip Kelly's offense and their WRs lack speed. They continue to downgrade their DB strength further this offseason. If Brady plays a few more years, that's not a good thing. So instead of adding a franchise rookie QB to a team with a game-breaking WR, the Bills will also need to draft a speedy WR in the draft. They'll also need to upgrade their secondary. Seems like they've added more uncertainty with these trades.

They could trade 3, 4, or 5 first round picks next year to move up to draft a QB, without trading their best WR, who they heavily invested in, or their best DB. And if we have a front office who can't figure out how to win with a talented guy like Watkins on the roster, then how is he going to win with a rookie QB. McDermott claimed that he owns the last 17 years. This move isn't owning the last 17 years, it's more 'fitting my guys into my system,' which is the same crap Rex pulled, which extended the playoff drought. So if Watkins foot isn't ready to fall off (which it might be), I really question what they have now that puts them in better position to make a draft day deal than they had with Watkins on the roster.

McJauron

Whaley wants to rebuild the roster that he's spent the last seven years building.

It might be trivial, but Rex's preference to troll opponents with his weekly team captain selections, rather than establishing permanent captains plays into this accountability issue. I have a feeling that the players gave much more weight to the role of team captain than Rex did.

I think that a lot of locals saw this and were, to say the least, uncomfortable with it. The defensive line was the team's strength when Rex took the job. The D lineman were one-gap pass rushers. Rex runs a 2 gap 3-4, where the D linemen are space eaters. When Rex made it clear that he was going to be the Defensive coordinator, red flags started to fly. To make things worse, it became clear that Rex's defense did not rely on the blitz, and he tried to mix and match calls each week depending on the opponent, which led to inconsistency and confusion. This year's draft made it abundantly clear that Rex was conducting a full-out rebuild of the defense when the team spent it's first three picks on the front seven. Most locals wanted to see the team build on the defense's top four finish after Marrone quit. Rex's hiring signaled that that wasn't going to happen, and Rex was going rebuild something that wasn't broken.

Important to note; Rex has the highest number of assistants in the league, and three guys call plays on defense (Rex, Rob, and Thurman). None of these guys noticed the Bills had only 10 guys on defense, on a first down, in OT.

More proof Rex is a fraud.

The Sabres have had 4 coaches in 6 years under Pegula. He fires coaches when he's seen enough. Hopefully he's seen enough with the fraud currently running the Bills.

Good bye Rex. Nice guy, but as a coach, you're a f'n fraud.

Bush and Carpenter should have been cut weeks ago.

Coaches ARE held accountable when their teams cannot execute the basics such as blocking and tackling. Week 16 and this team still can't tackle? Definitely a reason to fire the coach.

The Tampa 2 also would work with the right MLB and safety, but who in their right mind would want to run that scheme. When Lynn took over the offense this year, the claim was that he was going to simplify the scheme. And it looks like it worked. On the other side of the ball, it looks like the defensive schemes have become even more complex. When Rex admitted that he called defenses against Pittsburgh that the team hadn't practiced (they were from the LA gameplan) because they weren't prepared to stop Bell, you know that the game has passed him by. This team would look a hell of a lot better in a 4-3 cover 3 scheme, which would benefit not just Brown, but Hughes and Dareus too.