Chuck Wagon

I'll take $10 mil less in cap room if we get a guy projected to go top 3 if not #1 at #10.....

The strategy is simple, convince your fans you are terrible on purpose instead of terrible on accident and you get 4 years worth of paychecks instead of 2 or 3.

What happened to break the "Curse of Babe Ruth" or the "Billy Goat Curse"? Talented personnel guys (or guy) made excellent decisions and built the correct culture to win. Until that happens, you can call it a curse if you want, but it doesn't matter what you call it the result will be the same.

Fair point. As someone who basically grew up in the shadow of the Horseshoe and spends ~14 hours every Saturday consuming college football, it's difficult to remember the regionality of that level of football.

If his last name was Smith or Jones would anyone on this board care about this kid? He's clearly got massive issues, he doesn't possess half the talent of guys like Manziel or Jamarcus Russell while bringing the off field baggage in spades. Why some people here are sold on him is beyond me.

Even the Patriots offense is built off jamming Blount down people's throats and quick passes to WRs in space that are essentially part of the run game. A strong defense and running game beats a QB looking to air it out. It was true in 1976 and it's true now. Why are Alex Smith and Dak Prescott enjoying byes this week while Andrew Luck, Drew Brees, Philip Rivers & Cam Newton watching at home?

If Eagles / Vikings / Panthers / Saints / Cardinals / Colts all win (all of which are possible) then we'll be looking at pick 9-11 (not sure how the tiebreakers play out). Realistically being in the playoff chase until week 16, Rex getting fired and still getting pick 9 is about as good a non-playoff season as we could hope for IMO.

No, if you understand the situation it's not the trainwreck outlets like ESPN are painting it as. I've seen several national guys say the situation with Whaley is incredibly toxic and Marrone ran away to avoid it, when in reality Marrone's contract contained a clause he would be foolish not to exercise and I do believe he had the Jets job lined up until they got scared off about tampering charges. Some people are convinced Belichick holds some personal vendetta against us and is out to screw us every way possible.

Honestly it all depends on the coach we hire. If we get McDaniels, then try very hard for Jimmy G. (assuming Josh is high on him). If we go with an offensive guy with a track record of young QB development, take a guy like Watson or Mahomes and battle it out with Cardale with a smart vet backup (like Hasslebeck has been for Luck). If we go with a defensive guy and plan to stick with ball control offensively, roll the dice on a couple of vets like Mike Glennon and Brian Hoyer in FA. TT's contract status makes his return untenable. I wouldn't be opposed to bringing TT back if it's a deal, but I can't imagine he'll be very thrilled with getting benched for this game, this move signals an end of his tenure.

That's literally what I said, I was responding to someone else who was claiming he was coach in waiting.....

Some people say Patricia is waiting for BB's job, others say McDaniels is, meanwhile BB has given zero indication he's going to retire any time soon and both Patricia & McDaniels have expressed interest in other jobs. Wish this narrative about "coach in waiting" would just die out. Kirby Smart was Alabama's "Coach in Waiting" until he got the Georgia job. These guys aren't going to sit around waiting for whatever day BB retires (He's still "only" 64, he could coach another 10 years easily), they'll take a job that's worth taking.

The Bills' stats got fat off some bad defenses (49ers / Browns / Jets) and posted some numbers in some lopsided games (Pats / Raiders / Steelers). More often than not in our losses the defense couldn't keep the other team off the field, but by the same token we had opportunities against the Seahawks / Dolphins (twice) / Raiders / Ravens where the offense could have either won the game or put the game on ice and failed. To look at the scoring numbers and completely remove any context shows the danger of statistics.

Is 11 the highest we can get? If the Cards / Panthers / Eagles all win can we move higher?

They do have the Vikings 1st though. If the Vikings lose to the Packers (likely) and Bears (already did once this year) and the Eagles beat a Cowboys team with nothing to play for in week 17, the Vikings pick may end up higher than the Eagles' original pick.

Brissett just came off IR so he could practice with the team. It doesn't mean he's ready to see any game action. I think you are reading way too into the situation, first off it's not college football, even when teams are blowing teams out backups rarely play more than a series or two, and second off Jimmy G. is clearly the backup QB at this point. One could just as easily take your line of logic and say they could play Jimmy in meaningless time to showcase him for a trade.

That sounds like a VERY intriguing duo. I'd be interested in copying a lot of the Chief's model as they are a team that does a lot of the little things right to win games and are not dependent on a great QB bailing them out.

The Rams Oline and WRs are a complete cluster. If you switched Goff and Prescott, everyone would be writing stories about Goff being the 2nd coming of Joe Montana while Dak would be Cody Kessler. With Johnson back, the Eagles have a very good Oline but could stand to get Wentz more help at the skill positions.

I can see some hesitation in labeling him a "system QB", but I think every QB in the league is a "system QB" for the most part. You aren't going to put Brady in a zone read or an offensive heavily dependent on the deep ball and you aren't going to put Cam in an offense dependent on quick reads and getting the ball out. But offenses need the personnel to fit the system of the QB, which is my chief concern with our coaching and organization. I think Tyrod would have a chance to look dramatically better if he had a "Mike Evans" type big WR who can make plays down the field and gives him a bigger target to see (and I know we made the Sammy pick before Tyrod was the QB) but he's surrounded by WRs who fit a quick read offense much better, Tyrod can't make the quick reads (and we don't call plays that allow for it) and our guys struggle to beat coverage, causing him to eat the ball or throw into traffic. You can't have a WR corp suited for slants and bubble screens and try to run a vertical offense any more than you can have a scat back RB and try to be a power running team. Both on offense and defense we have a coaching staff that's inflexible to putting the personnel in the best position to succeed. That failure can fall on the personnel guy's inability to select the right personnel or it can fall on the coaching staff's inability to vary their schemes, either way it's the creek we've found ourselves in without a paddle.

You are right, there are not very many good options at all. I would like to see either A) trading a high pick for Jimmy G. or B) using our high picks to beef up the line and WR, sign a vet placeholder like Hoyer and take a mid round QB, hoping that if the pieces are good enough around them we can get the next "Dak" between Cardale and the rookie.

I think there's a lot of truth in this. I do think situation (coaching and the players around them) matters just as much as the QB's talent. If you look at the young QBs who've succeeded in the league, they've been put in a position to do so with protection in front of them, consistent coaching and targets to help bail them out. That being said, outside of improvements at WR and the correct coach, I do think we have a lot of pieces in place to allow a QB to succeed. Part of the reason my ideal coach/QB is McDaniels & Jimmy G. together.

Belichick doesn't care where a guy goes, he's going to get the best return for his team possible. If we offer a pick in the teens and the next best offer is one in the 40s, he's not taking the worse offer just because of what he thinks of Jimmy.

They were trying hard to trade up to get Conner Cook but Oakland beat them to him, then they took Dak. The same thing with Brady applies with Dak, if they knew he'd be that good they would have taken him at #4.

I'm not sure how it is in your OSU circles, but in mine there's extreme confidence. Personally, I don't get it. Clemson has looked underwhelming at times this year, but if they are on their A game and JTB looks like he has for the majority of the year there's a chance it gets ugly quick.

I've come back around on Watson. I understand some of the concerns about scheme and size, but I think he checks every box in regards to intangibles. He reminds me a lot of Bridgewater, also a guy who came into his final year viewed as a sure top pick, then got nitpicked a bit through the year and ultimately fell to a late 1st round pick. It'll be interesting to see how he plays against OSU, I do tend to believe the ACC was down a bit as a conference this year, the Clemson team around him was soo young and I think it was a situation where it would be easy to have a bit of a hangover coming off the Bama loss so I do give him a lot of credit getting back into the CFP. He's a guy I wouldn't want to spend a top 10 pick on, but with a late 1st or 2nd I'd be willing to make that investment.

ESPN's playoff machine must be broken, I can't get it to put the Bills into the playoffs regardless of what I do.