BillsFan4

If they do decide to pick up Tyrod's option, I don't think they would be willing to trade him afterwards. Not this season anyway. The dead cap hit would be $18 million - http://overthecap.com/player/tyrod-taylor/1407 If they are going to trade him, I'd imagine they would have to do it before they pick up his option. The trade window opens after 4pm March 9th. So they'd have to get a trade done in that 2 day window before March 11th, when his option is due.

I think the O'Reilly trade, the Kane trade and the Okposo signing all improved the team. I think signing Gionta added some much needed leadership and helped to improve the team. I think trading Miller and getting Carrier plus all the other assets that cam from that trade helped improve the team, and I think the Faching trade will pay off in time, but that's yet to be seen. I also think/hope his drafts will improve the team in time. I loved that Asplund pick, and it looks like Cliff Pu might have been an absolute steal in the 3rd. Gulhe in the 2nd looks like another great pick. Borgen looks legit, especially for a 4th round pick. Fitzgerald also looks great for a 3rd rounder. I could name more draft picks I like, but we are still in wait and see mode with the drafts. We don't know what players will make it to the NHL and what one's won't. I don't like everything Murray has done. He's had his hits and misses, but every GM does. Im not crazy about the value he gets in his trades. I don't like how many picks he traded away, some of the contracts he's given out, the shape the blue line is in, his cap management and I am still very up in the air on his coaching hire, just to name a few things. But overall, I think the Sabres are about where they should be at this point in the rebuild. These types of rebuilds usually take a good 5 years or more before you start seeing any real success. I think you really have to take into consideration the team he took over. They were historically bad. They literally set records for terribleness. They were one of the worst teams the NHL has seen in a long time, and that even includes terrible expansion teams. Murray was only hired in Jan. of 2014 and took over during a burn-it-to-the-ground, scorched earth type rebuild. He was left with barely an AHL caliber team. I think there were even something like 5,6,7 players on the team that, once he got rid of them, didn't even play in the NHL anymore. I am more/less still in wait and see mode with him. I am definitely not sold on him, but I also don't think he's terrible either. I haven't given up on him by any means though. He does seem to have a clear plan, and all the players he acquires seem to fit that vision. He That's a nice change from the total randomness of Darcy's "plan". Murray seems to be building a team to compete in the West though, and with the Eastern conference seeming like it's going more in the skill & speed route, I'm not sure how well it'll work out. I haven't looked in a while, but earlier this season out record showed it - against the West our win-loss record was much better than it was against the East. And although you have to beat a western conference team to win the Cup, you have to get through a bunch of playoff rounds against Eastern conference teams first...

It'll be interesting to see the different camera angles that I'm sure will be posted on the Internet, on Guentzel's game tying goal. From the camera angles they showed on TV, his stick looked to easily be above the cross bar.

No, this is only Baptiste's second year in Rochester. I believe He is protected IIRC. I was talking about Deslauriers meeting the expansion draft parameters. sorry if that post was confusing. Earlier in the season, I heard Bylsma and some of the players say that they practice shootouts every single practice. It's worrying if they still are because they all suck at it.

On to the shootout... I wish I didn't feel like going to the shootout was a guaranteed loss. Fingers crossed that Lehner has improved! OMG. Are you kidding me!?! Kucherov loses the puck and Lehner still can't make the save. Unreal. Honestly, I think Lehner might be the absolute worst goalie in the entire NHL when it comes to the shootout. Ugh.

Each team must expose a minimum of 1 defenseman and 2 forwards that have played in 40 games the previous season or 70 games the prior 2 seasons. Although Deslauriers has only played in 30 games this year, he played 70 last year so he already meets the requirements. They probably just wanted to get him in a game because he's been up on the press box for a while. Also, Rochester has a game tonight at 7pm, so maybe they wanted Baspiste in the lineup?

I wonder if Ralph Wilson passing away before that 2014 season played a big factor? Maybe it made Marrone feel like he no longer had the time to develop EJ? My guess would be that he felt he needed to win as many games as possible to try and secure his job with whoever the new owner would be, or give himself the best chance at getting hired as a HC elsewhere around the league. Looking back, it's pretty clear that Marrone and Whaley were not on the same page. Whaley goes all in on EJ by giving up multiple picks for Sammy Watkins (against Marrone's wishes from the rumors), then Marrone benchs him a few games into the season to try and win more. I think both of them kind of had their own best interests at heart and I can't really say I blame either one of them, with the uncertainty of new ownership coming in.

Yeah, when I heard Kyle Williams talking on WGR earlier this week, he seemed pretty sure that the Bills were not tearing it down and that the playoffs were the goal next season. For anyone who hasn't heard his interview, it's a good listen. Here's the link - http://www.wgr550.com/pages/23028858.php?contentType=4&contentId=19073090 I'd highly recommend listening to the entire interview (and especially the last few minutes), but if you just want to hear the rebuld/playoff talk, you can skip to (roughly) 3:20 and 5:20.

I've heard that a lot on BBMB, but I am not so sure of that myself. I am sure he is obviously closer to a finished product than Wentz is. But I'm not so sure that sitting and learning Baltimore's offense prepared him to start with the Bills. He's running a totally different offense in Buffalo, with totally different concepts and routes and receivers etc etc. Plus, I think/wonder if there are some things that can only be learned/improved upon by actually starting in NFL games. Practice is just different than a live game, and Tyrod only got to throw something like 35 passes in live game action his entire 4 years in Baltimore. Anyway, just my opinion...

So far, my favorite thing is not having to deal with an entire page of Tyrod threads, with every single one of those threads filled with the same 10 people posting the exact same thing over and over and over in every thread, and no matter how many times that person's (BS) opinion was debunked with stats and facts it did not matter, they just kept posting it again and again. It was like GroundHog Day over at BBMB. There seems to be some very knowledgable Bills fans over here too, which is the main reason I chose to come to TBD.

I'm not too high on Watson. I think there are some red flags with him. He has some accuracy and decision making issues. He struggled badly under pressure (I read a stat after the 2015 season that he was throwing 1 interception every 16 times he was pressured, and I doubt that improved in 2016 since he threw even more int.). He seemed to struggle with the tighter coverage in the red zone (Clemson was ranked very low in red zone efficiency 2 of his 3 years starting). It seemed to me like he also had trouble going through his route progressions at times and I question how well he sees the whole field. It's nice that he won a big game against Alabama, but Alabama has struggled with Clemson's offense for years it seems. I don't put much stock into that anyway. I heard the same stuff about EJ Manuel, how he won all 4 of the Bowl games he played in and he played his best under the bright lights. Winning a championship in college just doesn't seem like an important trait for NFL QBs to me. How many QBs who won championships in college have had very successful careers in the NFL? The list seems pretty short to me. He played in an up tempo, gimmicky college spread offense. He wasn't asked to do a whole lot of what NFL QBs need to do, and I don't think he will be able to get away with some of the stuff he did in college. I really question if he will be a good NFL QB or not. I just don't see how you can spend a top 10 pick on a QB with so many question marks. I will obviously support whoever the Buffalo Bills QB is, but Watson would not be my choice.

OP, just in case you haven't seen this thread yet, it was posted by the owner of this site on the type of behavior he wants from us BBMB refugees - http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/192340-bbmb-brief-orientation/

https://t.co/xbDNgu1UY2 That is the video of Vic Carucci speaking on Tyrod, and I am assuming it's where the story on RotoWorld (in the OP) came from. It looks like pure speculation. He doesn't seem to have any new information. He says "based on the way McDermott answered the questions at the combine". So, it seems like Vic is just guessing, like the rest of us are.

Thanks for having us Scott! It's appreciated. This seems like a pretty great message board. I have lurked for a while, and had thought about signing up, but you know old habits die hard... Glad to see some familiar faces over here, too. Thanks again for having us.

Hello everyone. Another BBMB refugee here! Same username over there. I was going to pick something a little more unique, but I wanted to be able to find my friends... I still can't believe they closed BBMB. I mean, I get it. It did really go downhill this offseason. It turned into GroundHog Day over there. Same people posing the same things over and over every day... But it was still a dick move just deleting it out of nowhere. I kept trying to load the page on Wednesday after McDermott spoke at the combine and I just figured that the servers crashed from people going nuts talking about what McDermott had to say. Then I seen yesterday on this page that the BBMB had closed (I've lurked on and off her for a bit) and I was pretty shocked. Oh well, it's dead and gone now. I was starting to go through message board withdrawal though. Hi, my name is BillsFan4 and I had 2 days clean, but I relapsed today...lol. It's funny. I kept waiting and waiting to get my verification email to be able to post here and when I still didn't see it today I started searching around for an email address to ask a mod here what was up. Couldn't find one, so I said ah I'll just try to sign in and see what happens, and it worked! I was starting to think they closed the borders over here... Glad you let me in! Thanks!