Logic

I'm fine with the firing of Castillo. It shows that McDermott is serious about fixing the offensive line. That being said, I believe the Bills were a top 5 rushing team last season, and then they lost Eric Wood and Richie Incognito in the same offseason and did basically nothing to replace them. I'm not exactly sure what offensive line coach would be able to get quality production out of Jordan Mills and Russell Bodine, but whatever. What's done is done. Like everyone else, I'm hoping Crossman is next. Oh, and I also want to say that I find it encouraging that after each of the past two seasons, McDermott has fired a coach. It shows he's not too stubborn, complacent, or set in his ways to change when change is needed. That's a really good thing. Now he just needs to pick some superior replacements so that there aren't MORE firings after NEXT season!

The only thing I'll say in response is that if I'm guilty of looking at the Bills' tenure under Beane and McDermott with overly rose-colored glasses -- and I may be -- then many of Beane's critics are just as guilty of a lack of objectivity, cherry-picking only his bad moves and not giving him credit for his good moves. The truth is probably that BOTH sides are presenting an incomplete picture. Beane has made good moves and bad moves. He's not flawless, but he's also not bad at his job and CERTAINLY doesn't deserve the criticism that he gets from some corner of Bills nation. Considering his job on the whole so far, I'd give him a positive grade, but I also understand those who give him a negative grade -- I understand them TO A POINT, anyway. In any case, I think we can all agree that this coming offseason will tell us a lot about how good Beane is or isn't as a general manager. 2018 was also very instructive in that regard, and his identifying and selection of what appear to be franchise quarterbacks for the offense and defense are what lead to my giving him an overall positive grade. Again, as long as people are objective in their analysis, I welcome contrary opinions.

I don't want a 30 -year-old malcontent whose attitude is so bad the he got benched for a critical end-of-season game. So my answer is...nothing.

I agree with the OP. Luckily, so does Brandon Beane, based on his comments at the end-of-year presser. For fans that want him to go out and spend like a drunken sailor at port, I think there will be disappointment. He's never going to be a Doug Whaley when it comes to free agency. Nor should he be. Like he said, that would put the Bills right back in the same place they were before he arrived. But I do think the Bills will add some quality players. Think about this: In their cap-constrained 2017 and 2018 offseasons, the Bills still added Jordan Poyer, Micah Hyde, Trent Murphy, Star Lotulelei, Chris Ivory, Patrick DiMarco, and Stephen Hauschka. The first four guys helped make the Bills the 2nd ranked defense in the NFL in 2018. The two offensive guys are only role players, yes, but they have contributed as role players. The last guy has won a few games for the Bills singlehandedly. And these were their acquisitions when they had almost no cap space. So I DO expect to see some quality pieces added in free agency...it just won't be the marquee name, instant-transformation guys that many want. Beane will instead use his money to lock up guys like Dawkins, Zay, Milano, White, etc. This will be the most exciting and interesting Bills offseason in quite some time. That's weird, I seem to recall the Bills having the 2nd ranked defense in the entire NFL in 2018. Star taking on double team blocks all year absolutely contributed to that. Murphy, though he struggled with injury, also helped the defense. He was arguably the second best DE on the Bills roster. And even though it was under Whaley's watch officially, McDermott was "buying the groceries" when the team signed Poyer and Hyde. All they've done is become one of the top five best starting safety duos in the NFL. Yes, he's had some misses. He's also been incredibly constrained by the Bills' poor cap situation and status as an undesirable destination. Let's see what he's able to do with a bunch of cap space before we say he "sucks" at signing free agents, eh?

I think the point you bring up about Shady not getting the ball in space is a valid and interesting one. Yes, the offensive line was poor and that was a huge factor in his not being successful. Even so, I couldn't help but feel that the Bills could've done more this season to get him some opportunities in space. They DID split him out wide a fair amount, they DID throw him screens (which usually got blown up pretty quickly), but still...it feels like more could have been done. In any event, if it's true that the Bills have him in their plans for 2019, and if they get some upgrades on the offensive line, I know this: Shady said he'll have a huge chip on his shoulder next year, wanting to prove that he still "is who he is". Me personally? I won't be betting against a motivated LeSean McCoy. For what it's worth, I agree with Beane and McDermott -- McCoy's not done, and he hasn't lost a step. He just needs some help. As for Allen: Any time your quarterback accounts for five touchdowns, it's obviously a good day. There have been several games this year where Allen just looks like the best athlete and the best player on the field from EITHER TEAM. Put simply, he has transcendent talent. He is, at times, almost a one-man offense, or at least as close to that as a person can be in a team game like football. In fairness, he also had some HORRIFIC throws yesterday. His routinely throwing behind his receivers on slants was particularly ugly. Nevertheless, he seems to have the talent to overcome those ugly plays. His GOOD plays seem to be good enough and explosive enough to overcome his bad plays. He may NEVER have upper echelon completion percentage or efficiency for the position, but I'd be willing to bet he will consistently have upper echelon playmaking and explosiveness. Here's my favorite juicy morsel from 2018: Did you know that Josh Allen was second IN THE ENTIRE NFL in "AYTS". AYTS is "Air yardage to the sticks". This metric measures how often a player is throwing past the first down marker rather than throwing short of it and depending on his receivers to make yards after the catch. Second in the entire NFL! It makes me think back to when a coach chastised him in college for throwing a long touchdown when the play actually called for him to throw a shorter ball. The short-route receiver was the first progression. Allen skipped him and threw the long TD instead, and the coach asked him why. What did Allen say? "Favre says always go for the touchdown". That's allen in a nutshell. He needs to learn to take the checkdown when it's there and to continue to be smart with the football, but I'd rather that he have to learn THAT than have to learn to take risks. When it comes to guts in quarterbacking, I'll use Mel Brooks' quote: "Or you got it or you ain't!". Allen's got it. He's a guy the Bills can win with, and determining that is what 2018 was really about. One more thing. I thought a lot this season about a post you made once where you said this: basically, in football, you need a quarterback, a stud defender or two, and the rest is fill-in-the-blanks. Well, with Allen, Edmunds, Milano, and White on board (not to mention quality coaching), I think the Bills have the most important ingredients for success already. The 2019 offseason is fill-in-the-blanks time, and then they should be off and running. My 8-ball, I should note, is wrong a lot. But right now, for 2019, it's telling me "Outlook good".

If the only thing that matters are wins, then his playoff season in year 1 should buy him a little extra credit. Hell, getting this team to six wins with THIS ROSTER should get him some extra credit, as well. I do agree he needs to start piling wins next year, but "hot seat" time if he doesn't? Tough crowd.

It IS true in some instances that 1st round rookie offensive linemen make teams noticeably better. Quenton Nelson and Ryan Kelly (both 1st round o-linemen) upgraded the Colts o-line massively and helped keep Luck upright and pave the way to the playoffs. Zack Martin upgraded the Cowboys line tremendously. Playoffs. If you want to limit it to offensive tackles only, Taylor Lewan and Jack Conklin for Tennessee. Playoffs. Eric Fisher for the Chiefs. Etc, etc. I'm fine with trading down and accumulating more picks if that's what they want to do. But pretending that it's not possible to significantly upgrade your offensive line by drafting a first round linemen is silly.

You must have missed out putrid run game and all the times Allen was running for his life this year. #17 won't have time to get the ball TO the new targets if he doesn't get some legitimate protection up front. Nor will our run game ever exit the doldrums of the NFL. Playmakers are needed, yes. But I would say that simply upgrading the offensive line -- even if the Bills kept Foster, Zay, and McKenzie as their top three receivers -- would provide a massive upgrade to our offense and improve the effectiveness of both Allen and McCoy. OL > skill players all day. If you really want to play the "value draft picks" game, let's look at the recent success rate of first round receivers. Corey Davis John Ross Corey Coleman Will Fuller Josh Doctson Laquon Treadwell Kevin White Devante Parker Philip Dorsett Should I keep going? While first round LTs haven't been sure things recently either, the hit rate at that position is superior to the recent hit rate at WR.

I would reply to this, but anyone that seriously feels this way knows so little about football and team-building that it's really not worth the time. Even the sentence I just typed was too much work.

Give me the best offensive tackle, wide receiver, or 3-technique left on the board and I'll be happy.

I am quite happy with how the season played out. McDermott and Beane came in and it was pretty clear that a full tear-down and rebuild was going to happen. Somehow, by providence, the Bills managed to make the playoffs last year, which was awesome. It doesn't change the fact that 2018 was year two of a complete rebuild, though. With that being said, 2018 saw the team break in a rookie QB who, by getting 10 starts in his first season, is ahead of where he would've been had he sat on the bench all year. McDermott even said this. It also saw the Bills defense finish 2nd in the league. That's no small feat. The season ALSO provided lots of meaningful snaps for what is becoming a very young roster. Tons of first, second, and third year players all got experience. Last but not least, the Bills have probably (not definitely, but probably) found the long term quarterback of their defense. All of this was done while clearing dead cap space off the books and accumulating 3 extra 2019 draft picks. So, to recap: Identified and gave meaningful snaps to potential franchise QB and MLB, established a dominant defense, took our cap medicine, added a lot of young talent. And now? 10 draft picks and $90 million in the bank, and we already (hopefully, potentially) have cornerstones at the most important positions in football (QB, LT, CB, ILB). The future is bright. I won't go into team needs now. There are plenty of them, and there is a long offseason to get into that. 2018 was as productive as a non-playoff, non-championship season can be in football, if you ask me.

My question to you is - when does the excellence start? When does the team get to 10+ wins? Not hovering around 0.500 hoping to gimp into the Playoffs as the 6th seed? You maybe missed the part of my thread where I agreed that YES this staff needs to win next year and YES they need to take a big step. The winning needs to start next year. I already said that. But when people say "they need to start winning!", it ignores two things: One, that they DID make the playoffs last year. I get it, you aren't impressed. A playoff season is a playoff season, though. If it's so easy to do, how come none of the previous six head coaches did it? And two, we all knew from the start this was going to be a rebuild that took a few years. YOU say "well it's self inflicted!". I disagree. They had an overpaid, under-performing roster that did not play as a TEAM. It was a collection of talent only, and not even good talent at that, for the most part. They were going nowhere fast, and had a hellacious cap situation. EVERYONE knows and agrees they need to start winning next year, but it's disingenuous to act like they haven't won at all while here (playoffs in first season) and that they aren't in year two of a complete tear-down and rebuild. I get that the last 20 years of Bills football has been frustrating, and I get how that could cause you to lose patience with THIS staff. I simply disagree. I haven't lost patience with them. I think they're doing a great job. Next year I hope for and expect 10+ wins.

I agree with the idea that the Bills need to start winning in 2019. It IS time to start getting results, but there's a few things I think you're wrong about. First of all, the first bolded part. The Bills did not choose cap hell. That came at the hands of Doug Whaley. A lot (not all, but a lot) of the jettisoning of talent you mention in the proceeding sentences happened of necessity BECAUSE the Bills were in cap hell. When Beane arrived, the Bills were loaded with a lot of overpaid, under-performing players like Marcel Dareus and Charles Clay (the contract of the latter, they are STILL stuck with, but I digress). Beane's staff has done an EXCELLENT job clearing up the salary cap situation. Unfortunately, in order to do it as quickly as possible, they were left with a bad situation this year in terms of their ability to be competitive in the free agency market. Going forward, though, they have the 3rd most cap space in the league. That wouldn't have happened without the moves they made over the past two seasons. As for the "they lost credibility" thing: I simply don't agree. When we talk about "the Bills need to start winning in 2019", let's not forget that this staff oversaw a team that MADE THE PLAYOFFS in year one of their tenure. So yes, they need to win in 2019, but they DID win enough to make the postseason in year 1. In year 2, in the midst of a (yes, self-imposed, but for the right reasons) rebuild, they failed to qualify for the postseason. One playoff season and one playoff-less season where the main focus is cleaning up a salary cap mess, building for the future, and breaking in a rookie QB does not equal "lost credibility" in my eyes. Indeed, I believe that Sean McDermott gets the absolute most out of his players. I don't believe there are many coaches in the NFL who would've gotten last year's roster to the playoffs, nor do I believe that there are many coaches in the NFL who would have gotten this year's roster to six wins. As for the poor personnel decisions, I count Vlad Ducasse, Anquan Boldin, Vontae Davis, and Mike Tolbert. Benjamin, Coleman, and McCarron were risks worth taking, in my opinion. They didn't work out, but it's easy to see why the decisions were made. But even IF you consider them outright bad decisions, it is still only fair to ALSO mention the GOOD personnel successes, which FAR outweigh the failures: Micah Hyde Jordan Poyer Tre'Davious White Taron Johnson Levi Wallace Matt Milano Tremaine Edmunds Harrison Philips Star Lotulelei Trent Murphy Rafael Bush Josh Allen Zay Jones Dion Dawkins Robert Foster Isaiah McKenzie Jason Croom That's a lot of talent that this staff has brought in. They signed a top tier starting safety duo, a nose tackle and defensive end that -- no matter what you say -- DID contribute to the league's 2nd ranked defense this year. They drafted quality players at the game's most important positions (LT, CB, QB, ILB), they found valuable contributors in undrafted free agency in Foster, Wallace, and Croom, they signed a valuable slot receiver and gadget player off another team's practice squad in Isaiah McKenzie. In short, their positive personnel acquisitions outweigh the negative ones by quite a bit. They also may have identified a long term franchise QB for both the offense (Allen) and defense (Edmunds). No small feat...just ask any OTHER Bills GM from the past 20 years. Oh, and I almost forgot: The front office not only found these players, the coaches then DEVELOPED them. Wallace and Foster both learned on the practice squad and were brought up and now contribute. Poyer and Hyde were free agency afterthoughts that McDermott has helped mold into top safeties. etc, etc. Because of their overall good drafting, ability to find UDFAs and practice squad players that contribute, ability to identify and acquire some quality free agents, ability to develop talent, emphasis on high character, high upside players, emphasis on building a CULTURE and a TEAM rather than just a collection of talent, and because McDermott gets the most out of his under-talented rosters, I feel the Bills are in absolutely EXCELLENT hands going forward. Beane and McDermott have set the foundation for LONG TERM, SUSTAINED SUCCESS. In order to set said foundation, they had to go through a tough season this year. Let's not forget that they MADE THE PLAYOFFS (no small feat in Buffalo) in year one, and let's not forget that the Bills are likely set up for long term success with what looks to be a quality QB, a selfless roster that plays as a team, a young defense that ranked SECOND in the league this year, 10 draft picks and $90 million in cap space, and a winning culture and process in place. Beane and McDermott have made a few mistakes, and they DO need to start piling up wins, but to say they've lost credibility or done anything less than a fantastic job thus far is inaccurate and shortsighted, in my opinion. On the contrary, what they've done in so short a time qualifies in my mind as just short of a miracle.

I would love for him to be a Bill, but I sincerely doubt he will last until round 3. He may be the first running back drafted.

Star continues Strong Second Half of Season https://buffalonews.com/2018/12/27/star-lotulelei-continues-strong-second-half-of-season-trent-murphys-slump-continues-vs-patriots/

There were two factors at work with EJ: 1.) There was no reasonable plan in place to develop him. The Bills coaches started him too soon, asked him to run a no-huddle offense from day 1 (seriously, who asks a raw rookie to do that?!), gave him a crappy offensive scheme to work with in general (who here likes Hackett Ball?), and gave up on him too soon. 2.) There are two kinds of inaccuracy. There's the kind Josh Allen has, where he'll throw 5 passes in a row right on the money, perfectly placed, then sail an easy throw over hisWR's head. Let's call this sporadic inaccuracy. Then there's the second kind, which EJ had, which is area code accuracy. That's where the QB more often than not gets the ball in the vicinity of his WR, but never accurately enough to allow YAC or a play to be made. EJ often hung his receivers out to dry or made it so that they had to make an insane, acrobatic leap to secure the ball. While Allen's type of inaccuracy is something you can overcome and tolerate, EJ's is not. So despite item 1 (bad infrastructure around QB, bad coaching, etc), it's questionable whether EJ Manuel would EVER have become an upper echelon QB. I will say this: The Bills damn well better give Josh Allen more support and more time than they gave EJ Manuel.

I assume he's referring to Tre'Davious White, Levi Wallace, and Taron Johnson.

Funny troll is funny.

Here's a whole article about how, while he has room for improvement, he already IS improving. It comes with video examples of both good and bad plays against the run and pass. My contention is that while he has lots of room for improvement, he has ALREADY shown major improvement. To say that he just can't or won't CONTINUE to improve is just as much of a guess as my saying that he will improve. No one knows. The fact that he is CURRENTLY improving (remember, player growth is not a straight line trending up, it's often an up-and-down process) leads me to believe that he hasn't yet reached his full potential. https://www.cover1.net/tremaine-edmunds-new-york-jets/ "Bob Babich, his position coach, and I talk about that often. Sometimes we’re having meetings and we’re just talking and leading meetings, and we talk about all the things that we put on his plate, and then you realize how young he is, and the fact that it’s a new position, because he was an outside linebacker in college. Now, you’re a middle linebacker in the National Football League, so young at what he’s doing, to see his growth is just incredible. You have high hopes for his future. He’s just going to keep getting better and better." -DC Leslie Frazier -and- "Those who believe that Edmunds was over-drafted or not worth the selection may not truly understand what he is asked to do. Most fans will chalk up Frazier’s statement about Edmunds becoming more “comfortable in this system” or how “his communication, handling all the different things that show up during a ball game that he struggled with early in the season” as coach-speak, but you will see all of those things in action in this article."

I find it unlikely that the Bills would achieve the #1 pass defense in the NFL and hold multiple quality passers under 180 yards passing with a middle linebacker who is bad at pass defense. Can he improve? Absolutely. Is he perfect? Certainly not. To say he has "not been good in coverage" overall because he has been beat at times is inaccurate.

To say that Edmunds has been just bad this year is incorrect. To say that he has been just GOOD this year is incorrect. The truth is this: He is good in pass coverage but has much work to do with regard to run fits and shedding blocks. Edmunds and his height, length, and ridiculous wingspan are big contributors to the Bills' league-leading pass defense. I do agree, though, that he leaves a lot to be desired with regard to stopping the run. Oh, and those who want to look at yesterday's bad showing from the linebackers need also to remember that Matt Milano -- arguably the Bills' best defensive player this season -- was out, and his replacement was UDFA Corey Thompson. That's a big dropoff and DEFINITELY contributed to the overall poor showing from the Bills linebackers. I'm not absolving Edmunds completely, though. He DOES have work to do to improve his game. But to say he's been "awful" or a bust or whatever? Nonsense. Oversimplification. Hyperbole. Foolishness.

Actually, I expect the Patriots to have Gilmore shadow Zay Jones all day, and then use bracket coverage with a corner and safety against Robert Foster to prevent the deep ball. Foster will have to win on comeback routes to contribute, and it may be incumbent upon Shady, McKenzie, Clay/Croom, and Allen to produce yards for the offense.

lol

Belichick will scheme to take Foster out of the game , limit Allen's running, and force the Bills to beat them through the air with McKenzie and Zay. Which is to say: Be wary of starting Foster this week.