Straight Hucklebuck

QB The whole add the QB as the cherry on top to a completed team doesn't work. I think Browns are Exhibit A in letting Franchise QBs pass you by as you try to build other positions (that don't matter nearly as much).

This is why I don't always buy the "jump from Year 1 to Year 2" hype that GMs like spin. This was supposed to be Lawson's perfect fit. But as we saw in the PreDraft process, Lawson is not a quick twitch elite athlete. He is playing exactly like his Scouting Reports.

Its been 17 years, but fans are allowed to still have a brain and think. The Chiefs punted 8 times yesterday and kept giving the ball back to the Bills. But say like the Raiders last season, is a game where the Bills had a lead, went into an offensive shell, and lost. Its okay to call out a weak, wimpy game plan by McD and Dennison. Its nothing but runs and dumpoffs. We did look like a classic, Dick Jauron/Trent Edwards team out there. I mean second drive of the game the team ran the ball on 3rd and 6. After 10-0, the Bills absolutely put the brakes on. 72 yards in the second half. Its okay to wonder if that's really good enough coming down the stretch here.

Bad Lands - Lawson looked slow on draft night when Mayock talked about him and showed clips of him getting stonewalled I believe by the LT for FSU. In some of his Scouting Reports, he was compared to Courtney Upshaw and that was confirmed by his so-so Combine. Most of his Scouting Reports had him as a 5-8 sack a year guy due to athletic limitations. So far he is exactly what the Scouting Reports said he was.

Yeah Shaw I agree on the offense. Jeremy White and you phrase it the same way - you have to wonder what (or why) the Bills intentions are on any given play. When its 3rd and 8, why are you throwing 2 yard dump offs, and not looking for Matthews and Jones on deeper routes. Their plan is to give up or at best, dump it off and bank on their man breaking multiple tackles to get a first down. They did this against the Saints, opening up with sideways throws to McCoy, that have no chance of gaining any yardage due to the poor blocking around the edges. While on that topic, I can mention again, the 3rd down where the Bills thought a sweep was going to work. They lost 3, 4 yards. Worse yet, the Bills try and sweep with Mike Tolbert at times, and that has lost yardage literally every time they have called it. They got by yesterday with great defense that forced the Chiefs to punt 8 times. That was Dick Jauron coaxed wins out of the 2006, 2007, 2008 Buffalo Bills. Punting, kicking field goals, and making one timely turnover. At to your big question - I think this is who McDermott is. I don't think there is a "higher gear" of offensive thinking to where if we had say Carson Wentz, that he would believe in airing it out more than running. He was asked point blank, and he said run the ball because its Buffalo. Keeping things in 3rd and manageable. Our wins have been quintessential Bills Dorught Wins, 17-14 type games, defense and running.

What, you mean playing 15 yards off every WR isn't a good strategy against the GOAT?

For sure Beane is just starting, but he has done a lot already and set the stage for opinions to be formed about him. Watkins, Seymour, Darby, Ragland, Dareus, Benjamin. Extended Eric Wood's contract. He he needs to hit immediately on picks because his roster is paper thin.

So basically you're saying - just wait longer?

Yeah.... As if the last 17 years haven't given you a clue as to how this movie ends.

McD: "we're good with McCoy and Cadet"

Rex is 100% right. McD is paid to know more than the fans. Also so I love his - "I am still evaluating" after the game.

With the Bills drafting ability? I think this Drought is going 20+ years easily. Watson and Mahomes fell into their lap at #10 and they passed. Now they will be picking 9th - 11th in the draft with a early 20's KC pick and not have a chance at the best QBs in the draft.

No I can blast McDermott for that. He is PAID to be smarter than draftniks and fans. The same GM that watched EJs college career concluded that Manuel was worth a first rounder and Watson wasn't. And the OWNER said publicly that McD and Whaley were working hand in hand with no division. If if he turns the card in on Watson we have real hope at QB for the first time since 1996. Also if we were that worried about corner, we didn't HAVE to trade Darby. Instead McD is no different than Jauron, Gailey, Marrone or Rex - taking other teams backups and trying to make them into starters.

Who do you think you are? Are you Charlie Weiss wearing your 3 Super Bowl rings into recruiting visits? No, you are a common street fan with an opinion. My opinion is Watkins is not an elite WR, doesn't produce like one. Still has not had a season as good as Steve Johnson's best 4 years in now.

Nope, every organization is a sum of its decisions. The Bills continuously get the three biggest positions wrong - QB, GM and Coach.

I don't get why this Head Coach says Peterman and 'the Future' in the same sentence. I never had an urge to see "what we have in Peterman" and always considered him a bump on a toads backside when it came to the future. He he was a 5th Rounder coming off an non spectacular career at Pitt. He never was the future, is not the future. never will be the future. I never had 1% desire to see him in a regular season game and hope he never plays again in a Bills uniform. A good old percentage of our fans need to stop praying for a Rudy story and get real. 5th Rounders aren't a plan. Our Head Coach forgot that and exposed himself as yet another guy that can't evaluate QBs (missed on Watson and Peterman).

Ok.... Thats why the other top/elite WRs in the league just crank out numbers??Thats why Sammy went to Twitter to whine about targets. Don't you get sick of defending Watkins? Marrone couldn't figure out how to feature him, Rex didn't feature him and now McVay isn't featuring him after the team spent a 2nd to get him in a contract year. Sammy is the SAME player after 4 years now. He flashes, but in 2/3 of games he is an afterthought. So McVay, offensive genius and COY candidate sees Sammy wide open all the time, Goff who has improved leaps and bounds this year sees Sammy wide open all the time and both guys conclude that throwing to 'lesser' players is the smarter play???

McDermott had his shot at The Guy at #10, and passed for a corner.

Shaw, thanks for your replay and the details in your response. I think that’s why I like to reference Bills history, because we have heard recent Bills coaches who weren’t successful say the same things. For instance, we’ve heard Jauron say almost verbatim like McDermott, “study the tape and correct mistakes”, and “work hard” as the solutions. Did that ever really work? I think Jauron was simplistic in his approach to the game. Essentially, play a Tampa-2 scheme, try to keep games close with ball control, 3rd-manageable, punting (“we punted well”) and hope to win because its “hard to win in this league”. Marrone – I think McDermott has a lot of Marrone in him too. He has that same I’ve been there, done that dismissive attitude. The sayings – that “is a part of it”, “I’ve been in this game 20 years”, “I know where you’re going with that”... After the Saints game McDermott said he had to teach better. That the reason for the atrocious run defense was not staying in gaps. I’m not saying I know more than any Coach, I don’t. But isn’t some of the reason that Cedrick Thorton is at the end of his career and getting blown out of the way? That Kyle Williams is now 35 years old? That Deandre Coleman is a borderline NFL talent? That Ryan Davis is your backup DE? That Shaw Lawson is not explosive? That Bills haven’t drafted a DT in something like 7 of the last 10 Drafts? So that’s my biggest worry with McDermott and Beane. Like Jauron, are they going to try and build a team around lunch pail guys like Chris Kelsay, Ryan Denney, Keith Ellison, Josh Reeds, while over-emphasizing character and Special Teams. Coaches around here have been largely trying to win the same way for the later half of this drought. Take the backup level QB you’ve been given (Trent, Fitzpatrick, Orton, Tyrod) and build a safe, run based offense around him, and try to win by playing defense, running the ball and keeping turnovers to a minimum. And the results have been, we can’t beat good teams. We can’t beat teams in November and December when the intensity picks up, attrition is setting in, and the paper thin depth of the Bills (due to years of bad drafting) is tested. I’ll finish with this: I’ll never forget a Pro Football Talk article from years ago. It had commentary on the Bills from other Coaches and GMs. The main line that I remember like yesterday was: “the Bills are hard to play, but easy to beat”. Meaning they scrap, they claw, they play really hard. But in the end their systems are simple to diagnose (remember Free Agent Linebacker Freddy Keiaho from the Colts coming in saying that the Bills run a simple system), Turk Schonert saying the Bills run a pop-gun offense, or Duke Preston saying after he left the Bills for the Packers that the Bills are grasping at straws. I think the 2017 Bills are largely the same. McDermott believes in a simple offensive system that is not going to challenge an opposing defense. We still get the routes on 3rd that 8 that are thrown 4-5 yards behind the sticks with no chance of succeeding other than a super human effort to break tackles. We believe in running over people as Rex did with Fullbacks. We keep 31-32 year old 260 pound Fullbacks (who are not specimens like Vonta Leach) because they are good for Locker rooms and try to sweep them around the edge and lose yards every single time. Try to “impose” the run with 200 pound LeSean McCoy and nothing else behind him. We play 10 yards off WRs, cut our Linebacker depth (Hodges) for Special Teamers (Webb), trade Cornerbacks the second we get another viable option. All of this has been done before. Was Jordan Matthews really worth it for a 23 year old starting corner when you see this pass defense? Was it worth the 2-3 passes he gets a game?

Everything is so hard for the Bills passing offense. Everything from this Coaching Staff is it has to be the right play, called at the right time, executed to perfection. Like it's a science experiment. Nothing comes easy for the Bills. Common NFL staples like the flare, the slant, crossing routes, button hooks, are off the table because it takes years of timing on those patterns. Our QBs still aren't allowed to change plays at the line. When our offense is bad, first thing out of McDermott's mouth is we could establish a rhythm in the run game. We got behind in the sticks. If it's 3rd and 8 with this team, it might was we'll be 3rd and 54. Because this team will run a draw and punt. Which brings me back to Jauron. McDermott speaks like him, he coaches like him, he acts like him, and Beane is following suit. Speaks like him - Watch the tape, correct mistakes. Always getting better everyday. If it was that easy Coach why have the defeats gotten worse every week? 34 allowed, 47 allowed, 54 allowed! Coaches like him - Playing 10 yards off every WR like they're Randy Moss. Weak, whimpy game plans where Tolbert is getting carries and dump offs, the Saints game opened with sideways throws to McCoy. Waiting for other team to turn the ball over so we can kick field goals (see McDermott kicking a field goal down 44-7). The Saints attacked a wimpy, weak, lame game plan. Acts like him - Constant non-answers to the questions he is being asked. Constant obsession with Special Teams. Obsessed with character and experience over talent. Starting Ducasse every week like fans don't see that the guy is hurting the team, thinking than the same 3 linebackers can just play all season with no depth (Mitchell, Crowell/Poslusny, Ellison), picking up bottom tier NFL players just because they play Specisl Teams.

He won't. He is the same inconsistent WR he's always been. He will flash, but never consistently dominate.

100% right. The Bills fans and the organization have believed for a long time that any QB who wanders in off the street DESERVES the chance to be the starter. To think that a segment of fans wanted Jeff Tuel to be developed, Thad Lewis was seen as not that bad, some fans justified Brian Brohm getting starts. And to your point, the Bills gave 3 years to Trent (and the start of a 4th season in 2010), 3 years to Fitzpatrick, a year with EJ, wanted Orton back for a second year, and now have 2.5 years in on Tyrod its indisputable that this organization (over multiple owners) is convinced it can win with bottom tier QBs supported by a run game. How does Doug Whaley come to the conclusion based on tape and research that EJ Manuel is worth a first rounder, but that Deshaun Watson wasn't based on their college careers. The Bills again passed on Watson and Mahomes for a cornerback to replace the cornerback we let go in FA. And now with 5 wins, you aren't going to get the best 1 or 2 QBs in the draft without blowing assets to try and trade up. McDermott doesn't believe in passing the ball anyways. He believes in running and keeping down and distance manageable.

What I don't understand is the number of fans who clamored for Peterman? He was a 5th Rounder. Is that really a move that signifies the team believes that he is the "future". He'd defy the odds if he topped out as a career backup. I never saw him as a real plan at QB.

I am glad you have admitted it Shaw. Fans backed Nix when he hired Gailey. I saw a guy who was out of football when the Bills called. Fans loved the Doug Marrone hire, believed Russ Brandon when he said he was "dynamic". I saw a 5-day joke of a "no stone unturned" search for a Coach. Couldn't stand him from the first few sentences I heard him speak. Remember the "I'm one of you guys" talk with all the New York pride? Now I thought Pettine would have been a better HC, but you see how the Browns have done since him. I also thought Rex would have built the Bills defense into a hardened unit. I was always concerned about Rex's simplistic offensive philosophy, and you saw in his two books that he didn't involve himself in offensive meetings. On to McDermott, first time he was asked to describe his offense - run the ball because its Buffalo. And I don't think there really is anything deeper with him. I don't think his vision is to create a top-flight passing game. I think he thinks he can line up and just run over people (with just one viable RB on the roster). I think we will suffer for it. The Bills had a chance to draft Deshaun Watson or Patrick Mahomes and they passed for a cornerback. His Defense is an outdated Tampa-2 that Jauron tried to run 11 years ago here in Buffalo. McDermott is Mr. Calculating, he always "knows where you're going with that" when you ask him questions. I think we have learned that the rest of the league doesn't care about his vision for this team, or how he plans to get better everyday. They are just punching this paper thin/talentless roster in the face now every week. I've said for a long time that the Bills FADE every year down the stretch as these games get tougher, and no surprise, they are doing it again. The question for this regime will be, are they Dick Jauron, believing you can get by with lunchpail guys and reviewing the tape? Or do they actually believe that talent ultimately wins? Because McDermott strikes me so far as a just work harder than everyone else guy.

The Pegula's have been about as right as Jimmy Haslam from the Browns. The Bills haven't been as bad as the Browns, but the combined with the down trodden Sabres, neither franchise has any hope.