SoTier

You obviously missed Watson's 21 yard TD run against the Saints in Week 1.

This is simply nonsense.

Because there's no hard evidence that the Pats actually colluded with Brown to pull this off? Aside from speculation about the speed of the contract settlement, there's nothing to link the Pats to Brown's actions in Oakland. Moreover, I think a lot of teams simply aren't -- and never were -- interested in bringing in Brown because of his actions both in Pittsburgh last season and with Oakland. Now, with the civil suit against Brown, they have even less interest in Brown --- and some are probably thinking that maybe Kraft and Belichick have finally outsmarted themselves if the NFL investigation leads to Brown being unable to play until the lawsuit is settled.

Expecting the Bills to move up 5 spots based on winning against the Giants isn't going to happen unless the Bills blow out the Giants and a couple of team above them get their butts handed to them. The Giants are considered bottom feeders, ranked #29, so the Bills aren't going to get much credit winning a competitive game against them. The closer to the top of the rankings a team gets, the harder it gets to move up.

Watson has come of age. Watching him against the Saints, it was hard to remember that he was only playing in his 23rd NFL game. If Josh Allen can develop the kind of command of the game that Watson displayed on Monday, the Bills will have themselves a keeper.

This is the problem with judging any team's Week 1 performance. There's likely to be at least one team that won -- and looked good doing it --- that's going to crash and burn just as there's likely to be one team that lost big time that turns it around. I'd nominate the Raiders for a team likely to suck most of the rest of the season, and either Atlanta or Pittsburgh for a team that actually turns out to be good. Doh. Because the Jets made the two point conversion on their second TD, remember? If their kicker had made the first PAT, they would have just kicked the second one rather than going for two points. Two TDs + 1 2-point conversion + 1 safety = 16 points. The missed FG would have given the Jets 19 points and the lead. They would have tried to run out the clock with running plays instead of trying to get down into scoring range again by passing.

Isn't anticipating that the opponent is going to focus on trying to stop what worked in the first half when the teams come out after half time EXACTLY what a competent OC should do? Daboll's first half game plan was excellent because the weakness of the Jets' defense is it's secondary, and Daboll exploited that. If not for the 4 TOs, the Bills probably would have been up 10 or 14 to zip on the Jets going into the locker room at the break. Daboll anticipated that the Jets would attempt to find a way to shut down the passing game in the second half and countered with calling more runs, which eventually opened up the passing game again. It's less brilliance and more competence -- and a lot better execution. Allen seems to be a much improved passer this season, which is a credit to Ken Dorsey. He seems to be much more accurate, especially on the shorter passes. He's also improved as a QB, making much better decisions, which is a credit to both Dorsey and Daboll. It's one thing to look good in preseason when there's no defensive scheming and lots of scrubs playing, but it's entirely different when a QB looks good when games count.

Maybe you should have stayed up past your bedtime to watch the Pats butt-whoop the Steelers on Sunday night. The Pats aren't the offensively inept Jets. If you think the Bills can give up 4 TOs and still beat the Pats, you are delusional. FTR, if the Jets had a competent kicker -- he missed a FG in the first half -- they would have won the game 19-17.

Of course it "doesn't make sense" to a McDermott cheerleader who accuses other posters of making excuses for "mediocre" players while crediting McDermott with doing something he didn't do. In 2018, the Bills didn't play better in the second half of games except when Allen was the QB. When Allen was absent from the line-up, the Bills played as poorly in the second halves of games as they did in first halves. Against the Jets it was again Allen's leadership that won the game, not McDermott's supposed "half-time adjustments".

Says the dude lauding McDermott for his "half time adjustments" when the offense sucked in the first half because of poor execution not a poor game plan that was changed at half time. Your "proven good half time adjuster" has made numerous poor pre-game/first half decisions that effectively took the Bills out of games early in several games in previous seasons.

I think that ranking the sophomore years against each other -- with their names -- would be the most helpful. That enables anybody who wishes to pursue this to do it.

I was thinking of doing that myself. I think this article would have been more useful if the author had gone further and separated out the successful QBs -- Trubisky, Watson, Goff, Wentz, Luck, Newton, and Ryan -- from the mediocre ones and compared their average stats. I'm not interested in what the likes of Blaine Gabbert or Mark Sanchez did in their second seasons because they were busts. Maybe the average stats for the best QBs aren't significantly better than those for the mediocre group (which would probably tell us, we still have to wait to decide how good Allen is) but I would think that they would be better, especially for QBs who were somewhat raw like Goff, Wentz or Newton.

Get over it, dude. The Bills OL in 2018 wasn't in the same league as the Eagles or Cowboys' OLs and the Bills WRs didn't belong in the same stadium as the Rams or Chiefs' WRs. Replacing OLers and WRs who shoiuldn't even have been in the NFL much less starting with mostly modest FA veterans plus a few rookies and UDFAs isn't going to impress too many objective observers when other teams added major talent with acquisitions of players like Beckham, Bell, Brown, and Tunsil. IOW, the Bills weren't the only team to upgrade their talent, and many of those teams added more talent.

Thursday, September 5 LOCATION Green Bay Chicago NBC Soldier Field, Chicago Sunday, September 8 NAT TV MATCHUP CBS Tennessee Cleveland CBS FirstEnergy Stadium, Cleveland Baltimore Miami FOX Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens Atlanta Minnesota CBS U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis Buffalo New York J FOX MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford Washington Philadelphia FOX Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia Los Angeles R Carolina CBS Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte Kansas City Jacksonville CBS TIAA Bank Field, Jacksonville Indianapolis Los Angeles C CBS Dignity Health Sports Park, Carson Cincinnati Seattle FOX CenturyLink Field, Seattle New York G Dallas FOX AT&T Stadium, Arlington Detroit Arizona FOX State Farm Stadium, Glendale San Francisco Tampa Bay NBC Raymond James Stadium, Tampa Pittsburgh New England Gillette Stadium, Foxboro Monday, September 9 Houston New Orleans ESPN Mercedes-Benz Superdome, New Orleans Denver Oakland ESPN Oakland Coliseum, Oakland

Just because they can't decide on which 5 to start doesn't mean that they have 7 "starting caliber" OLers any more than a HC not being able to decide which of 2 QBs to start means that he has 2 "starting caliber" QBs on his roster. My guess is that they still haven't hit on the right combination of 5 that does a good enough job at both run and pass blocking to become the starting OL. Probably one combo of 5 is significantly better run blocking but unacceptably poor at pass blocking while another is the opposite. It may very well be that Cody Ford is the problem --- maybe he's really not ready to play RT on every play. He wouldn't be the first rookie to need more than a few OTAs and a TC to adapt to the pro game.

What the hell does Bill Cowher know about offensive football???? This is such a brilliant idea that I'm shocked it's taken an entire century of supposedly great coaches to grasp the awesomeness of "plug and play" for the OL!!!! McDermott is truly the son of the god Beane!!! //sarcasm off

Lighter fluid only "gives the food a chemical taste" when people don't wait until it's burned off -- and the charcoal or briquets are ready for grilling by having turned gray. Ya gotta have some patience with charcoal, but it's well worth it for taste. I have used Webers for years. I currently have 2: the bigger newer one at home and the older one at the camp.

Maybe. In the last 10 seasons the Bills won their opening games in: 2017 -- won opener against Jets, were 5-2, and finished 9-7 2015 -- won opener, finished 8-8 2014 -- won first 2, finished 9-7 2011 -- won first 3, were 4-1 and then 5-2 before they collapsed to finish 6-10 Not necessarily. We may find out which QB is better in that one game. We might also find out which QB is less incompetent in that game. We could also find out that they're about equal, whether for the good or the bad. The thing is that 1 game isn't going to tell us much about either QB long term. Why do you assume that the Jets are a "very bad" team? Everything that I've heard or read about the Jets suggests that they're about at the same level as the Bills. Opening the season against a division rival is always dicey. Sometimes the future Super Bowl champ takes it on the chin from a divisional rival that wins only 3 or 4 games the rest of the season. Until they prove it, the Bills are hardly "the best defense in the NFL". They were ranked #2 in yardage and #1 in passing yards but only #7 in interceptions, #16 in rushing yards, #18 in scoring defense, and #26 in sacks. Their red zone defense sucked, and they couldn't get off the field late in games because they didn't have much of a pass rush and were susceptible to the run.

At some point you need to take off the blinders. McDermott and Beane have the same losing record over 32 games as Ryan and Whaley and Marrone and Whaley had 15 wins, 17 losses. McDermott and Beane have built an "asymmetric team" that isn't likely to even make the playoffs except in rare incidents when the moon, planet and stars all align perfectly.

Nathan Peterman looked "just fine right now", too ...

Oh, please! McDermott and Beane gave McCoy a big pay raise when they didn't have anybody else on the offense to give the fans hope that the Bills could be competitve. Allen's replaced him in that role, so McCoy was expendable. That's not "how the NFL football works" for teams that are truly interested in winning football games and try to amass as much talent as possible under the limits of the cap rather than maximizing profit by minimizing player salaries and paying lip-service to the building a football team that wins consistently. Beats the crap out of making the playoffs once every every twenty years. That's the Bills' MO.

Maybe Houston settled for 2 LBs and a third for Clowney so that they could sign McCoy. It's $6.1 million the Bills don't have to pay in actual salary, which is what is apparently important to the current regime. Last year, the Bills were among the lowest teams in actual salaries paid, and I'm guessing they're trying to repeat again. The plan for the offense seems to be to surround Allen with JAGs and rookies and hope for the best.

Why is this "thread hijacking"? The OP claimed that passing on a QB to take a CB because the Bills needed to replace Stephon Gilmore was the right move. The truth is that Josh Allen is not, at this point, anywhere near being a competent NFL starting QB. He may never become one -- or he might become a HOFer. Nobody knows. Unless Mahomes implodes, however, it's very likely that Allen will always come up short compared to Mahomes.

Bills fans who "Billieve" have convinced themselves that Allen can't fail because they've convinced themselves that McDermott and Beane are infallible despite considerable evidence to the contrary. The reality is that in most drafts, there's only one QB who fits the description of "franchise QB" and only 4 draft classes -- 2004, 2005, 2008, 2016 -- had more than 1 first round pick who can be called a "franchise QB". Three classes had no franchise QBs: 2002, 2007, and 2013. 2015 may be the fourth since there's lower round QBs of note in the class. 2000 -- 1 first rounder - #18 - Chad Pennington #199 - Tom Brady Best QB -Tom Brady 2001 -- 1 first rounder - #1 - Michael Vick #32 - Drew Brees Best QB - Brees 2002 -- 3 first rounders - #1 David Carr #3 Joey Harrington #32 Patrick Ramsey 2003 - 4 first rounders - #1 Carson Palmer #7 Byron Leftwich #19 Kyle Boller #22 Rex Grossman Best QB - Palmer 2004 - 4 first rounders - #1 Eli Manning #4 Phillip Rivers #11 Ben Roethlisberger #22 JP Losman #90 Matt Schaub Best QB: Roethlisberger or Rivers 2005 - 3 first rounders - #1 Alex Smith #24 Aaron Rodgers #25 Jason Campbell Best QB: Rodgers 2006 - 3 first rounders - #3 Vince Young #10 Matt Leinart #11 Jay Cutler Best QB: Cutler 2007 - 2 first rounders - #1 Ja'Marcus Russell #22 Brady Quinn 2008 - 2 first rounders - #3 Matt Ryan #18 Joe Flacco Best QB: Ryan 2009 - 3 first rounders - #1 Matthew Stafford #5 Mark Sanchez #17 Josh Freeman Best QB: Stafford 2010 - 2 first rounders - #1 Sam Bradford #25 Tim Tebow Best QB: Bradford 2011 - 4 first rounders - #1 Cam Newton #8 Jake Locker #10 Blaine Gabbert #12 Christian Ponder #35 Andy Dalton Best QB: Newton 2012 - 4 first rounders - #1 Andrew Luck #2 Robert Griffin III #8 Ryan Tannehill #22 Brandon Weed #75 Russell Wilson #88 Nick Foles #117 Kirk Cousins 2013 - 1 first rounder - #16 EJ Manuel 2014 - 3 first rounders - #3 Blake Bortles #22 Johnny Manziel #32 Teddy Bridgewater #36 Derek Carr #62 Jimmy Garoppolo 2015 - 2 first rounders - #1 Jameis Winston #2 Marcus Mariota t2016 - 3 first rounders - #1 Jared Goff #2 Carson Wentz #26 Paxton Lynch #91 Jacoby Brissett #135 Dak Prescott Except that they have consistently drafted for need, especially in the first and second rounds.

GMs have much more important things to do than worry college players who are two or three years from being eligible for the NFL draft. Too many first or second year collegiate players -- like so many NFL rookies -- who look great early on and then flame out.