SoTier

Bado didn't write that at all. I was briefly tempted to suggest that you try rereading what he wrote, this time for comprehension of the entire thought, not just to decipher the individual words ... but we both know deliberately misunderstanding what was written is one of your favorite tactics for attacking posters you dislike. Put this in your pipe and smoke it: the same people responsible for the substandard offenses the Bills fielded in 2017 and 2018 are also responsible for the 2019 offense. If it doesn't matter whether or not the Bills goofed in passing on Mahomes because he wouldn't have been nearly as good on the Bills as he was with the Chiefs, what chance does Josh Allen, who has to improve in his game a whole lot to just to become a decent NFL QB, have of becoming one any time in the near future?

First round QB prospects not are divided simply between Andrew Luck and everybody else. Mahomes was a significantly better prospect than Allen. He had two outstanding seasons before the draft, including leading the NCAA in yards per game (421), passing yards (5,052), total offense (5,312), points responsible for (318), and total touchdowns (53), and being named the top college passer as a junior. Allen played at a much more modest collegiate program where he wasn't even statistically the best QB in his conference. He was named 2nd team All Mountain West Conference in 2016 but his second year as a starter at Wyoming was not as good as his first. Unfortunately for Allen, he's always going to be compared to Mahomes because the Bills traded away the pick that was used by the Chiefs to take Mahomes.

You're the one spinning the fiction that the NFL is meritocracy simply because coaches get fired, usually for either not winning or not winning enough. The reality is that "who you know" is not only commonplace, but pedigree -- who your father is/was -- counts significantly too. Tim Graham wrote an article on this very subject for the Buffalo News in September, 2017: Self Made Men. Moreover, all I did was point out some examples off the top of my head of relatives of owners, execs, coaches getting jobs because of their familial connections. I didn't comment on whether they were good hires or not. Your own defensiveness about my contradicting your claim of the NFL being a great "meritocracy" led you to assume otherwise.

^^^ Not really magical at all. He's what horsemen in the racing industry call a "morning glory" -- a young horse that looks so great working in the morning that its trainer starts thinking about Churchill Downs in early May or Saratoga in August. The problem is, when that horse actually gets to the track in the afternoon, he fails miserably. Maybe he doesn't like crowds. Maybe he only runs well before he gets breakfast. Maybe he only runs well with horses he knows (his stablemates). Maybe he doesn't like dirt in his face. Whatever, he sucks. Peterman looks good in practice without pressure, without speed, without confusion -- all real time conditions. He'll always fool coaches who don't objectively view his regular season game footage ... and he's going to suck if he gets put into a real game. Yep, I did. Thanks.

NFL football teams are more like medieval fiefdoms complete with absolute rulers and trusted henchmen who practice rampant nepotism than modern corporations, organizations or governments that frequently try to give the image of hiring and firing on merit. Except for Green Bay, owners are virtually answerable to no one for their hiring and firing decisions. Some owners act as their own GMs or their GMs are puppets -- Jerry Jones in Dallas and Dan Snyder in Washington come to mind. Many owners use their teams to provide employment for their family and friends -- Ralph Wilson employed one of his daughters as a scout and his son-in-law was a long time exec with the team -- and had enough clout to get Bill Polian fired back in the 1990s. It's also pretty common for GMs and HCs to hire their relatives. Rex Ryan hired his twin brother. Mike Shanahan hired his son Brian. Jon Gruden's son Deuce is the Raiders' strength coach. Bill Polian's son succeeded him as the Indy GM. The recycling of GMs, HCs, and assistant coaches is pretty routine. Many who proved incompetent on one team get hired on another team in a lower title and then resurface elsewhere in the same/similar position from which they were fired a few years before.

If you take those two decisions totally out of context and look only at the Bills roster today, you are absolutely right. However, if you look at those two decisions along with all the other personnel decisions they've made since 2017, they seem to point to a HC/FO that either discount the importance of offense or are terrible at judging offensive talent or both. The Peterman decision just seems to me to reflect a belief on the part of McDermott that Peterman could overcome his obvious lack of talent by determination and practice. QB is one position where it's virtually impossible to mask talent deficiencies, especially when they are as serious as Peterman's. McDermott and Beane's offensive decisions have almost all been questionable. Some have been outright bad. From hiring assistant coaches to trading/signing offensive talent to drafting players, McDermott/Beane seem to get it wrong much more than they get it right, and that doesn't spell success in the modern NFL. Defense may win championships but defensive teams aren't going to ever get to the opportunity to contend for championships in the current NFL unless they have good offenses, and you can't build a good offense without more high end talent than just a promising first round QB prospect. I'm not sure that McDermott/Beane realize and/or accept that because they seem willing to settle for surrounding Allen with middling talent and hoping that UDFAs and rookies unexpectedly play well.

They must not have been looking very hard because they could have found somebody considerably better than Peterman without sinking to bringing in a first round bust or a retiree given that they found Barkley within a couple of days of Anderson getting hurt. Instead, they waited a month and signed Anderson who promptly got hurt. I can think of numerous reasons for the Bills to wait a month to replace Peterman, none of them very complimentary to McDermott and/or Beane. At minimum, I think the delay in finding a competent backup QB suggests that either or both didn't think that having a competent backup QB was particularly important, despite Allen's struggles and his propensity to run too often.

Vlad the Imploder is what he's always been: an okay backup guard who can give a reasonable imitation of a starter in a pinch between a decent center and OT. Whaley signed him to backup John Mills, who had looked so promising as a rookie, but who imploded under the tutelage of McDermott and Castillo, so Ducasse became the defacto starting RG in 2017 and 2018.

Yeah, yeah, yeah .... every time the Bills trade away a talented player for the equivalent of used athletic equipment, Bills fans rally around the GM/HC/whoever responsible for making said trade with the trite "he didn't want to be here" bull manure. It's the perfect refuge when said traded player like Jason Peters and Marshawn Lynch go on to become All Pros. If Dareus regains his All Pro form, the Bills will be three-for-three.

McDermott or Beane made the decision, ergo it must be a good one, just like naming Nathan Peterman the starter and then trading away AJ McCarron. Brilliant! Well, maybe McDermott just doesn't have the temperament to be a HC in the salary cap era. Successful coaches have always found ways to deal with difficult but talented players, and that's even more important in this era when the salary cap imposes significant limits on teams' ability to fashion "perfect" rosters, however, the GM/HC define "perfect".

Isn't the point of the NFL to win football games, most notably playoff games, not accumulating tons of cap space by filling the roster with rookie contract guys and bottom feeder veterans? Talent is expensive in the NFL, and teams that don't identify and manage talent very well don't make the playoffs very often. When the Bills start making the playoffs and winning playoff games with some regularity, THEN we can discuss whether or not their cap management is "good", "decent" or "a train wreck waiting to happen". Right now, all this gushing about how "good" their cap management is premature.

Get back to me when all this "good cap managment" results in watching the Bills still playing in mid/late January rather than those stupid teams that "chased after bright shiny toys".

This is irrelevant because this is not Mahomes/Watson vs Allen. It's Mahomes/Watson vs Peterman. If neither Mahomes nor Watson had been any better than Mitch Trubisky was as a rookie -- and never got much better -- they would have been infinitely better than Peterman. The Bills would have been much better served to have passed on any QB in the 2017 draft rather than take Peterman. He was a disaster -- and McDermott couldn't/wouldn't see that until he'd lost at least 3 games virtually single-handedy (2017 Chargers, 2018 Baltimore, 2018 Houston). The only game that he wasn't awful in was the one game where passing was extremely limited on both sides because of the weather (2017 Indy).

They could have drafted Mahomes or Watson at #10 in 2017 but they traded back and drafted someone else. They took Peterman in the fifth round. Do you want to argue that Peterman was a good choice, even in the fifth round? Hell, any kid who could play ST decently would have been a better pick than Peterman, especially since they intended to go with 2 QBs. I was thinking more about his accuracy and related issues such as footwork.

Some people believe what they're going to believe even when their belief is contradicted by mountains of hard evidence like the anti-vaccination crusaders and the folks who insist that the Earth is only about 6000 years old. Others believe what they believe because of how they interpret hard evidence. There are lots of people on TSW who believe Allen is going to be great just because he wears a Bills uni. Others are convinced he's a dud. Both look at 2018, and draw different conclusions. IIRC, we posters on TSW were about in the same place about 6 years ago, only the QB we were discussing then was EJ Manuel. I don't know if Allen will succeed or fail. I want him to succeed because I like the kid, but I can see lots of reasons why he might not, some that are generic to all young QBs, some specific to the Bills team, and some specific to Allen himself. Hopefully, by December we'll have a better idea of which way he's likely to turn out and not be in the equivalent of "Tannehill Limbo" where we have a sort-of decent QB we have to keep hoping will get better "next year".

This is a HC/GM who ... passed on Patrick Mahomes and DeShaun Watson and took Nathan Peterman instead drafted a raw QB high in the first round but didn't bother to hire an experienced QB coach to tutor him choose Nathan Peterman over AJ McCarron, and then traded McCarron away because he was unhappy with that faulty decision waited a month to sign a former backup QB who'd been retired for 2 years rather than going out and immediately signing a competent backup. Why wouldn't they be stupid enough to not investigate Allen's issues? They weren't smart enough to give the kid any kind of support, on or off the field. Their stupidity forced him into raging flood waters (Ravens, Chargers Ds) without any kind of life-jacket to sink or swim. I like Allen. His leadership and heart are inspiring, but if he succeeds, he's going to do it despite McDermott/Beane.

That's true but your post ignores why he wanted spectacular failure rather Allen just being "not quite good, not quite bad" Be honest. If Allen isn't going to become a franchise QB, which is better? The Bills finding that out in 2019 or the Bills holding on to him until 2021 or 2022 or worse- -- giving him an extension as Miami did Tannehill?

That's not what the poster said. He said if Allen was going to fail, that he wanted Allen to do it quickly and clearly -- as EJ Manuel did -- rather than be just good enough to keep the Bills thinking he might develop and yet he never does. Manuel's early failure enabled the Bills to move on. Tannehill's (Bortles' in Jax) not quite good enough play kept Miami saddled with an expensive mediocre QB for 7 years.

Contrary to the claims of certain posters on TSW, I'm not wishing Josh Allen or the Bills to fail. I didn't like that the Bills picked him at first because I disliked his lack of "markers" that suggested he'd be successful as an NFL QB , but he quickly demonstrated that he has many of the intangibles NFL QBs need. The Bills haven't had a QB with that kind of leadership qualities in a long time. Unfortunately, that's not enough. NFL QBs need to produce results. QBs who can't read defenses, aren't accurate, don't make good decisions, etc are not going to consistently produce good results no matter how many intangibles they possess. Unfortunately, a lot of Allen's issues -- like his accuracy -- are hard to change/improve, especially under pressure. Unfortunately, there is a real possibility that Allen's evaluation may be clouded by how much he needs to improve to become a successful NFL QB just as Tannehill's was. That the Bills offensive talent is considerably below average may certainly impact his evaluation, too. Tannehill was just good enough on a modestly talented team to put the Fish into a real quandary -- too good to walk away from, not good enough to win with. "Tannehill Limbo" is a good name for it. Miami ended up extending him, so they wasted 7 years on him before finally cutting line. Bortles in Jax had a similar career, and even played well enough in 2017 to convince the Jags to pick up his option year, so they were stuck with him for 5 years.

^^^ We don't know how good Allen can/will be at this point. He could fail to improve much at all, which would probably make him worse than Tannehill, and maybe Bortles as well. He could have an ephiphany and develop into a future HOFer. It's most likely he'll be somewhere in between but we just don't know. How much he improves this coming season will give a good indication of his real potential as a NFL QB: 2nd year starters who significantly improve their play over their rookie seasons tend to go on to have successful NFL careers.

This is so different from so many NFL HCs, good and bad, past and present?

Hardly. I just don't like giving handouts to billionaires when they repeatedly fail to deliver what they promise. The 2018 Bills were NOT entertaining at all except for Josh Allen's heroics. Moreover, the Buffalo Sabres have rarely been entertaining since Pegula purchased them. If Pegula wants money for his new stadium -- which likely will price out many of the Bills long-time faithful just like what happened with the Jets and Giants -- then he needs to prove he can deliver a reasonably entertaining product rather than a team that gets blown out by 20+ points in every fourth game, that can't score more than 1 offensive TD a game, and is out of the playoff hunt by October. Isn't that just about the same excuse that supporters of the Bills trading away Marshawn Lynch used? Hopefully, this won't be another case of the Bills parting with a future All Pro just because they didn't want him around.

In his first 5 years as HC, O'Brien has a 42-38 win/loss record, made the playoffs 3 times by winning the division, and had 4 winning seasons. The Texans went 4-12 in 2017 because Watson was injured 7 games into his rookie season. O'Brien's three QBs before acquiring Watson were Ryan Fitzpatrick, Brian Hoyer, and Brock Osweiler. O'Brien may not be as good as he thinks he is, but he's a decent HC. Moreover, the Texans didn't fire their GM in order to promote O'Brien but because they thought they had "their guy" already lined up. I have no idea who in the Texans' organization is responsible for the roster, but it may be that the ownership was dissatisfied with the GM's inability to improve the OL, which had been a problem in 2017 and wasn't any better in 2018 as Watson also suffered a serious injury last season which hampered his play in several games, including the win over the Bills. Mocking Texans' fans isn't probably the best course for Bills fans. The Texans have had 7 winning seasons, 5 playoff appearances, and 1 playoff win since they joined the league as an expansion franchise in 2002. The Bills have had 3 winning seasons and 1 playoff appearance during that same time period.

Only in the minds of individuals who cannot tolerate the fact that not every Bills thinks McDermott and Beane are the next Levy and Polian.

I'm not "wallowing in [my] misery". You asked why I wasn't optimistic about the Bills having a winning (or better) season in 2019, and I explained exactly why. You couldn't deny my facts, so you attacked me. Again. What else is new? So, it's all right for you to justify your optimism by recalling the mostly uncompetitive Bills teams from the 1970s (40+ years ago), but I can't justify my skepticism of the McDermott-Beane regime by pointing out the similarities between moves made by the current HC/GM and moves made by various Bills regimes since 2000. Got it. I'm glad that the Bills made the playoffs, but I'm not anointing McDermott anything special because only did that 2017 team lose 4 games by 20+ points and had a point differential of -57, the 2018 team fell off a cliff and managed just 6 wins, 4 more blowout (20+ points) losses, and a point differential of -105, which is the third worse point differential since 2000 behind Gregg Williams' 3 win 2001 season -155 and Chan Gailey's 4 win 2010 season -142. Doug Marrone's and Mike Mularkey's 9-7 squads that missed the playoffs in 2014 and 2004 had positive point differentials: Marrone was +54 and Mularkey was +111. Making the playoffs despite 4 blowout losses and a negative point differential says "luck" to me far more than it does "skill", but you can worship McDermott for it if you want. Ungrateful punk? I paid taxes in Erie County for 20 years, so my county taxes have funded the Bills for that period. I've been a NYS resident for my entire adult life, so my state tax dollars have funded the Bills for about fifty years. Wilson and Pegula are in the business of providing entertainment, and that entertainment product has pretty much sucked except for a few years in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Now Pegula is coming around looking for more taxpayer $ for a new stadium. Well, for those taxpayer $, I think I should get more than 1 playoff season and 3 winning seasons in two decades. To quote Springsteen, you sound like "a dog that's been beat too much".