SoTier

Exactly right. Beane hasn't even been with the Bills for 2 entire years, so he really can't be judged good or bad. The 2017 FA period and draft weren't his. The 2018 FA was his and it was uninspiring. The 2018 draft is still a question mark because nobody knows how rookies are going to develop, no matter how they played as rookies. The Bills have been active in FA in 2019 and have upgraded the talent on the offense, which doesn't say much because the offensive talent was so lacking last season. Beane has shown that he's good at tearing a team down but he hasn't proven that he can build one back up yet, and that starts with Allen. If Allen doesn't light it up, Beane will be toast ... but that's going to take a couple more years to shake out. As for Wilson, I totally agree, and his worse decision was bringing in Brandon -- at least from the POV of any Bills fan who wants to see a return to winning football. Before he came to Buffalo, Brandon's claim to fame was the dismantling of the world champion Florida Marlins the year after they won the World Series. Brandon literally held a fire sale of all of the talented ball players on the team, with the payroll falling from one of the highest to the league to the lowest ... and the Marlins went from top to bottom in 1 season. IIRC, they had the worse record of any WS winner in the season after their Series win in MLB history. I was a big supporter of Pegula as owner until he decided to keep and then promote Brandon. I think that the only remaining exec from Wilson's ownership is Overdorf, the supposed "cap genius" who was responsible for contracts. If Beane is truly in charge and truly interested in winning games, I think he'd do well to get rid of Overdorf and bring somebody who actually IS a "cap genius". All the teams have the same amount of money to spend on players but somehow the Bills can never "afford" to keep their home-grown talent despite not paying a premium QB salary while other teams can afford franchise QBs, outstanding pass rushers, star receivers, etc. That so many players the Bills "couldn't afford" or "weren't worth the money" have been major contributors to so many playoff and Super Bowl teams over the last decade is a major indictment of Brandon and Overdorf.

Whaley didn't run the 2017 draft. Brandon, likely with help from McDermott or just McDermott ran it since Whaley was already shut out of the decision making. He was fired the day after the draft, probably on orders from Pegula. Ralph Wilson was attributed to have said something like Brandon was "like his son". From 2006, he pretty much had free rein in running the team, and as Wilson's health deteriorated after 2010, Brandon operated as defacto owner until Pegula purchased the team in October 2013. How, in the light of Wilson's support and Brandon's power within the organization, was Whaley supposed to tell Brandon to "stay out of the football side of the house"? How long do you think you'd last in your job if you trotted up to the CEO of your employer and told him to keep his nose out of running the business?

Did you forget to shower?

Actually, Dareus was pretty good early on. He was a Pro Bowler in 2014 and an All Pro in 2015, so he was as good as advertised. Then something went wrong. Maybe it was his big contract but my guess is that it probably was something in his personal life. In the end, pro football players are people, and just like accountants and truck drivers and school teachers, the stuff that goes on in their families or in their heads can easily derail their careers.

I agree that neither Barkley nor Anderson are tradable, before or during the season, especially since Barkley was still a FA in October when the Bills signed him after Anderson went down. Anderson was retired and hadn't played a regular season down in 2 or 3 years when the Bills signed him. IMO, Anderson shouldn't be on the roster as a player when the season starts. The Bills have better uses for his roster spot and his cap space than on an old QB. If he stays as an assistant coach, that's fine, but get a practice squad eligible youngster as the third QB (as long as it's NOT Peterman!.

OUCH!!! Shades of Tom Donahoe trading the Bills' 2005 first (which turned out to be #18 and could have netted them Aaron Rodgers), 2004 2nd and 2004 5th to take JP Losman ... and then trying to trade him after his miserable 2005 season.

I wasn't crediting Beane and/or McDermott for the 2017 draft. One wasn't here and the other had way too much on his plate to be looking at players who weren't even in the draft, which is what the poster I referenced claimed the Bills had done (targeting Allen in 2017). In my view, Brandon probably ran the 2017 with some input from McDermott because by then Whaley was out (he was fired the day after the draft IIRC), although he seems to have run FA.

That's simply nonsense. Beane wasn't the GM in 2017 -- and he was working for the Carolina Panthers. McDermott was a defensive coordinator about 3 months into his first HC job. Brandon's track record on finding talent in the first round was Donte Whitner, John McCargo, Marshawn Lynch, Leodis McKelvin, Aaron Maybin, and Eric Wood. Do you really think Terry Pegula is a NFL personnel guru???

There's a big difference between drafting a first round QB (at #24 IIRC) when your great QB is 10 or 12 years into a career and using the #1 pick in the draft to take a QB when you took a QB with the #10 pick in the previous year's draft. Actually, the Pats have not "always drafted decent QB's" .... 2000: starter - Drew Bledsoe 6th round pick - Tom Brady 2002: starter - Tom Brady 4th round pick - Rohan Davey 2003: starter - Tom Brady 6th round pick - Kliff Kingsbury 2005: starter - Tom Brady 7th round pick - Matt Cassel 2008: starter - Tom Brady 3rd round pick - Kevin O'Connell 2009: starter - Tom Brady UDFA - Brian Hoyer 2010: starter - Tom Brady 7th round pick - Zac Robinson 2011: starter - Tom Brady 3rd round pick - Ryan Mallett 2014: starter - Tom Brady 2nd round pick - Jimmy Garoppollo 2016: starter - Tom Brady 3rd round pick - Jacoby Brisette 2018: starter - Tom Brady 7th round pick - Danny Eting The myth of NE ' always drafting QBs well" is just that, a myth. It's been fueled by Tom Brady coming out of nowhere in 2001 and by 1 good season by 1 of their backup QBs. In 2008, Matt Cassel started 15 games and led NE to an 11-5 record (but not the playoffs) after Brady suffered a season ending injury in the first game of the season. NFL GMs/owners like fans apparently have bought into the myth because they've been willing to ante up picks for NE's cast offs. Cassell was traded for a first or second round pick after 2008 but he never was particularly good as a starter in several stops around the NFL. Hoyer has been a bottom level starter at times. Garoppollo and Brisette were decent backup QBs in short stints for the Pats, but Brisette is at best a backup and Garoppollo had an impressive short stint in SF as the end-of-the-season starter but was injured early on in 2018. I think Belichick even got a pick from somebody for Ryan Mallett. It's a good thing Belichick found Brady because that's the only QB he's hit on in NE. Arizona won't get much for Rosen because by using the #1 pick on another QB the very next year, they've declared Rosen to be a bust. Even if a team likes Rosen, they'll play hard ball, figuring that the Cards will cut him eventually. Teams aren't going to spend a 2nd or 3rd round pick on any player whose current team thinks will be a bust -- and an expensive one at that since former first round QBs have rookie salaries upwards of $5/6 million.

I think that Caspian is pretty much a gender neutral name like Bailey, Cody, Casey, Harper, etc. So many more children have unusual names these days than in the past that kids don't care much about their classmates'/friends' unusual names -- unless they have Neanderthal parent(s) who stupidly make a big deal about other kids' names.

Okay, dude, what did you do that was so bad that you had to do a penance this bad?????

After the pitiful display the Sabres put on at the season's end, there's no way Housley could have been retained.

We'll have to see if the Bills current regime turns out better than past regimes. The personnel moves made in 2017, unfortunately, resembled typical Bills moves -- most notably letting Gilmore and Woods walk away rather than re-signing them and filling the holes with first and second round rookies. Maybe with Brandon gone, that pattern has changed but we won't know if that's true until some of Beane's players become eligible for FA.

Then you get better if the rookie is truly a stud -- and you can trade the higher paid vet for a draft pick or let one walk in FA. With rookie contracts only lasting 3-5 years, smart GMs are always looking to have young guys in the wings to step in. That's how teams that are perennial playoff contenders stay on top season after season while poor teams like the Bills are constantly using the draft to fill immediate holes, either because they don't prepare for player movement or they're constantly spinning their wheels trying to please new HCs who don't fit the players currently on the team.

Maybe YOU should take your own advice and put those posters with whom you constantly disagree with on ignore instead of continually insulting them.

As a corollary, if the corner and wr are rated about the same, then you can pick for need, but to pass on a great player at one position to take a decent one because you have a hole at a particular position, is a plan for mediocrity at best.

I understand the difference perfectly well but I'm not going to constantly delineate it when that difference is irrelevant to the idea I was presenting. You're being a "definition nazi" here as opposed to a "grammar nazi". Actually, what loses credibility is your accusation that I'm always criticizing Allen. I really have not. He's a rookie who has a lot to learn. Hopefully he can learn it, and be successful but I won't be surprised if he doesn't. About half of the QBs drafted in the first round who are not the #1 pick in their draft year fail to become franchise QBs. That's not criticism, that;s borne out by the numbers -- and those failures are not always spectacular like with Manziel but more like Bortles or Tannehill. What I have criticized -- and will continue to do so until I see differently -- is the Bills organization for their handling of the QB situation. The team invested a huge amount of talent and draft capital in a very green QB and then failed to give him the support he needed: an unqualified QB coach (no NFL QB coaching experience while his collegiate QB experience as a player and coach was 30+ years ago); no NFL caliber veteran to provide, at worse, a decent example of how a starting QB does his job, and to allow Allen to sit and learn for at least a few games; waiting a month for Derek Anderson to finish his golf tourney before signing him while wasting a roster spot on Peterman; an OL that couldn't pass protect and couldn't run block, which would have given Allen many more options than doing everything himself; a WR corps devoid of speed until the very end of the season with too many serious candidates for an All-NFL poor hands team; The Bills are damned lucky Allen escaped last season physically and psychologically unharmed. Apparently, Beane thinks so, too, because he has taken steps to try to remedy all those deficiencies. The regular season will tell whether his moves were successful.

I think teams that want to be successful should ALWAYS be on the look out for OL talent because linemen on both sides of the ball are always getting hurt, often times just minor "nicks" but sometimes catastrophic injuries, and having a functional OL is the best insurance for the team's QB. Last year, the Bills OL wasn't functional as either a pass or run blocking unit, and it showed.

Whoopty-do. Semantics. Last season Allen depended entirely too much on his ability to run for him to be successful long term as a NFL QB. Partly, that was because he was a rookie. Partly that was because of the crappy team the Bills' supposedly "top 5 GM" put around him. Partly that was because of the inexperienced QB coach the supposedly "great HC" hired. Saying that Allen needs to develop his passing game isn't a snarky criticism of Allen, it's a fact. Even much more polished passers than Allen coming out of college like Goff, Wentz, and Mahomes had to get better as passers in order to have success in the NFL. Mayfield, Darnold, Rosen, and Jackson will all have to significantly up their passing games if any of them are to have long term success, too -- and there's absolutely no guarantee that any of the 2018 rookie QBs will actually become outstanding NFL QBs long term.

I hate to rain on your parade and keep you and the OP tossing and turning with worry but there's a whole lot more to building a successful OL than just collecting a bunch of big guys. I'm sure you'd find the OLers from last season's team are about the same size. That said, they should be better than last year's group simply because last year's group was so lacking in talent, ie blocking ability, agility, strength etc Furthermore, no matter how great an OL a team has, a QB can still get hurt even if he is primarily a pocket QB. Running QBs are in even more danger. Unless Allen can develop as a good passer, his running ability isn't going to scare any opponents "to death".

My list is "just crazy wrong" only in the minds of Bills apologists and cheerleaders like yourself. If by "the kinds of moves that Beane made" you mean trading away Taylor and Glenn, trading for Benjamin and Matthews and signing Bodine, Murphy, McCarron, and Anderson, then yeah, 6 wins is "impressive". However, those "kinds of moves" are more fitting for a bottom 5 GM than a top 5 GM but carry on with your silliness.

And Nathan Peterman could get the job done AT ALL???? A team that is interested in winning football games does NOT trade away their starting QB with nobody on the roster except an uninspiring option as Peterman was and then dithers through much of the FA period before finally signing a FA QB who was a marginally decent backup QB with very little actually PT. You can spin it however you want to, but the timeline and the quality of the supposed "veteran" QBs the Bills had are facts. You can also add to the evidence of Beane being either incompetent in handling QBs or disinterested in putting a competitive team on the field that the Bills waited a month during the regular season before they bothered to add another backup QB after they traded McCarron -- and the guy they pulled off the golf course played in all of 2 games before being injured.

Most of the FA OLers the Bills signed would be depth on good NFL offensive teams, so there's plenty of room to upgrade through the draft.

Point A -- the Bills won six games last season, most of their games were snoozefests except maybe when Allen was in, and half of their losses were by 20 or more points. It's not going to take much to be "much improved" without winning enough games to even sniff the playoffs. Point B -- if the Bills fail to "contend for a Super Bowl in 2020" I'm sure you'll simply see 2020 as another "stepping stone". Point C --I don't care if Hockensen is the best TE in the draft because that may mean nothing -- like Manuel being the best QB in the 2013 draft. I want the Bills to draft the BPA who's on the board at #9. The only positions they shouldn't consider at #9 are QB, kicker, and punter. They could use upgrades everywhere else, including at MLB so they could move Edmunds to the outside which may be a better fit for his skill set.

I like GMs who are good talent scouts because having a good eye for talent is irreplaceable, and honing that eye only comes with years of experience. All NFL teams have cap experts to "manage the cap", but having the intuitive sense to know which players to pay and which players to let walk in FA only comes from GMs who know and understand football personnel -- and it's priceless as long as the ownership is committed to winning football games rather than only the bottom line. Bellichick has always had an eye for talent and for how to get the best out that talent, and when he paired up with an owner with a commitment to winning, well, as they say, "the rest is history". As I said in 2017 when Beane was hired and started replacing scouts, there's no guarantee that change is going to result in improvement. Yes, the Bills in 2019 are a lot different than in 2016. However, are they really a better team???? I think the defensive coaching is better. I think that the offensive coaching may be about the same or slightly worse. The overall talent level on the team is significantly less than in 2016 though, and certainly the offense remains a dumpster fire until/unless last year's rookies and this year's FA crop prove otherwise. Moreover, while the McDermott/Beane win-lost record doesn't seem too bad at 15-17, the fact that 9 of the Bills 32 games under "McBeane" were 20+ point losses (28%) is appalling. I knew which football organizations I liked best and I knew some of the GMs like Newsome, Belichick, Snead, Roseman, Dorsey, etc but I looked up the GMs that I didn't know by name. The football team on the field is never going to consistently outperform the quality of the front office that identifies/acquires/retains the personnel on the field. That's, of course, why the Bills have sucked pretty much since John Butler and AJ Smith said 'adios' and flew out to San Diego in 2000.