SoTier

For the 999th time, a team's preseason win-loss is irrelevant to their regular season performance. How a team plays in preseason -- the talent a team demonstrates, how discipline or undisciplined players are, and how the team executes plays, etc -- especially how the first teamers play -- are good indicators of what the team is likely to do in the regular season. That's especially true in the 3rd preseason game in which the Bills first teamers sucked. In fact, they got outplayed on both sides of the ball by Cinci's first and their second teamers.

White had an excellent rookie season, and is a valid success. Edmunds, however, hasn't even played a single NFL game yet, but his play in preseason suggests that he probably wouldn't be starting if the Bills had sent Preston Brown packing. He may eventually develop into a good MLB, but at this point, he's not proven to be good or bad.

Excuse me, Peterman had two starts, and he didn't finish either one. Joe Flacco is a 9 year starter with a Super Bowl win and Super Bowl MVP award plus numerous playoff appearances and playoff wins. McCoy is simply no longer mentioned in the same conversation of who is the best RB in the NFL. Just as Frank Gore, Adrian Peterson, and Marshawn Lynch are no longer considered elite. There are numerous younger backs who are better than McCoy at this point in his career. A RB doesn't have to be either elite or scrub, but you were the one who decided Collins was trash because he wasn't elite in your estimation.

The Bills have a starting QB who threw 5 INTs in the first half of his first and only start backed up by a rookie QB who's never started. The Bills have an excellent but aging RB who is no longer close to being elite. The Bills have 1 bonafide starting caliber WR and 1 older WR who would make some NFL squads, which probably can't be said about any of their other WRs at this time. They have no ability to stretch the field. The Bills have a decent TE contingent, including one who can catch the occasional pass. None are likely to be mistaken for Gronkowski. The Bills OL is made up of scrubs and backups, and plays like it: it sucks. Except for LT, none of the others are NFL-caliber. The Bills have a couple of big names signings on their DL that have been completely uninspiring. Their best DLer is at the end of his career. The Bills have good safeties and one good cornerback. The rest of the DBs, like most of the Bills team, are JAGs at best. The Bills special teams have a great placekicker in Hauschka but has their punter ever kicked in a regular season NFL game? If you think that the best the Ravens will do is 6 wins, then are you predicting the Bills to go 0-16? If you aren't, then you're delusional.

Well, that may be the meaning of the phrase, but I'm not sure it fits Peterman. Most reasonable people can be "Steady Eddies" or emotionally even keel if there's no pressure on them. Peterman's done that in preseason and in practice both last season and this one, too. However, he melted down -- panicked -- in the face of LA's pass rushers, so I'm not going to accept that he's "steady", "even keel", "reliable" until I see him play that way when he's under pressure.

The Bills have very little proven talent on their roster, which is why Ravens fans and the national media don't think much of them.

DTV is offering free NFL Sunday Ticket this Sunday. Channels 701-718 I believe.

I believe there was serious concern about this last season after the disaster in the Chargers game but luckily, McDermott managed to regain the locker room. After watching the performance of the Bills first teamers in the third preseason game, I'm concerned that the Bills have a serious morale problem again. There was something off with the starters in that game, almost as if they were going through the motions rather than giving their all. The 2nd and 3rd teamers were the ones who demonstrated effort and spirit. Sort of like the current occupant of the Oval Office.

I said 5% because I don't think even Peterman can duplicate his record performance. Maybe 4 in the same half, but 5 ...

I disagree. This is a perfect example of Bills cheerleaders using half-truths and untruths to exempt McDermott and Beane from responsibility for their actions by scapegoating individuals who are no longer with the Bills. McDermott and Beane chose to trade Dareus ($13.6 million), Glenn ($9.6 million), Taylor ($7.6 million), and Ragland ($1.2 million) without regard to the cap consequences, creating $32 million in dead cap money. They also chose to bring in Corey Coleman ($3.5 million) and AJ McCarron ($2.1 million) for essentially tryouts and send them both packing before the regular season even starts, resulting in $5.6 million in dead cap money. The bulk of the remainder of dead cap money goes to Eric Wood ($10.4 million) and Aaron Williams ($2.4 million), both of whom were forced to retire because of injury, for a total of $12.6 million. Retirements due to injuries can't be blamed on anybody. That's a total of $37.6 million of the Bills $53+ million dead cap money.

IOW, McDermott is the reincarnation of Dick Jauron only with better game day coaching skills.

Drew Brees never threw 5 INTs in a half in the NFL ... maybe in Pop Warner but not in the NFL.

My post wasn't about whether the players themselves are good or bad on the field, but rather the claims of some posters that the reason the Bills traded Watson and Glenn was primarily because they had injuries and intimating that McDermott and Beane didn't want players on the team that may have had injuries that took significant time to heal or were possibly chronic conditions. Obviously, from their actions, that's simply untrue.

That line might hold water if the Bills hadn't traded for a WR with chronically bad knees and signed a FA DE who has barely practiced all TC and preseason because of a groin injury.

Who said Glenn "wanted out"? Glenn was injured last year. Maybe McDermott and Beane wanted him out, but there was never any hint that Glenn actually did. This another example of an apologist for the current Bills regime making up bull manure to justify bad moves by the Bills supposed "brain trust".

No, you are not, but you are trying to stifle real discussion by continually questioning the fanhood of posters who are critical of the how the team is run ... and that's defacto censorship. Your view of "reasonable dialog" is all posters praising the Pegulas, McDermott, and Beane as saviors, and anybody else keeping their views to themselves.

^^^ Why am I critical of McDermott/Beane? It's very simple: I don't set the bar on my tolerance for Bills' FO incompetence so low that I compare them to a player personnel "guru" who was a notorious drunk and a HC who tried to turn OJ Simpson into a slotback.

We'll see if you're not so worried after the Chargers come to town in the third game of the season ...

I think the lack of talent, excluding rookies, on this team and the huge amount of dead cap space pretty much says all you need to know about McDermott/Beane and their personnel skills: they're in over their heads. McDermott is a good game coach. He seems be a great coach at getting the best out of the players he has, but you cannot coach talent. All the coaching in the world is not going to turn a JAG defensive end into Khalil Mack or turn Vlad Ducasse into Dave DeCastro. McDermott is neither Bill Belichick nor Andy Reid; he should stick to coaching, have input into decisions on players, but he should not be charge of selecting player personnel, which it seems he is. Beane seems to like to trade for injured players or players he and McDermott knew from their time with the Panthers, and he wastes draft picks -- as in he wasted a seventh round pick on Corey Coleman when he could have picked him up as a FA 2 weeks later. He also gambles too much. He traded up to take both Allen and Edmunds, both of whom are "projects" rather than players who are bonafide Day 1 starters, although Edmunds is starting because there's nobody else and Allen may start for the same reason. For all those fans salivating over the $90 million in cap space next season, consider that the Bills have so many holes -- mostly made by McDermott and Beane -- that there's not enough talent available in FA or in the draft to fill them all.

How do you know that Gilmore is "good but not great"? His career isn't over yet, and he's already been a Pro Bowler once. Moreover, that's the same line that Bills fans have used -- along with "he doesn't want to be here" or "the Bills can't afford him" -- when the Bills sent packing Antoine Winfield, Nate Clements, Jabari Greer, Nigel Bradham, Ronald Darby, and a slew of other good DBs they developed when or just before they were due to make market value. Meanwhile, one of their first round DBs who truly was at best "good" and mostly certainly not "great", Leodis McKelvin, they kept for 8 years. The Bills RB swapping was legendary: Antowan Smith(1997), Travis Henry (2nd in 20010, Willis McGahee (2003), Marshawn Lynch (2007), and CJ Spiller (2010). It appears that the RB carousel finally stopped when Whaley became the GM, but it continues under the current regime. As for Whaley, I don't think he was a lame-duck before much before the draft. He was Russ Brandon's pal from long before either one came to the Bills IIRC. I think they might have become friends in college, and that's likely why he prevailed over Marrone. I think Whaley may have became the odd man out during the process of putting together the Bills draft board, specifically over whether or not to draft a QB in the first round. McDermott won that one, and Whaley was sent packing shortly afterward.

Not true. There's no correlation between a team's record in preseason and regular season success, but teams that cannot sustain drives, that cannot run the ball or protect its QB, that take lots of penalties, etc seldom do that well in the regular season because how a team plays in preseason is a reflection of its talent and the quality of its coaching. I agree with this except for your last sentence. Teams other than the Bills can pick up excellent starting OLers either through FA or trade whenever the Bills decide that they can't "afford" to pay their best OLers. Andy Levitre left in FA, All Pro LT Jason Peters was traded to PHilly after a contract dispute, and, of course, Cordy Glenn was shuffled off to Cinci so that the Bills could draft a QB who's likely to fail because of the lack of pass pro to give him time to throw. I think you've got the order wrong. CB, LB, WR, OG, OC, LT sounds about right. Wasn't 2017 rather recent? The pattern that the Bills have followed for about 20 years is drafting a quality RB or DB in the first round, developing them into top players, letting them walk in FA or trading them, and then drafting their replacements in the first round of the draft. That's exactly what happened in 2017 when the Bills let Pro Bowler Stephon Gilmore leave for NE and then drafted Tre White to replace him, passing on both Mahomes and Watson in the process. Did you know that the starting RB for the NE Patriots in their first SB run in 2001 was former Bills first round pick (1997) Antowan Smith whom the Bills let leave in FA? The coaches and FO come and go, even Bills owners come and go, and still the more things seem to change with the Bills, the more they stay the same.

Sadly, this is likely what will happen ... a token offensive player and the rest defense. Contrary to the main narrative on TBD, McDermott and Beane could be interchangeable with their predecessors since about 2000.

What other team can match the Bills in its lack of starting-caliber quality OL and WR corps and the lack of experience among its QBs? The Bills OL has not demonstrated that it can pass protect except against a front 7 made up of old ladies. That spells disaster for any passing game ... which is what you referenced, not "offense".

Wishful thinking, dude. The Bills are lucky they can't be worse than #32 in passing.

The same one it was last season.