SoTier

"Buffalo Bills football sense"? What's that exactly? The ability to repeatedly deny reality and reject any criticism of any Bills player/coach/FO type except those the individual who has "Buffalo Bills football sense" dislikes?

Exactly this. He chose the Bills back in 2009 exactly because he figured the Bills would be looking for somebody to replace Edwards sooner rather than later.

Just because YOU don't like certain players doesn't mean they were/are busts. Moreover, the numerous examples over the last almost 20 years of ex-Bills players, whether former first rounders or former UDFAs, not only finding success on other teams but playing significant roles on Super Bowl contenders and winners totally refutes the claims of Bills apologists like you that these players "weren't good enough" or "weren't worth the money". How much is hoisting the Lombardi trophy worth?

The Bills do not "almost always miss on 1st round picks". Since 2001 the Bills have had 17 first round draft picks. Only 4 have been busts, and Shaq Lawson may be one. However, 7 were Pro Bowlers, 4 went to multiple Pro Bowls, and 2 were All Pros. The reason that it may seem that the Bills haven't had much success with their first draft picks is because the Bills like to get rid of their most talented players rather than paying them. Many of these players had their most success after the Bills sent them packing. 2001 - Nate Clements, CB,12 years in NFL, Pro Bowl 2002 - Mike Williams, OT, bust 2003 - Willis McGahee, RB, 9 years in NFL, 2 Pro Bowls 2004 - Lee Evans, WR, 8 years in NFL 2004 - JP Losman, QB, bust 2006 - Donte Whitner, S, 11 years in NFL, 2 Pro Bowls 2007 - Marshawn Lynch, RB, 12 years in NFL, 5 Pro Bowls, All Pro 2008 - Leodis McKelvin, CB, 9 years in NFL 2009 - Aaron Maybin, DE, bust 2009 - Eric Wood, C, 8 years in NFL 2010 - CJ Spiller, RB, 9 years in NFL, Pro Bowl 2011 - Marcell Dareus, DT, 8 years in NFL, 2 Pro Bowls, All Pro 2012 - Stephon Gilmore, CB, 7 years in NFL, Pro Bowl 2013 - EJ Manuel, QB, bust 2014 - Sammy Watkins, WR, 5 years in NFL 2016 - Shaq Lawson, DE, 3 years in NFL 2017 - Tre'Davious White, CB, 2 years in NFL Bolded players are currently active NFL players. There's no such thing as a "sure thing" in horse racing or NFL football.

Browns, Giants, and Cards improve significantly. I don't think either San Fran or Oakland will benearly as good as their fans and many media types expect.

I think 3 wins is about the best the Bills will be able to do in 2018. If any of their few "stars", ie, McCoy, misses significant time, they may be looking at even fewer wins. This team seems like a contender for the #1 overall pick. What surprised me about this poll is that more than 40% of the poll participants felt the Bills would only win 3 or 4 games in 2018.

The OP is dead-on. This year's Bills team look depressingly like so many previous Bills teams. They have played much worse this preseason than they did last season, as witness how poorly the first teamers on both sides of the ball played against Cleveland and Cinci.

Obviously you forgot about the scintillating play of Ducasse, Tolbert, and Zay Jones in 2017.

How do we know that Dawkins in a quality LT? He was decent as a rookie last season but he was playing besides a Pro Bowl LG last season, so he wasn't on his own. Since the Bills replaced Incognito with a body masquerading as a LG, he's sure on his own this season. He sucked against Cleveland, and didn't play against Cinci. John Miller, RG, looked good as a rookie in 2016, but crashed and burned last season and hasn't recovered. A good rookie season doesn't mean that a player is a good one long term, and that's as true for an OLer as it is for a QB or a LB or a DB. I thought 2019 was supposed to be the year when the Bills went out and got Allen some protection and targets so the Bills could win the Super Bowl? Are you saying that the McDermott/Beane timetable for reaching Nirvana has been extended?

Who's fault is that? McDermott/Whaley/Brandon let Stephon Gilmore walk in FA. Beane traded away Watkins and Dareus in his short tenure here. None of them were busts. They just apparently didn't mesh with the Bills plans, which seem to be, as usual over the last 20 years, to put profit over winning ... and before you claim that's not true, make a list of all the ex-Bills who have been significant contributors to the success of so many playoff teams since 2000.

No. We've been down this road at least twice before with Drew Bledsoe and Mario Williams. Football is a team sport probably more than any other, and adding a single player, even a QB, isn't going to have a tremendous impact on team success unless the team's already a good team that just needs 1 piece. The Bills need too many pieces for Mack to significantly improve the team's record this season -- and what the Bills spend to get him and then to re-sign him will likely negatively impact their ability to add and keep more pieces.

Excellent post. I have been a critic of the current regime's personnel moves with the offense this off season, but the first team defense looked anemic against Cinci, too, in what was supposed to be the "dress rehearsal" for the regular season. That is very troubling to me. Many of the teams that were bottom feeders last season -- the Browns, Giants, Broncos, Cardinals, Tampa Bay -- have made significant improvements on paper. If the Bills D doesn't step up in the regular season, the Bills are seriously in the running for the #1 overall pick in 2019.

The Bills are not just a great edge rusher away from being a dominant team in the league. How about the Bills spend some resources on their offense so that their first round QB prospect at least has a chance to succeed?

The Bills are stuck in the 1990s, and they have no intention of joining the 21st century. My guess is that it's because there's less competition for HCs espousing out-dated offensive philosophies ... and RBs are much cheaper and plentiful than true franchise QBs. The current regime may even be worse than some previous ones. McDermott and Beane don't seem to understand offensive football and don't care to learn, otherwise they wouldn't have stripped the passing offense of most of its receiver talent and ignored obviously serious problems with the OL while they were supposedly preparing to draft a first round QB. Even great QBs like Rodgers need protection and targets. DOH.

He was. I think Bills fans would be ecstatic if Allen could do as well as TBW in his first two NFL seasons. He started 12 games as a rookie, threw 14 TDs, 12 INTs, and 2900+ yards. As a sophomore, he threw for 14 TDs, 9 INTs, 3200+ yards and led the Vikings to an 11-5 record and the playoffs. He averaged more than 7.5 YPA, which isn't too shabby either. BTW, Adrian Peterson played in every game for the Vikes that season, averaged 92+ yards a game, and led the NFL in rushing with 1485 yards, so it wasn't like the Vikes didn't throw a whole lot because of TBW. They didn't have a spectacular passing game because they had the best rusher in the NFL.

I don't get that idea (not long term), either. Instead of gambling on a QB in the draft where almost 3 out of 5 first rounders crash and burn, the Saints took a more practical route. Bridgewater isn't a career backup but has been successful at the NFL level. He's a backup only because of a near career-ending injury. Is he Aaron Rodgers or Andrew Luck? Probably not, but there's no guarantee that any of the 2017 or 2018 first round QBs will be confused for Rodgers or Luck, either. TBW is at least as good as QBs like Flacco, Dalton, Bortles, etc and maybe even as good as top tier QBs like Roethlisberger, Stafford or Ryan. I think that the Saints play a much more wide-open offensive style than the Vikings did when TBW was their QB, too, so he can't be judged by his limited statistical success early on in his career.

I think that the run game will disappoint a whole lot of fans. The run game is going to suffer because of how poor the passing game will be. It's not going to be pretty.

The bolded statement is untrue. With a decently functional OL, Whaley drafted Cyrus Kouandijo, OT, in the 2nd, Cyril Richard, OG, in the 5th, and Seantrel Henderson, OT, in the 7th in 2014. He then drafted John Miller, OG, in the 3rd in 2015, and Dion Dawkins, OT, in the 2nd in 2017. He also signed FAs Richie Incognito and Justin Mills. He brought in OG Vlad Ducasse as a backup. So, yes, he tried to improve the OL. Beane, faced with an OL that struggled in 2017 and the loss of a Pro Bowl OG and an above average OC, allowed back up OTs Kouandijo and Henderson walk in FA, signed bottom feeder FAs Russell Bodine, OC, and Conor McDermott, OT, traded away above average OT Cordy Glenn, and drafted an OG (Wyatt Teller) at the end of the 5th round. That's called ignoring the OL not trying to fix the OL problems. I think that the Bills forced Incognito to take a pay cut simply because they don't value the offense, and especially they don't value the OL. The total dismantling of the offense since McDermott was named HC underscores that lack of value of the offense. Dismantling a functional offense while giving up a fortune in draft picks for a QB underscores how poorly McDermott and Beane understand offensive football. Daboll will be the scapegoat for their ignorance. My guess is that fans will start calling for Daboll's head after the third game of the season since the Bills open the season at Baltimore, play the Chargers at home, and then visit the Vikings, three teams with strong pass rushes, and each D better than the last one. I can't see the OL being effective against those three teams.

My feelings haven't changed at all. I've been warning about the Bills FO's inattention to the lack of talent on the OL and WRs for months.

Excellent posts, SouthNY. "De-Nial" isn't only a river in Egypt; it's alive and well among many Bills fans.

The Bills offense, most notably the OL, played almost as badly against Cleveland's first teamers, so it's NOT "one preseason game". How do you think McCarron got hurt? Of course, it's much easier to scapegoat to McCarron who's a career backup than it is to blame the rookie first round QB who cost the Bills so much, but the reality is that it's the Bills QBs who are the primary victims of the FO's incompetence ...

Incognito was 35 in 2017. How could his retirement have come as a surprise? 35 is no longer ancient for an NFL lineman on either side of the ball, but a team has to start planning for the future. Miller's poor play in 2017 should have been a red flag that they couldn't expect much from him if anything happened to Incognito. The Bills hardly ever seem able to address improving their OL or adding depth to it because they're always so damned busy filling holes created by their inability/unwillingness to keep many of the good players they draft beyond their rookie contracts, so they are constantly using the draft to fill the holes they themselves created. If the Bills had kept Stephon Gilmore they wouldn't have had to draft White in the first round in 2017 or trade a 2018 third to get Benjamin. Moreover, if they were so bent on getting a first round QB in 2018, why did they get rid of their entire WR corps in 2018 -- a WR corps that went on to shine on their new teams? The only difference I see between the Bills under Ralph Wilson and his minions and Terry Pegula and his minions is the names and faces ... and better propaganda.

Ever hear the statement, "you can get blood from a stone"? Well, in any sport, coaching can only go so far. It cannot make slow players faster. It can't make awkward players nimble and athletic. It can't make a weak arm into a strong one. The best coaching can do is help a player reach his max potential, but if that potential isn't there, coaching isn't going to create it. The Bills OL lacks talent. Maybe Dion Dawkins is a starting caliber NFL OLer, but the rest aren't at this point. They cannot physically compete against DLs that are starting caliber units, and especially they can't compete against teams that have elite pass rushers. All the coaching in the world cannot change that.

I don't know what you think a prediction is, but when I make a prediction about something, it's what I think/expect to happen based on some kind of evidence. Y'know ... I get up in the morning when I'm planning an outdoor event and see storm clouds, so I think getting today's event in without getting wet may be very dicey. When I check the Weather Channel and see 20% chance of rain, I can raise my expectations that maybe my event will be okay. OTOH, if it's 100% chance of rain, I'm wishing I'd sprung to rent a tent. It has nothing to do with what I want, and everything to do with the likelihood of something happening.

Just because some fans are not optimistic doesn't mean that they don't want the team to win. Wanting the team to win doesn't equate to ignoring the team's shortcomings.