SoTier

And if he wrote that the Bills would go 8-0 in the first half and finish 13-3, you'd be slurping it up like it was your grandma's spaghetti sauce, and it sure wouldn't be "useless". The Bills don't have an NFL caliber OL or WR corps. They not only don't have a starting QB, they don't even have a QB who was significantly better than the other two in minicamp. When a veteran QB who's been around as long as McCarren can't easily out perform a green rookie and a second-year QB who demonstrated as little potential as Peterman demonstrated last season, it's time to start worrying that the emperor's new clothes may be an illusion.

Word out of mini camp is that McCarren couldn't separate himself from Peterman or Allen, which is a scary scenario ... and a blueprint for a 2 or 3 win season.

That Bodine started for Cinci doesn't mean that he'd start elsewhere, including, according to some here on TWD, the Bills. Zay Jones is a bust until he proves otherwise. Kerley and Ivory are long past their primes. No rookie QB is going to be good enough to start on most NFL teams because the learning curve is too steep, and Allen isn't considered pro ready -- his collegiate coaching simply wasn't good enough. Quite frankly, the offense on this team is reminicent the Jauron era, both in the general lack of talent and in the HC's attitude towards offense. I would like to be proven wrong but I don't expect to be. Hopefully, Daboll is better than Dennison, but I'm not holding my breath on that, either. Sad but true. I watch old videos of the Bills offense in the 1990s, and it saddens me that so many younger fans have never, ever seen the Bills regularly play well on offense. The thing is, McDaniels hasn't actually demonstrated that he HAS learned from his mistakes. He was a brilliant OC when he left for the Broncos and failed as a HC. He's still the OC for the Pats until Belichick hangs 'em up.

When I was a kid maybe, but then when I was fourteen I saw the world in simple black and white primarily because I was naive and ignorant. I'm not either now, and haven't been for a long time.

Pretty much this since it's about all that he'll have the talent on the field to do. Why? Aside from McCoy, Clay, Benjamin, and maybe Dawkins, what other offensive players would make most NFL teams except as backups? The reality is that the Bills easily have one of the worst offensive talent levels in the entire NFL, so 28-32 is probably much more realistic.

Right-o. Like Kelvin Benjamin.

This thread seems to be the football equivalent of the fascist political mantra of "my country, right or wrong". If professional football is a "business" when it comes to owners/managements replacing decent/older/injured/more expensive players with better/younger/healthier/cheaper players, why is it "treason" for players to look for better pay/better opportunities for recognition/better working conditions/more security? Isn't that what tens of millions of Americans do every year when they quit their current jobs to take new ones. Are they "traitors", too? OP, take your stupid post and shove it where the sun don't shine. It's disgusting.

A "qb meltdown" implies that the Bills will get competent QB play from at least 1 of their QBs in the preseason. Can I interest you in the purchase of a slightly used but recently rehabbed bridge over Chautauqua Lake?

The Bills are in far more need of a decent LG than a RT in case you didn't notice ...

What bull manure! It's not the fans' fault that the Bills have sucked for about 35 of their 58 years of existence. That's on the owners and their minions in the FO since 1960. They're the ones that hired all the crappy and mediocre coaches and players.

Usually DTs don't come into their own until their third or four year at the position, so it seems foolish to trade him at this point in his career, but Beane and McDermott haven't impressed me with their trading prowess despite the accolades from so many Bills fans.

Not on offense they don't. The only veterans on offense that would likely be starters on most other NFL teams are McCoy, Clay, and Benjamin. Dawkins might be a fourth if he can continue to improve, but he's likely to suffer from not having Incognito beside him. I'll believe that Daboll is even a competent OC when he proves that he is. Dennison was supposed to be a decent OC but proved to be a dud, so a second failure will be an indictment of McDermott's own competence.

Pollyannish? Yepper. To paraphrase Bill Parcels, "you are what your record says you are".

The quality of individual players in any draft is not determined by either the other players in that draft or by the hype spread by media talking heads. In the 1983 draft, the greatest QB class ever by result not by ratings of talking heads, produced 3 HOFs plus a decent NFL starter. The KC Chiefs still managed to pick an absolute bust in Todd Blackledge, the second QB taken. In the second best QB class ever, 2004, produced first round QBs Eli Manning, Phillip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger ... and JP Losman. Losman was not a first round prospect, and being drafting in the first round with three other QBs who are likely HOF candidates didn't make him any better or worse than he was. FYI, the last time I looked, finding good DBs is a lot easier than finding good QBs. If Mahomes turns out to be a stud and Allen does not, the Bills will have screwed themselves once more ... just as they did in 2009 when they gave away All Pro LT Jason Peters or in 2010 when they gave away All Pro RB Marshawn Lynch. If you don't like my opinions, don't read them or put me on ignore but don't dare tell me -- or any other poster -- to "shut up". FTR, the Bills do not have "one of the best secondaries in the league" but feel free to make up BS to justify your uncritical fandom for a team that's produced only 20 winning seasons in 58 years.

That was my point. How NFL teams have draftees rated is what's important in determining who and when kids get drafted -- and those ratings/evaluations are carefully guarded "trade secrets" as it were. What the media people put out is for "entertainment'. It may sell subscriptions or be click bait or garner ratings, but these guys aren't going to lose their jobs if they say "pick X at #1" and X bombs. By next the next draft, nobody will remember. If the NFL FO's pick too many busts, they're out on the street, so the story about how X loves his mom or Y overcame this or that set back isn't going to factor in to the NFL considerations.

I think that they drafted a QB to placate the fans ... which is exactly what the Bills did in 2013 and 2004, too. Drafting Allen -- and using up so much draft capital to do it -- provides them with the perfect cover if their gutting of the rest of the offense blows up in their faces.

I was actually far more optimistic last season than I'd been in a while. I thought they'd win at least 7 games, and if the D stepped up, 8 or 9. I didn't think they were good enough to win 10 games, which is what I believed it would take to make the playoffs but I didn't count on Miami losing Tannehill for the season or Denver going down the toilet or Baltimore giving a remarkable imitation of the Bills under Rex Ryan in the last game of the season. The offense last season was barely functional, and it wasn't all Tyrod Taylor's fault. McDermott's hiring of Dennison forced Taylor into a system that simply didn't fit him, and Castillo's shift to a new blocking scheme handicapped the OL for most of the season. McDermott and Beane also stripped Taylor of all his viable targets except for Charles Clay. Even the greatest QBs can't shine when they're running for their lives and have no reliable receivers to bail them out. Aside from signing Bodine, there's been nothing added to the Bills offense in 2018. Maybe Zay Jones will prove he's not a bust. Maybe AJ McCarron will prove he's not a career backup. Maybe Vlad Ducasse will have an epiphany in his ninth or ten year in the league and play like a competent RG, something he's never been able to do (that's despite the glowing ratings from the statboys). I didn't mention Josh Allen because I think the best thing that could happen to him is that he doesn't play this year unless it's parts of games late in the season. He doesn't need to get mangled, mauled, and then raked over the coals for poor performances playing with the hot mess that's the Bills offense. Dream on.

More than that, Allen is in just about the crappiest situation a young QB can be put in: a largely talentless offense with a HC and GM who do not seem to value talent, and especially offensive talent. Even the greatest QBs can't be effective, much less shine, without protection and decent tartgets. In Buffalo, Allen won't have much of either, so even if he has ability to overcome all the strikes against him, we may never see him do it. The best thing that could happen to Allen in Buffalo is that he sits out all of 2018, and McDermott and Beane wake up to the fact that a team can't win without offense and get him some help for 2019. I'm not hopeful. I figure McCarron and/or Peterman last half a season before one or both are injured or benched and Allen gets thrown to the wolves. As I said before, McDermott reminds me more and more of Dick Jauron, and Beane is either McDermott's soul-mate or his yes man. It's great when the HC and GM have the same philosophy, but when the underlying philosophy is flawed, it's a disaster. This is 2018 not 1928 ... NFL teams need offense, particularly passing offense, to win consistly. McDermott and Beane seem to view the offense as a luxury at best and a necessary evil at worse. Whatever, the result is the same: turning the decent offensive team of 2016 into a basket case by July, 2018, and that's just such a good spot for a rookie QB to be (that's sarcasm BTW). It's going to be a long, miserable season for Bills fans.

"If the offense is average ...." ??? In what alternative universe do you reside? The Bills don't have a starting QB, and one of their QB is a career backup, another one sucked monkey balls in his limited stints as a rookie, and the third is a rookie who is not considered particularly pro ready. They have a top notch RB who's under a cloud and may miss part or all of the year. They have a decent starting TE, 1 NFL caliber LT, and 1 NFL caliber WR. The supposed "battle" for starting center is between a journeyman starter and a career backup. They have a highly touted sophomore WR who had a horrendous rookie season. The rest of the offense is manned by players who would only see the field as backups and/or STers on most teams in the NFL. The Bills will be lucky to make it into the Red Zone more than once a game ... in other words, the Bills offense will be lucky if it's not the worst O in the league by a significant margin.

It's obvious that most of the posters in this thread have never been involved in even a peripheral way with major college athletics, ie Div 1 football and basketball. I attended a large Midwestern "football factory" university back in the 1970s -- even worked as a tutor for the football team for a semester -- and saw first hand the exploitive nature of big time collegiate athletics. While the situation is better today than back in the 70s, it remains extremely exploitive. "Student athletes" are still recruited to play football or basketball first, and their education is too often directed to simply maintaining their academic eligibility. Most athletes take the minimum number of hours to be considered "full time" students. They spend hours every day in organized practice, and are expected to spend more time in the weight or training room as well as in team meetings. How much studying do you think athletes get done on football game days or on road trips where the basketball team plays 2 or 3 games in 3 or 4 days? Once athletes use up their eligibility or are seriously injured so that they're not able to play, they are kicked to the curb. The schools that are less exploitive are relatively few. They tend to be smaller, less competitive programs, although a few well known national programs like Stanford are among the exceptions. I don't think Rosen's plan is practicable but it's at least a starting point for real discussion on the exploitive nature of big time collegiate athletics.

I wouldn't have objected to the Bills taking Allen with one of their original picks, but it's the trading up that I object to ... and not just for Allen but for Edmunds, as well. A team should trade up for a "can't miss" prospect not for a gamble ... and certainly not for the third best QB in a draft. The Bills decided before the draft that they were going to draft a QB in the first round, and that's what they did, just as they did in 2013 with Manuel. What "evaluations"? NFL teams don't make their personnel evaluations public. The only evaluations that are made public come from various media "draft experts" that range from paid tv/radio/newspaper commentators to various unpaid web writers/podcasters/bloggers, none of whom represent actual NFL teams ... and if the Bills are using evaluations from media "draft experts" to determine their draft picks, then the team is in serious trouble.

Really? Can I have the Power Ball numbers then? A questionable pick is a questionable pick just as a bust is a bust. If Allen busts, he'll be far worse than Manuel because the Bills gave up so much more to get him.

Groy was only active for 5 games in 2015, and started none, which is why you don't remember him. If Groy had truly been "better than" Wood in 2016, why wouldn't he have challenged Wood for the starting spot in 2017? Bodine has been a starter for his entire career, including on the 2014 and 2015 Bengals playoff teams. His play suffered after LT Andrew Whitworth left the Bengals for LA (FYI- the Rams made the playoffs with Whitworth minding Goff's blind side). It doesn't seem likely that Groy will win the job.

Concussions are not "reoccuring" injuries. There is evidence that suffering one concussion can make some individuals more susceptible to suffering more concussions but that's not true for everyone because there are a lot of factors that determine how/why players suffer head injuries. Certainly a QB playing behind a crappy OL (which the Bills have until they prove otherwise) is more likely to suffer a concussion than one playing behind a solid offensive wall that gives the QB a clean pocket (which the Patriots have given to Brady for years).

Nobody knows if any QB taken in the draft will be able to "read a defense and not be pressured into making bad decisions regularly" at any time in his pro career until he proves he can do ii, and that's the problem that GMs face. Their only clues are how QBs play as collegians, but that play can be influenced by a myriad of factors. It's why almost half of all QBs drafted in the first round fail. Aside from his size and his arm, Allen doesn't have a lot to recommend him to be a top ten pick, especially one that a team trades up to get. He simply doesn't have the "pedigree" that a blue chip QB is expected to have. It's why so many fans do not like the Allen pick; if he'd been taken in the late first or in the second -- or if the Bills had not traded so much to move up to get him -- most fans wouldn't have a problem with taking him.