SoTier

Yes, a great 9-7 record highlighted by ... 2 games (2 losses) where the team failed to score a TD 6 games (3 losses) where the team failed to score more than 1 TD 7 games against playoff teams ... 3 wins, 4 losses ... and finally a playoff appearance that resulted in a 10-3 loss to Jacksonville should punch McDermott and Beane's tickets to the HOF especially since we all know that the offense is so much better today than it was at this time last year since the Bills have at long last found their franchise QB!

I can't find any who were drafted in the first round in the last 2 or 3 decades. Favre might be the only one during that entire time period but he was a second rounder. Was Jake Plummer considered a boon-or-bust project? He was a high second rounder back in '97 IIRC. Current 2nd round picks like Dalton, Garoppolo, and Carr and third round pick Wilson don't seem to be boom-or-busters, either. They seem to have been drafted about where they should have been for their measurables and their readiness for the NFL. Guys drafted on Day 3 can't really be busts because if they become even modestly successful backups, their teams are ahead of the game because nothing much was expected of them.

"The Allen project" is only different because of your wishful thinking, OP. You may believe that since the Bills drafted him in the top ten, he MUST be better than the previous two failed project QBs the Bills wasted first round picks on, but I'll wait until he starts playing for real. Big, strong armed collegiate QBs who are supposedly smart are a dime a dozen. Competent NFL startng QBs are much scarcer.

If your description of the Bills organization is correct -- and I have no reason to doubt it since you seem to have some knowledge of the Bills organization on a much more significant scale than most of us -- then there's even less reason for fans to be worried about how "qualified" Kim is to hire coaches or make trades or whatever it is that has gotten so many to carry on for so long and so loudly -- unless their real issue with having her as President is that having a woman as Bills president somehow offends their prejudices against women.

What does it matter if Kim Pegula is "qualified" for the job of Bills president? How much worse a job can she do in leading the team than her predecessors over the last two decades? The last time the Bills won a playoff game was in 1995. The last time the Bills won more than 9 games in the same season was 1999. The Bills have had 6 GMs -- John Butler, Tom Donahoe, Marv Levy, Buddy Nix, Doug Whaley, and Brandon Beane -- plus a two year stretch without one -- since 2000. The Bills have had 8 HCs (excluding temp HCs) -- Wade Phillips, Gregg Williams, Mike Mularkey, Dick Jauron, Chan Gailey, Doug Marrone, Rex Ryan, and Sean McDermott -- since 2000. The Bills have had only 3 winning seasons since 2000. The Bills have made the playoffs only once since 2000, and that was only by literally lucking into them. The Bills mistakes on player personnel have been infamous, including trading away a future All Pro LT and a future All Pro RB for almost nothing to whiffing on draft picks like Aaron Maybin and John McCargo.

Pesky things, facts. Are you aware that Brandon's claim to fame when he joined the Bills a several years before taking over as defacto boss of the team was cutting the Florida Marlins' payroll from one of the highest in MLB to one of the lowest ... and turning the Marlins from World Series winners into cellar dwellers in a single season, MLB's biggest first-to-worst turn around ever? That's a positive qualification for a sports team's president/ceo? I suppose it is if the president's forte coincides with the owner's desire to maximize profits regardless of how the team performs on the field, which it did while Ralph Wilson was the owner, but new owners, new rules, new expectations. In general, an organization's president is someone who provides a philosophy or vision that guides the organization. He or she also manages competing interests by setting priorities, delegates authority, and is the public face of the organization. Depending upon the organization, he or she may do much more or somewhat less, but are usually not particularly involved in the business's day-to-day operations. Being a "people person", as Kim Pegula has been described as being, is a plus for any organization's president because they are expected to deal with a wide range of individuals, from other employees to government officials to the media, and any/all of these may include individuals who are difficult to deal with.

And teams always fall for them, and the Bills more than many since Kelly retired: trading for Rob Johnson, trading up for JP Losman, and drafting EJ Manuel. They weren't even smart enough to keep Bledsoe until the end of career and get some value for the first rounder they gave NE for him. I'm not optimistic for Josh Allen, not because of his obvious weaknesses but primarily because of the obvious weaknesses in the Bills: questions about the quality of offensive coaching as well as the apparent lack of interest in shoring up the OL and the WRs. He's certainly not coming into the best situation for a young QB who has a lot to learn about playing QB in the NFL.

As much as I would personally prefer TC to return to Fredonia, I really don't think it's happening. It's possible that the Bills might move the TC to another site now that a SJF alumnus is no longer the president -- and I have no particular reason to believe there was anything not on the up and up with the Bills/SJF relationship, just that with Brandon out, SJF probably lost it's key "advantage".

Very simply: if you had, you wouldn't be shoveling the misogynistic manure you've been shoveling in this thread.

You obviously have never had a girlfriend or wife or sister or daughter coerced into having sex with her boss in order to keep her job.

Cry me a river for Russ Brandon. The only thing I'm sorry about regarding Brandon's firing is that he got axed because of his personal behavior and not for his incompetence as a football executive. You're only 52? Reading your post, I pegged you to be at least 80 with attitudes more appropriate to the 1950s than the 21st century. Russ Brandon cheated on his wife, apparently over a relatively long period of time. He also knowingly violated modern standards of employer/employee conduct by having a sexual affair with a subordinate. He then lied to his bosses about it, which led them to investigate and apparently find more problems with his conduct. How is any of this defensible? Let me guess ... the Devil made him do it! I don't know what kind of FAMILY you come from, but among my relatives, even the redneck ones, there's certainly not much tolerance for infidelity, lying, and bullying, much less rationalization of such behavior.

I think the difference is that between 1967-1979, effective player FA was very limited and the salary cap didn't exist, so that there was much more inertia in team success, ie, good teams tended to stay good and bad teams tended to stay bad for much longer than they do today. Today, the norm is for teams to rise and fall with considerably more frequency. The Bills have been a rare exception as they have failed to have even modest success on the field, at least until last season.

How is the guy who was in charge of the Bills since the firing of Donahoe (2006) be considered a "whipping boy"? Cry me river for poor Russ Brandon. The Bills had only 2 winning seasons since Brandon took over in 2006 (2014 and 2017). Brandon ran the show, so he's responsible for the results, which stunk. He's not a "scapegoat" or a "whipping boy" or a victim. He failed, so he's out. How close to winning a Super Bowl have the Bills come since 2006 when Brandon was given control of the team? See above. As the man in charge of the Bills, Brandon sucked. He should have been terminated because of the team's poor record when the Pegulas bought the team. I've been a Bills fans since the early 1960s, and no, the Bills have never been as bad for as long as they've been under Brandon's watch. Even in the miserable days of the late 1960s and 1970s, the Bills occasionally managed to put together a winning season or 2 and even make the playoffs. They never went 11 straight seasons (2006-2016) with only 1winning season and 0 playoff appearances.

I can't disagree with Silva's review. Over the last twenty or so years, "project QBs" like Allen who've been taken in the first round have been singularly unsuccessful, so the prospects of Allen's success aren't promising. I remember claims circulating after the 2004 draft that the Bills "had" to get ahead of one team or another or lose Losman to some other team. The reality turned out that Losman would have probably been available in the 2nd round, and if he hadn't been, it wouldn't have been a loss at all. Hopefully, we won't have to say the same thing about Allen, but I'm not hopeful.

Well, now the Bills will have to come up with a new business plan, maybe one that includes winning more than 9 games a season more than every 20 years or so. Brandon wasn't fired because of allegations of sexual misconduct. He was fired because he lied to one of his employers, Kim Pegula. Execs can survive all kinds of trouble -- as Brandon had proven over his years with the Marlins and the Bills -- but they're dead meat if their employers catch them lying to them. At Brandon's pay grade, that's an unforgivable personal betrayal. As for Brandon's financial ruin, I suggest he contact Tom Donahoe about how to deal with the reduced circumstances of a fired ex-top exec. ''

FTR, you used the word "no" for know in your original post which is why I put it in quotes in mine. As for living in the past, there is absolutely no proof that the current regime is any better at building a winning team than previous regimes. All the new bodies at OBD are just that, new. They may be better than the old ones or they may be worse or they may be about the same. None of these folks have even been around for a full year yet, so declaring the Bills FO as "knowing what they're doing" is premature at best. This has been said just about every time the Bills have changed GMs/HCs since Bill Polian left. What can be said at this point is that McDermott seems to be a better HC than previous ones (or maybe luckier) ... and he was hired under the old FO, not the current one. PS. the proper word is which not "witch". Is English not your native language or did you just sleep through your English classes since sixth grade?

If you want to be Susie Cheerleader for a team that has given its fans 17 straight years of missing the playoffs and only 3 winning seasons in the last 18 years, be my guest. Don't try to tell me or other fans that we shouldn't criticize the organization. The Bills have forfeited their claim to blind fan loyalty with their continual failure to win football games over nearly 2 decades. Since you are such an Allen loyalist, you best not criticize him until the Bills send him packing. That's when we'll "no" he is bad, right? ... I mean, since we as fans, aren't allowed to express our opinions.

Especially since the Bills traded up to get him, and Beane has such an established record of recognizing collegiate talent.

Peddling hope without substance is what the Bills have been doing for more than a decade. I see the 2018 draft as underscoring how similar the current regime really is to previous ones.

Just because a team NEEDS a great QB, doesn't mean that it can find one in the draft when it needs one ... and drafting a QB in the first round doesn't make him a better prospect, only a more expensive one. The Bills essentially paid a BMW price for a Hyundai Elantra. Allen has not demonstrated that he has the skill set to become even a modestly successful NFL QB much less either Roethlisberger and Wentz, both of whom dominated their collegiate conferences and became starters as rookies. That's simply bull ****. Well, the last time I looked, it takes time, usually years, to determine if any draft pick is a keeper. Of course, we know from past experience that it's not possible for the Bills regime du jour to whiff on a draft pick, especially when drafting a first round QB to excite the Bills fanbase, and especially a few days after the draft. Just like the little kid who puts his hands over his ears because he doesn't want to hear a scolding ...

It's a little early in the game to declare the Bills FO a winner yet ... sort of like getting excited because the Bills have kicked a FG on the game's opening drive.

How dare someone in the media question the Bills for using 2 first, 2 second, and 2 third round picks to get a nice MLB and a project QB who is unlikely to be able to start as a rookie and is a longshot to become even a modest success.

Beane & Company fell for the lure of a big QB with a big arm.

How dare you suggest that the Bills organization is doing essentially the same thing they've been doing for the last 20 years! That the Bills have replaced all the old bodies with new ones proves that. Success is foreordained because the Bills have just drafted their messiah. //sarcasm off

In 3 or 4 years, we'll probably be about in the same place we were at this time in 2017, with a new HC and maybe a new GM. It has nothing to do with Buffalo GMs failing to make bold moves, especially when both Donahoe and Whaley made bold moves, and everything to do with the Bills organization's continuing lack of commitment to winning, but continue to tell yourself differently if it makes you feel better.