SoTier

Well, that's what the Bills want you to believe so you'll continue to fill the stadium, buy the merchandise, pressure state and local officials to give more concessions on any stadium issues, etc. The reality is that the "new" plan is essentially just the "old" plan in a shiny new wrapper with a different name. It's simply a reprise of 2013.

Wasn't that the reason that the Bills traded Taylor? To clear the field for whatever rookie QB they drafted no matter how poorly he performed? AJ McCarron has started fewer than 10 games in his entire NFL career. Peterman's one start was a disaster, and he didn't redeem himself in his other appearances. The Bills' actions in 2018 are eerily similar to what they did in 2013 to clear the field for EJ Manuel: replace a serviceable veteran QB, bring in a backup likely to be significantly worse than the former starter, and then draft a project first round QB to excite fans. I really thought after the events of last year that the Bills had actually changed their corporate culture to put the winning ahead of profit, but while the names and faces have changed, the "Bills way" apparently continues unabated. That's what is depressing about the Allen pick: for all the talk about "process" and other bull ****, it's just the same old, same old for the Bills. I hope Allen is successful but I'm not optimistic about his future because first round project QBs simply don't do well in the NFL ... or about the Bills' prospects about becoming a regular playoff contender.

Whistling past the graveyard ...

If I were Gettleman, I'd have taken the best player in the draft over QBs who all had big question marks about them, too. Give Eli some help in the form of protection, a running game, and a defense, and he's about as clutch as they come as his two SB victories over the Pats demonstrates. The Giants have been busily collecting the pieces to surround Eli all off-season, and Saquan is another one -- probably a big piece.

A lot of Bills fans felt the same way about Ryan Fitzpatrick, too ...

Because Allen was unimpressive in college except for his physical attributes. On the important factors that separate successful NFL QBs from successful collegiate QBs, Allen is behind the 8 ball. His college career was not particularly impressive despite playing against competition that's most charitably described as "weak" ... and the Bills not only traded up to get him, but were apparently willing to trade away more simply on a hope that he becomes the first "raw" QB prospect taken in the first round to be successful in the NFL in decades.

What, exactly, makes Allen a "generational talent"? He's got size, a big arm, and some mobility. Whoopty-doo. So did any number of collegiate QBs who failed in the NFL. It takes more than that, and Allen hasn't demonstrated that he's got more. As all three have demonstrated in their careers, they are decent NFL QBs who can take their teams to the playoffs with the right personnel around them and can even win the Super Bowl in the right circumstances, but they're not in the same class as Rodgers or Brees or even guys like Roethlisberger or Stafford. Actually, I believe that the Carp did make the playoffs in 2015 or 2016 BTW.

And therein is my problem with Allen: we traded up for somebody we have to hope develops. I would have been much more accepting of taking him at #12 than at #7. I just think that Beane has set the franchise back significantly unless Allen comes through and is at least as good as Flacco, Dalton or Tannehill.

Allen, like Losman and Manuel, is a project considered "raw", and the track record of first round "projects" is terrible. Few, if any, first round projects in the last 30 years or so have been successful. I'm not optimistic about him developing into a successful NFL QB.

Apparently your "many years" don't include the JP Losman and EJ Manuel eras.

What do you know about anything that I should "trust you" about anything? The top six picks went pretty much as I had expected all along, so my thoughts have more merit than yours. My thoughts are that if the Bills didn't panic, they miscalculated and paid more than they should have for Allen. IMO, Allen would have been there at #12. Even if Arizona had traded up, they would have taken Rosen anyways. The only 2 QBs went in the top 5, to Cleveland and Jests, making all the soothsayers claiming that 4 of the first 5 picks would be QBs look like fools. Darnold wasn't the #1 choice. The Giants went for Barkley rather than a QB, as anybody with half a brain or wasn't hyping QBs figured they would. Cleveland wanted too much for their #4, and with no takers, they went defense. Denver was never looking for another QB since they just signed Keenum and still have former first round pick Paxton Lynch on his rookie QB. They had worked out the outlines of a trade with the Bills earlier, but when they had the chance to grab Chub, they grabbed him. QB was about the ONLY position that Indy didn't need, and they grabbed blue chip guard Nelson. Nobody knows how things would have turned out if the Bills hadn't traded up to #7, but it's very possible that if the Bills hadn't traded up, neither would Arizona. Contrary to the hype, there apparently weren't many teams other than Buffalo and Arizona really interested in trading up to take Allen or Rosen. The idea that Miami was interested in taking a QB was the same kind of nonsense that was spouted by the fools claiming Denver would take a QB since they have Tannehill. Contrary to the BS being spouted by the media mavens hyping QBs in the draft, his HC likes him a lot. He doesn't have "durability issues", either. He missed 3 games in 2016 and all of last season with a knee, but starting every one of Miami's games from 2012-2015. More importantly, the Carp have so many holes that they simply don't have the luxury of drafting a QB in the first round as "heir apparent" to an decent starting QB who's only been in the league 6 years.

I think the interior OL is a bigger concern than the tackles at this point. Luckily, interior OL are positions where it's relatively common for Day 3 picks to turn into decent or better players. I also think that the number of trades in the first round suggests that there may be limited top end talent in this draft, especially at some positions like OL, and teams went up and got the best ones early. Usually interior OLers (centers/guards) who actually go in the first round go in the 20s. Nelson went in the top ten and Price went in the top fifteen I think. A right tackle went in the top ten as well, which is not nearly as common as left tackles going high. Apparently, none of this year's WRs were particularly well regarded, so maybe it's just as well that the Bills look to Day 3 or FA for help there.

IOW, the OP doesn't actually know anything more than anybody else posting here, and is relying on wishful thinking.

It seems that way to me, too, but I'm not all that worried about the having to settle for at #12 -- which seems to be the OP's gist -- if they pick outside the top five or even the top ten. I think only 2 teams drafting before them are just about guaranteed to take a QB: Brownies and Jests. If the Bills don't take a QB at #12 or sooner, my guess is that the guy they wanted went in the top four, and they don't like any of the other QBs enough to take one of them at #12 or higher.

Trading up for a QB might not be the best thing, either, but trading up for a player at another position seems outright foolish unless it was for a consensus #1 pick who happens to be an edge rusher like Bruce Smith. If 4 or 5 QBs go in the top 11 (highly unlikely), the Bills should have a real chance to grab somebody like Smith or even Chubb or Nelson without moving up.

I'm not a great fan of moving up, and if Beane can't/won't move up, that's okay with me. I answered the specific question the OP asked: what if the Bills don't trade up and at #12 only have Allen, Jackson, and Rudolph on their board. That's gross incompetence IMO because a GM and his staff have to be prepared for virtually all plausible scenarios. Having 3 QBs go in the first 11 picks is a very plausible scenario. It's even plausible that 4 QBs could go in the first 11 picks. In either case, there are probably at least 2 or 3 blue chip prospects at other positions who fell because teams gambled on prospects who aren't nearly as good just because they want a first round QB. A team has to be prepared to take JJ Watt over Jake Locker or Blaine Gabbert if that's the way the draft works out.

Fire Beane ... and maybe McDermott, too. At #12, a team needs to have more options for that pick than 1 position, especially when 1 of those options is a 2nd or 3rd rounder.

One of the stupider posts I've seen on TBD in a while.

Certainly better than Losman. If you're going to end up with a modestly successful QB (Matt Schaub or Tyrod Taylor), better to take him in the third or sixth round than in the first round, especially if you trade up to get him.

You are totally missing my point. I'm not talking about whether schools produce QBs frequently or not, but how much hype -- publicity intended to boost a QB's draft stock -- the QBs from some schools get compared to other schools. Would Darnold be as highly regarded if he played for Miami of Ohio or Wisconsin or Boston College? IMO, I don't think he would be, but as I noted, he was being mentioned as a likely #1 pick as early as 2016.

Some fans understand that it's hard to have success consistently when you have a QB who gives the ball away too often.

Aikman attended UCLA not USC, which was the team I referenced, and USC gets much more hype than UCLA. More to the point, I specifically referenced the hype that's been a hallmark of USC QBs in "recent years, which 1989 certainly is not, and how USC QBs have not lived up to their hype when they got to the NFL. Palmer, Leinart, and Sanchez were all supposed to be "can't miss" prospects, at least according to their fans, but only Palmer had a decent NFL career. The hype surrounding Darnold has been even worse than the hype spewed out for Leinart and Sanchez ... and his flaws -- too many INTs and fumbles and poor mechanics -- are among the most frequent problems of QBs who fail to transition from college to the NFL.

I imagine that Hue Jackson had his fill watching DeShone Kizer regularly throw completions to the other team last season. Since I like the Brownies, I hope they leave Darnold and Allen to the Jests and take Rosen (and his concussions) while leaving Mayfield to the Bills.

I put Darnold just above Allen. If he's there at 12, maybe the Bills take him, but if Roquan Smith was still there, I'd take Smith over him, and maybe use #22 on Jackson. If Jackson's gone, I'd consider Rudolph in the 2nd. These are all red flags for me. I'd only trade up to take Mayfield or maybe Rosen (primarily because of his concussion history). Some of the most notable QB busts in recent years had no problem "being able to suit up on Sundays", but they sure had problems producing completions and TDs for their teams (not always so much for their opponents). I'm thinking of guys like Mark Sanchez, Christian Ponder, Blaine Gabbert, and even EJ Manuel. The link among the recent USC QB's is the USC hype machine. Darnold has been hyped since 2016 when his fans tried to paint him as the next Andrew Luck despite his shortcomings which include being turn over prone and having poor mechanics, which might be tolerable faults in a kid taken after the first round but not in a supposed "blue chip" first rounder. Darnold hasn't been able to fix either of those faults since, so why would he be able to fix them in the pros? FTR, since 2003, USC has produced 3 QBs who have been drafted in the first round: Carson Palmer #1 in 2003, Matt Leinart at #10 in 2006, and Mark Sanchez at #5 in 2009. Prior to 2003, USC last produced a first round QB in 1991 when Todd Marinovich went #24th. While Palmer has been successful, he probably hasn't had quite the kind of career that he was expected to have as the #1 pick. Leinart and Sanchez were definitely overhyped busts.

Somebody posted a whiney post about how horrible things were in Buffalo, and I responded by listing some of the reasons that I thought it was likely that poster made the claims that he/she/it did. Those claims had nothing to do with whether an individual worked blue collar, pink collar or white collar, and everything to do with attitude because I have several well educated friends/acquaintances who whine exactly the same way. You can believe the politicians claiming that you don't post-secondary education/training for success if you want, but remember that 99% of those spewing that BS have college degrees or more themselves, and you can bet that they aren't counseling THEIR kids that they don't need to get at least a two year degree. The future belongs to the educated and the skilled whether you like it or not -- and that's been true since the mid-19th century and the rise of the Industrial Revolution, and there's no turning the clock back. It's no longer enough to learn to do a job a certain way because the new technologies and methodologies are changing constantly. The days of working in the same place doing the same thing for the 30 or 40 years of your working life are long gone. The pace of technological innovation is now growing by geometrical proportions, and that pace is only going to increase. It's estimated that in twenty years, most jobs will be in fields/industries that don't even exist today. Feel free to dig in your heels and choose to "go your own way", just don't come around me whining about how bad things are when you get left behind.