SoTier

Totally agree. When a QB from North Dakota State goes #2 in the draft, that means that the scouts are not only scouring the hinterlands, they aren't letting any potential Tom Bradys slip through the cracks like they may have done twenty years ago. These days, a kid who goes in the late rounds is seriously lacking in the physical attributes necessary for an NFL QB, so he's not even a decent bet to make a "solid backup".

You are not going to convince the diehards that Peterman is a dud. Hell, his own incompetence won't even convince some of them that he's not pro material. If the Bills drafted him, they must have seen his "potential" because the Bills have demonstrated their unerring ability to find "QB diamonds in the rough".

My guess is that Plan C is more likely than Plan A or Plan B simply based on the reality that there are limited options for the Bills to get another QB who might be an upgrade to Taylor. My plan C would be to keep Taylor because he's probably the best the Bills can do unless they get Cousins or Smith, and then draft a QB in Round 2 or 3 if there's one who looks like he would at least make a decent backup QB. The Bills need a backup better than Peterman; his only recommendation is that he's cheap.

How, exactly, have the Patriots been "proactive" in "drafting and grooming quarterbacks"? Since Belichick came to NE, he's only drafted backup QBs with the possible exception of Garoppolo. You're confusing the horsehoe Belichick had up his ass when he made Tom Brady the Patriots' sixth round pick in the 2000 draft with prescience. Matt Cassel was a sixth rounder, too. Brian Hoyer was an UDFA. Jacoby Brissette was a fourth rounder. Garoppolo was a second rounder, but you can count the number of second rounders who have developed into franchise QBs in the last two decades on the fingers of one hand and have digits left over. Neither Cassel nor Hoyer played as well for any other teams as they did for NE. Brisette isn't going to make Indy trade Andrew Luck even if his health was guaranteed. As for Garoppolo, he has indeed looked really good in his short time starting in SF but Osweiler looked good for most of the season when he subbed for Peyton, so the jury is still out on just how good he might be IMO. Over the years the Patriots have drafted other backup QBs, including third rounder Ryan Mallett, but none of them has been any better than the scrubs that the Bills have drafted over the years. The Patriots have been better at finding QBs that fit their system, judging QB talent, and putting their QBs in positions to succeed if they get on the field. That Patriots' backup QBs have done well when asked to perform in place of Brady over the years but have failed to find any success as starters only supports the idea that it's coaching and the system that accounts for it rather than any formula or process for "drafting and grooming quarterbacks".

I certainly hope you're wrong because at the very top of the list should be "has the potential to be a great QB". By all accounts, EJ Manuel fit your criteria perfectly, but he missed on my criteria... and he was a bust. The Bills don't need a choirboy but a QB. If the kid has the right physical qualities, has his head on straight enough to keep out of trouble off the field and make good decisions on the field, and is a hard worker, I would certainly be po'd if the Bills passed on him for some lesser prospect because of the largely irrelevant criteria you cited.

I didn't bother to read all 6 pages of this thread but I do have 1 question, SaviorPeterman: are you and Dunkirk Don one and the same or are you his/her/its son/daughter/spawn? My inquiring mind wants to know!

I will probably tune in sporadically ... let's face it, even if the Eagles were up 3 scores to 2 minutes to play, the refs would find a way to help NE win.

The only problem with this idea is that there may not be an upgrade QB available. This is why there are so many "QB needy" teams. Taylor might the best the Bills can do, and if that's true, then they need to face that squarely and not do what they did in 2013 when they cut Fitzpatrick and picked $$$ over wins. We'll never know, but it seems likely Marrone and Hackett could have gotten the Bills to the playoffs with Fitzpatrick. The 2014 team missed by tie-breakers IIRC, and one of their losses came when Orton ran out of bounds rather than trying for the EZ. Fitz wouldn't have done that.

I agree with this with a caveat. QBs are basically two kinds: franchise QBs and everybody else -- a Ryan Fitzpatrick or a Tyrod Taylor or a Nick Foles, and generally, there's one franchise QB in a draft. A good year might yield a couple of franchise QBs, one of which is at the lower end of the franchise spectrum (Matt Schaub, Andy Dalton, Joe Flacco). A bad year like 2007 or 2013 yields no franchise QBs. Generally speaking, franchise QBs go in the Top 5 picks. Franchise QBs who come out of the bottom half of the first round are pretty rare, and about as likely as those who come out of later rounds: Chad Pennington (2000), Aaron Rodgers (2005) and Joe Flacco (2008). Scouting is pretty thorough these days, so there aren't a lot of top prospects QBs "slipping through the cracks" and falling to the 2nd half of the first or into the second or third round unless there are some extenuating circumstances. My caveat is that if you're drafting a QB outside of the Top 5, unless it's truly a great QB draft ( like 2004) or a QB has some "extenuating circumstances", you're drafting an "everybody else". The question is, as a GM and a team, can you live with those "extenuating circumstances" if they come with an otherwise potentially great QB prospect? Tom Brady was a part time player because of athletic department politics. Drew Brees and Russell Wilson are short. Kirk Cousins is built more like a HS basketball player than a pro football player. So, if Baker Mayfield, who is short and supposedly has some baggage, is available at 17, and the Bills traded up for him, I wouldn't be opposed to that because without those two negatives, he'd probably go much higher. I also wouldn't cry in my beer if they passed on him either. Actually, taking a QB in the first round who wasn't a first round talent ought to lose them at least one point IMO. They simply took a QB in the first round just to take a QB in the first round. FAIL! Absolutely. The Bills would have had the 18th pick in 2005, and Rodgers, who had been expected to be the #1 pick and fell for some reason, wasn't taken until #24 by the Packers.

The only 2 veteran QBs who might be available who are actually good are Cousins and Smith. Cousins might not be available and will be expensive. The Bills would have to trade for Smith, and they've been fleeced so many times by Andy Reid that I'd leery of him. Bradford can't stay healthy. Keenum had a great year, but Minny is loaded with talent on both sides of the ball, so it's impossible to predict what he'd do on any other team. The Vikes will probably keep him anyway. Since his big 2013 season, Foles has played 1 great game: the NFC Championship game for Philly, and he's under contract. All the rest are journeymen who at best are about on the same level as Taylor, and many not even that good.

You should have been looking in a mirror when you typed that first sentence since the announcers during the Eagles Vikings game made the very statement that after Wentz went down, the Eagles staff started tailoring the offense to fit Foles which was why he looked so much better the last two games he played than the previous ones: they had changed the offense. Foles looked good over a single season when he was in a run-and-gun style offense for a talented team that took NFL DCs by surprise for a while. He's looked good for a couple of games in an offense that's been altered to fit him on a team that's very talented on both sides of the ball. In between, Foles has failed to impress anybody, and that's why the Bills weren't interested in signing him. Maybe instead of whining about the Bills sticking with Taylor as their starter, maybe you should really ask why the Bills didn't have somebody better than Peterman as their backup ... like Foles, who signed with Philly for backup QB money. The Bills could have signed Foles as Taylor's backup y'know rather than going with a fifth round rookie.

I want option C. Taylor with the Eagles offense backed up by the Eagles defense. Get a clue: Foles is playing in a QB friendly system that Pedersen and his staff have tailored to his strengths. He has one of the best if not the best OL in the NFL protecting him, a top notch running game, and good NFL quality receivers. Tyrod Taylor played in a system that didn't fit him behind an OL that struggled most of the season to protect the QB and open holes for the RBs. He had only 1 NFL quality WR, and only late in the season. Switch Foles and Taylor in 2017, and you'd be whining about why ever did we dump Taylor for Foles. Whether you have a great QB or a crappy one, the guys around him are going to contribute to his success. It's a team game and you can't ignore that. In a better offensive system, Taylor has looked better with less talent (2015 and 2016) than Foles has looked except for 2013 under Chip Kelly and the last two games with Philly. Some really lousy QBs have managed to look good for a few games, so I'd go with Taylor.

Does the phrase "you get what you pay for" ring a bell? That's backup QB money Philly shelled out for him, which for them, turned out to be well spent because Wentz got hurt. Foles is a nice backup QB but a pretty crappy long term starter. His NFL success as a starter didn't last as long as Chip Kelly's NFL coaching career. Foles was mediocre in his last year in Philly, throwing 13 TDs and 10 INTs in 8 games as a starter in 2014. He was traded to SL and sucked there in 2015. He was an uninspiring backup to Alex Smith in KC in 2016 which was why he was a FA in 2017. As for being a better fit for "the Dennison offense", why does it matter? Dennison was a crappy OC with little imagination and an inability/unwillingness to adjust to changing game situations. Good riddance.

Your arguments are simply bogus BS that's based on conveniently manipulated stats like lumping all offensive linemen together to make your point. Even lumping RTs and LTs together ignores the realities of the modern NFL where LTs much more highly valued -- paid -- than RTs, but carry on with proving your ignorance.

Did you ever see OJ Simpson play? He was unbelievable. There is nobody in the league today -- not even Adrian Peterson -- who can do what he did with regularity. And he mostly played on pretty modestly talented teams in Buffalo. They had The Juice and his OL, the Electric Company, and not a whole lot more, especially on defense. Bruce was a great player but he didn't carry the team the way that Simpson did. He had a lot of help on both sides of the ball.

The only reason that Glenn is "overpaid" is because he was injured. When healthy, he's a top LT, and that's the going rate for one. Neither Clay nor Benjamin would be overpaid if the Bills had a 21st century passing game rather than one that seemed mired in the 1950s. Hopefully, Daboll will give them one. The issue is that you know what Cousins can do in the NFL. A team can at least make some educated guesses what they would need to add around him to make their team better. Nobody knows what that "young, cost controlled qb with franchise qb potential" will do. He could be a JP Losman or an EJ Mayfield. Worse yet, he could a Ryan Tannehill -- too good to just chuck but not quite good enough to win with -- that a team ends up paying big $$$ for "just in case". The Bills have drafted two young QBs in their recent miserable history -- Losman and Manuel -- which is why I don't want them to draft ANOTHER QB in the first round just to say that they drafted one. Unless they think he's the real deal, then they should pass and look for somebody on Day Two. Also, Cousins would not be a bridge QB. He would probably be signed for 5 years or so, so there would be no way that the Bills would looking for another potential starting QB for 3 or 4 years. That would be the same as if they drafted a QB in the first round ... they wouldn't be looking for his replacement unless/until they were convinced he was a bust.

I think I can understand some of the reasons why these fans had the photo taken with Simpson but I wouldn't have joined them. I can't separate the player from the crimes he committed later. It's really sad for Bills fans that Simpson was the greatest player who EVER played for the Bills, but he's mostly remembered for being a murderer.

I think that the most important piece that the Bills need is an attitude adjustment that results in a commitment to winning football games, and I'm not sure if the new regime (ie, FO) has it. I don't think that they had it early in 2017, but maybe that changed when Beane was hired. We'll have to see. Until and unless the Bills commit to keeping as much of the talent they find and develop as they can afford, they aren't ever going to build up enough talent and depth to field a team good enough to win 11 or 12 games and get far into the playoffs. The merry-go-round of continually drafting DBs, WRs, and RBs in the first and second rounds to replace the good ones that the Bills drafted, developed, and then sent packing rather than pay is the root cause of the 17 year playoff drought. If the Bills had paid Stephon Gilmore, they wouldn't have had to draft Tre White, and might have very well stayed at #10 and taken either Mahomes or Watson. If the Bills had kept Robert Woods or Marquise Goodwin, not only would they have had a much better WR corps in 2017, they wouldn't need to add another WR in 2018. I'm not saying that these specific moves were right or wrong, but the ugly reality is that they're very similar to moves that the Bills made repeatedly over the last 20 years and landed them in same spot they've been so often in the past: spending high draft picks to replace young starters who left via FA or trade rather than drafting to improve talent and depth.

This is spot on. He's at least as good as Smith, Dalton, and Flacco, and definitely better than supposed "franchise QBs" like Tannehill, Mariota, and some other former first round picks. Like all QBs, he needs at least a decent team around him, and he hasn't had that in Washington. Phillip Rivers hasn't led the Chargers to a playoff win in like 8 or 9 years, and has only one win in a playoff game in his career. Is that all on him? What about Matthew Stafford's failure to get the Lions into the playoffs with regularity?

Very well said. Neither Losman nor Manuel should have been drafted in the first round, and most likely both would have been available in the 2nd round, and if they weren't, well, no great loss since the Bills could have taken Matt Schaub in 2004 or just passed on a QB entirely in 2013 because none of the prospects was very good. In both drafts, the Bills were determined to draft a QB in the first round in order to sell tickets, and that's what they did. That is absolutely "forcing the issue" whether they traded up or traded down to get one. The Bills get no brownie points from me for taking a Day Two prospect in the first round even if they traded down and added an extra pick because that crappy prospect drafted in the first round prevented the team from going after better QB prospects like Bridgewater and Carr because they had Manuel ... just like they couldn't draft Rodgers in 2005 because they'd given up that first rounder for Losman.

Like Glennon or Osweiler? Are you aware that Russell Wilson, who's shorter than Brees, was responsible for some insane amount of Seattle's offense success this season? Like 85-90% of their scoring? As I said in another thread, it's not how tall or short a QB is, it's how he plays. I wouldn't want the Bills to trade up more than a few spots for Mayfield (say, from 21 to 15 at most) but if he's still available at 21, they should take him. He would be better at 21 than Rudolph or Jackson.

This sounds like the same excuse some still spout about Trent Edwards, "he was really good until that hit in the Arizona game..." The fact is that RG III's game wasn't actually sustainable in the NFL because he didn't have/never developed most of the skills that an NFL QB needs to be better than mediocre, such as reading defenses, pocket presence, etc. In college and as a rookie, he could get by with just using his physical ability but as NFL DCs developed "a book" on him, he got worse and worse. That's not something unique to RG III. It's the same thing that befell both Kaepernick and Osweiler among others, which is why posters are saying "you need to see success over a longer period to judge a QB". It's why I'm not annointing DeShon Watson as a great QB so far .... a 7 or 10 game sample simply isn't enough. If you roll back to the end of 2016, who was supposedly the best QB in the Class of 2016? Dak Prescott, hands down. Fast forward to 2017, and it's clear that Carson Wentz is head and shoulders the best so far but Jared Goff is now at least in the picture while there are some real question marks developing around Prescott because of how well he didn't play in 2017.

The Bills traded their 2005 first rounder, their 2004 second, and a fifth rounder to get Dallas' 2004 first rounder to pick JP Losman, who not only turned out to be a bust, but lost them the opportunity to draft Aaron Rodgers the next year. THAT was easily "the worst GM move that the Bills have made on draft day in decades."

I believe that Matt Flynn was another backup QB who parlayed one late season start with GB into a big pay day, too. Not to mention Colin Kaepernick who looked so good at the end of 2012 that the Niners not only signed him to a fat contract but sent Alex Smith off to KC. Then there's Brock Osweiler ...

I would pass on Rudolph and Jackson in the first. I wouldn't be opposed to taking either in the 2nd or 3rd -- or some other QB -- but I don't think that the Bills should use a first round pick on the fourth/fifth/sixth best QB prospect in any draft. No QB draft has been that deep since 1983 when underclassmen weren't eligible for the draft until their college classes had graduated. Even then, while three great QBs and one pretty good one (Elway, Kelly, Marino, and O'Brien) came out of that draft, it was an anomaly because no other draft has yielded the quantity and quality of first round picks, although 2004 came close. Most drafts have only 2 or 3 first round prospects, and generally yield only 1 top QB no matter the number of QBs that go in the first round. With the success rate for QBs drafted in the bottom of the first round being < 50%, I don't see the point in using a first round pick on a guy more likely to bust than succeed (the success rate for QBs taken #1 overall is around 80%). One trend that seems to be developing in the last 5-6 years is that of the occasional great/good/decent QBs coming out of later rounds: Russell Wilson, Kirk Cousins, Andy Dalton, Case Keenum, Dak Prescott, Jimmy Garoppolo, etc. Prior to the 2011 draft, the only 3 notable QBs to come out of the draft after Round 1 in the previous 2 decades were Favre (1991), Brady (2000), and Brees (2001). Drafting a QB in the 2nd or 3rd round, especially if he's got everything anybody could want in a prospect except optimum size, might be a smarter move than taking a prospect late in the first round.