SoTier

How, exactly, have the Bills proved the national media wrong any time recently ... other than embarrassing those prognosticators who thought the Bills were potentially a playoff team before the Jests game?

The Bills have had all of 21 winning seasons in their 67 years of existence, only 2 of them in this century and none under the current ownership. The Bills haven't made the playoffs in seventeen years, the longest active post season drought in professional sports, and they are apparently doing just about everything possible to insure that their record for futility continues into the foreseeable future. If you don't like the national media insulting/mocking/criticizing the Buffalo Bills ineptitude, I suggest you complain to the people who can do something about it, the Pegulas.

Something like 70-80 percent of NFL players are black, and blacks make up the majority of players at every position except QB and special positions like kickers and long snappers. Less than a third (10 of 32) of the starting QBs are/have been black this season ... and that includes Brent Hundley who is replacing the injured Aaron Rodgers as well as Jacoby Brissette who was originally subbing for Andrew Luck who was expected to return. That's way under the 16-22 one would expect if blacks were given the same opportunities to be QBs in the NFL as whites, so a casual observer might very well think that there's something to the story. IMO, the problem isn't so much in the NFL as it is in big time college football. Just like there' are few no black HCs at the marquee collegiate programs that produce the majority of professional players, there's a dearth of black QBs starting at many of those same programs, perhaps most. My guess is that many/most young black QBs talented enough to be recruited into major collegiate programs are encouraged (sometimes by coaches but sometimes by family or friends) to play other positions beside QB because they're perceived as offering more opportunity to make the pros. That results in most of the top collegiate QB prospects being white. If you don't think this happens, read the bios of a lot of black pros playing other positions ... a significant number were HS QBs.

Totally agree about Harris. I think he played in a very difficult situation, less so in Buffalo than in some other cities. I remember the way he threw those short passes, too. JP Losman threw short passes the same way, only not quite so hard. Of course, back in Harris' day, QBs didn't care much about short passes anyways. That's what a whole lot of fans today don't understand about those QBs back in the 1960s and 1970s, they played an entirely different game so their stats don't look quite so impressive. If you couldn't heave a football forty yards in the air with some accuracy, they sent you home. BTW, Harris eventually became an exec with the NFL IIRC.

I'm rooting for the Steelers because I like them even if their fans give rednecks a bad name ... and I like the Jags a whole lot more than the Titans anyways.

Who the hell cares what some draft analyst or media expert claims about players? If every single one of the first round picks he touts in a particular draft busts, who the hell remembers a few years down the road? If pro evaluators miss on too many top picks, they're out the door, so I'll go with the pros' evaluations of most of those failed QBs.

Well, Mark Sanchez, Josh Freeman, Jake Locker, Blaine Gabbert, Christian Ponder, RG III, Brandon Weeden, and EJ Manuel were by "all accounts" first round caliber QBs in their draft classes, too, but they didn't play like it on the field. I believe that most of them are out of the league now. Brian Bortles, the #3 pick in 2014, looks set to follow their trail. A lot of these QBs that get taken in the first round are the products of high-powered college programs and/or their agents' hype machines. With most colleges no longer using pro-style offenses, it's even harder to separate the pretenders from the contenders because even scouts have to guess if some of these QBs would be effective doing the things pro QBs are expected to do. IMO, if there's a young QB you really like, maybe you ought to take him even if you already have a serviceable QB as a starter. The Bills passed on Russell Wilson and Kirk Cousins in 2012 because they had Ryan Fitzpatrick (also because Wilson is short and Cousins is slight). They passed on Watson and Mahomes in 2017 because they had Taylor even though they weren't sure about him -- and because they were in desperate need of a DB after allowing Gilmore to walk. This is part of a bigger issue than just about QBs; the Bills have simply not planned for the future essentially since Polian left. When they lose players to retirement or injury or to their own stubborn refusal to pay market rate for outstanding players, they have to scramble to fill that hole with either a rookie or a journeyman FA because they never develop their own players. They're always running behind, so all positions are impacted, but probably none so much as the QB position. With all that said, does anybody really believe that they won't take a first round QB in 2018? Not me. I said back in September that they were going to jettison Taylor and draft a rookie in the first round, and everything continues to point in that direction.

What if there is no QB that's worth a first round pick when the Bills pick? That's my only disagreement with the idea of your statement, "they need to draft QB with their first round pick". There's absolutely no guarantee that just because you need a QB (or a LB or DT) that a good one will be there waiting for you. The 2018 class might well be a dud like 2013. The biggest pitfall of drafting a QB in the first round is that he's going to prevent your team from drafting another one in the first round for the duration of his contract most likely. It's just a fact of life. There's 1 starting QB on a team who gets most of the reps and the coaches' attention. Any other QBs get crumbs. When the first round QB is struggling to become a first rate starter if he can, he gets all the attention. The team isn't going to invest another first rounder the next year or the year after to sit on the bench and vegetate. Even QBs on rookie contracts are more expensive than OLers or DBs, so the team may very well miss on much better prospects if they take a QB in the first round just to say that they took one. IMO, that's what they did in both 2004 and in 2013. They missed out on Aaron Rodgers in 2005 for JP Losman, and they missed out on Derek Carr because they'd drafted EJ Manuel in 2013. It seems to me that they're prepping themselves to again draft a QB in the first round just because they think it will excite the fans not that the kid they take is a real blue-chip prospect, which removes the draft selection from the realm of rational decision making and puts it over in the pure chance, lottery winning realm. Maybe they'll get lucky, but probably not. Not many people win big lottery jackpots, either.

This. Just look at how many of their first, second, and third round picks, almost all of them starters, the Bills have shed since last season. Look at who they replaced them with: JAGS, STers, practice squad refugees, busts. Yeah, every once in a while a low round/UDFA guy comes along and becomes great, and many part timers play important roles on winning teams, but the reality is that the Day 3 guys and UDFAs generally have less talent than the guys drafted on Day 1.

Probably for the same reasons that the Bills haven't had an NFL-caliber WR corps and why Vlad Ducasse is their starting RG: they couldn't find anybody to meet their standards of character as determined by how much they "buy into" McDermott's "process". How can a Bills fan believe there is a god ... unless he/she/it is a vengeful one?

Agreed. He's probably safe next season, too, since the Bills will draft a QB in the first round in 2018 and likely rush him to play ASAP, which means that most offensive problems will get blamed on the rookie not on Dennison.

It wasn't Wade's choice. It was Wilson's.

Absolutely the fans of the Buffalo Bills. All of 17 playoff teams and 21 winning seasons in 67 years. The longest active playoff drought in sports today.

Good post that pretty much sums up my views, too. I will add that the Bills also don't even have a functional running game at present. Unfortunately, I'm afraid it's likely to take at least three seasons of hopeless, mind-numbing losing to move OBD drive to admit they made a mistake with Beane/McDermott et al.

The Bills don't draft great, but they certainly draft about as well as most NFL teams, which ought to get them into the playoffs every once in a while at least. What the Bills don't do is retain their draftees, especially their Day 1 and Day 2 picks. Read 'em and weep: 2017 - 6 picks, 6 on team 2016 - 7 picks, 2 on team: 1st-Lawson, 3rd-Washington; on other teams: 2nd - Reggie Ragland (KC) 2015 - 6 picks, 2 on team: 3rd- Miller, 6th-O'Leary; on other teams: 2nd - Ronald Darby (Philly) 2014 - 7 picks, 1? on team : 3rd-Brown, not sure what's become of 7th-Seanntrel Henderson; on other teams: 1st -Sammy Watkins (LAR) 2013 - 8 picks, 0 on team: on other teams: 1st- EJ Manuel (Oak), 2nd- Robert Woods (LAR), 2nd-Kiko Alonso (Miami), 3rd- Marquise Goodwin (SF), 6th- Dustin Hopkins (Wash) 2012 - 9 picks, 1 on team: 2nd-Glenn - on other teams: 1st - Stephon Gilmore (Patriots), 4th-Nigel Bradham (Philly) 2011 - 9 picks, 0 on team - on other teams: 1st-Marcel Dareus (Jax), 3rd- Kelvin Sheppard (NYG), 4th-Da'Norris Searcy (Tenn) 2010 - 9 picks, 0 on team - on other teams: 6th-Arthur Moats (Steelers) Team chemistry does not mean fitting into a single rigid mold either in action or thought. People are not robots. They have different talents, different attitudes, and different temperaments. Any team, whether a football team or a project team in a work environment, functions best when everybody on the team wants the same goal, even if they approach achieving that goal differently. That's team chemistry because the whole becomes greater than the simple sum of its parts, and it's much more resilient in the face of trouble, primarily because team members tend to support one another. That doesn't seem to be what McDermott is building at all. He seems to simply be requiring his players to accept his philosophy because he's sure that he knows what's best. As long as his philosophy can produce wins, most players will accept his rules but if he can't sustain winning they'll stop believing in short order. The operative word is "if". You are assuming that Peterman is going to be successful which is highly unlikely for any green rookie QB starting his very first NFL game. It makes a wonderful fantasy but it's likely not happening given the serious deficiencies the Bills have.

Who's the President of the Buffalo Bills ... and the Buffalo Sabres?

Why would anyone willingly look for Savior Peterman?

Only in your dreams, petunia.

Agreed. I don't think McDermott would have said unequivocally that Taylor was his starter one day and then turn around and name Peterman. Coaches don't do that kind of thing unless somebody forces them to do it. He would have left the issue up in the air, but he didn't. Then he does a 180 turn. I'm sure that (his about face) will improve the atmosphere in the locker room 300%. (That's sarcasm for the literal minded.)

Ummm.... it was sarcasm.

Why should they watch the Bills when they've all of two winning seasons and 0 playoff appearances in this century? Hell, I bet there are a lot WNYers who used to care about the Bills who don't watch the Bills any more, either. Define "good". My guess is that he'll suck. Y'know why? Because he didn't get that many reps in TC first, and because he's mostly been the scout team QB since the season started second, and because he's going to have all of a week to practice plays that Taylor and the offense have been practicing together for months, but mostly because he's playing behind a crappy OL with a non-existent running game and a Division III receiving corps backed up by a defense that couldn't stop an old lady in a wheelchair until she'd rolled four yards beyond the LOS. De-nial isn't just a river in Egypt. It's apparently a creek just east of New Era Field that was once, long ago, called Smoke's Creek but has been rechristened in honor of all the gullible.

You gotta go higher up the food chain! Y'know ... the guys who hired McDermott and Beane! Beane and McDermott ask, "How high, sir?" when the suits at OBD say "Jump". My personal guess is that the decision to bench Taylor for Peterman didn't come from McDermott ... or even Beane unless he was just the messenger boy. Get a clue ... the Bills upper organization, which really didn't change when the ownership changed except to shed some of Ralph Wilson's family and friends in cushy positions, is dysfunctional, and as long as the Pegulas don't disturb them, the same old same old will continue ... and I don't expect the Pegulas to disturb them. Like McDaniels, McDermott is so used to working with all those talented, intense players that Carolina had collected, that he has no idea how to accommodate those who are maybe a little less dedicated to become football machines or who simply don't have the talent or who don't have the personality that he likes. He also shares the same rigidity that was a hallmark of Dick Jauron: my way or the highway.

Just like Fitzpatrick was supposedly done? Taylor is a better QB than Fitzpatrick by a mile, and some smart team will take advantage of his availability. If he ended up as the starter in Jax, Baltimore or Arizona, he likely joins the many other ex-Bills who regularly go to the post-season while the Bills QBs go home early. I totally agree. Time will tell on this, but I think that more than a few GMs will be anxiously waiting for the Bills to cut Taylor loose.

It's NEVER about this year with the Bills. They're ALWAYS about "the future" ... a "future" that hasn't gotten here yet in 12 years and isn't likely to get here any time soon.

One winning season in the last 12 years absolutely says there's no interest in winning on the part of OBD. You're all gung-ho for punishing the peons for the sins of the rulers, dude, but all the peons and even the overseers have all been changed out repeatedly, and nothing has changed. That says you need some drastic measure ... like holding the people responsible for hiring the overseers and peons accountable for failing to put more than a single winning team on the field in the last dozen years. Until that happens, the Bills are going to continue to suffer losing seasons ... but they will probably make lots of $$$.