Kelly the Dog

Not 'til September for sure. Why should they even practice when you can even win for months?

Yeah, that's a good idea... maybe they could sign Troy Vincent to a one day contract and take out Kelly's knee late in pre-season. Then we could kinda red-shirt him.

Like, a few of 'em? Like if one or two don't work out maybe the third will? How many?

I think he has a chance, like a 5-10% chance of being a solid NFL career. But 5-10% is probably bigger than a ton of late round draft picks in the last 20 years. Many of them have virtually no chance. He has all the tools. Most QBs drafted after the 3-4 don't. The only way, however, imo it makes sense for the Bills is if he is undrafted. Which seems unlikely. We don't have a 7th. Maybe we take him with the 6th. But then we would have to say goodbye to Cardale in order to keep him, unless Cardale plays great in camp and preseason, Yates tanks, and Chad looks good in very limited reps and action. If he is drafted in the 5th round, and then cut, chances are some team will sign him as a 3. Not guaranteed at all but as a long shot development #3 he's probably as good a chance as a lot of others. So, IMO, it would not be smart for the Bills to draft him unless they really like him. If no one drafts him then we can sign him as a UDFA and there is a decent chance he can be signed to PS.

The NFL is such a unique beast. A guy like Dawkins needs to have elite tools, drafted into a good situation, given very good coaching, surrounded by players doing their jobs, play in a system that either plays to your strengths or disguises your weaknesses, have a great attitude, and a bunch of luck. They obviously wanted this guy rather than he fell to them. We'll see how many of those things work out well.

Anthony Hargrave? Yes, I know.

We need a LB who can cover and run sideline to sideline. No question. I can only assume that they are going to use the 3-4m saved by not matching Gillislee on a yet to happen cut they will sign before September.

There is some distinct advantage I think for a guy like McDermott to come in and spend literally months watching tape of his new players. He didn't draft them, doesn't know them, has no allegiance or affinity or unwarranted affection or distaste for them from earlier experience. Knows what he wants in his new system and just seriously evaluates them by watching every play over and over. We had several positions of need and we seem to have got three starters. I was not a fan of the trade. I think you win with stars and I wanted Howard, who could immediately upgrade the offense in several ways and a good chance to be a star. But I'm warming to it the way it played out. Jones was my want in two. Mills stinks so we should be upgraded at RT. We still badly need a LB.

This seems like a no brainer unless there is some physical thing we don't know about. He's just decent but as a backup or second of two TE in a Dennison offense, he is probably a noticeable upgrade to O'Leary. He won't cost much.

I would bet anything it was similar to this. If you were a rational Bills fan, or if you were a fan of another team, or if you were a young sportswriter, or if you were a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist you could see that it was a difficult decision. There is no definitive answer. No one on earth knows whether paying him or letting him go is the best decision for the team in the short, mid and long term. It's all an educated guess and if you have ten guys givIng their opinions you're not going to have a unanimous opinion. Just take any random one hundred fans or one hundred writers and you know that is true, unless you're an !@#$ who believes his opinions are facts.

I like Tyrod but I don't at all think that they shouldn't draft a QB at 10 if they like him. I think what a lot of fans and writers and pundits mistake, however, is when a team doesn't draft a QB at, say, 10, that it means they don't care about the position or they think Tyrod in this case is a franchise guy because they didn't take a QB, etc. The Bills scouts, like every team, grade players differently. If they loved Kizer but not Watson, and Kizer was gone and a guy they didn't think would be available is, they will take that guy. But it doesn't at all mean they didn't want a QB at 10 or that they believe Tyrod is great, or that there is some kind of disconnect in the organization, 9 times out of 10 it will mean the one guy they liked wasn't there and a different guy at a different position they love was. I'm not excusing the Bills for not spending more high picks on QBs either. We clearly have screwed up for decades. The point is you don't take a guy you don't think is going to be a franchise player in the first round at QB because you need a QB, but more importantly just because they didn't take one there cannot be extrapolated to they weren't looking or think Tyrod is a franchise QB.

I was someone who thought Ducasse sucked on the Jets. And was a disappointment. Certain guys are better or worse in certain systems. It's impossible to imagine this signing without Castillo, who is mostly universally approved, saying this guy can really help us as a versatile backup and maybe sometimes starter. I'm not willing at all to say this is a good signing. I haven't seen him play (or noticed) in a couple years. But these kind of veteran backups when your position coach had direct experience with a guy I do like. Let's just hope Castillo knows talent when he sees it. A guy who on game day, as a backup, can play G or T is actually a valuable player.

Exactly. IMO with just a pretty good defense, not even a good one, we win 2-3 more games. We were a bad defense.

And sometimes they were excellent. But overall, just watching the games, when they needed to produce, they were awful. Just looking at stats about that defense, to me, did not show how bad they were, or better said, how much they let us down and contributed to losses versus the offense. The special teams did us no favors either, which made the success of the offense even more impressive. We always had long fields. We often started inside our ten. We didn't get nearly as many starts with great field position as most decent teams. We often gave up long time consuming drives which cut a series or two out of our offense.

Don't kill the messenger but rumor has it that McDermott is going to have spearing contests in the parking lot.

I'm thinking that if the Bills are trying hard to re-sign him, McDermott has quite a good idea of where he will play and be effective.

I think this is a no brainer. He's not going to cost anything. He can produce. He does at least one thing well. When every team needs five or six or more and we basically have two, that's an easy decision. I assume his agent will want to see if any other team is offering substantially more than the Bills based on his rather good TD production per snap. But they're not going to see real money. His chance to rejuvenate his career is here.

Do you truly believe this is McDermott's reasoning? That he has no ego and doesn't think he can upcoach everyone of these guys he sees on film? You know, the way every first time head coach in the league believes? That this guy doesn't believe he's a terrific coach and can get in the playoffs this year?

Not a fan of him or our interest. I think with saving $6m on Tyrod we should use it to get Woods back, which helps the run game a lot in addition to a solid #2.

If Vic is right that's a great signing. Go get Woods back. I wonder if possibly the flirtation with Hoyer made TT and his agent to say let's just take the offer now, after deciding earlier that they wanted to hold out for more but okay with it at last resort.

Very happy about this considering the options. Will be very interesting to see what they do about WR now and what the restructure looks like.

This is great news.

I love Will Arnett and love the backdrop and the idea of Flaked. I really liked watching it way more than I liked it, meaning thought it was good. There should be a whole new category for shows you really don't think are good, you just love watching them for any specific reason. Kind of like your favorite player versus the best player.

Dispute his last six games of that season. He wasn't all that good when they needed him. A franchise QB is not the third best player on his offense, which he inarguably was. LT dominated that season. 1500 yards, 50 catches, 20 TDs. Gates was a stud. Brees was just pretty good. He was not very good. He sucked in the biggest game of the year. He was 10th in rating. That's pretty good, not very good. He was tied for fourth with three other guys in TDs and sixth in INTs. That's pretty good not very good.

No thanks. Ferguson told Kelly not to sign with Buffalo because the cold weather would shorten his career. Ferguson played til after he was 40 I think.