Inigo Montoya

Icebowl is probably a lonely person who outside of an occasional “thank you” to a cashier has very little human interaction beyond internet chat rooms. There are a lot of people like that out there.

I’d respectfully disagree Shady. I think the fact they’re playing the Bills does factor into the personnel decisions that teams will make this year when they lace up against us. If you know your star RB or whatever is dinged up, and you are facing the team with the best odds to be drafting first next year, how does that not play into it? If they don’t sit outright, do they only play a few series or a half, more in line with a preseason game? Until the Bills become competitive, teams will take advantage of playing us and they will rest their stars whenever possible. I don’t see where that’s a crazy notion.

Thanks for your kind words. ?

I sure hope you’re right. I didn’t think that game was anywhere near as close as the score ended up reflecting. The Bolts looked like they were playing prevent the entire 4th quarter.

I don’t think we have enough talent on this roster to push many teams this year. I doubt there will be more than two weeks in the entire season where the Bills are not at least two score under dogs.

Dalvin Cook is sitting this week. I think we will see this more and more moving forward where teams take advantage of a Bills game on the schedule to rest their starters with any type of an injury.

Nate Peterman is a Buffalo Bill. He has worked hard to be the best QB he can be. He has put his blood sweat and tears into this team and has taken a pounding in the process. I agree with most that it looks like he will not be able to transition from the college to the pro game. He tried and failed. It happens. It's one thing for some national sports talk show hack to bag on Peterman, but we shouldn't be piling on too. He is a part of the family, he wears the uniform that represents our city. It's kinda like I can hit my brother but if you touch him, I'm gonna pop you. I'm not saying you can't be critical of a player's performance, but a lot of the Nate Peterman vitriol simply crosses the line of human decency and what should be expected from people who claim to be a part of the Bill's Mafia. We shouldn't rally around our players just when they do great, we need to stand with them when they fail too. Maybe Nate Peterman isn't a good NFL QB, but he's still a Buffalo Bill, and we need to have his back and not pile on.

“With the first pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, the Buffalo Bills select....”

Good post OP... I think we are going to take all the lumps this year that I expected we'd take last year. I had no expectation of making the playoffs at the beginning of last year's season. We ate a whole lot of dead money this year and finally got our financial house in order. We now have a prospect with real potential to be a franchise QB. That hasn't been the case in a long time. Hopefully this year will pave the way to future success. I think this is a five win team. Considering the big picture, I can live with that.

We need our picks and cap space to bolster the O line next year. Sure would have been nice to get him back to Buffalo though....

We are in a rebuild and we are going to take some lumps this year. Thank God we were able to break the Drought last year and at least get that monkey off our back. Hopefully we now have our QB of the future. No small thing. Next year we will be out of salary cap hell and we will likely have a high draft pick and be able to go out and aggressively upgrade the 53 man roster and add some pieces around Allen to help him develop. It's indisputable that the sun is starting to set in New England. I think that we will be on the upswing after this year. Try not to lose sight of the big picture.

I think the bottom line is that the Bills need to carry three QBs on this roster with the current state of the O-line.

Agree 100% Boatdrinks... Even if we can snag a couple decent free agents after the cut downs it will take time for them to gel. That's why I'm hoping that they keep Allen on the sidelines for the first few weeks and let Peterman take the reins. I think Peterman won the starting job outright anyways. (don't want to start an argument about that point here) As for the value of what Peterman has won, that's another matter all together. He may have won himself a First Class ticket to injured reserve with our current O-line...

Let's see what happens when the league makes their 53 man roster cuts next week. There will be a handful of serviceable veteran O lineman across the league who get released because their particular team decides to go with a younger, cheaper player that they feel can step in and do the job. We don't need a long term solution on the O-line right now, we just need a serviceable stop gap player (or three). An older vet(s) with a little bit of gas left in the tank might be able to step in and help us out this year. I think Buffalo will be an attractive destination for a vet with a year or two of playing time left because Buffalo will offer the one thing that most other places won't... playing time. Is this situation optimal? Hell no... Is it probably our best chance to bolster the O-line before we get all three of our QBs killed? Hell yes...

The two things I'm most excited about this year watching the Bills games are; 1. Seeing what Allen can do. 2. Not hearing the announcers mention 50 times a game that it's been 17 years since the Bills made the playoffs.

@ Dollars to Donuts I think you have a good argument, there is definitely something to be said for trial by fire, but ultimately, we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. I think you're right, Allen probably is our best chance to win, and if your #1 objective is to beat the Ravens, Chargers, and Vikings, then you should play Allen. If your #1 priority is to give Allen the best chance to succeed long term, then I would sit him for a few games and let the O line figure itself out first and let Allen get more of a feel for the pro game before you throw him in there.

I like Buffalover4life 's position, Let Peterman go the first few weeks. Let Allen learn the nuts and bolts process of how an NFL game week / game day works. Let him see how Daboll installs a game plan for the upcoming game. Give him a chance to see how the offense breaks down film on the opposing defense. Let him see all the hoopla of opening weekend on the road and the spectacle of a few real NFL games before you ask him to go out there and run the offense. Give him a few weeks to get used to all that and then ease him in week four. That also gets him past three meat grinder defenses. I don't think anyone wants to see Peterman / Chargers Part II for Allen. We need to do everything we can to maximize his chance of being a long term successful quarterback. If it turns out that our O-Line is a turnstile, do you really want him out there at all until the O Line has a few games to gel and get their act together? If holding Allen back and starting Peterman means losing the first three games of the season to set Allen up for future success, I'm ok with that. We've been waiting twenty years for a franchise QB in Buffalo, I can wait three more games. Other's may disagree, but that's my opinion. I'm not in the Peterman camp, I personally think Allen is better, but I am in the camp of giving Allen the best shot to be successful and I think that means easing him into the starting lineup this season.

The thing that gets me about Allen's throws is the crazy flat trajectory of them. Most QB's need to put a bit of arc or loft on the ball to get it down the field over twenty yards. Allen's passes come out of his hand moving at Mach 2.3 and just travel in a straight line to the receiver. When I watch those passes it almost looks like an optical illusion. Sometimes the ball gets there so quickly that the DB, who is in good position to defend the pass, doesn't even have a chance to make a play on the ball. It's like Allen handed off the ball to the receiver twenty yards down the field. Inconceivable!

I think what it boils down to is that most sports broadcasters and journalists are lazy and just go with the conventional wisdom and don't want to put in the time and effort to see if the conventional wisdom about Allen is correct or not. They listen to the same pundits we do and heard all of the flaws in Allen's game just like we did. On this board many of us spent some time and went back and watched film of Allen playing in Wyoming and at the Senior Bowl and throwing at the combine and at his pro day. We followed Allen's performance in the training camp practices open to the public. We wanted to have an informed opinion about Allen, but having an informed opinion takes a little bit of effort. Do you think they did all that to prepare for this game? Of course not The word out of the draft was that Allen has a rocket of an arm but was inaccurate. He was probably going to be a huge bust. With that framework in place they see everything through those lenses. Get used to it because until the evidence becomes overwhelming and shows that narrative is incorrect, that's what we are going to continue to hear week after week. Their inaccurate reporting and skewed perspective against Allen isn't malicious, it's just lazy reporting.

Don't be fooled, she's a dude....

I have worked in the busiest ER in my state for the last 21 years. Over those years I have learned a simple truth.... God loves drunk people. They never seem to end up as hurt as you think they would considering what happens to them. They must all be assigned an intoxicated guardian angel to look over them.

Innocent until proven guilty, but you have to admit that unless this whole thing was staged to get back at McCoy, which isn’t very likely, I don’t think that McCoy will ever step on a football field again.

Physicality

Was this really an issue that was crying out to be fixed? How many more rules can they cram into this game? At this rate, the NFL rule book is going be bigger than the federal tax code in ten years.

18th? Does your fan base do this? 1. Routinely endure the elements and temperatures so cold that they’d make a polar bear’s nuts shrivel, often while wearing little to no clothing. 2. Consume an amount of alcohol that scientists state is incompatible with life before noon, but still manage to get into the correct seat in the upper deck of the stadium like an inebriated homing pigeon before the 1 pm kickoff. 3. Make pregame bonfires using their own bodies as kindling to demonstrate their team spirit. 4. Conduct pregame ritualistic sacrifices to curry the football god’s favor by hurling themselves from great heights through folding white tables in a manner so violent and reckless that veteran members of Seal Team Six would cringe and be forced to look away. 18th? INCONCEIVABLE!!!