PBF81

Here's the thing, there's more than enough on offense to get a whole lot more out of it than we're getting right now. I don't know what our FA situation is offensively, I'l look in a moment, but Morse may be gone, Davis likely will be since he'll get more elsewhere than he'll be worth here, but I think that's about it. Draft an OT/C, maybe a RB in round 3, a WR, make a good FAcy move on offense, not a crazy expensive one, but to fill a gap, like McGovern did e.g., and I don't think we lose much of a beat. Defensively, do what we've done on offense, get some rentals or 1/2-year free agents until the offensive situation is more settled. Joseph has played well in his first game, same for Douglas. We'll see if they continue, but time to reverse the offseason trend of focusing on the D. Put the emphasis on the O, get someone in here that knows how to optimize the offense, and see what happens. Here's the great thing about this situation, Allen & Co. aren't a long-term project. They're ready, they simply need solid coaching/leadership and they're off and running. NPI If the new guys don't work out, swap 'em out again in two years. This shouldn't be a world-class coaching challenge that McD's turned it into. Just looked, most of our FAs are on the defensive side. None would cost much to resign. Hyde needs to be let-go or restructured. None of the FAs would be expensive to resign, I don't think, other than for Davis, who while he may not be "expensive" per se, he'll likely get more than we should be paying him elsewhere. Whether he wants to take less to stay with Allen remains to be seen. If they wanted to keep him they should have extended him by now. Am I missing any FAs? Morse isn't a FA, but he's also not playing at a particularly high level either, and he's old for a C. His dead cap according to spotrac saves $8.5M. He's not a major problem, and he's hanging on well given his age and concussion/injury history. But we need to start looking for another C if Bates isn't the future there.

Since no one has answered you, unless I missed it, I checked online. The source I found says that a retirement is treated the same as a cut from a cap perspective. Teams can ask for unearned signing bonus money back, but that doesn't affect the cap apparently. He won't retire if it means giving money back. He's finished as anything besides a role-player in rotation or as a depth player. He'll be 35 next season. I guess that's what happens when you sign a player in decline at the age of 33 to a 6-year contract. HUGE swing-and-a-miss by Beane. He should not be let off the hook for that. LOL I hear ya!! Thanks for the humor!! It's humor that keeps us going in times such as these. Odds of that happening you think? What, the 7th time's the charm? Beane should be on his knees thanking the football gods that Allen worked out, or both he and McD would have been gone after the 2019 season. Here's a list of Beane's draft picks otherwise from which to build a team around in his 6 drafts now. DL: Oliver, AJE, Groot LB: Bernard, Williams DB: Johnson, Jackson, Benford, Elam OL: Brown, Torrence RB: Cook WR: Davis, Shakir, Shorter TE: Kincaid, Knox Imagine a team built around that. Not a winner. Not even close. That's the core of a perennial 5-12 team right there. If even that. He won't retire. I doubt he'd restructure if it meant losing money. Remember, it's a business. ... until a stadium needs to be built, then it's a community service, but otherwise, it's all business.

At this rate it wouldn't be until the 2025 season at best. You think that Kraft, who's not particularly a fan of BB's, would sit still for that? That also borders on irresponsible.

I have no idea, but presumably there's the possibility that Bill refuses to step down. He's got a huge ego. I wouldn't dismiss that. I would love to see him fired midseason though if I cared. We have enough troubles of our own.

Well, what's obvious is that the situation isn't good for marketing pricey STs and PSLs. Remember, Pegula gave McBeane extensions in order to avoid chaos and regression. But now we have disarray, dysfunction, semi-chaos, regression in a major way, and a head coach that has openly expressed that he has no idea how to correct any of it. And one that as with his solo stance of being the only one in the world that supported Peterman, is approaching a similar status re: Dorsey. What more really needs to be said at this point. I mean if someone owned a business and the person in charge of an entire dept. openly said that, what would the responsible result be? This isn't difficult. Next man/coach up!! If Allen were already here before they hired McD, I can't imagine McD even having made the short-list for consideration.

Whatever it is, McD is now on record several times having plainly stated that he doesn't know how to correct it. That's stunning. As mentioned, making himself DC on top of being head coach paints all the picture we need. He gave himself enough rope to hang himself, his unwavering support for Dorsey and the O like he did for Peterman, and we don't know the extent of his involvement in it but I it's likely high, have built the gallows. Pegula's hand is rapidly being forced. The same goes for our D now too. It even began before our excuse-generating injuries. New England, ... New England, picked us apart nearly as if Brady were the QB again.

Kincaid should be on pace for 1,000/10 right now on an offense with Allen at QB. The reason why he isn't is the topic du jour.

Keep in mind that this is also the first season in four that the division's been as tough as it has. Even NE at 2-7 is tougher than their record. McD's had the good fortune over the past three seasons prior to this one, of having had a relatively easy division. Now that the pressure is on in that way he's crumbling. Even now, we've had the second easiest schedule in the league to date.

What we all wish for is a Super Bowl win. We're not getting it like this. It's incredibly difficult to believe that many coaches couldn't be doing this, what we have now, with those roster. Fear should never be what holds attempts to improve or correct back. What I personally "wish for" or would like to see, is Allen play as well as Allen can. To date he's not done that. McD was simply the wrong choice to get that out of him Granted, McD was hired before we drafted Allen, but that doesn't change the current circumstances. And at this point, hire a decent coach with a knowledge of offense. If he doesn't get at least as much in two seasons from the offense, shitcan him and get another. Allen isn't a long-term project at this point.

They don't offer much, but they do drive national narratives.

This season is shaping up like our 2017 season where we beat a bunch of scrubs, got a ton of luck, and if we do make the playoffs it'll likely be over a few teams that deserved it more than we do. And then what, get crushed even worse than 2017 in the playoffs. Honestly though, 5-3 over our next 8? Who really sees that happening. Well be lucky to go 4-4.

Interesting comment, great points! Regarding your comment that they're not entertaining anymore, I wouldn't disagree but would add that it's due to their blatant underachievement. If we were 5-4 while playing our best or would be different, but that's far from the case.

The Black Knight ...

There are more than enough issues to implicate both. Time for a changing of the guard. This stuff was predictable. Anyone not seeing it coming wasn't paying much attention to it, understandably, yet nonetheless. Once McD is gone, it's likely that we'll start hearing about how difficult it was to work with him and how stubborn he was. Just an educated guess there. At the end of the day, just as McD did with Peterman, he's also doing with Dorsey. This time it seems to be the straw that broke the camel's back. It's difficult to ignore and puts his incompetence on full display. Dorsey is s fully his choice and he's standing by him. His own pressers and statements are merely him icing his own cake. McD is the head coach, and it's become clear to most now that he's reached his ceiling. He was never a great DC to begin with. Many have simply convinced themselves that he was. We see what he is as a HC. It's going to be interesting to see what happens, as Pegula has given both him and Beane, also inextricably a significant part of the problem, extensions for marketing purposes, specifically so that what's happening now wouldn't happen. But it has. So it will be interesting to see what happens now from that angle in the interest of selling crazy expensive STs to the new stadium, with PSLs.

This isn't uncommon for us. Seems like in recent seasons we've come out of the gate swinging as if it play in September determined our playoffs lot. We end up playing at an unsustainable pace, everyone gets worked up and extrapolates gaudy stats out to a full season, which is also ridiculous, and then that pace is predictably slowed and everyone wonders what's wrong. What's wrong is that you can't play like that all season, it's probably fed into our injuries, it helps when you face a couple of teams like Washington & the Raiders, and get overly amped up for our first tough home game, as we always do, which feeds into the entire scenario. Good coaching would have us playing on more of an even keel all season and not so much in spurts and fits a couple of times during the season. It's also good coaching to have an on-field methodology and philosophy that enables you to do that. We have neither off those. Hence our issues. ... after seven seasons.

Wow, I didn't know that about AJE. Yeah, not good. McBeane are starting to lap themselves. Part of their problem is self-induced by not playing rookies as much as other teams do. Another knock on McD.

He orders Ranch when he gets his Wings. SMH

Miller's out the moment they can afford to dump him. From Spotrac it seems that it would be a bigger cap hit for us to cut him than to keep him, but nearly $10M. So he'll be around.

Well that's all fine, but then Beane needs to take that heat, not Davis. Beane's had six drafts now to craft this roster. Milano wasn't his pick, neither was White, and Jones was a free agent. Everyone's complaining about what's left, aka Beane's draft picks. So in essence, since "we suck on defense" now, that has to mean that Beane's draftees aren't cutting it. Three of them start on the DL, Groot, AJE, and Oliver. Our LB corps are nothing but Beane draftees now. Jackson, Johnson, and Benford start in the secondary.

If you throw the ball enough to any WR he'll log those numbers. Don't forget too, that the Fins threw for nearly 4,800 yards last season. IMO he's the worst WR on our roster. Last season he only had two games with more than 3 catches, and only three games with more than 44 yards. We can find all kinds of WRs that posted a 400 yard, 2 TD season as their big season. His catch% was also 58.8%, which is poor. I do think that part of his lack of use is coaching, but that doesn't mean to the tune of 500+ yards or anything. If they tried to work him in more, 25 catches for 300 yards or so would be my expectation, nothing more. Right now he's WR5 with no one behind him besides the PS if there are any WRs on it. Of course Kincaid is ahead of him in the gameday pecking order.

Well, this is his sixth NFL season. In those six seasons, the sixth one still developing, on four different teams with different coaches, he's "amassed" a whopping 4 TDs, 12.1 YPR, and fewer than 200 yards per season. One would think that if he were something other than a JAG, he'd have proven it by now. If you go back and look at the competition he's had for a #3 spot, it's incredibly weak wherever he was. Any WR that's currently on a roster in the NFL is capable of doing what he's done, particularly on a team with Allen as the QB. I'm surprised he's still on the team. I sincerely believed that he'd have been cut by now.

McDermott is never going to hire anyone that could potentially replace him, on either side. Once Pegula figures that out, meaning that it's incredibly unlikely that McD actually hires a qualified proven competent OC, it's over for McD. The question is when Pegs will figure that out, if ever. Otherwise the Allen-era will be like our Kelly-era, forever wondering what could have been with better coaching.

Can't speak to Harty, but Sherfield's not much below his average per-season pace. He's squarely on pace for what he did in three of five seasons otherwise on two different teams. He's also never had the competition for snaps that he's had here in Buffalo, including at Miami last season, where he was the #3 WR by default. When your competition for snaps is Cedric Wilson Jr., River Cracraft, and Braylon Sanders, who isn't even in the league now, then it's not difficult to log snaps and playing time. He was massively overrated coming here.

Here's the thing that few seem to realize and understand. Allen entered the NFL with incredibly weak defense reading skills. He was arguably worst in his draft class. What saved him was his physical attributes and arm-strength. He's never been a multi-read guy in the NFL. It's absolutely remarkable what he's been able to do in the NFL. In the NCAAs, his physical prowess allowed him to succeed as a "man among boys" so to speak. But that's also why he was the worst QB in his draft class against Power-5 competition. Given that he's overcome so much of that, and produced to top-QB levels, it's not anywhere close to a reach that with proper and good coaching, he should be able to refine and polish his game to be able to get rid of his flaws. At the same time, not having that proper coaching could irreversibly do the opposite, which appears to be occurring, or at least render the process for turning him into the best in the league much more difficult and time-consuming. But looking for him to be doing something that he's never exceled at or come close to exceling at, particularly given the questionable coaching that he's working with, isn't really fair to him.

How about finding an up-and-coming seemingly brilliant offensive mind, like Ben Johnson or Press Taylor as two examples, and hiring them. I realize that would take some competence and intelligence on the part of the one doing the hiring, and not hiring for other non-performance related reasons, such as "culture," relationships, etc. But just a hunch, that might be in the best interests of a team like ours with Allen at the helm.