BillsFanForever19

How can you tell? Maxwell Hairston hasn't played a down because of a Training Camp injury. T.J. Sanders played 4 games and then had to have surgery on his Knee. Dorian Strong showed promise as a Corner, until he was injured and put on IR. It's fair to say that injuries have ravaged our Rookie class. But that doesn't mean they're untalented. We couldn't possibly know that. Just bad luck.

I don't think he'll be fired. And I've been defending him for a while. But over the past couple weeks, that McDermott Tampa 2 has looked worse than ever (and it's looked pretty bad in the past). I hate to say it, but it's starting to feel like Rex Ryan 2.0. A one time Defensive guru, but after a Decade plus of running the same scheme the league has figured out his system and he's too stubborn or incapable of transitioning to a different scheme. I don't think Zone schemes work well against today's NFL offenses. You need an Elite Secondary and perfect play for it to work. We don't have that. It feels like we have a passing game that doesn't work unless our WR's are going against Zone and a Defense that is Swiss cheese because it runs out of Zone.

I'd like to remind you he wasn't picked in the 1st Round. But I get what you're saying.

@GunnerBill - can't reply in the original thread so doing it here. It's the knee hitting the ball. He grabs it, starts pulling it up, hits the knee and starts moving, then hits the turf. If not for the ball being moved, i'd agree. But a moving ball doesn't denote control.

No way. He never had control of that thing. His knee hit it as he was picking it up from hitting the turf, then it started moving, then it touched the turf. Easy call.

He never had control. As he was picking it off the ground, his knee hit the ball and knocked it loose and then it touched the ground.

Was it Josh's throwing hand that got hurt? Bc he's had really bad ball placement since.

The good news is we threw a bunch of money into early extensions for the Defense this off-season. ... oh wait.

Remember when Rex Ryan's D got figured out and he wouldn't budge from it? This is what it's starting to feel like with McDermott and his scheme. The injuries don't help. But it feels like McDermott's D is antiquated for today's game and the book is out on how to dismantle it.

How are we this unlucky with injuries every single year? Every team has injuries. But the magnitude of them with this team over the past few years is insane.

F-ck. We can't afford to lose Palmer. Gabe Davis here we come.

Unless you want to roll with Ja'Marcus Ingram or Cam Lewis - there's no one else to go with.

Tre White is SO bad.

He was. Until teams started to realize that was how we wanted to beat teams and had no one to create separation on the Outside. Now they key in on Cook and force Josh to beat them with his arm. Which he could - but guys getting open is a 50/50 proposition at best.

I wish they'd have gotten to the line just a half second quicker. Almost got that snap off.

Maybe i'm too needy, but I usually like to see what caused a 15 yard personal foul.

Good for you. It won't happen tho.

We simply don't have the talent on this Defense to be running this kind of scheme. Guys are constantly out of position, on the wrong assignment, giving too much cushion - etc. And at the same time, we've been running the same scheme for so long, it feels like teams now how to pick it apart by now.

Oof. Kincaid out is rough. He was the only guy getting open on any sort of consistent basis last week. And our Passing game pretty much exclusively goes through Kincaid, Shakir, and Coleman. If they're able to keep Cook in check, could be rough sledding. Need Palmer and Knox to step up.

... okay? Posts like this always crack me up. Like someone creating a thread out of a random temper tantrum outburst that's here one second and gone the next. Leaving me looking around like "what just happened?" Anyways - Damar Hamlin played a grand total of 12 snaps on Defense over the span of 5 games. Quite possible that they just elevate Cam Lewis and Jordan Hancock from the 4th and 5th Safeties to the 3rd and 4th Safeties. After all, they were the Safeties on the 53 keeping Jordan Poyer on the Practice Squad. But even if Poyer was brought up and takes the place of Damar Hamlin, as long as Rapp and Bishop stay healthy - Poyer won't be seeing the field any more than Hamlin did. Which is like, not at all. Also, I thought the majority of posters decided that Hamlin was awful and not deserving of a roster spot? Jordan Poyer is somehow worse than that?

It's really not. Your implication that bad Drafting and bad Drafting alone gets you (or in this case Nix and Whaley) fired is straight up false. I gave a number of scenarios where poor Drafting can be cancelled out by other things - namely acquiring a Franchise QB (which can be done outside of the Draft). There were teams in the Whaley and Nix era that overachieved even with bad to bridge level QB play. Often times winning just enough games to consistently miss out on Top Draft Picks necessary to land a Franchise QB. With a Josh Allen type, they wouldn't have been fired when they were and who knows where they could have gone.

How in the hell would losing to the Saints make us win the turnover battle against the Patriots?

It's not the GM's "literal job to know who" the better Pro will be. No one has a Crystal Ball. It's always a projection and an educated guess that can hit or fail based on a million different factors. Their job is to field a winning team. They are held responsible for the result of the team they field. Whaley and Nix weren't fired for Drafting poorly. They were fired for not fielding a winning team. Is Drafting part of that? Absolutely. But it's just a part of it. Acquiring a stud QB (which you can do outside of the Draft), getting the right Free Agents, managing the cap, and correctly evaluating when and where to improve or stay pat with what you have are all as important, if not more (definitely cumulatively). If you can't secure a Franchise QB (as Whaley and Nix didn't), you can Draft amazingly elsewhere, not compete, and lose your job. On the Flip side, you can secure a Josh Allen, miss on some picks, but be safe for being a team that competes every year. If anything, you're judged more harshly for going against the grain and being wrong than you are going with the consensus top prospect and being wrong. Bill Belichick is a prime example of a lot of these things. On practically a yearly basis, Belichick would reach with his picks and dumbfound former scouts and Draft analysts. It rarely worked. Tom Brady and the players who would sign on to play with Tom Brady kept them a force and cancelled out the bad Drafting. But once Brady went from being superhuman to just a very good QB, those Draft flaws started to add up. Soon after Brady left to go somewhere else where he had better help to make up for the drop off in his game age provided. And not soon after he left, then and only then the inadequacies in roster building, leaving the Patriots non competitive, would quickly cost Belichick his job.