dave mcbride

Terrific piece. I know the hate for Marrone on this board is strong, but my god - what is he supposed to do? Bortles is TERRIBLE!!

The opening kickoff of game one of the regular season is your answer.

What does it say?

It's a Bills-and-football board. The best posters here by far are the ones who have a clue about what's going with other teams.

I know that what I'm about to say is debatable, but I really think that Dareus is their best player in terms of talent and potential. Shady is a great player, no doubt.

Moreover, if teams really believe in a qb and have a chance to take him, they aren't going to trade away the chance to take him for a boatload of picks. If the Jets really love, say, Darnold and have the ability to draft him, they wouldn't trade that chance away for a mountain of picks. Nor should they. Just look at the haul the Colts got for trading away Elway's rights. Does anyone think they made the right trade?

I think Mario Williams in 2014 was better. Takeo Spikes' 2003 season was better too. I also think it's arguable that Dareus' 2014 season was better than McCoy's 2016 season. Let's not forget that the Bills D in 2003 was first overall in defensive DVOA and second overall in 2014. Using Pro-football-reference's overall-value AV measure, here's where things stand: Mario Williams in 2014: 18 Spikes in 2004: 17 Dareus in 2014: 17 McCoy in 2016: 13 18 is *really* high.

No, they'll coach to win because they want their players to succeed and get better for the future. That said, they're running on "e" with regard to overall talent right now. As I pointed out on p. 8 of this thread: https://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/195526-complete-the-tank-mcbean-do-it/?p=4484702

The reason I come here is because it's as much a general football message board than a parochial Bills-only board.

Very true, but Palmer has actually had a very good career. He's going to end up throwing for 50K yards.

But they are tanking and literally everyone knows it. Boldin was the nail in the coffin on that front, and McDermott more or less fessed up to it when discussing the Boldin retirement.

If they're going to trade McCoy for picks (I'm not advocating this either), it would seem to me that trading for a second in, say, 2019 is the better move. They have enough picks to move around and get a lot of guys in 2018 already.

That's why he's more tradeable! Seriously, the dead cap # is irrelevant - the Bills will remain under the cap and don't have to pay any actual money. It's a fictitious number.

Moran doesn't think a trade will happen: https://twitter.com/PatMoranTweets

I think the Niners win at least 5 this year. They aren't *that* bad now, and Hoyer is a get-you-to-six/seven-wins sort of qb ( https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/H/HoyeBr00.htm) . Tell me how this depth chart is worse than the Bills' chart: http://www.49ers.com/team/depth-chart.html. Bear in mind that a lot of people out there think DeForest Buckner is the league's next defensive superstar. Solomon Thomas is going to be great too, in my opinion. He is super-talented. I think we fans tend to overrate the Bills roster. In my view, they have two-and-only-two elite level players: Dareus and McCoy. After those two, there is a whole lot of average. Glenn is good but hurt, and Hughes has underperformed for too long now for me to consider him top tier. Kyle Williams is good but too long in the tooth at this point. Maybe 3D turns out to be elite, but it's far too early to tell. On offense, outside of McCoy they have no one who is remotely special. Finally, I think Shanahan is a GREAT offensive coach.

Not a fair comparison because the SKins had to use the tag on the QB. The Bills do not have a QB to tag next season.

Jax isn't that bad. They're pretty talented and are likely to win 6 games.

the cap hit doesn't matter anymore. The Bills aren't in danger of being anywhere near the cap this year.

Shoulder. Torn labrum.

I thought he played poorly at the Jets game in NY. He took WAY too many sacks (8), which killed drive after drive.

Nope - 27th. http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/teamdef

Gilmore and Darby are both good players, and Watkins was the most talented player on the roster. Yes, the coaching will be better on defense, but I don't see any signs that the offensive coaching will be better. The Bills' offensive coaching the last two seasons is the best they've had since Marchibroda in 1990-91.

It's not really a matter of casting blame. I still think the Manuel pick was the right thing to do even with the benefit of hindsight. It's not as if some better qb was out there (it was a bad draft), and the draft overall was pretty lousy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_NFL_Draft More to the point, though, Whaley was really, really high on Manuel. He saw him as a Big Ben type. He was wrong, of course, but everyone makes mistakes. I don't fault him for it, really. Who was really worth taking at 16? Maybe Xavier Rhodes, but they were pretty solid at CB at that point. Maybe Eifert, but the Bills don't draft TEs early. Maybe DeAndre Hopkins, but as many have said here, that's putting the cart before the horse (they had no real qb). Other than that, there isn't much in the latter half of the first round that stands out.

This is inaccurate. Yes, Nix made the pick, but it was Whaley who went to all of the pro days and private workouts, and he was also the anonymous Bills organization member saying how great Manuel was in a windy rainstorm in Florida and how bad Barkley was on his pro day in LA.

No it's not. I suggest actually engaging with it rather than simply calling it "weird."