sullim4

Fitz is an easy guy to root for. While I'm glad they moved on from him in Buffalo, I hold no ill will against him and wish him the best. I'm glad he's doing well in Tampa.

To me, the big issue is with the defense. This is supposedly McDermott's specialty and it's literally a shambles, to the point where a player quits in the middle of a game. The defense was what was going to win us 5 or 6 games this year and avoid a 2-14 type embarrassment... now I wonder if we can even win a single game. I have no issue with Allen in this game. He has no offensive line protection, no running game, and a #1 WR who doesn't seem to want to be on the team. He showed enough for me to get some hope for the future. This is exactly the type of team that Archie Manning was trying to prevent Eli from ending up on when he was drafted by the Chargers back in 2004 - it is devoid of talent and could very well get the kid killed by the end of the season. I said it last week and I'll say it again - McDermott should be fired in January if the defense continues to play like this over the course of the season. Everyone expected the offense to be putrid. The defense was supposed to be at least competent and I've yet to see a shred of competence during 8 quarters of football so far. I'm fine with McDermott staying if the offense loses them 16 games. But if the defense continues to give up points at this rate, he's got to go. It's inexcusable.

This is a great question/thread. I think you can absolutely ruin a rookie quarterback, and I think that goes for any position on the field other than the specialists. Coaching and schemes matter A LOT in the NFL. If your coaches aren't good teachers, or just don't connect with a player, that player is going to look really bad. They will develop bad habits, learn to do things the wrong way, and potentially get to the point where they aren't recoverable. It's the players that don't need coaching that can't be ruined. Vets that know the ropes and rookies that have so much talent and football smarts that they can ignore poor coaching and just do their own thing. In fact, I will go out on a limb and say that the Bills have had such poor drafts for the last 18 years precisely because they have poor coaching staffs that have "ruined" perfectly good rookies. If these same players had been drafted by the Patriots*, or the Packers, would they have been busts?

Hey look, the graphics department gets to use that image they made for week 1 in case McDermott went with Allen!

The way McDermott presented this made it seem like it wasn't his decision...

This is very interesting to me. Chris Brown never gives his real thoughts on anything - this tweet may as well be a press release from the Bills. I 100% agree with the decision to cut him, but someone at OBD must have felt the need to do some damage control to have Brown go out and say this. Giving up a seventh round pick for someone that you're paying to play for a divisional opponent is a pretty bad look for Beane both from the perspective of fans as well as his peers in the league. The question is, who sent Brown out to tweet this? Beane or McDermott? Or someone on the Pegula Sports and Entertainment side? For the sake of the franchise, I hope it's the later... Beane and McDermott have a hell of a lot more important things to worry about than PR damage control at this point.

Yup... and in 1985 as well. Had Adam Oates. The program is unfortunately a shell of what it once was.

I went to RPI. Great school. But not exactly a football powerhouse (or hockey, for that matter...).

This is a very plausible scenario, imo. If this happens, someone has to be held accountable, right? I mean, even if you want to tank the season with the goal of having 90MM+ in cap space and high draft picks, 3 more blowouts like the previous 4 McDermott has led would be NFL record setting levels of incompetence. I think it's the defense that will cause McDermott to sink or swim. No one expected that side of the ball to be so putrid, it was the offense that was supposed to be this bad. Although the media is honing in on who the quarterback is going to be next week, I think the bigger concern is whether the defense can hold their opponent to a respectable score. Hell I would be happy if next week's score is 17-0. Even 24-0 would be an improvement over this week's debacle.

Fat ass in that pic: Vlad Ducasse McMahon: The Fanbase Dude pushing McMahon's face into the fat ass: McBeane I call this “The Process”.

I've been to some bad Bills drubbings - flew down to LA to watch Peterman throw 5 picks last year. Flew out to Buffalo to watch them lose 56-10 to the Patriots back in 2007. I think many people forget how bad the middle of last season was. As a reminder, they lost to the lowly Jets 34-21, to the Saints 47-10, and to the Chargers 54-24 in three consecutive games. This is now the fourth game McDermott has had in 17 regular season games as a head coach where his team literally played like a JV squad that didn't belong on the field with the other team. This is seriously troubling to me and it makes me wonder if he's the right guy for the job.

No emotion from the coach at all. I'm sorry but you can't act like Bill Belichick in front of the media if you have zero track record of success. The fans deserve some outrage from their head coach.

The only reason I could see to keep Allen out of the game is to avoid ruining him around these losers... otherwise I think there's no harm.

I think the Chargers benching was pretty clear - McDermott thought Peterman might be better than Taylor so he was willing to take the risk to see how Nate performed. It turned out to be a bad decision. I doubt McDermott lied about that since it was so obvious. The Anthony Lynn/Whaley thing though was bizarre, yes.

- Bills wins 5.5 - OVER - Allen starts 12 - UNDER - McCoy rushing yards 1,150 - UNDER - Leading receiver yards 750 - OVER - Leading receiver catches 65 - UNDER - Total INTs 15 - OVER - Player with most INTs 4.5 - OVER - Player with most sacks 8.5 - UNDER - 1st win week 4 - UNDER - 1st 2019 draft pick number 6 - OVER (as in, it'll be pick 7 or higher) - Bills Pro Bowlers 1.5 - OVER

I agree. Take the safe bets early on in the season, and usually there will be a few surprise teams that become easy choices later on. The hardest weeks to pick are usually in the middle when teams aren't yet, to quote Denny Green, "who we thought they were".

I didn't even think about this, but it's probably true... What ever happened to backup quarterbacks being the holder for kicks? It sets you up well for bad snaps and fake field goals.

Schmidt is pretty good at coffin corner situations when the team is near the 50 yard line or in the opponent's territory, but he has below average range on punts that need to go deep. I will say though that the situation is a little strange. How many teams bring in competition for their punter, proceed to cut the competition, and then cut the original player a day later in favor of someone who hasn't played during the entire preseason? I am glad they are trying to improve the team, but in reading through this guy's background, I'm not convinced that this new guy actually is better than Schmidt. Particularly in Buffalo where the stadium is below ground level and the wind screws with many mid-to-late season kicks.

I think I speak for all long-time posters when I say I've missed Crayonz's thread bait... How are Googlebot and the hamsters doing?

https://www.chicagobears.com/news/final-game-is-not-your-grandfather-s-bears-broadcast

If "drunken fan banter" is the bar for great announcing, I find it hard to believe that there aren't posters here that could do a better job than the clowns on last night's broadcast. It is worth the time to look up the broadcast if you haven't seen it yet. Do it after you put the women and children to bed... Truly, I have heard better quality broadcasts from small D-III NCAA schools.

Makes you long for Beth Mowins, eh? I usually don't care about the announcing, but this broadcast was miserable. I can't believe a market the size of Chicago's couldn't bring in better talent. Isn't Greg Gumbel a Chicago native?

To me, this shows up with timing between the QB and the WR corps. The first team WR's don't seem to have developed any rhythm with any of the three quarterbacks, except maybe Peterman.... but Benjamin at least has some prior experience with him.

I think you have to start Peterman over McCarron. Allen will be ruined if he starts behind this o-line. Peterman's arm strength is crap but he throws it quickly and masks the weakness of the offensive line better than McCarron. As crazy as it sounds after the Chargers game last year, he gives the team a better chance of winning games.

I'm with you on this one. I was kind of surprised that people expected a guy so young to be the next Singletary or Butkus right out of the gate when he was drafted. Give him some time and let him develop.