Luxy312

I'm not sure why anyone would consider trading up in this draft for a QB. There isn't one of them that should even be top-10 on most draft boards and certainly no clear cut "can't miss" prospect. Trubisky, Watson and Kiser (in that order) are clearly the top QB's out there. Not good enough to move up for though.

In other news, Mario Williams plans to be well below average for his pay grade...

There's quite a number of things that could get me excited for next year. We can (and many do) look at the doom and gloom of finishing 7-9 this year, but why not optimism at a number of things: Lesean McCoy was fantastic this year. 1,267 yards rushing at 5.4 YPC with 13 TD's and 50 receptions for another 356 yards with a TD. He was a beast. If he can get healthy and stay healthy, there's no reason to believe he can't be even better. After all, he got limited help in terms of the passing game loosening up the run game. We got Sammy Watkins for just 8 games this season and he was still hobbled in the games that he played. Would I be more excited if he were healthy for the entirety of a season? We lost Dareus to suspension for the first 4 games of the season and then another 4 games due to injury. Similarly, would I be happier if he were healthy and played all 16? It wouldn't hurt my feelings either if the new HC didn't try to use a $95 million pass rusher as a two technique nose tackle. That's befuddled me for awhile now. We didn't see Reggie Ragland for even one game this season. Brown and Alexander were excellent in terms of free agents filling in the holes, but the long term future of the team (which I would get excited for), involve Ragland. Lawson also played only 10 games, starting in 1. Like Ragland, he's the future. He didn't start because Alexander was so good, but he will. The Bills draft 10th. Doesn't seem like it's all that great, but Jonathan Allen (DE) and Myles Garrett (DE) will definitely be gone before the Bills pick. I'm not putting a priority on the rest, but one of the following will be available: Mitch Trubisky (QB), Deshaun Watson (QB), Jamal Adams (SS), Malik Hooker (FS), Marlon Humphrey (CB), Teez Tabor (CB), Mike Williams (WR), Delvon Cook (RB), Leonard Fournette (RB). I would be equally excited to see them draft a player of the future (QB, RB) or a player needed in the present (SS, FS, CB, WR). Retaining Gilmore could make this a tough pick, but I think that's a nice problem to have none the less. I don't like the look of the cap situation, but it's far from set in stone right now. They have $25.990 million in cap space, but that could go up by almost $17 million, depending on what happens with just a half a dozen players. The Bills have a lot of work to do with their own free agents, without any question. However, I think there's plenty of reasons (at least so far) to be optimistic.

Cutting through all of the emotional aspects of players and what they may want, I don't see Romo going anywhere. If the Cowboys release or trade him, they'll take a cap hit of $19.6 million for 2017. They would save $5.1 million, but that's a LOT of dead money to start your 2017 season. Free agency and/or a trade just isn't the way to go after a quarterback that you expect to take you to the playoffs and give you a potential shot at a Superbowl. As for the rest of the guys out there, I would take a pass and look to the draft for QB #3. To boot, you can talk about how his contract is "way too much" for a backup QB. I would ordinarily agree, if the starter were making bank as well. Prescott will be playing on the 2nd year of his initial 4 year deal next year for a mere $726K against the cap. Romo's dead money will drop by $10.7 million in 2018. That's just in time to give Prescott a fat new contract and let Romo sail off into the sunset.

If all the rumors pointing to Taylors departure are true, this looks indeed like a rebuild. I continue to be baffled though at the ever changing "order of things". Whaley says that no decision will be made about future direction until new coach is hired. Interviewing isn't even over yet and they're parting ways? This organization is befuddling to say the least.

This is the best speculation that I've seen on the topic and makes the most sense. Saying nothing about Rex after he's fired puts him in the best position for whoever comes in to replace him. He doesn't want to be perceived as the guy that will throw coaches under the bus. If this is correct, it's well thought out.

Is he teachable? It's impossible to know if someone is actually trying to teach him anything. The Bills "hurry up", if you can even call it that is more like a 4-5 minute offense. They didn't appear to effectively run a two minute offense in two years. TT almost never audibled. Maybe it was by design. Watkins was injured much of the year and the Bills passed less than any team in the NFL. They're simply not a passing team. TT cannot read defenses. It's doubtful he could read Dr. Seuss books. Plays were called from the sidelines and seldom changed. Watkins was outside because TT just doesn't seem to see the middle of the field. Why would you line up your best receiver where your QB isn't going to see them. I believe their plan was to be a run-first/ball control team for the past 2 years, and they were. They led the NFL in rushing both years. No plan for 300 yards passing. They planned to lose every game and just happened to win 7. Oops.

Awesome. Now I can put an ashtray on my motorcycle, which will be about as useful to winning games. LOL.

I got my numbers crossed. I still think it's stupid to think that the Bills will pick-up someone else's cast-off yet again. They've done this with 10 different guys in the last 16 years and it hasn't done jack squat. I would bet money that they're either going with Taylor, or are going to draft a QB. Maybe both, but not free agency. It's been a lesson in failure.

1 - Sean McDermott being the head coach won't make anyone sick. He's put a solid defensive product on the field every year as DC in Carolina. 2 - Some would be happy with this and some would not. Clearly if he's gone, they're rebuilding. If he's not, he has a year of two with hopefully a better defense backing him up. 3 - If Taylor is gone, Gilmore is gone for sure. If not, he may still want too much money. Needless to say, I wouldn't pay top dollar for the services he provided this year. 4 - Just dumb. If the Bears traded him or cut him, they take a $14m cap hit next year. Not going to happen. 5 - FA will probably be a downer this year. It's not a matter of choice though as cap space will be relatively limited. As usual, there will be some low brows out there yelling "cheap" or "Bills aren't trying". That's all pretty stupid because teams are required to spend 97% of the cap at this point. What they don't spend they would pay as a penalty, so there's no incentive to do that. 6 - DB doesn't hurt my feelings at all actually. There's two corners and possibly two safeties (1 FS and 1 SS) that grade out as top ten value. 7 - Woods has been just OK but gets dinged up too easily. Brown I would like to see retained, but not breaking the bank. They will need to add depth to whatever the front seven ends up looking like.

Statistics somewhat support your notion, but you get an incomplete grade for not doing your homework. If we look at the last 15 years in the NFL as a sample, the average offense and defense both are in the top ten (9.9 and 8.4). The standard deviation and confidence intervals support that the offenses that have won Superbowls are more consistent year to year. At a 95% interval, the offense would be ranked 6.7-13.1, while the defense would be ranked 4.0-12.8. You really can't say statistically that one is "better" than the other, but can draw a conclusion that there's much more variation. There are clearly some really good defenses that have won Superbowls, but they've been backed by solid offenses as well. Over this sample, only 3 offenses were below average, and they were backed by top-10 defenses. Over this same timeframe, there were 4 defenses that were below average as well, and 3 out of 4 had top-10 offenses backing them up. Only the 2007 Giants with the 14th ranked offense and 17th ranked defense was the exception. They did play lights out defense in the playoffs none the less. My conclusion is that if you're mediocre on both sides of the ball, you're not going to win anything. If you're exceptional at either, you have a chance.

Berman will be missed. I may stop watching those other no talent ass clowns completely on the pre-game.

Routine hernia surgery is nothing close to what Watkins is dealing with. Apples and oranges comparison. You might as well be comparing a plantar to a bad flu bug.

I think whether the team is in a "rebuilding" mode or not is still up in the air. If the Bills tender the $15.5m option on Taylor, definitely not. Doing that locks Taylor as the starter for next year. Not tendering the option by the March deadline while leaving him on the roster triggers the $27.5m guarantee, which locks him in as the starter for 2017 & 2018. If the Bills restructure his deal in any way, they're basically going with him for at least one year. The only move that says they're rebuilding is releasing him. If that happens, I would look for many other similar "parting of ways" moves for the team, such as letting the Gilmore girl hit free agency. Now if the question is whether they should be in rebuilding mode, that's different altogether. This season feels like a tale of two teams to me. They won some games that they had no business winning and lost some games that they definitely shouldn't have lost. It didn't feel like they were lacking in talent, so much as they were lacking in execution. It's hard to narrow the blame down to coaching or players, or perhaps a combination of both. I personally believe that Taylor should be back at this point.

A question for anyone that has an answer. Why interview Frank Reich but not Jim Schwartz for the HC position? I don't get it at all.

I take it you missed statistics for idiots 101. One data point doesn't make a meaningful sample and isn't representative of the entirety of the body of work from a player. Try looking back at ALL of the times they were in that position. Taylor was mostly ineffective. Empirical evidence supports your Miami game as an anomaly.

I'm with stupid.

He said exactly what I've been saying since last season. When the Bills have needed Tyrod to move the chains, get the first down and score, he can't do it. It's that simple.

The biggest statistical "yardstick" to success in the NFL is turnovers. There are always outliers, no doubt and to a degree, the Bills were one of them this year. 7th in turnover margin and no playoffs. Historically, there's no better correlation to winning than turnovers. Teams going +1 in a game have won 90% of the time. +2 and teams have won 95% of the time. +3 and it jumps to 98%. With that said for me, I don't need to see a team throwing all over the field every game. What I need to see is a team that CAN throw the ball when they have to. That is what's missing from this team IMO. Give them 2m to go 50 yards for even a field goal and they can't do it.

Good post. It would be irresponsible for Whaley to sign key skill position players before understanding the offensive and defensive systems that his future unknown coaches will be running. Would you sign a QB that's a statue in the pocket to a big contract and then hire a coach that's going to implement the spread option? Would you sign a Vince Wilfork type if the defense was going to be a 4-3 and not a 3-4? To me, it's easy to look at why Whaley isn't making comments as it pertains to guys like Taylor.

Good post by the OP. I'm always looking at numbers like this, but rarely see someone else put pen to paper to analyze them. My single biggest fear with the guys leaving is the defensive line. Our starters may look pretty good on paper. Let's say we do extend Brown, which I agree should be possible. The front 7 looks like this: Lawson, Dareus, Washington, Hughes, Brown, Brown, Ragland. While that looks good on paper, back-ups are paper thin. It almost suggests to me that the Bills should place special effort in trying to keep Kyle around for a couple of years, even if only as a part-time player.

No need to slam me on the Parker thing folks. He's gotten many a past Bills player run out of town because of his contract demands. I didn't realize he was dead, which actually brings me a little joy this Wednesday morning. The rhetoric from Gilmore none the less is that he wants top-5 CB money. So consistent with the random thoughts theme, why interview Frank Reich for the HC job and not Jim Schwartz? Is there bad blood between Whaley and Schwartz on some level?

To be fair, I've seen him as the #1 RB on a bunch of projected boards and a top ten draft pick. None the less, I would agree that it would be hard to pass on Fournette ahead of him. Reminds me a bit of the CJ Spiller pick over Ryan Matthews, but possibly even more egregious.

I didn't really think about Tate's special teams play and didn't figure he would have any prominent role in the offense with the other WR's back healthy. Good point none the less.

I posted this in another thread, but I don't think Deshaun Watson makes it down to the Bills pick at #10. There's 3 if not 4 teams that will be looking at new starting QB for next year. Unless they do something in free agency, that would be Cleveland, San Francisco, Chicago, and the Jets. I think it's a no brainder that Trubisky is going first, but believe Watson is gone next, provided he doesn't stink in the National Championship game. I love the idea of Mike Williams. The Bills have been missing a physical "go up and get it" receiver for a long time and Williams would be a great addition if he slides down to #10. Reminds me of Mike Evans two years ago. If not either of those guys, Jamal Adams. He's gotten almost no negative feedback. I think Mathieu but bigger and faster. I don't see them drafting DE or LB as they're pretty much going to be set with Lawson and Hughes at DE and a combination of Alexander (when re-signed), Brown, and Ragland at LB. Could see them going back to 4-3 as well with Dareus and Washington in the middle.