JohnC

You have very gullible friends. It's not as if they wouldn't know how the season would evolve to and what the weather is likely to be. I'm running a pyramid scheme that is very profitable for me. Could you give me the addresses of your friends so I can make a sales pitch?

How do you sell late season games when the team is out of the running and the weather conditions are challenging? Do you take a loss or simply eat the tickets?

How did you sell the tickets you didn't use?

The impotent Whaley wasn't the only GM who was interested in Mahomes or any other qb in this draft class. The Giants and the Saints tried to move up to get Mahomes but didn't have the currency that KC had to get the deal done. The core of the dispute on this issue is that some people are trying to portray this qb class as being bereft of talent compared to next year's class, and that is a position that I challenge. Whether there is more talent in the next class isn't the most important consideration. Regardless if there are fewer high end prospects in this this class the central issue is whether when you are drafting there is a good qb prospect to select. In this year I say yes. The Bills passed as they are usually inclined to do.

There are a number of reasons why this troubled franchised has struggled for so long. A simplistic general answer to your post is that this has been a second-rate organization run by second-rate people. There is no one reason why this franchise has failed to function in a serious way for more than a full generation. It's been a systemic problem for most of this franchise's history. Resolving the qb issue is not going to solve all problems. But the lack of resolution that goes back to almost a quarter century clearly demonstrates how oddly this organization has been run. The lack of resolve and urgency to address that issue is outright weird and grotesquely stupid. We are starting over again with this new regime. Although I have concerns with the wrestling coach I get the sense that he has thought about how a franchise should be run beyond the coaching sphere. That is a good thing. Having a blueprint and extensive thought process in what you want to do and are going to do is a change from the patchwork mentality that has plagued this superficial organization. Let's not even bother discussing the contrast between McDermott's thought process compared to the bombastic and former loud HC who was more an actor than a thinker. Rex as a HC was an embarrassment. The owner is the one who shares most of the blame for such a foolish and damaging hire. I'm not discouraged by what I have seen with the new coaching team. But that doesn't mean that I am not wary about the coach and the situation. I'm cautiously optimistic with the awareness that there is no quick fix.

The way this team has been constructed it seems that it is a mishmash of players without an identity. Some of that has to do with the lack of vision by the GMs and some of it has to do with the changing schemes under different coaches. The NFL of today is a system in which player movements are part of the environment. It's just the nature of the beast. The organizations that handle that player churning well are teams that draft well and have players on the roster ready to replace those who will depart. Not having high yield drafts affect the roster from a talent standpoint but just as importantly from a cap standpoint. Using younger and cheaper first contract players gives you more flexibility in keeping more of your players and also bringing in good value free agent players that also help you deal with the loss of talent. The Gillisslee loss didn't make much sense to me. We could have given him a slightly higher tender and been in a better position to keep him or get a higher return from his departure. There was a sloppiness and thought in that particular transaction that reflected how slipshod this organization has been run.

For a very long time the inherent flaw within the organization was that there was a lack of coherency within the organization and the coaching staff. That incoherence was inevitable because it was a byproduct of the front office, coaching and system changes. Although there are great risks with this strong man HCing approach it can work if the people brought into the organization as a GM other front office positions can form a good working relationship that includes being able to challenge one another and work out different points of view. If McDermott is simply going to pull rank instead of being receptive to contrary points then there is going to be trouble. I strongly believe that if there is going to be any noteworthy success for this bedraggled franchise the issue comes down to acquiring a credible starting qb. In my view the new staff had the opportunity to acquire a qb with their first round pick this year but the decision was made to pass. Not a surprise. (Please fellow posters don't bring up Peterman. I don't want to hear it.) Whatever else is accomplished on the roster unless the qb issue is addressed little else will matter.

Ask yourself why all the innumerable teams that needed a qb this offseason showed no interest in TT? He could have made himself available. If he would have refused to restructure his contract he would have been a free agent and available to sell his services. Why didn't he go that route? There was a good reason why he took the course that he did in taking the pay cut. There was little to no interest in him as a starter or as a bridge qb. It was speculated that the Jets would have an interest in him. They didn't. It was speculated that Houston would have an interest in him. They didn't. It was speculated that Denver had an interest in him. They didn't. The market has set a value on him and it was far from being high. That is a reflection of the league-wide assessment of how good he is.

I understand your sentiment but I respectfully disagree with you. This team as it is currently constructed is a 6 to 7 win team. The Rex fiasco set this team back by years. This team has less talent than people want to believe. What is revealing is that its record against good teams is stunningly bad. The inability to win against good teams is a more accurate assessment as to where this team actually stands. Do you remember the Steeler game where Bell was not only running roughshod over our defense but exposed us a team that deserved to be mocked and ridiculed? Don't believe the frustrated devotees who want to believe that we are better than we actually are. This team and organization is wretchedly mediocre. And is now being rebuilt from the inside to the outside. I have a lot of concerns about the new wrestling coach. I have a lot of concerns as to how the football operation is being structured with the HC essentially being the defacto GM. But what is obvious to me is that under this new regime their intent is not to tinker but to de-construct and then re-construct. Don't believe anyone who tells you that with a few modifications this team will be back in contention. It won't because we are now so far back. This is not a quick fix job. Don't buy the delusion that others are trying to peddle.

The line of demarcation occurred over the few years in which they dedicated high draft picks to construct the best OL in the game. Stopping the bombastic owner from drafting Manziel and instead taking Martin for the OL demonstrated that they were going to take a more football substantive approach than a marketing approach. I agree with you that Stephen Jones has done a good job in setting the direction for the franchise. The son acts more like a mature daddy and the showman daddy acts more like an impulsive and immature boy.

The spin is going to be that the team is rebuilding. The truth is that it really is. I foresee that many of the Whaley selections are going to be steadily, if not, rapidly dispatched. The loyalists who are talking playoffs in the not too distant future will be silent. The talk will revert to the next qb class and the hillbilly behavior at the tailgate parties.

Greg Williams was very confident and often arrogant. Believing too much in yourself without the self-awareness of your strengths and limitations is not a good quality to have in a professions that is so wide ranging and relies on others to attain success. When you don't have the right level of humility in a job that requires you to work with a wide range of people you will have problems. Another example of that is Marrone. And Tom Donahoe is another example of someone who was extremely confident and insufferably arrogant. Those traits are important but when not managed properly can be self-sabotaging traits.

From a personality standpoint he reminds me of Greg Williams who entered the scene as a drill sargeant arse kicker. He acted as if his dogmatic and tyrannical approach would compensate for a lack of talent. The apparent current HC/GM arrangement is not the first time that this structure has been used by Buffalo. Chuck Knox had such an all encompassing role in the football operation. The difference now is that with free agency, the cap and greater player movement it is much more difficult for someone to have such a wide ranging responsibility. I get the sense that McDermott has thought long and hard about what he would like to do if given the opportunity to be a HC. Without question he is a smart and a well prepared person. In an interview setting I could see how he would be impressive, especially in contrast to the bombast of the prior HC. However, my concern is raised because he seems to have so much belief in himself and his ideas. That's what gives me pause about him. There seems to be a lack of humility in his taking on such a large responsibility.

The Bills already have a GM. It is the wrestling coach. As I have said in other posts I am very uncomfortable with a HC having such wide-ranging authority. Without a doubt McDermott will be very influential in this hire who will be basically an extension of the HC and his desires. In my opinion the owner has fumbled the coaching and GM hiring since he bought the team. The best approach would have been to hire a GM and president and allow them to restaff the football operation. Hiring coaches without a GM in place is an out of sequence approach to take.

You make a good point about giving the new boss the opportunity to construct and staff his unit the way he wants to. The problem with wiping the board totally clean is that you might end up losing a lot of good grunt scouts to other teams with no ability to get them back. But that wasn't the underlining point of my previous point. I believe it was McDermott who wanted to take the clean slate approach or at the minimum he agreed to it. If he had qualms with the drastic approach I don't think the owner would have dispatched the scouts in such a wholesale manner.

Who is to say that the picks will be used to get a qb? What if those extra picks are used for DBs?

I don't think the owner would have made such a dramatic move of eliminating the entire scouting department unless it was it was at the instigation of the new HC or at the minimum with the agreement of the new HC. It's obvious to me that one of the conditions that McDermott extracted from the befuddled owner when he was hired was that he was going to have the sole authority to make the football decisions. Terry Pegula gave the keys to the wrestling coach and now he is driving the bus.

I'm sure that it has gotten to the point that many people are tuning me out with my repeated commentary on this issue. The lackadaisical and casual attitude toward upgrading the qb position by our front office/s is in my view extends to the level of malfeasance and nonfeasance. I don't understand it. It's really weird. For almost a qb century our qb staffing has been deficient and yet the organizational spends far more resources and effort in addressing the defensive backfield. As far as how our defense has under-performed what do you expect when an incompetent HC tries to apply his archaic approach to the defense when the roster is suited for another scheme? It really isn't too difficult to understand why the defense plummeted so dramatically. When you have a player mismatch to the changed scheme and factor in the lack of discipline and have discordant voices from too many coaches what is the surprise on how screwed up the defense was. The debate over whether the defense or the offense is worst off and need to be addressed first rings is not the right issue to be debated. They are inextricably linked. Upgrading each side of the ball upgrades the other side of the ball both directly and indirectly. If Mahomes and Watson turn out to be good qbs how is the wrestling coach's first draft going to be viewed? If this staff buys into the notion that TT is more than a bridge qb then this team has a ceiling that puts it in the same fringe position where it has been for most of its inconsequential existence. That is what I am very concerned with.

Who on this board has been a harsher critic of Rex than I? Who on this board has more often stated that Rex was not only a bad coach but he set this franchise back by years? Where we have a fundamental disagreement is that I don't believe this roster is as good as you think it is. In addition, we have a fundamental disagreement on how good TT is and can be. I see this team as a 6 to 7 win team, and if McDermott coaches the team to 8 wins he will have done a superb job. If you examine the Bills record over the past five years or so what you will find that our established record doesn't illustrate how mediocre our team is. The record against winning teams is dismal. My point is that the record understates the true status of the team. When you watch a good team with a qood qb playing and compare it to a Buffalo game there is a stark qualitative difference to the caliber of play. In my estimation the Bills are not close to being a playoff team. The organization is going through a dramatic change and the roster will steadily be reworked to the point that the Whaley imprint will be negligible. What I have often stated and still strongly hold to is that until the qb position is significantly upgrade this team will continue to flounder. While you understandably have a more positive view my view is much more jaundiced. I say with utmost confidence that this team is not a playoff team. It comes down to different folks with different judgments.

That's a fair criticism. Making something more complex than it needs to be is a recipe for more mistakes being made. In Kyle Shanahan's first year in Atlanta he and Matt Ryan were constantly in a state of conflict because Shanahan insisting on complicating the schemes and added to the number of plays while Ryan want him to simplify it a little more. It got to the point that they weren't on speaking terms. The HC forced the two in the offseason to come to some reasonable accommodation which they did. So your point is a pertinent and insightful point.

I respectively but strenuously disagree with you. The organization is going through a complete remake. The roster is also going to go through a major remake. Too many people are falsely reading what is going on here. This isn't a situation where a little patchwork is going to put this team over the hump. What is clearly demonstrated (at least to me) is that McDermott has convinced the owner in his pitch for the job that the problem with the organization isn't incremental but a structural problem. That's not a quick fix situation. Pegula lacks knowledge in the football business. But he certainly isn't a fool. When you hire someone with full authority to top to bottom rebuild your complex organization you are not going into the endeavor as a quick patch up job. Pegula's start as an owner indicated that he had a tendency to act very impulsively and rashly. It seems to me that with the way he is empowering the wrestling coach that he is going to stand back and let the process move forward. He saw how his first method was disastrous so now he is going in the opposite direction.

Most often the truth lies in the middle. Perception for one person isn't necessarily the same perception for another person even if they sit at desks nearby.

The Bills are not a playoff roster with or without TT. They simply are too thin from a starting roster standpoint but more importantly are very thin with their reserve staffing. The gambling community at this premature juncture are pegging the Bills to be a six win team. No one is arguing that they are a final authority on anything. But they are outside eyes who have no stake in this franchise other than from a gambling and business perspective. So they have no incentive to over or under rate this team. My view of what McDermott is going to do is cull this roster and get rid of a lot of players associated with the Whaley regime. He will steadily be bringing in players who better suit his profile of player. Players such as Dareus and Henderson will either demonstrate a commitment to the game and a serious work ethic or will be sent packing. There is no quick fix. The organization is going to be completely overhauled with the authority going through the wrestling HC. It's going to take at least three years to stabilize this very unstable franchise. As far as I am concerned the Pegulas set this franchise back by years and made Whaley's job impossible because of the moronic Rex hire. Now they are attempting to rectify much of what they created.

I don't totally agree with your take on Whaley I but have moved closer to your position. The situation of constantly changing coaches and systems made his job impossible. I don't believe that he ever worked here with a HC he selected or wanted. That's an indication of the dysfunction and disjointed nature of the various segments within the organization. As we have discussed in other posts Whaley's inability to adequately address the qb position has as much to do with his departure as the other substantial issues. When one works in a dysfunctional system it's not surprising that you get swallowed up by it.

Roman has been skewered for limiting Taylor's playbook. That's an unfair take on Roman's handling of TT and the offense. Roman is a respected offensive coordinator who no doubt favors the run game more than most coordinators. He's now the OC for Baltimore. What he did exceptionally well when he was with the Bills is manage Taylor's limitations and exploit as much as possible his strengths. Taylor had half a playbook to work with because he couldn't execute the other half. There weren't many middle of the field throws or seam routes or second or third read passes because he wasn't good at that area of the passing game. Surprisingly, TT throws one of the best long balls in the game. When a player playing any position has weaknesses/vulnerabilities as time goes by they will be exploited. What the Bills have done well in the recent past, most notably the run game, will be taken away. My concern with TT as a qb isn't that there are things that he does well, because he does do some things well, my concern is over the things that he doesn't do well and most likely will never upgrade enough in those areas to become a more well rounded qb who can run a more well rounded offense.