JohnC

If you put Derek Carr on the Bills the trajectory and dynamics for this lagging franchise dramatically changes to the upside. Terry Bridgewater isn't as explosively as talented as a passer but he is a solid qb (now injured) who also could have the Bills a competitive team----assuming that stupendously incompetent Rex was not associated with the team. The point is that the Bills have had many opportunities to secure a good qb but they chose to pass allowing others to benefit. What a lot of people who take the opposite view we take on the qb issue fail to acknowledge is that by securing that position the team has a lot more draft and roster options. With Buffalo there is a tired a stale approach to the game that has imprisoned this organization and fan base. It seems that so many people are comfortable with their mediocre status quo status that they are unwilling to try a different approach to break out of this morass. It's so sad.

I would be ecstatic at having a Russell Wilson caliber qb taking the snaps for the Bills. Denver had a historically dominating defense that trampled over the opposition. It was a unique case. However, they couldn't sustain their success with the loss of players due to contract constraints. If you recall it didn't take Elway very long to maneuver back into the first round to get another qb, Lynch. And by the way Seattle also a top tier defense. The argument too often being made to justify our inadequate qb play that has lasted longer than a generation is that there are only a few exceptional qbs available. That's a straw man argument that doesn't address the issue that is being raised. Without a doubt elite qbs are a rare commodity. No one is arguing otherwise. That is not to say that the Bills haven't had the opportunities to acquire good (not great) qbs that would allow a team to be consistently competitive. Kirk Cousins, Russell Wilson, Prescott and you can add Dalton are not elite qbs. And I'm certainly not foolish enough to make that exaggerated claim. However, they are capable or going to be capable and legitimate franchise qbs. What you and others are doing is essentially arguing that because you can't find a special talent at qb that you absolved of responsibility for not getting a capable qb. That falls with the dictum of making perfect the enemy of the good.

You are right that the running game is Buffalo's identity. That's one of the main structural problems for this antiquated franchise because a ground and pound approach to the game is archaic in the modern NFL. No one can dispute the fact that the Bills are one of the best running teams in the league. What does that limited approach to the offense get you? Certainly not enough wins, especially against good teams. The reality is that an emphasis is placed on the running game out of necessity. It is done in order to mask the limitations of its qb/s. It seems to not have occurred to the geniuses who run the football operation that by upgrading the qb position you will also in effect be upgrading a multitude of positions. The Bills have not had a legitimate franchise qb for over twenty years. The reluctance to take a meaningful action to address the most important issue that has crippled this franchise has gotten beyond being perplexing to the point of being weird.

A freaking pugnacious tweeter! In my eyes you have sunk to the bottom of the septic tank. Don't you ever watch cop and law shows? You have a "right to remain silent"! The more you talk the more you incriminate yourself.

I had my suspicions about you and now I have your admission: You are a provocateur! Your friendly demeanor is a disguise to hide your antagonistic and combative nature. Just to let you know I will not let my guard down and I will always be armed. So don't try anything that is associated with hoodlum behavior. You have been duly warned.

We do what we usually do. For this organization being bland is being comfortable. And the streak will continue.

This is a nine minute link with Mike Mayock talking about the qb class and draft in general. It is taken from NFL. com. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000799336/article/mike-mayocks-2017-nfl-draft-position-rankings-30

Cutler is now a much battered and bruised player. The player he reminds me of to a degree is Jeff George, arguably the purest passer in the game. Both were elite (George was incomparable) passers and both had headstrong and detached personalities. I consider Jeff George to be one of the best, if not the best, passers in the game. He possessed a golden arm and a concrete head. His physical talents were squandered because of his stubbornness and unwillingness to follow instruction. If coaches were allowed to carry guns on the sidelines each player would be shot with the defense being good cause. Jeff George wasn't really a bad person. He was simply an odd duck. It's what you call a toxic mixture.

Putting aside his diminishing performances he is the type of player that a new coach who wants to instill a more spirited and competitive environment to the locker room wouldn't want to have on his team, let alone taking the snaps. I'm not labeling him as a bad character because he is not. He simply possesses an aloof personality that doesn't translate into much leadership especially for a struggling team. There are all types of leadership, loud and quiet, but for a qb he doesn't fall within the spectrum that a qb should have. Although Cutler wouldn't be a good fit in Buffalo he would be an intriguing fit for a good team such as Houston that is desperate for some adequate qb play. Maybe playing on a better team that is a serious playoff team might rejuvenate his fading career and engage his somewhat peculiar disengaged personality. Or maybe the volatile Houston HC would beat him up on the sidelines for throwing one of his inexplicable interceptions at an inopportune time?

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/18414405/injured-dallas-cowboys-lb-jaylon-smith-optimistic-2017 There are no guarantees but there is a good chance that he will be back for this season. Will he be the caliber of player that his original top five ranking would indicate? Probably not. But if he does return to the field he should be a good player. The Cowboys were able to take such a risk on an injured player compared to the Bills because they had a fuller roster to begin with. A while back the Saints signed Brees, a free agent, who had a serious shoulder issue. The Dolphins were the team he wanted to sign with but their doctors would't give a medical clearance for him. The rest is history for this first ballot HOFer. Sometimes calculated risks don't work out and sometimes you hit the lottery.

My complaint is that we passed on so many good prospects when we had a desperate need. The lack of effort bothers me as much as anything. There were plenty of good prospects at reasonable points in the draft where we didn't take action. Russell Wilson, Cousins, Dalton, Prescott, Carr, Bridgewater etc. The opportunities were there and two decades have passed by. This is unacceptable. There are good qb prospects in this draft. How are we going to respond? That's the problem.

Last year the Cowboys took a risk taking an injured ND linbebacker, Jaylin Smith. in the second round and 34th overall. It was a calculated risk taken on one of the top five ranked players in the draft. Many team physicians would not clear him. The CoOnewboys took a gamble. I'm rooting for this tremendous prospect to get back to form. The Cowboys have a more developed roster than the Bills so they can afford to take more risks. Not every gamble is going to work out. But if you are judicious and do you due diligence the bet you make hits the jackpot. One criticism I have of Doug Whaley is that at times he seems to gratuitously give up picks. It is those lower picks that can be used for chips on injured talents.

He's licking his chops and honing in on the the lost clueless lamb. He may be a tad corpulent and weighted down but he still has the ability to pounce although with a lot less bounce.

Absolutely. I'm not even critical of the Shaq Lawson selection even knowing that he had shoulder issues. I'll go even further that despite the fact that Rex may have influenced the Ragland selection it was a superb selection. I'm never overly concerned how a rookie player performs compared to how he develops as a player as his career unfolds.

You and I have been long term participants on this platform. What has started to wear me down is witnessing and then commenting on the same cycle of futility. Different people sitting at the desks with similar approaches and results. There is a dispiriting sameness to it all. After the new ownership took control I expected the organization to be jolted with new energy and creativity. The hiring of Rex quickly sucked the new found hope out of me. I'm sure I'm irritating to others with my repetitive criticisms because I'm irritating myself with the similar postings. I'm still awed in a negative way by the fact that a franchise can go through more than two decades without having a credible qb. How does that happen? What makes it even more weird is that the crowd enthusiastically continues to yell: let's draft a DB!

Simple solution: Have him whacked and then steadily move up the ladder. You will have plenty of volunteers to do the job at no cost. The muscle will consider it a public service.

Bill, I don't think you carefully read my post. We can respectfully disagree how good Gilmore was or not. That wasn't my point. It had to do with the futility of drafting a player and then letting him go and then draft to replace the player who was already on the roster. There is no gain in filling the hole that the departed player created. I also pointed out that assuming Gilmore was as good as I believe him to be his presence didn't rise to the level of being a difference maker. The reason for that is the real difference maker is the phantom qb that we have never been able to catch. The point that I have made in my repeated posts in regards to roster building is that the first priority over a reasonable period of time is securing the qb position. The Bills have not had a credible franchise qb for more than two consecutive decades. What is even more criminally negligent is that it seems that this backwater franchise isn't willing to exert much effort and take a calculated risk in acquiring a capable qb. Overall, we basically agree on the roster building strategy. You can have a flawed roster but with a good qb you still can compete. With a better roster without a capable qb you can't compete. As you well know I used to be a strong defender of Whaley. No longer. He has had more than enough time to address the qb issue. What bothers me more than not having a legitimate franchise qb is his inability and unwillingness to prioritize securing the position that most determines success on the field. There have been plenty of opportunities but he has blithely allowed them to pass by. That upsets me the most. The Watkins deal was costly. From a cap standpoint the Clay deal was costly. The lack of return is not because either is an inadequate player but because the caliber of the qbing was/is inadequate to maximize their talents. That makes no sense to me. Many people are unwilling to accept the reality that this current roster, even after the draft, is not a playoff roster. This lackluster franchise remains stuck in the status quo of mediocrity because of this constant churning of players to replace players who have departed. When you stay still you don't move forward. A lesson that has not been learned.

I agree with your comment to a certain extent. Where I disagree with you is that although he has been involved in making boondoggle mistakes (ex. hiring of Rex) he is not afraid of holding people accountable and changing directions. He has done it with his hockey and football franchises. Compared to the prior football ownership he provides the resources (sometimes not judiciously) for those in authority to conduct their business. So a lack of resources is not a legitimate excuse for failure. Terry P may not be knowledgeable about the esoteric details of the football business but he knows how to keep score. When the scoring tilts too much to the losing side changes will be made. That's what happened with the hiring of the new coach (whom I like) and his shortening of the leash on the GM which is appropriate for his level of performance.

You have brought up the issue on a number of occasions so I'm not saying anything that hasn't been discussed before. This organization since the Polian era has had no guiding principle in putting together a roster. There is no blueprint. It's philosophy is basically a patchwork approach to drafting and to free agency. There is no core to build on. I am not as critical as you are with the repeated drafting of backs and DBs. Where I am as critical as you are on that positional fixation is the using of valuable high picks for replacing players at the same position. It becomes churning for the sake of churning without spreading out the talent to other positions. Clement and Gilmore demonstrate the futility of wasting high picks only to lose the same players whose position again needs to be addressed. Gilmore was a high draft pick who played for the most part at a high level. His contract expires and is subsequently let go because of the upcoming contract is too rich for the franchise. The end result is that he is now with the Patriots and the Bills probably will lose a player who will be replaced with another high pick. The end result is that the team is not adding talent---it is simply replacing talent. Staying in the same place especially when you are near the bottom doesn't help you compete against teams that are constantly getting better. The heart and soul issue that has most to do with predicting success is the qb position. No one is discounting the fact that it is a challenge to find a credible qb to at the minimum gives you a reasonable chance to compete. Tell me how does any franchise go through two full decades without a legitimate franchise qb? What makes the situation even more irrational is that this franchise has an inexplicable casual attitude toward addressing an issue that calls for urgency. It makes no sense! Resorting to qbs such as Kolb, Orton, Brohm, Tuel etc etc even as stopgap measure is embarrassing. The frustration is not so much about the generational mediocre status of the team. It is the repetition of the manner in which the franchise is being run. Nothing seems to be learned. That is what I find inexcusable and intolerable.

We are on different ships passing each other on the ocean in the dead of night and going in two different directions.

You are either missing my point or making my point. The complaint is not over Watkins scintillating talents but rather over not having a qb in place that can maximize his talents. The same line of thinking applies to Clay. There are too many throws TT is not adept at such as middle of the field, seam routes and anticipatory throws where Watkins and Clay could be involved in. Eliminating a range of passing routes doesn't help any of our receivers. Whaley took the arse-backward approach of getting good receivers to buttress his qb. That is not the right approach to take. The most sensible and productive approach is to get a qb who can maximize the outstanding talents of his two high cost receivers. He has compounded wasting the abundant receiving talents by not aggressively making credible attempts to upgrade the qb position so that he can get a good and longer return on his significant investment on his receivers. It makes no bloody sense! The life of a position player such as receiver is not long. Years have already gone by having a deficient qb. In other words production by our expensive receiver is lost in the past, the present and near distant future. That's a return on a costly investment that can't be gotten back. What is not going to resolve the situation is having a GM that is dithering and too timid to rectify the inadequacy of the qb situation. That is a failure that has reverberated throughout the franchise for more than a generation. If you question my view then I suggest you review the extended team record. That's more telling then my lamenting over this ridiculous situation that has existed for more than two decades.

His talent level was never the issue. The issue was whether moving up a few spots to get him was worth the price of another first round pick and another useful pick. To make the selection less justifiable was that this draft class included a number of highly rated receivers who were maybe not as good but were arguably nearly as good. To make the draft maneuver and selection even more questionable the Bills at the time, and still do not, have the caliber of that could maximize the talents of Watkins or any receivers on the team. By a number of reports Marrone was upset with the selection not because of the pick but because of what was given up to get that pick. In hindsight, Marrone was clearly right in his judgment and Whaley not only was wrong but his decision rose to the level of blundering. A similar scenario played out with the high cost free agency acquisition of Clay, a talented receiving TE. The mistake in the deal was not in acquiring Clay but in not having the caliber of qb capable of maximizing the talents of the acquired player. Compare the way the Falcons handled their high cost trade to acquire Julio Jones, arguably the best receiver in the game. The Falcons had in place a top tier qb who was capable of maximizing the talents of their expensive receiver. The Bills in their typical incompetent manner acted in a backward fashion. They went for the for the candy before they had the meat and potatoes. The Watkins fiasco is a Whaley fiasco. Judging Watkins's abundant talent was the easy part. Few talent scouts would question his elite rating. That was never the issue. The issue was putting together a deal that made sense under the circumstances. This was basically a reckless and extravagant deal that in the long run has hurt this franchise. What makes the deal even more foolish is that the GM has been obtusely passive in not remedying the situation by finding a qb who can maximize the talents he has on the team.

As a tribute a song was made for #MarcusIsMyGuy https://search.aol.com/aol/video?q=song+my+guy&s_it=video-ans&sfVid=true&videoId=4926843A6303D6ECF4064926843A6303D6ECF406&v_t=wscreen50-bb

Was Cardale considered an elite prospect coming out of High School?

The attached WGR link is Paul Hamilton's observation after watching Guhle in Rochester. He also made some positive comments about Casey Nelson. He offered some proposals for a deal for Carolina's defenseman, Hanifin. If you want talent you have to give up talent. The names he mentioned are upcoming players for us. http://www.wgr550.com/articles/news/guhle-looks-good-rochester