This is how epically bad we are.

[Boatdrinks]

Amen. My thoughts, exactly!

That's why the Jets and Browns are doing it right...they got rid of all their old player, and kept the young players.

 

 

Is this serious? Marcell Dareus would make a great 3-4 defensive end. They're running a 4-3 because that is what Sean McDermott has always run, that is his defensive system.

Marcell Dareus fits in a 3-4 better than Kyle Williams, Jerry Hughes and Shaq Lawson. Lol.

wasn't that supposed to be why Rex's system wasn't a fit? Because it was wasting Dareus as a NT? Anyway if what you're saying is true, it's even more dumb to hire a HC that wanted to change the defensive scheme again. And I disagree: Dareus was great in Schwartz 4-3. But he's become a headache and not worth purging all the young players on the roster Edited August 29, 2017 by Boatdrinks

[Mat68]

Or this team was 9-7 with lots of talent and then we hired Rex. Under Whaley's watch, he had a top 5 defense and top 10 offense.

 

He never got to pick a head coach. There's some BS going on that this was sometime of broken team and we need to rebuild it. This team was a franchise qb away from being a contender and now we just are blowing it up.

 

Hopefully, my grandkids will finally get to see the Bills in the playoffs.

Your being dramatic. The games havent started yet. Gaines and Matthews are not as gifted athletes as there counterparts but one could argue they are just as good football players.

 

Ragland was 3rd team. He could not beat out a special teams specialist a fifth rd rookie, a 6th rd rookie and a june free agent linebaker. McDermott is making the point, be doesnt care when or where you were drafted, how gifted you think you are. If you are not part of the team or fit your replaceable.

[Dr. K]

1. We gave up a 2015 1st round pick and 2015 4th round pick to move up and get Watkins. He is gone 3yrs later and missed like 30% of his games.

 

2. Cyrus was our 2nd round pick in 2014. He is an abomination.

 

3. Our first pick in 2015 was 2nd round pick Darby. He is gone 2 years later.

 

4. Our 2nd pick in 2015, 3rd rounder John Miller, is barely a starter and may get beat out by Ducasse, who is horrible.

 

5. Our 3rd pick in 2015, 5th rounder Karlos Williams isn't even in the NFL anymore.

 

 

So to recap: We missed on our 2014 1st round pick; we gave up our 2015 1st round pick; we missed on our 2014 2nd round pick; we missed on our 2015 2nd round pick; we missed on our 2015 3rd round pick.

 

 

The 2014-2015 draft classes have set this team back at least 5 years. A blind monkey could have thrown darts at the draft board and had more success.

I think it's funny that all five of these players--Watkins, Kuandjio, Darby, Miller, and Williams--played better than the guys they are currently being replaced by. Whaley never got to pick the head coach he wanted. He did his best to supply the players that Rex--the disastrous HC the Pegulas salivated over--wanted. But according to you guys Whaley was the problem.

Edited August 29, 2017 by Dr. K

[The Frankish Reich]

That's what they want you to think.

 

It's not nearly as much of a mess as they seem to think. They are ridding YOUNG talented players just because the previous regime drafted them.

 

Asinine in my opinion.

Maybe that's what happens when you hire coaches who are so convinced of their own brilliance that they demand to run "a Rex Ryan defense" or a "Sean McDermott defense" regardless of whether their most talented players are a good fit for that scheme. Maybe it's just me, but it seems that the best coaches adapt their schemes to suit their personnel? Here's a quote from a guy in Boston who's had a little bit of success:

 

There are a lot of different alignments out there, you see 4-3 teams use odd spacing, you see 3-4 teams use even spacing. Look, you have 11 defensive players. You can put them in various positions. Whether you want to put it in the pregame depth chart as one thing or another I think is a little bit overrated

 

4-3, 3-4, call it what you want; we'll put our players in the best position to succeed.

Edited August 29, 2017 by The Frankish Reich

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

 

Here's the star-studded cast left from '14-'16:

 

kevon seymour

jonathan williams

adolphus washington

shaq lawson

John Miller

Nick O'Leary

Dezmin Lewis

Preston Brown

Seantrel Henderson

 

 

4 starters and 3 second string players? That's actually not too bad especially considering Sammy and Darby would have made it 6 starters. Can't fault anyone but the current GM for trading away Darby and Watkins.

[Webster Guy]

trading a good young corner like darby ON A ROOKIE CONTRACT was head scratching, all the other draft picks and trades I was fine with, including taking a shot at EJ to develop into the guy.

 

you can pick any team and look at their drafts and the number of guys that they whiffed on. It's the same thing all around the league, you miss on half your picks.

[Augie]

trading a good young corner like darby ON A ROOKIE CONTRACT was head scratching, all the other draft picks and trades I was fine with, including taking a shot at EJ to develop into the guy.

 

you can pick any team and look at their drafts and the number of guys that they whiffed on. It's the same thing all around the league, you miss on half your picks.

I suspect the key with Darby was the scheme fit and how much more true "cover corners" cost on the open market. He could be traded for more with a couple years left on the cheap rookie contract. Time will tell how this all turns out, but I'm generally pleased even if it's hurt at times.

[row_33]

17 years out of the playoffs and you wake up now that the team is epically bad? How long did the Aints miss out before half the crowd wore paper bags?

 

 

[Gunsgoodtime]

trading a good young corner like darby ON A ROOKIE CONTRACT was head scratching, all the other draft picks and trades I was fine with, including taking a shot at EJ to develop into the guy.

 

you can pick any team and look at their drafts and the number of guys that they whiffed on. It's the same thing all around the league, you miss on half your picks.

But we are getting g rid of the few that we got right, it makes no sense

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

The constant !@#$ing up of good things has been the common theme under Pegula.

Which good things?

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

So epic

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

It is a mess and it seems more and more that Beane and McDermott are determined to get rid of anyone they didn't bring in. I still can't understand how Watkins and Darby specifically wouldn't be helpful long-term.

I look at it like this. We set ourselves back with ej, and never got our qb. Watkins wants 150 targets, and we can't afford to tag him.

 

As for cleaning house, we have bad contracts on the books as well as bad drafts. Rex just had Whaley draft his guys, while he just plugged others into roles that didn't suit them. Beane wouos rather trade a player who may price themselves out, or isn't a great scheme for, for draft capital.

[mead107]

Looking forward. I refuse to look back

[BuffaloBillsMagic1]

Wait until we cut Washington or trade him for a 7th rounder, people are gonna go nuts

[Niagara Dude]

This trading of young players is stupid, most smart teams trade away older players for picks not guys who are still under 25 years old and were high picks.

[4merper4mer]

Wait until we cut Washington or trade him for a 7th rounder, people are gonna go nuts

Another obvious Rex screw up but I don't think people will flip out. I think Lawson doing nothing this year and fading away is the worst case scenario

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

This trading of young players is stupid, most smart teams trade away older players for picks not guys who are still under 25 years old and were high picks.

 

Saw the browns do it when they cleaned house too. The sammy trade-up was a bad trade. We got one player for the price of 3.

 

If the Bills staff didn't believe that they could extend him for what they felt he was worth, and had no interest tagging him... then this is unfortunately what you have to do. It's not about paying per position or anything like that, its about paying a player what they believe his value is imo.

 

Having Dareus, Glenn, and Clay contracts on the books for at least 2018 isn't helping matters. If they were playing as the great players that they were paid to be, we wouldn't be going into this season expecting to be terrible.

 

In the 2018 draft, obviously QB is the #1 priority. But we're going to need a new pair of DTs by likely 2019 as thats the first cap relief we can get from cutting Dareus. Glenn needs to figure out his injury, but we'll likely need a LT sooner rather than later. Hughes isn't exactly young, so then you have to look at pass rush. We need LBs. Lot of holes, and lots more coming with the age of a lot of our talent.

Edited August 29, 2017 by dneveu

[JohnC]

It was an average roster with the potential to be above average if the recent high draft picks blossomed. They were dumped before we could find out, and it is now a decidedly below average roster. With lots of low round picks to replace the players that were drafted with high picks . But the new HC and GM are " n'sync" ( in the same way the old GM was in sync with a different HC whose scheme was the next big thing every 3 years or so) so chances are good that the players they draft with those low picks will be better than players that were ranked highly in previous drafts . You'd better hope so, because 4th and 5th rounders will be starting for this team in the future where 1st and second rounders were slotted in before. Welcome to the future as envisioned by McBeane.

What you and many others who are in accord with your thinking don't accept the fact that the team that McDermott inherited was not as good as you and others are suggesting. It was a mediocre roster patched together with acquisitions kept this team floating on the fringes. What is going on now is the same process that happened with the bloviating Rex of bringing in players who are more suited to your schemes.

 

With the exception of Watkins none of the moves made by the new regime are controversial. It is the standard sorting out of players when there is a coaching change. The difference is that it is being done with more overarching thought than the previous patchwork approach that got this team nowhere but stuck in the ditch. The major difference is that draft picks are being added rather than gratuitously given away.

 

Are the Bills going to be much worse this year? Maybe or maybe not. Mediocrity has a wide range in the NFL. But instead of scratching and clawing to be a fringe playoff team there is an attempt to construct a roster that in time will be more coherent and talented than what we have seen over the past generations.

 

I'm sure you are tired of me saying it but this isn't a quick fix. Big deal. I would rather spend time working to build a quality product than be concrete hardened stuck in perpetual mediocrity. Instead of complaining about this new regime taking action to change the dynamic for this languishing franchise you should be upbeat with the change of direction and philosophy.

[HT02]

I look at it like this. We set ourselves back with ej, and never got our qb. Watkins wants 150 targets, and we can't afford to tag him.

 

As for cleaning house, we have bad contracts on the books as well as bad drafts. Rex just had Whaley draft his guys, while he just plugged others into roles that didn't suit them. Beane wouos rather trade a player who may price themselves out, or isn't a great scheme for, for draft capital.

I understand the need to clean up Whaley's mess and I agree 100% about EJ but disagree with you about are that we "can't afford to tag" Watkins. Its not like the team is overloaded with expensive players (Dareus and Glenn are big numbers that can't likely be moved but Taylor's $(9MM this year and 18MM next year) and Kyle Williams 8,3MM likely won't be on the books next year and McCoy is getting pretty close to the area where RB's lose their value so I would sacrifice his $ to keep Watkins). I think the Darby trade was awful too, he showed he can play.

[dubs]

What you and many others who are in accord with your thinking don't accept the fact that the team that McDermott inherited was not as good as you and others are suggesting. It was a mediocre roster patched together with acquisitions kept this team floating on the fringes. What is going on now is the same process that happened with the bloviating Rex of bringing in players who are more suited to your schemes.

 

With the exception of Watkins none of the moves made by the new regime are controversial. It is the standard sorting out of players when there is a coaching change. The difference is that it is being done with more overarching thought than the previous patchwork approach that got this team nowhere but stuck in the ditch. The major difference is that draft picks are being added rather than gratuitously given away.

 

Are the Bills going to be much worse this year? Maybe or maybe not. Mediocrity has a wide range in the NFL. But instead of scratching and clawing to be a fringe playoff team there is an attempt to construct a roster that in time will be more coherent and talented than what we have seen over the past generations.

 

I'm sure you are tired of me saying it but this isn't a quick fix. Big deal. I would rather spend time working to build a quality product than be concrete hardened stuck in perpetual mediocrity. Instead of complaining about this new regime taking action to change the dynamic for this languishing franchise you should be upbeat with the change of direction and philosophy.

.

 

Great post! 👍🏻

What mess did Whaley leave?

 

I could've sworn it was Rex who took a top 5 defense and made it an absolute cluster !@#$.

 

Whaleys issue was being QB ignorant. The team wasn't lacking talent.

Since you're constantly quoting team rankings, and blaming Rex, are you going to give Rex credit for a top 10 scoring offense too?

 

You can't honestly think this team was headed in the right direction under Whaley and Rex.

 

IMHO, you are vastly overrating the roster, especially the players that are no longer here.