The Organizational Incompetence of the Buffalo Bills

[zow2]

Sean mcDermott in his tenure has now overseen 3 maybe 4 of some really bad blowout losses. Does this guy and his staff even have a clue?  Just little stuff like keeping no hands Logan Thomas over Nicklaus’ grandkid.  Or cutting your punter/holder for a guy that has never kicked in a game before. Or getting rid of valuable possession WRs.  But most of all on game day he can’t seem to right the ship when things start going bad.  My patience with McD has worn thin.

[Hebert19]

1 hour ago, BuffaloBillsMagic1 said:

over 50 million in dead cap space says it all...... WRs says it all...OL says it all, special teams say it all.....DL says it all..Murphy, Lawson,. Lo=tuia..all pathetic and Kyle has slowed down and not a starter anymore.  We are old and need replacemnts galore on OL, DL, WRs, OLBs, and Clay, our prozed TE sucks.  Zay Jones is useless and Benjamin does not look like he even tries at times to catch the ball. Letting go of McCaron so no vet to mentor Josh other than Mr. August, Peterman is pitiful.....

Sorry but the dead cap was an inherited problem that he has addressed so we have 70M plus to spend next year.  He had to get us out if cap hell and this team is the result of that.  Think about it. We have 2/3s of what other teams have to spend on a roster this year...that's the issue.  You think he wants some of these people?  No.  But it's the hole we are in.  

 

1 draft pick doesnt fix but 1 pick and 70M can. 

[FeelingOnYouboty]

Just look at Mahomes situation and Allen's. 

 

One sat a whole year behind a total professional and comes into a situation with a QB guru at HC, the reigning OROY, multiple weapons at WR and TE and a solid OL. The other will start 12+ games and has none of those things.

[MJS]

One game.

[Keukasmallies]

Wow, just a long line of excuses.  I'm afraid that neither the coaches nor the GM can see a way out of their dilemma at this point.  The remainder of the season will  be very interesting in terms of realignment of the organization's thinking.  Imagine the Pegula's thoughts this morning....

[SoTier]

4 minutes ago, Mickey said:

 

"low cost short term solution" is the philosophical cancer at the heart of this franchise and way too many of its fans. 

 

Even a change of ownership can't change that mentality.  It's gotta be something in the air.

 

4 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

I agree about the O line.  The question is , given where they were with cap space, etc, what could they have done to improve it more?  I would have liked to see another draft pick spent there, but as far as FAs they simply didn't have the cash to spend.  and if you read stuff from writers around the league, there is simply a dearth of good O linemen in the league right now.  So it comes down to coaching what you have, and Castillo isn't exactly drawing comparisons to Mouse at this point.

 

Once again, the Bills are in cap trouble because they decided to get rid of decent players because they simply didn't fit in with the Bills short-term plans without regard to how doing so would impact the cap or the results on the field.   That's called "incompetence".  It's what you get when you hire a first time HC and give him control over player personnel, and then hire a first time GM without player evaluation/management experience.  That's also called "incompetence".

 

[Jerome007]

Some of the dead cap money is on Whaley, but there's some on them. And OL is a disaster. They still put millions in there too. The Coleman wasted money. Davis paid 5M and not even dressed up. Yet before all that they had made that cheap paycut offer to Incognito, you know, the Pro Bowler best lineman on the team that opened holes for McCoy. Sound plan! And overpaid Star. WTH. I hope he delivers but I fail to see he is THAT good. And getting rid of AJ doesn't look smart now does it.

 

They have made some good decisions too, and I sure hope Allen is the one that saves them all! We shall see.

 

It was an interesting stat tidbit in the SNF game that Rodgers started 6-6 in Lambeau but has been 50-8 since. Nooooooooo I'm not comparing Allen to Rodgers. Just that so many successful QBs have had an horrible first year, in the W-L department at least.

[oldmanfan]

1 minute ago, SoTier said:

 

Even a change of ownership can't change that mentality.  It's gotta be something in the air.

 

 

Once again, the Bills are in cap trouble because they decided to get rid of decent players because they simply didn't fit in with the Bills short-term plans without regard to how doing so would impact the cap or the results on the field.   That's called "incompetence".  It's what you get when you hire a first time HC and give him control over player personnel, and then hire a first time GM without player evaluation/management experience.  That's also called "incompetence".

 

That's called putting your plan in place.  They got rid of a malcontent in Dareus who was not playing to a level anywhere near where his contract said he should.  They traded Darby and Watkins.  Watkins I disagreed with but time shows he has not done much since he left.  Darby one could argue they should have kept, but there was just an article in si.com about how they expect he won't get resigned by the Eagles.

 

They knew they'd take a cap hit this year.  One can argue about whether they could have restructured contracts or something else, but they decided to rip the band aid off rather than slowly pull on it.  The success or failure of that plan will be dictated by how they use the excess cap dollars they'll have next year.

[Doc]

The $53M in dead cap space tells it all.  So too does the $90M in cap space for 2019 and all their draft picks (which could be early in every round).  They made the playoffs last year and might have found their franchise QB.  Settle down, people.

[Sky Diver]

Losing Eric Wood was a blow they couldn't control, but they screwed by low balling Richie. They did the best they could to back fill, but the OL is obviously a mess.

 

 

[Soda Popinski]

This "look at the tape" BS is a song and dance we've heard before.   Hell at least Dick Jauron's defenses kept games close, we get blown out by Baltimore?   The offensive juggernaut?   Pffftttt, that was sad.    

[FLXbillsmafia]

7 minutes ago, Doc said:

The $53M in dead cap space tells it all.  So too does the $90M in cap space for 2019 and all their draft picks (which could be early in every round).  They made the playoffs last year and might have found their franchise QB.  Settle down, people.

As exciting as it was when Andy Dalton threw that TD pass, I hate hearing "they made the playoffs" to justify the current situation this organization is in.

 

Last years team was one of the worst playoff teams ever, and IMO was a worse team than the 2014, 2015, and 2016 Bills teams, they just had a ton of luck with turnovers, winning close games, even Cutler didn't play for Miami the last week. The 2014 team would never have gotten blown out by the Saints like that team did.

[Doc]

3 minutes ago, FLXbillsmafia said:

As exciting as it was when Andy Dalton threw that TD pass, I hate hearing "they made the playoffs" to justify the current situation this organization is in.

 

Last years team was one of the worst playoff teams ever, and IMO was a worse team than the 2014, 2015, and 2016 Bills teams, they just had a ton of luck with turnovers, winning close games, even Cutler didn't play for Miami the last week. The 2014 team would never have gotten blown out by the Saints like that team did.

 

I hate when people make excuses for why they made the playoffs. 

[Ayjent]

58 minutes ago, BigBuff423 said:

 

And yet Mitch Trubisky and Jared Goff would disagree. Both have said despite their failures and how hard it was to go out and play and lose and get beat up at times, it was good for their development. Carson Wentz was subjected to the same fate, but he had similar sentiments from what I can recall. Basically, I was in favor of letting Allen sit and learn if Peterman could have shown anything of substance, but he can't and Allen should be the starter from now on - no question in my mind at this point. Twice in two years Peterman has been given a chance and he's catastrophically blown those chances. 

 

If Peterman had lost the game, but they lost something like 20-17 or similar but Peterman showing he can move the Offense, I could continue to accept Peterman just because it means the team is coming together but the Offense isn't there....but as bad as yesterday was for him, I don't see how you can put him back on the field next week. 

 

Also, people are crapping on the Defense, and they weren't great, but the poor Offensive play is cumulative to the Defense because the longer they're on the field - especially in hot, humid, rainy weather - the harder it is to maintain resistance. Basically, Defense was poor on the first drive, started to come together and then the Offense failed miserably and the Defense just couldn't keep their backbone due to exhaustion and frustration.

It wasn’t even close to hot it was in the 60s, and if the D could actually defend they could have gotten themselves off the field more often, especially in the first quarter. Gaines’ technique should have had his ass on the bench the first time he spun almost all the way around on an outside route leaving about a 7 yd cushion, but it happened at least two more times that I saw and who knows how many other times we didn’t.  He was a huge liability.  The D line put very little pressure on Flacco.  It wasn’t like they were playing well and the the wheels fell off, they started with no wheels.  They couldn’t even force a third down after the Ravens got into a 2 and 26 - they gave up a 28 yd completion thanks to the exceptional coverage of Gaines and a coverage scheme that looked like a prevent where you have a 10 point lead with 30 seconds left in the game. 

[Bangarang]

28 minutes ago, Sky Diver said:

Losing Eric Wood was a blow they couldn't control, but they screwed by low balling Richie. They did the best they could to back fill, but the OL is obviously a mess.

 

 

 

What are you talking about in regards to Richie being lowballed?

[Doc]

2 minutes ago, Bangarang said:

What are you talking about in regards to Richie being lowballed?

 

He's talking about the pay cut he was offered, accepted, and then regretted.  He should have accepted it because $3.65M is infinitely better than $0.

[BuffaloRush]

2 hours ago, dezertbill said:

Title of this thread is ridiculous.  This front office has made some great decisions. 

 

One area it seems Beane fell short is the OL.  They underestimated the loss of Richie, Woods, and Glenn.

 

Frustrating?  Yes.  Leading to total FO incompetence?  Not even close.

 

Back off the ledge.  It's week 1.  Lets see how the coaches, team, and FO rebound from this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes I totally agree.  But did they really underestimate the OL?  Or were there just not many good options out there?  People are forgetting that Beane didn’t have the cap flexibility to sign players like Nate Solder or Andrew Norwell to huge deals.   

 

I guess you could say that they could have drafted some linemen.  But remember the #1 priority in the draft was QB, the second was defense.  There were a lot of needs on this and you can’t all address them at once - especially given the cap situation.  Whether it was OL, LB, WR or whatever other position it’s impossible to fix everything in a year.  This is why I am certain that Beane and McDermott were privately bracing for an off year given the roster they have.  

[BigBuff423]

3 minutes ago, Ayjent said:

It wasn’t even close to hot it was in the 60s, and if the D could actually defend they could have gotten themselves off the field more often, especially in the first quarter. Gaines’ technique should have had his ass on the bench the first time he spun almost all the way around on an outside route leaving about a 7 yd cushion, but it happened at least two more times that I saw and who knows how many other times we didn’t.  He was a huge liability.  The D line put very little pressure on Flacco.  It wasn’t like they were playing well and the the wheels fell off, they started with no wheels.  They couldn’t even force a third down after the Ravens got into a 2 and 26 - they gave up a 28 yd completion thanks to the exceptional coverage of Gaines and a coverage scheme that looked like a prevent where you have a 10 point lead with 30 seconds left in the game. 

 

As I said, the Defense was not great - but they were not as bad as the score or fans would indicate. It was a cumulative effect outside of the first drive. They were clearly still getting themselves acclimated but the Ravens had 34 rushes, for a 3.4 yard average and possessed the ball for over 35 minutes. That, takes a cumulative effect on a Defense and had the Bills Offense been able to sustain a few drives, those numbers would look quite different. Additionally, keep in mind Lamar Jackson contributed to that rushing total. Ravens had 261 passing yards, not great but not abysmal. The score was the score because the Bills Offense couldn't get out of their own end and field position was generally not good for them, with the Defense needing to Defend a short field. Are they excused? Hell no! But it's not nearly the beat down the score would say it was. Additionally when put into context, we can see why there is hope for the Defense. The Offense is another issue - with Allen I think there's hope, with Peterman the Offense is toast. 

[Ayjent]

2 minutes ago, BuffaloRush said:

 

Yes I totally agree.  But did they really underestimate the OL?  Or were there just not many good options out there?  People are forgetting that Beane didn’t have the cap flexibility to sign players like Nate Solder or Andrew Norwell to huge deals.   

 

I guess you could say that they could have drafted some linemen.  But remember the #1 priority in the draft was QB, the second was defense.  There were a lot of needs on this and you can’t all address them at once - especially given the cap situation.  Whether it was OL, LB, WR or whatever other position it’s impossible to fix everything in a year.  This is why I am certain that Beane and McDermott were privately bracing for an off year given the roster they have.  

How was defense a priority when you don’t have anyone to protect your biggest investment in the draft and where you lost 3/5 starting level players?  Oh because you decided to let your Starting CB and MLB go, and said we need to get someone from Carolina who was a poor performer and widely regarded as a horrible pickup for 10 mill/yr.  Self-inflicted wounds that were avoidable and demonstrate that the process is flawed. 

[pocoboy]

I won't say this is totally off-base, but the season is young. There is a ton of room for improvement out of many players. The fact it got to 40-0 so quickly is embarrassing for players, coaches, and fans alike. It's also quite likely that Baltimore is significantly better than we're used to seeing.

 

There are a lot of young guys who have an opportunity to work to get their chance to become leaders on this team. That being said, McDermott's staff has a delicate situation the next few weeks. Losing the locker room would stall development, as players would lose confidence in their ability to make a difference. They need a much more competent result vs. LA Chargers. Keep it close, harass Rivers, put up 20 points on offense, etc. Nobody wants moral victories over actual victories, but I think that you take what you can at this point just getting through this difficult opening stretch to the schedule.

Edited September 10, 2018 by pocoboy