The Bills deliberately did not maximize their roster talent this year

[cba fan]

On ‎10‎/‎21‎/‎2018 at 3:51 PM, BillsEnthusiast said:

 

Tre White

Poyer and Hyde

Dawkins

Edmunds

Milano 

 

There's five

that's SIX

 

And I will add T Johnson DB as seven. And the new punter has clear potential. Just needs more hang time.

[Bing Bong]

On 10/21/2018 at 3:49 PM, SDS said:

Past seasons are a sunk cost. They are gone. Get over it. There is only today and how you move forward. 

But we suck today

[John from Riverside]

1 hour ago, Kelly the Dog said:

Don't you gut the team in year one not year two when you're trying to rebuild? Yes, they did some of it last year, too, but why not get it out of the way earlier than later? We would be year one into the rebuild not ground zero. 

I dont feel we are ground zero

 

They DID gut the team last year.....high priced contracts for draft picks.....I really dont think they expected to be that good in year 1....

 

My theory is they thought that they were going to finish bad enough that they would not have to give up 2nd round pick....would not have had to trade Cordy (I am not sure if he stays because of his injury history and contract....but I digress) but it happened.....so they had to be aggressive in their moves up to make sure they got that QB

 

We are in year 2 of the rebiuld.....this offseason was about the QB and the defense (wich currently sits top 10 DVOA)

 

Next offseason is about the offensive pieces around the QB

 

I mean...I could be way off base on this....but I really do NOT think that I am.....to me the dots are not that hard to connect

[NoHuddleKelly12]

On 10/21/2018 at 4:37 PM, jtothebrown said:

This GM, This Coach, This Ownership, has deliberately set this team up to fail.

 

Just look at all the moves they made to gut the team. Just look at all the moves they havent made to improve this team.

 

They tried really hard last year, and if it wasnt for that meddling Dalton, they would have succeded.

That was a little Scooby Doo humor!

You’re right, the devious plot to uproot their families and buy homes in Buffalo was all part of their clever ruse!! They really just want to see how long it takes before Pegula fires them! 

[jethro_tull]

I think you can rebuild your roster the right way and still want to win- player development takes time.  The idea of deliberately trashing your roster to lose intentionally is a bit harsh IMHO.  

[Thurman#1]

On 10/27/2018 at 1:04 AM, iinii said:

Point taken but for every Walsh, Johnson, and Carroll how many coaches and organizations have done the opposite? The Bills alone have more than three. You think McDermott is in that class?

 

 

Where do the Bills have more than three? The Bills tendency through the years has been to reload, even when the talent clearly wasn't there. One of the Bills rebuilds was the one led by Polian and Levy. The unfortunate QB-less Nix-led failure was another. The year they picked OJ was another, probably, though the head coach was so awful the improvement would maybe never have occurred if he hadn't been replaced by a Bills icon. The Bills have a lot more reloaders than rebuilders. Rex, Marrone, Jauron, Mularkey, Gregg Williams, Wade, all reloaders. You can make an argument for Gregg Williams, but bringing in Bledsoe and a bunch of other moves always made it seem more like a forced cap dump followed by a reload to me.

 

In any case, nobody says that rebuilding is perfect. It isn't. In fact, it sucks. The only solution that's any worse are all the others. 

 

I'm with KellytheDog above that they should've done it earlier and made the rebuild complete. But they didn't and at least we don't have to hear people moan about the playoff streak anymore.

 

Do I think McDermott is in that class? I have no idea. Nor does anyone else. Before those rebuilds, Walsh, Johnson and Carroll weren't yet in that category. And all of them suffered through a ton of "See how horrible this guy is ... he's had long enough and he's proved he's a loser ... dump him fast" knee-jerk criticism in the middle of those rebuilds.

 

On 10/27/2018 at 12:17 PM, John from Riverside said:

I dont feel we are ground zero

 

They DID gut the team last year.....high priced contracts for draft picks.....I really dont think they expected to be that good in year 1....

 

My theory is they thought that they were going to finish bad enough that they would not have to give up 2nd round pick....would not have had to trade Cordy (I am not sure if he stays because of his injury history and contract....but I digress) but it happened.....so they had to be aggressive in their moves up to make sure they got that QB

 

We are in year 2 of the rebiuld.....this offseason was about the QB and the defense (wich currently sits top 10 DVOA)

 

Next offseason is about the offensive pieces around the QB

 

I mean...I could be way off base on this....but I really do NOT think that I am.....to me the dots are not that hard to connect

 

 

If they'd really wanted to gut the team last year, John, they'd have traded Tyrod. And Kyle Williams and probably Hughes. McCoy and Incognito for sure. Could've lost a bunch more games and had a better draft pick. And not had to trade away so much to pick a QB this year.

 

I agree with the rest of your post here, though. this coming year they'll work on the offense.

[Julio Hopkins]

On 10/21/2018 at 4:42 PM, BillsEnthusiast said:

 

6 starters and a couple more depth players is damn good and anyone who says otherwise has it out for the regime. 

 

"6 starters" is a good way to paint a pretty picture.  Zay Jones for example (so far at least) has been a horrible draft pick.  

[auburnbillsbacker]

The Bills are hoping for sustained success.  They moved assets so they could draft a franchise QB while removing players with expensive contracts who had a difficult time staying on the field.  By the end of next season we will know if they did a good job.  Allen will be in his 2nd year and most of the roster will compose of players they chose to draft or sign.  If they made the right moves the Bills will be good for the next several years.  I have no idea if they made the right moves though.  I sure hope so. 

[That's No Moon]

So, it's ok to suck so long as you are sucking on purpose.

[nedboy7]

So how long do we label the following years rebuild?  Is next year a rebuild?  What about the year after?  What’s progress?  8-8?  Oh the dreaded 8-8?  What’s w the obsession over having an extra 4th and 5th. That’s the missing piece that makes us a contender? 

[iinii]

6 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Where do the Bills have more than three? The Bills tendency through the years has been to reload, even when the talent clearly wasn't there. One of the Bills rebuilds was the one led by Polian and Levy. The unfortunate QB-less Nix-led failure was another. The year they picked OJ was another, probably, though the head coach was so awful the improvement would maybe never have occurred if he hadn't been replaced by a Bills icon. The Bills have a lot more reloaders than rebuilders. Rex, Marrone, Jauron, Mularkey, Gregg Williams, Wade, all reloaders. You can make an argument for Gregg Williams, but bringing in Bledsoe and a bunch of other moves always made it seem more like a forced cap dump followed by a reload to me.

 

In any case, nobody says that rebuilding is perfect. It isn't. In fact, it sucks. The only solution that's any worse are all the others. 

 

I'm with KellytheDog above that they should've done it earlier and made the rebuild complete. But they didn't and at least we don't have to hear people moan about the playoff streak anymore.

 

Do I think McDermott is in that class? I have no idea. Nor does anyone else. Before those rebuilds, Walsh, Johnson and Carroll weren't yet in that category. And all of them suffered through a ton of "See how horrible this guy is ... he's had long enough and he's proved he's a loser ... dump him fast" knee-jerk criticism in the middle of those rebuilds.

 

 

 

If they'd really wanted to gut the team last year, John, they'd have traded Tyrod. And Kyle Williams and probably Hughes. McCoy and Incognito for sure. Could've lost a bunch more games and had a better draft pick. And not had to trade away so much to pick a QB this year.

 

I agree with the rest of your post here, though. this coming year they'll work on the offense.

If the talent wasn’t there how did we make the playoffs last year? Woods and Watkins did well yesterday. Seems like Allen could use them and Glenn. 

As far as the six starters they drafted, not all would start for other teams, so that is misguided to say the least. 

I would put Williams in the rebuild category. 

Like you said we will see. 

 

 

[billsfan89]

1 hour ago, iinii said:

If the talent wasn’t there how did we make the playoffs last year? Woods and Watkins did well yesterday. Seems like Allen could use them and Glenn. 

As far as the six starters they drafted, not all would start for other teams, so that is misguided to say the least. 

I would put Williams in the rebuild category. 

Like you said we will see. 

 

 

 

If Sammy was here as a number one WR getting paid 16 million per year and putting up later career Lee Evans numbers people would be bitching about how we overpaid for injury prone talent. Glenn when they traded him hadn't played a fully healthy season in 3 years and had missed a lot of time the previous 2 seasons. If there Glenn was on this team and hurt people would say the front office was incompetent for not trading him. 

 

Now that's not to say that the front office hasn't made mistakes. Letting Robert Woods go looks like it was a mistake but then again who knows what if would have taken to keep him here vs. going to play for the Rams his home town team? But I think that chastising McBeane for getting value from injury prone players on fat contracts or due for fat contracts was exactly the types of moves the team should have done. Remember this team made the playoffs last year without Sammy and Woods and while Cordy was injured most of the season. 

 

In a proper rebuild you gut big contracts, get value for players who might not be a  fit for the culture or scheme,  you make a big play for a QB in the draft, and you turnover the roster. McBeane is doing exactly those things. Now wither or not this will pan out is mostly up to Josh Allen and what they do with the cap space they have cleared. But the people acting like if you put Glenn, Woods, Sammy, Tyrod, Darby, and Dareus on this roster we would be a super bowl contender are just deluding themselves. All those players can be contributors and the team would be a lot better with those players (Although who knows if we would have been able to add other players like Hyde but for sake of simplicity lets ignore that) but those players aren't taking the team to the Super Bowl. 

[Thurman#1]

13 hours ago, That's No Moon said:

So, it's ok to suck so long as you are sucking on purpose.

 

 

For the limited amount of time in which it is inevitable to suck in a rebuild, yeah.

 

Same as it's a bad thing to be immature, but actually OK when you're eight or ten years old. Not so much when you're 23, though.

Edited October 30, 2018 by Thurman#1

[Thurman#1]

12 hours ago, iinii said:

If the talent wasn’t there how did we make the playoffs last year? Woods and Watkins did well yesterday. Seems like Allen could use them and Glenn. 

As far as the six starters they drafted, not all would start for other teams, so that is misguided to say the least. 

I would put Williams in the rebuild category. 

Like you said we will see. 

 

 

 

 

The talent wasn't there.

 

We made the playoffs through a real accumulation of luck. The first bit of luck was an easy schedule (126-130 with most opponents from the weak AFC giving them their own weak schedules) The second bit of luck was that that schedule was made a ton easier by playing two of the good teams we played, KC and Atlanta, right in the middle of the only slumps of their season. Atlanta was in a three-game slump in a season where they never lost more than one game in a row elsewhere and that was made even worse by having Julio Jones injured and out of the Bills game. The Chiefs were in a four-game slump that you could argue was a seven-game slump with one win coming from beating an awful Denver team in the middle. But the biggest chunk of luck was making the playoffs with a 9-7 record. Most years 9-7 won't get you in but we were in a seriously weak AFC that year, and that was very lucky indeed.

 

Watkins has 453 yards in 8 games. In other words, he's on track for a season of 906 yards. While being thrown to by a QB who's playing lights out in an offense that doesn't let teams double Sammy easily. Three TDs. For $16 mill a year. So by average salary he's the 6th highest paid WR in the league and for that money his production is this: 453 yards (30th in the league) and 3 TDs (in a 24-way tie for 34th position, so he's in the top 58 in the league). And that's not a bad year for Sammy.

 

Glenn plays LT, a highly-paid position that we have filled. Woods was a great bargain for the Rams. Would've been great if we could've kept him. But teams in serious salary cap situations have to give up players they would like to keep, as do teams trying to put together enough draft capital in trades to be sure of bringing in a franchise QB.

Edited October 30, 2018 by Thurman#1

[klos63]

On 10/21/2018 at 1:44 PM, Helpmenow said:

So your banking on them to right the ship

So how many years do we as bills fans have to wait 

look how quickly cleveland turned it around with all those high draft picks and cap space

[BillsVet]

 

25 minutes ago, klos63 said:

look how quickly cleveland turned it around with all those high draft picks and cap space

 

Bad coaching hires and poor strategic planning get you CLE.  Good coaching hires and strategic planning get you LAR and KC.

 

McCoach and his defense first mentality get you 87 points scored in 8 games.  

[Thurman#1]

33 minutes ago, BillsVet said:

 

 

Bad coaching hires and poor strategic planning get you CLE.  Good coaching hires and strategic planning get you LAR and KC.

 

McCoach and his defense first mentality get you 87 points scored in 8 games.  

 

 

The LA Rams are in around the 6th year of their rebuild. Check the GM. He's been there a while, putting things together. Reid's been there awhile too and though the Rams ran a partial rebuild, the Chiefs didn't. The Chiefs, outside QB, weren't awful. They had some good talent to start with in Jamaal Charles, Dwayne Bowe, Moeaki, Branden Albert, Tyson Jackson, Dontari Poe,  Justin Houston, Derrick Johnson, Tamba Hali, Eric Berry and Kendrick Lewis. And because they were in good cap shape, Reid managed to bring in Alex Smith to play QB.

 

Both teams were really lucky, because the previous year's team had two wins.With that kind of background to your hiring, you can get an impact player at ground zero.

 

A complete rebuild, or near-complete in the Bills case, is different. The second year will suck. 

[dezertbill]

This team's offense is like watching paint dry.  Painful to watch.

 

That's the issue I have with this regime.  You have a great defense, and you can't even put an offense on the field that can compete.  It's a frickn' joke.  We get down by more than two scores and  you might as well head to the exits.

 

This could have all been avoided if we would have had half a brain and actually signed a QB that can play competently in the NFL.  Instead of McDermotts love affair with Peterman or Beane rushing out to sign some bum off the couch.  That's what pisses me off about this whole thing.   We have a great defense, and you can't even give your fans entertainment value thinking that our offense can compete if we allow more than 10 points.

 

It's so infuriating.  I was a big proponent of Beane and MCD, but they screwed this one up big time.  And that crap "were young and we'll continue to grow" is BS.  You can be young and lose, yet play an exciting and entertaining brand of football.  Our offense is horrible, it's an insult to our defense.  He can take his we'll continue to grow and shove it where the sun don't shine

[Thurman#1]

11 minutes ago, dezertbill said:

This team's offense is like watching paint dry.  Painful to watch.

 

That's the issue I have with this regime.  You have a great defense, and you can't even put an offense on the field that can compete.  It's a frickn' joke.  We get down by more than two scores and  you might as well head to the exits.

 

This could have all been avoided if we would have had half a brain and actually signed a QB that can play competently in the NFL.  Instead of McDermotts love affair with Peterman or Beane rushing out to sign some bum off the couch.  That's what pisses me off about this whole thing.   We have a great defense, and you can't even give your fans entertainment value thinking that our offense can compete if we allow more than 10 points.

 

It's so infuriating.  I was a big proponent of Beane and MCD, but they screwed this one up big time.  And that crap "were young and we'll continue to grow" is BS.  You can be young and lose, yet play an exciting and entertaining brand of football.  Our offense is horrible, it's an insult to our defense.  He can take his we'll continue to grow and shove it where the sun don't shine

 

 

Yeah, our offense is awful. And our defense is good. McDermott and Beane put together both. Not just the offense. They put almost no resources into the offense outside of bringing in Allen. McDermott is a defensive coach, it wasn't a surprise to see them prioritize the D. They're likely to spend a lot more resources on the offense next year.

 

 

1 hour ago, klos63 said:

look how quickly cleveland turned it around with all those high draft picks and cap space

 

 

They're in Dorsey's second year, correct?

 

Yup, same very reasonable argument still holds. They're still very early in Dorsey's build.

 

 

 

Not that either team should be happy with recent history. But both fan bases can feel real hope for the future.

Edited October 30, 2018 by Thurman#1

[iinii]

12 hours ago, billsfan89 said:

 

If Sammy was here as a number one WR getting paid 16 million per year and putting up later career Lee Evans numbers people would be bitching about how we overpaid for injury prone talent. Glenn when they traded him hadn't played a fully healthy season in 3 years and had missed a lot of time the previous 2 seasons. If there Glenn was on this team and hurt people would say the front office was incompetent for not trading him. 

 

Now that's not to say that the front office hasn't made mistakes. Letting Robert Woods go looks like it was a mistake but then again who knows what if would have taken to keep him here vs. going to play for the Rams his home town team? But I think that chastising McBeane for getting value from injury prone players on fat contracts or due for fat contracts was exactly the types of moves the team should have done. Remember this team made the playoffs last year without Sammy and Woods and while Cordy was injured most of the season. 

 

In a proper rebuild you gut big contracts, get value for players who might not be a  fit for the culture or scheme,  you make a big play for a QB in the draft, and you turnover the roster. McBeane is doing exactly those things. Now wither or not this will pan out is mostly up to Josh Allen and what they do with the cap space they have cleared. But the people acting like if you put Glenn, Woods, Sammy, Tyrod, Darby, and Dareus on this roster we would be a super bowl contender are just deluding themselves. All those players can be contributors and the team would be a lot better with those players (Although who knows if we would have been able to add other players like Hyde but for sake of simplicity lets ignore that) but those players aren't taking the team to the Super Bowl. 

No one is taking this team to the Super Bowl. The band aid is definitely off now.