GunnerBill Posted December 19, 2019 Posted December 19, 2019 11 minutes ago, Thurman#1 said: I'm not clear how you define hell. If it's extremely bad shape, then they were in hell. You suggest moving Tyrod and getting a QB by the draft. Those two could not be done together by a team that was reloading. Doing those would leave you without a functional QB for the year outside of some very cheap FA like Barkley or someone like him. Which a reloading team wouldn't do. Pick up a decent FA QB and you've spent the Tyrod savings and probably come up with a QB no better than Tyrod. Reloading didn't make sense. I think this is totally wrong. DeShaun Watson started week 2 of his rookie year behind an offensive line that was significantly worse than what the Bills had at the time and was on pace to smash rookie records left, right and centre before a freak injury in practice. He would have been more than functional. It was perfectly possible to cut bait with Tyrod and draft a QB. Kick the can down the road on a couple on contracts and try to win from there. I remember countless years during the Saints first competitive run with Brees where they were in negative cap situations prior to the start of a league year and having to cut people who were key contributors because they had to get down below the maximum. That is "cap hell" the Bills were not having to lose anyone who was critical to the team they didn't even have to lose Tyrod (although it was clearly the thing to do). Personally I advocated the summer letting Tyrod go, declining the option, and signing Case Keenum who is a very similar level QB (essentially a good backup) who was sitting out there for a bag of chips. Keenum went to Minnesota and had a career year. I am not even arguing for the approach I wanted here. I would have taken a QB but still done the tear down in 17 and taken my lumps. I thought the tear down was the right approach and the fact the Bills chose to do it in year 2 rather than year 1 isn't a big deal to me. But there was a reload option that was viable. It was a choice. I basically believe they made the right choice but there were arguments for going the other way too.
BurpleBull Posted December 19, 2019 Posted December 19, 2019 6 hours ago, Mr. WEO said: WTF...Anthony Lynn?? He's running that team into the ground! He's a bum. This thread.......LOL Kyle Shanahan....Hmmmm. What ever happened to that guy? Making the playoffs for the first time, two seasons after McDermott first accomplished the feat.
GunnerBill Posted December 19, 2019 Posted December 19, 2019 11 minutes ago, BurpleBull said: Making the playoffs for the first time, two seasons after McDermott first accomplished the feat. Would not shock me if the Bills end the season with a better record. They are going to be within a game of each other for sure.
Mr. WEO Posted December 19, 2019 Posted December 19, 2019 1 hour ago, BurpleBull said: Making the playoffs for the first time, two seasons after McDermott first accomplished the feat. He inherited a 2-14 team which is now the second highest scoring in the league. The Bills were any competent HC not Rex Ryan away from backing into a wildcard spot when they picked McD. But yes hiring Shanahan would clearly have been crazy ....lol
GunnerBill Posted December 19, 2019 Posted December 19, 2019 3 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said: He inherited a 2-14 team which is now the second highest scoring in the league. The Bills were any competent HC not Rex Ryan away from backing into a wildcard spot when they picked McD. But yes hiring Shanahan would clearly have been crazy ....lol I don't think anyone has said hiring Kyle Shanahan would have been crazy. It was just never an option under consideration here in 2017 after he bombed the interview in 2015.
Mr. WEO Posted December 19, 2019 Posted December 19, 2019 On 12/18/2019 at 6:17 AM, BurpleBull said: A lot of you mocking Lynn now, mocked the McDermott hire at the time if we're going to be honest. A lot of you wanted the "hot" candidate...I think it was Kyle Shanahan at the time. 45 minutes ago, GunnerBill said: I don't think anyone has said hiring Kyle Shanahan would have been crazy. It was just never an option under consideration here in 2017 after he bombed the interview in 2015. I was responding to that.
GunnerBill Posted December 19, 2019 Posted December 19, 2019 12 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said: I was responding to that. Still not sure that says appointing Shanahan would be crazy. Think he is just trying to make the point that a lot of people were lukewarm on McDermott at the time and it sometimes helps to look beyond just the hottest names. I don't think he was saying Shanahan is not any good. 1
Mr. WEO Posted December 19, 2019 Posted December 19, 2019 2 minutes ago, GunnerBill said: Still not sure that says appointing Shanahan would be crazy. Think he is just trying to make the point that a lot of people were lukewarm on McDermott at the time and it sometimes helps to look beyond just the hottest names. I don't think he was saying Shanahan is not any good. He was mocking those who suggested that Shanahan would have been a good hire, as though the guy went on to do nothing, which is a bizarre point to make.
GunnerBill Posted December 19, 2019 Posted December 19, 2019 1 minute ago, Mr. WEO said: He was mocking those who suggested that Shanahan would have been a good hire, as though the guy went on to do nothing, which is a bizarre point to make. That is not how I interpreted it, but fair enough. 1
Thurman#1 Posted December 20, 2019 Posted December 20, 2019 1 hour ago, BADOLBILZ said: I said then that they took a 10 win team to camp in 2017. Hughes, Kyle Williams, Lorax(coming off 12.5 sack season) and Dareus was a very good playmaking defensive front..........Preston Brown lead the NFL in tackles from the MLB position.......Milano had an excellent rookie season..........Hyde and Poyer turned into studs..........White was excellent and Gaines was also excellent in the scheme(probably better than Darby would have fit). Offensively it was the exact same OL/QB/#1RB/TE that had lead the NFL in rushing and big plays the prior year. They botched the WR corps but in truth Tyrod and Co. did most of their damage in 2016 without those guys after Watkins and Woods struggled with injuries. People forget in 2016 that the Bills were so banged up at WR that year that they had to pick up and start Percy Harvin just a few days later in Seattle. The starting talent was a lot better than people want to give credit for now.........what they lacked most was depth.........but they stayed healthy(which is a byproduct of McD's strength and conditioning team) which lessened that impact. The WR corps was awful and after they traded Dareus the defense struggled to get their footing again but the talk of them tanking was laughable to me. It was a veteran team ready to win not a team in steep decline or starting a lot of youngsters etc.. Being wrong isn't that unusual or terrible. Being completely off the mark even with the benefit of hindsight ... now that takes some doing, but you manage it well here. Stunning wrongness. The starters on that team were not very impressive. The year before they were a 7-9 team and they lost a number of their better players. That roster looked poor then and even more so now. Vegas had them at six wins. Six. The fact that you thought that roster was a ten win squad at the time and still appear to think so is evidence of the fact that you were thinking poorly, then and now about it. And hell, there's evidence of that in your post. "Milano had an excellent rookie season." Yeah, but we're talking about before the season, not during it. Nobody thought he'd be good. Before the season he was a 5th round rookie with no expectations. He didn't even start till Week five, and only started that week and the last four of the season. He only played on 40% of snaps. Humber was the expected starter and played more than Milano. Preston Brown is a mediocre player, as he has shown. Seen his latest contract? One year, $805K. That's the kind of value teams put on Preston Brown. Dareus was no longer making plays beyond stopping a lot of runs. He was essentially Star Lotulelei, but on a $16 mill a year contract. His first four years, right up through 2014, he'd averaged seven sacks a year but since then nine sacks over 5 years. He was good at clogging up the middle but no longer had a second dimension as a pass rusher. It was Kyle Williams' last year and while he was still good, he'd lost a step and was no longer special. That DL scared nobody. Nobody expected Poyer and Hyde to become what they did gradually become. Both had been decent complimentary pieces in their previous teams. Yes, Lorax was coming off a 12.5 sack season, but in nine previous seasons he'd managed nine sacks total, one per year. That looked like the result of Ryan's scheme, and it was. There was no reason to think that McDermott's scheme, not blitz-based, would provide as many opportunities for Alexander as Ryan's blitz-based scheme. You were having to spin from instant one there, trying to defend a dumb and indefensible pre-season prediction with info that wasn't available preseason, like that Milano would have a much better year than you'd expect from a 5th rounder and that Poyer and Hyde would do better here than they ever had before. And after that you kept right on spinning. 'Cause it's spin to pretend that a DL starting Adolphus Washington was a very good one. The year before this was a seven-win team. And they lost guys from that team, losing both starting CBs, Gilmore and Darby, losing Watkins, Woods and Goodwin. This was a team reduced to starting Jordan Mills and Vlad Ducasse on the OL. Oh, and yeah, the Bills were the #1 running offense in the league that year. And the #30 passing offense. You can kid yourself that that was a good thing, but it wasn't. It averages out to mediocre and non-explosive. You keep going on about how leading the league in "running and big plays" means something. It didn't. It mostly meant they ran more than other teams because they knew they weren't a good passing offense. Regardless of running and big plays, they were the 16th ranked offense. That's not good. You keep trumpeting the "running and big plays" thing because it's the only good thing you can find. "Big plays," woo-hoo. Ten or more yards on a run is a "big play". It's a nonsense stat and the bottom line is that this was an offense that produced average yards and was lucky to have a bunch of short fields on turnovers Rex's D provided. The pass offense - QBs and WRs in particular - was a wasteland. When you start with Tyrod Taylor you're not going to have a decent passing attack. And then, you say about the passing game, "Tyrod and Co. did most of their damage in 2016 without those guys... "? Seriously, damage? In the passing game? BWAH HA HA HA HA!!! "Damage," oh, that's precious.Yeah, they damaged their way to the #30 passing game. And of that #30 passing game, the WRs managed 1925 yards, of which the three who left, Goodwin, Watkins and Woods, got 1474, around 75%. The rebuild and the need to get the cap in good shape and collect draft capital for a QB in 2017 meant about 75% of our productivity at WR had left with those three. That wasn't a "veteran team, ready to win." That was an older team with below-average talent that had lost some of their best players from the 7-9 year that went before. That roster was unimpressive. The fact you don't get that raises questions. Even back then everyone knew it, and that's why the Vegas line was six wins.
Thurman#1 Posted December 20, 2019 Posted December 20, 2019 On 12/19/2019 at 6:51 PM, GunnerBill said: I think this is totally wrong. DeShaun Watson started week 2 of his rookie year behind an offensive line that was significantly worse than what the Bills had at the time and was on pace to smash rookie records left, right and centre before a freak injury in practice. He would have been more than functional. It was perfectly possible to cut bait with Tyrod and draft a QB. Kick the can down the road on a couple on contracts and try to win from there. I remember countless years during the Saints first competitive run with Brees where they were in negative cap situations prior to the start of a league year and having to cut people who were key contributors because they had to get down below the maximum. That is "cap hell" the Bills were not having to lose anyone who was critical to the team they didn't even have to lose Tyrod (although it was clearly the thing to do). Personally I advocated the summer letting Tyrod go, declining the option, and signing Case Keenum who is a very similar level QB (essentially a good backup) who was sitting out there for a bag of chips. Keenum went to Minnesota and had a career year. I am not even arguing for the approach I wanted here. I would have taken a QB but still done the tear down in 17 and taken my lumps. I thought the tear down was the right approach and the fact the Bills chose to do it in year 2 rather than year 1 isn't a big deal to me. But there was a reload option that was viable. It was a choice. I basically believe they made the right choice but there were arguments for going the other way too. I guess we aren't going to come to any agreement on this because I think it's you that's totally wrong. I hear you that you're not arguing that they should have taken that option but only that it was viable. I disagree totally. I mean, of course it was theoretically possible to reload. But only theoretically. It was an option that was unstrategic, poor on the face of it. If you want to reload successfully, you need to have one of two things going for you. Either you should be only one or at most two players away, or you need to be in good cap shape. We simply weren't even close on either of these two. Reloads want to win, and soon. And unless you're either close or liquid, you won't win soon. The Bills were neither. I wasn't convinced either way on Watson. I tend towards doubt, though, on guys who aren't convincing in college as pocket passers, no matter how well they run, but I didn't think the Bills would go QB that year so I didn't spend much time on QBs. Certainly in hindsight, he should have been picked. But if teams had known he was as good as he is, he'd have been chosen earlier. I don't think for a second that the Texans expected him to be capable of playing right away at the level he proved capable of starting in Game 4. Not that he wouldn't start. But that they couldn't assume that he'd be as good as he immediately was. But they had a really good situation in Houston for him to come into: Hopkins, Fuller, Miller, Fedorowicz, a good running game and a really good nasty defense. The Texans were willing to sacrifice a year or two of winning football when they picked Watson, hoping he'd come around sooner, but willing to ride through some tough times if it came to that. If they'd been reloading, expecting to win soon, they'd have brought in a better backup than Yates or Savage. They were willing to go through QB growth even if it meant not contending for a year or two. They were neither reloading nor rebuilding; they were continuing along their path and bringing in a QB for the long haul. You brought up New Orleans as an example of cap hell. OK, if that's your definition, I agree the Bills weren't in hell. But they weren't all that far away either. And yeah, that situation in New Orleans was what happens if you're in poor cap shape, and decide to reload by kicking the cans down the road. You weren't in hell before but you are now. The Bills were already in poor cap shape. You suggest kicking a few contracts down the road, theoretically possible, but that's precisely how you end up in cap hell. The Saints had to endure suckage for a few years with Drew freaking Brees at QB because they kicked the cans down the road in a reload. I think you're dead on when you say that if they knew they liked Watson they could have picked him and still gone through a rebuild as they did. I'd have been thrilled at the rebuild and unconvinced but hopeful about Watson. But picking Watson and reloading ... with a team that simply wasn't good enough to have a cap situation so poor ... that was never a good idea.
DCofNC Posted December 20, 2019 Posted December 20, 2019 On 12/17/2019 at 5:47 PM, Mike in Horseheads said: Well said. In 3 years the team has flipped the roster, got rid of the malcontents, went from salary cap hell to 90m to play with and made the playoffs 2/3 years. Yet some here want to harp on not taking Mahomes or Watson. Of course then you don't have Tre White the other flexibility you gained with the extra draft picks but haters will hate But the extra capital was blown to trade up for Allen, along with flipping away your LT, so in reality, had you actually taken one of the 2 best QBs in the league right now, you wouldn't have Tre, but theres nothing that would have stopped a small trade back to get him. As it was, you used 2 first round picks, Cordy Glenn and another pick to come back up for Allen and that wouldn't have been needed had they made the right pick at the time. Both Maholmes and Watson are legitimate QBs and all Allen is way behind both of them, no saying he will ever get close to their level, so your argument is pretty awful.
colin Posted December 20, 2019 Posted December 20, 2019 On 12/17/2019 at 7:32 PM, Phil The Thrill said: He would be a miracle worker if he put up good numbers throwing to Deonte Thompson, Zay Jones, and Andre Holmes. I don’t agree Mahomes would be the same QB. This is why these people lamenting they past like this is just futile. Right there are a lot of circumstances. I think it’s very simplistic to assume that Mahomes would relocate the success he had in KC. that's a good point, but i had to laugh at zay, deonte, and holmes. and the big fat slow dude from carolina, benji. OMG did we trot out some trash that season!
GunnerBill Posted December 20, 2019 Posted December 20, 2019 1 hour ago, Thurman#1 said: If you want to reload successfully, you need to have one of two things going for you. Either you should be only one or at most two players away, or you need to be in good cap shape. We simply weren't even close on either of these two. Reloads want to win, and soon. And unless you're either close or liquid, you won't win soon. The Bills were neither. Teams that do not fit either of your criteria reload all the time in the NFL. Seattle just did a reload despite being pretty cap restrained. Not exactly the same situation as the Bills, I grant you, because they were coming off a successful run but since the end of 2017 when they won their fewest games for about 6 years and went 9-7 and missed the playoffs they have pretty much totally reloaded. They didn't have loads of cap space to do it. They were just smart about it. They have a great GM and a great coach. The Falcons when Dan Quinn got there were not right against the cap but didn't have bundles of space either and they reloaded too. Now they had their Quarterbacks.... that makes a reload easier. But it was an option for the Bills in 2017. One they didn't take. One I didn't want them to take. But all you have proven is you really would not have agreed with a reload. You have not proven it was not an option. 1
BurpleBull Posted December 21, 2019 Posted December 21, 2019 On 12/19/2019 at 7:33 AM, Mr. WEO said: He inherited a 2-14 team which is now the second highest scoring in the league. The Bills were any competent HC not Rex Ryan away from backing into a wildcard spot when they picked McD. But yes hiring Shanahan would clearly have been crazy ....lol What would have been the basis for thinking a Shanahan hire crazy, after enduring the Rex Ryan Experience? No one said hiring Shanahan would have been crazy, I'm pointing out how no candidate but one deemed "hot", sufficed as a good hire for a lot of fans, and as a result of that many fans mocked the idea of McDermott becoming head coach before he was actually inked. I'm not convinced that you would have given McDermott the same pass you give Shanahan, had his first two seasons been a combined record of 10-22 regardless of the circumstances, due to him not being one of the bigger-name coaching candidates at the time of his hire.
BurpleBull Posted December 21, 2019 Posted December 21, 2019 On 12/19/2019 at 5:49 AM, GunnerBill said: Would not shock me if the Bills end the season with a better record. They are going to be within a game of each other for sure. I could see them finishing with the same 11-5 record, although I feel optimistic about the Bills' chances versus the Pats and then the Jets.
3rdand12 Posted December 21, 2019 Posted December 21, 2019 On 12/17/2019 at 3:46 PM, eball said: Asking for a friend. Interesting to note: their career W-L records are very similar: Lynn: 26-21 RS, 1-1 PS (1/3 playoff berths) McD: 25-21, 0-1 (2/3 playoff berths) I was bummed A Lynn was let go honestly. and still was 1st year of McD
Alphadawg7 Posted December 21, 2019 Posted December 21, 2019 Is this thread real? One is likely to be fired for grossly under performing... ....The other is on a short list for COY.
Magox Posted December 21, 2019 Posted December 21, 2019 (edited) 3 hours ago, Alphadawg7 said: Is this thread real? One is likely to be fired for grossly under performing... ....The other is on a short list for COY. I have nothing against A Lynn and I’m not going to bash him. What I have a problem with and this discussion is going on in multiple threads is that some people are making the argument that the Bills could have made some minor tweaks and have had the success that we have had and implying their outlook would be equally rosy. This completely dismisses the concept of culture building and building the organization with the men they want to build the team with and not with the players from the previous regime. Some people think they just cut the players from the previous regime simply just to cut them. That’s not how it works, they do their evaluations and from there determine whether they are a fit. Its crazy to me that people are even making an argument that this wasn’t the right approach lol Edited December 21, 2019 by Magox 1 1
Mr. WEO Posted December 21, 2019 Posted December 21, 2019 10 hours ago, BurpleBull said: What would have been the basis for thinking a Shanahan hire crazy, after enduring the Rex Ryan Experience? No one said hiring Shanahan would have been crazy, I'm pointing out how no candidate but one deemed "hot", sufficed as a good hire for a lot of fans, and as a result of that many fans mocked the idea of McDermott becoming head coach before he was actually inked. I'm not convinced that you would have given McDermott the same pass you give Shanahan, had his first two seasons been a combined record of 10-22 regardless of the circumstances, due to him not being one of the bigger-name coaching candidates at the time of his hire. You were m mocking the choice of Shanahan by posters here. Shanahan would have been a reasonable choice for them to want, "hot" candidate or not. So if a "lot of fans" wanted them, they likely would have been correct in their choice--not worthy of your mocking post.
Recommended Posts