The Bills and Patrick Mahomes

[Figster]

10 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

I don't know that I actually felt that way, but the association with Rex certainly didn't help his candidacy. 

 

I admit to not knowing much about Lynn at the time.  The league obviously knew about him - it took the Chargers no time to go get him. 

 

It is fun to speculate what the Bills might have been like with Lynn and Mahomes.  

It is fun to speculate.

 

Myself personally,  coaching and supporting cast came together perfectly for Patrick Mahomes.  Under different circumstances, different teams, Mahomes may not be enjoying the same degree of success up to this point in his NFL career IMO.  No knock on Anthony Lynn, but he's no Andy Reid. 

 

 

[MJS]

6 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Ugh, I loved Ty Dunne while he was working for TBN.  I don't know what path his career took but he's started this new football site "Golongtd" and I wish him well.

 

If this article is an example of his content, though, I'm not feeling it.    It reads as very contrived.

 

"Everyone associated with the Bills — from Sean McDermott to all faithful servants pounding Cajun-Honey Butter BBQ wings at Bar Bill — is overwhelmed with hope because the Bills, Your Bills, are Super Bowl contenders, *****, and no sober Western New Yorker has been able to say that for 20-plus years. "

 

Does anyone really feel the Bills are legit Superbowl Contenders this year?  Do we think that's What McDermott believes?  Dunne doesn't make a case for that.  He just asserts it.

I think we all believe the Bills "have a shot IF".  IF the defense gets its act together and toughens up.  IF we get a couple key players back and that makes a difference.  IF the AWOL run game shows up along with the OL getting healthier.   IF we do our job and finish the season strong, instead of letting other teams hang around in the game or come back on us, and sneak past us at the end.    I think you see it in the thread titles here.

 

Beane has said stuff like "we're not one player away" and declined to make moves at the trade deadline, where other teams like Baltimore, KC etc did.

 

Lastly the bit about the Bills being close to drafting Mahomes because Pegula liked him.  "the Bills’ brass then decided to trade down from 10th overall to 27th to pick up a future first-rounder with hopes Mahomes would slide."  Really?  Who did the Bills think KC was trading up for then?  C'mon Man, teams only make moves like that for a QB and from what I recall, KC's interest in Mahomes was well known before the draft.  Reid and McDermott are close.

 

Dunne seems to be banking on the recollections of a guys who got the boot after that draft - Monos.  Maybe he's remembering correctly.  Or maybe he's making a retrospective case that the scouting staff he was part of didn't make a huge whiff, they loved Mahomes, they wanted Mahomes, they Did Their Job and the owner did his, McDermott just whiffed?

 

So his conclusion is that Josh Allen is under more pressure than any player in professional football because everyone expects the Bills to be Superbowl contenders and Pegula wanted them to draft Mahomes just seems quite contrived to me. 

I think he tried to lead with that to give the article Current Relevance instead of being Yet Another 2018 Draft Rehash, but it didn't work.

 

If anyone would be under pressure, it seems to me that would be McDermott - and he just got a big extension.

End thread. This and nothing else.

[BADOLBILZ]

This thread is an interesting dissection of the overzealous mindset.

 

1) The first response was the quintessential "shout down". 

 

2) Then we have people who are consistently defensive of any criticism of the organization as a rule......but openly admit to being emotionally harmed after reading the article.

 

3) Then you have another faction the "well Mahomes wouldn't have been as good here" or "the organization felt the same as I did" crowd.

 

If you have a mindset like these...........you may very well be a fanatic.........but you are going to be very difficult to have rational discussion with.

 

1) The reality is.........it's just a game.......if a hypothetical presented by an article like this has the power to anger or depress you then it's because you let it........it's certainly not the author's fault.

 

2) And why does it matter if an owner who has proven he can be the steward of total incompetence(Sabres/Rex) wanted to pick a QB and the football people did not?  We've long known it was an epic mistake to pass on Mahomes........the wrong guy wanting to make the right call doesn't make it any worse.

 

3) Accepting the mistake and learning from it(why it happened etc..) makes the fanbase more knowledgeable and that's always a good thing.......being a better educated consumer makes it harder for the seller to get away with substandard work.    And this is where the "they see things like I do" mindset is an "L" for the fanbase............presuming this like-mindedness......as far too many fans do with regard to new hires or personnel decisions........it just takes away any objectivity.   And when the organization knows that you will go into default acceptance they then know they can just re-package the same mistakes over and over if it suits their level of interest in winning.   And then you are susceptible to what Ralphy gave us for most of his tenure as owner.  

 

 

[JoshAllenReceipts]

9 minutes ago, MJS said:

End thread. This and nothing else.

 

+1

 

 

[Shaw66]

Just now, HappyDays said:

 

I don't buy that part of the article either. If he wanted the team to believe they were trying to win now, why trade Watkins and Darby? Why trade down for future picks instead of taking the BPA? Nothing about that makes any sense. In the first 2 years of the regime McDermott constantly talked about accepting pain now for success later. It was never a question that he was building for the future.

I don't think so.  Watkins and Darby were different because of timing.   McDermott had been with the team for two months when the draft happened.   He'd had virtually no time on field with his players, no way to build relationships with them, no way to really convince them that he's the leader and they should follow him.  By drafting a QB, he's saying that Tyrod's out, sooner or later, and in the NFL lately it's been sooner.  Tyrod was a leader.  He had plenty of friends on the team.  Before McD had had a chance to build any relationships, he didn't want to take the risk that he'd lose the players' confidence by dumping their friend.  

 

By the time Watkins and Darby left, McD had had the time with the players he needed.   He'd been very clear from the beginning that he's about a certain methodology, a methodology that requires total commitment to the game and to the team.  He'd been clear that he believes that that kind of commitment is what makes football teams superior.  By each guy committing to each other guy, they're stronger.  So by the time he pulled the trigger on Watkins and Darby, McD had concluded that Watkins and Darby weren't that kind of player.   And he'd concluded that he had several others who were the right kind, including, I think, Taylor.   Taylor was really hungry.  McD knew that the guys who understood and accepted the commitment would see why Watkins and Darby had to go, maybe even welcomed it.  

 

I don't disagree that he was clear from the beginning that he was going to rebuild.  He and Beane kept saying how it was going to take three or four years to get the building full of the people they want.   

 

Rebuilding and win now aren't mutually exclusive.   Everyone knew in the middle of the first season that a lot of changes were coming.  McD wanted a culture with a winning attitude, and he knew that it was difficult to build a winning culture if from the get go he's saying to his team "you aren't the guys I'm gonna win with."   He wanted to say to his players "we're going to win now," and he understood that he couldn't preach winning now by dumping his starting QB for an untested rookie.  Instead, he gets a certifiably outstanding corner who will be crucial to improving the defense, and he spends a year pounding "commitment" and "winning" into their heads.  He was, it turns out, exactly right.   He leveraged the leadership of Kyle Allen - a guy who oozes "commitment" and a "winning" - and took the team to the playoffs.  He said to his player, "we're going to win AND this team is going to build to be better," and they bought it.  

 

Throughout - not chasing Mahomes, the Watkins Darby moves, turning decades of losing into winning - McDermott was doing it by careful leadership and decision making.  

[JoshAllenReceipts]

58 minutes ago, LeGOATski said:

This thread is awesome.

 

@JoshAllenReceipts is like some weird conspiracy theorist who pivoted from the Trump administration to the Bills administration.

 

 

Dude, what the hell are u talking about? This isn't a conspiracy theory. The Bills were not interested in Mahomes at the time back in 2017. That is a fact. The premise of this article is completely made up. Many people in this thread have already figured that out.

 

Do u think the Bills were that stupid, that they didn't know the Chiefs were trading up from 27 all the way to 10 for a Franchise QB? Let common sense prevail for once. 

[HappyDays]

3 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

By drafting a QB, he's saying that Tyrod's out, sooner or later, and in the NFL lately it's been sooner.  Tyrod was a leader.  He had plenty of friends on the team.  Before McD had had a chance to build any relationships, he didn't want to take the risk that he'd lose the players' confidence by dumping their friend.  

 

Or he could have drafted Mahomes and benched him for a year like Reid did. I just don't buy the reasoning used here, that he didn't want to draft a QB because it would have sent the wrong signal to the team. I think it's pretty clear he didn't draft a QB because he was relying on a lame duck GM's scouting, and I'm guessing throughout the draft he already knew that Beane would be the next GM of the Bills. 1st year regimes draft QBs all the time without worrying about how the rest of the team feels, but McDermott didn't have his people in the building yet.

[Warcodered]

Just now, HappyDays said:

 

Or he could have drafted Mahomes and benched him for a year like Reid did. I just don't buy the reasoning used here, that he didn't want to draft a QB because it would have sent the wrong signal to the team. I think it's pretty clear he didn't draft a QB because he was relying on a lame duck GM's scouting, and I'm guessing throughout the draft he already knew that Beane would be the next GM of the Bills. 1st year regimes draft QBs all the time without worrying about how the rest of the team feels, but McDermott didn't have his people in the building yet.

Plus the 2018 QB class got plenty of hype.

[JoshAllenReceipts]

1 hour ago, RochesterLifer said:

 I'm pretty comfortable with my reading comprehension skills and do not feel the need to reread the article "in greater detail". While I may not possess glamorous LinkedIn connections, my literacy level is just fine, thank you. 

 

 

Josh Allen was described as "a more exciting Kirk Cousins"

 

That's a sneaky insult. Kirk Cousins = QB Purgatory. Josh Allen, the player with the #2 most Trade Value in the NFL behind Mahomes, is being compared to QB Purgatory in this article. 

 

It's a clear cut backhanded hit piece on Allen.

 

If you can't see that, that's on you.

Edited November 25, 2020 by JoshAllenReceipts

[BillsVet]

3 hours ago, ScottLaw said:

This is a terrible reason not to draft a QB.... 

 

We'll never know how much McD's desire to win now inhibited their ability to win later.  I think his "process" was all about having a top defense from the beginning and playing Jauron-ball to be reasonably competitive.  That method didn't require a young QB and it's why they deferred on the QB decision until the following season.  Which meant needing to spend another season plus developing that guy.  

[Hapless Bills Fan]

44 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

This thread is an interesting dissection of the overzealous mindset.

 

1) The first response was the quintessential "shout down". 

 

2) Then we have people who are consistently defensive of any criticism of the organization as a rule......but openly admit to being emotionally harmed after reading the article.

 

3) Then you have another faction the "well Mahomes wouldn't have been as good here" or "the organization felt the same as I did" crowd.

 

If you have a mindset like these...........you may very well be a fanatic.........but you are going to be very difficult to have rational discussion with.

 

1) The reality is.........it's just a game.......if a hypothetical presented by an article like this has the power to anger or depress you then it's because you let it........it's certainly not the author's fault.

 

2) And why does it matter if an owner who has proven he can be the steward of total incompetence(Sabres/Rex) wanted to pick a QB and the football people did not?  We've long known it was an epic mistake to pass on Mahomes........the wrong guy wanting to make the right call doesn't make it any worse.

 

3) Accepting the mistake and learning from it(why it happened etc..) makes the fanbase more knowledgeable and that's always a good thing.......being a better educated consumer makes it harder for the seller to get away with substandard work.    And this is where the "they see things like I do" mindset is an "L" for the fanbase............presuming this like-mindedness......as far too many fans do with regard to new hires or personnel decisions........it just takes away any objectivity.   And when the organization knows that you will go into default acceptance they then know they can just re-package the same mistakes over and over if it suits their level of interest in winning.   And then you are susceptible to what Ralphy gave us for most of his tenure as owner. 

 

Any time a person holds a strongly entrenched viewpoint from which they perceive all else, which colors their interpretation of all actions, they become very difficult to have a rational discussion with.

 

 

[BillsVet]

Reading Dunne's article reminds me of the revisionist history many writers pawn off on fans when something else works.  Such as, Gregggggg telling people he would have drafted Brees in 2001.

 

Also not surprising that Whaley and Monos are sources, both of whom are out of the NFL and don't seem destined to return.  It's all about performing an image makeover and another reason why the media's angle is more attuned to helping people around the league than doing real journalism.  

 

Pegula, Whaley, and Monos are the heroes for liking Mahomes.  OTOH, McD is the goat for taking the less risky path by trading down and then going full Corleone and whacking almost the entire front office.  

Edited November 25, 2020 by BillsVet

[White Linen]

I don't think Pat would have been tough enough mentally and physically to deal with developing as the Buffalo QB.  He's more suited for what Andy Reid provided him.

 

It's for that reason, there's no other QB I'd rather have than Josh Allen.

[Big C]

1 hour ago, JoshAllenReceipts said:

 

 

Dude, what the hell are u talking about? This isn't a conspiracy theory. The Bills were not interested in Mahomes at the time back in 2017. That is a fact. The premise of this article is completely made up. Many people in this thread have already figured that out.

 

Do u think the Bills were that stupid, that they didn't know the Chiefs were trading up from 27 all the way to 10 for a Franchise QB? Let common sense prevail for once. 

idk the next year the saints jumped up big for Marcus Davenport the next year with an even older QB. It happens. But to your point I agree it would have been naive to think he would be there at 27.

[QCity]

1 hour ago, BillsVet said:

 

 

Pegula, Whaley, and Monos are the heroes for liking Mahomes.  OTOH, McD is the goat for taking the less risky path by trading down and then going full Corleone and whacking almost the entire front office.  

 

 

You need to re-read that article. Pegula was the only one banging the table for Mahomes. Whaley and Monos weren't picking him at 10, and naively thought he would be there at 27 

[Shaw66]

1 hour ago, HappyDays said:

 

Or he could have drafted Mahomes and benched him for a year like Reid did. I just don't buy the reasoning used here, that he didn't want to draft a QB because it would have sent the wrong signal to the team. I think it's pretty clear he didn't draft a QB because he was relying on a lame duck GM's scouting, and I'm guessing throughout the draft he already knew that Beane would be the next GM of the Bills. 1st year regimes draft QBs all the time without worrying about how the rest of the team feels, but McDermott didn't have his people in the building yet.

That's interesting.  You're right, he sat Mahomes.  But the signal was absolutely clear from day one.  No question.  Smith was a lame duck the day they picked Mahomes. But Reid wasn't a rookie coach.  He had a major reputation in the league, and most importantly, he was already with the team.  He didn't have anything to prove to his players.   McDermott was a rookie coach who maybe hadn't even MET all the players.  

 

I'm enjoying talking about this.  I can't say I'm sure all of this is correct, but I think it's all plausible - the notion that McDermott had a plan and an order in which he wanted to do things.  

 

What's interesting, of course, is the case of Arizona, where you had a young, rookie head coach who wouldn't take the job UNLESS the team agreed to bring in HIS rookie QB.  Now, there was no really established QB there, like Taylor was in Buffalo (established in the sense that he had the confidence of the team), but still, he took the risky path - he bet on the QB.  McD isn't a risk taker like that.   McD is a slow and steady wins the race kind of guy.  Step by step, don't get ahead of yourself.   It all makes sense to me.  

[CheshireCT]

None of this garbage matters, because we have JA. Who knows if Mahomes would have been as good here anyway. And it's still too early to tell if either player will be better than the other when it's all said and done.

 

Is Mahomes better right now? yes. If someone asks me if I'd rather have Mahomes? No, I like our guy.

Edited November 25, 2020 by CheshireCT

[Billl]

5 hours ago, mannc said:

Truly idiotic take.  By that reasoning, we have no idea how any player would have turned out if drafted by a different team, so we might as well just give every GM a lifetime free-pass. 

 

We know for a fact that Mahomes is hands down the best QB in football and far and away the league MVP in his third season as a starter.  No matter how Josh Allen turns out, it was a mistake not to draft Mahomes in 2017.  In fairness, the Bills did make good use of the picks they got from KC to trade down.  And there is also no doubt that other franchises missed the boat far more egregiously, like the Bears, who gave away a ton of picks to move up from 3 to 2 to pick Mitch Trubisky, and the forever QB-needy Jaguars, who drafted a running back at 4th overall that year.  But it does not change the fact that it was a major blunder by the Bills and McDermott.

You had me until the last line.  It was a missed opportunity, but it wasn’t a blunder.  Everyone talks about how that the Trail Blazers screwed up because they didn’t draft Jordan when they had the chance.  Nobody talks about how the Rockets also passed on him.  That’s because Houston drafted Olajuwon and Portland drafted Bowie.  I don’t know if Buffalo got Olajuwon just yet, but they damn sure didn’t get Bowie.

[Billl]

7 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

The other thing about this article that I find interesting is McDermott's approach.   He didn't want a QB at 10 because of the signal it would send to his team.   He wanted his team to believe they could win now, and drafting a QB at 10 would say they were starting over.  McDermott in fact knew he was starting over, but he wanted the rebuild to start in the following year.   The first year was about establishing culture (which is something he said at the time).  Taking Mahomes at 10 would mean Mahomes pretty much had to start, and that says "REBUILD!!" 

How does this make sense?  The Chiefs traded up to 10 to grab him because they knew the Saints were going to take him at 11.  Those two teams sure as heck weren’t starting over and rebuilding.

[Shaw66]

4 minutes ago, Billl said:

You had me until the last line.  It was a missed opportunity, but it wasn’t a blunder.  Everyone talks about how that the Trail Blazers screwed up because they didn’t draft Jordan when they had the chance.  Nobody talks about how the Rockets also passed on him.  That’s because Houston drafted Olajuwon and Portland drafted Bowie.  I don’t know if Buffalo got Olajuwon just yet, but they damn sure didn’t get Bowie.

That's right.  Success isn't measured by your misses.  It's measured by the hits.  

 

The object is to be successful.   It's a fool's game to think the object is to be mistake-free.