What McBeane have done since 2017 nothing short of amazing.

[CapeBreton]

17 hours ago, ProcessAccepted said:

This years top 3 picks alone!!! Forget about being able to keep players like Milano. Having a great GM makes me happy 😂

 

2021 draft was so boring at the time, no flashy picks, it was all just guys for the trenches but it was exactly what we needed. Rousseau, Basham, Spencer Brown look awesome already.

 

[Greg S]

Beane and McDermott not only built a winning team they also built a winning culture. This team is setup to be competitive for a long time. You can tell just by the fact that Buffalo has become a destination that players want to come to. 

[Batman1876]

11 hours ago, LeGOATski said:

Pederson, Roseman, Snoopy, Mr Magoo.... put whatever name you want in there.

Its not the name I was questioning it was the narrative, that the Eagles turned around quickly, they didn't. They had been a consistently good team for 15 years before Pederson got there, before Roseman got there. 

[Slippery Rubber Mats]

I hit two low points in my Bills fandom (since the 91 team).

 

One was a game against San Francisco in what I believe to be the late 2008 season. Rainy, cold, windy, and a terrible game. ***** got thrown on the field, lost 10-3 or something like that and the Lossman played a bunch of snaps. Really bad spot at what I thought was deep in the drought at that point. Worst game I've ever attended. It made me question why I was a fan and spent money on this team.

 

Then the point in time in the OP. Right after the Rex disaster, shedding all the contracts. "Knowing" we'd be rebuilding and terrible for at least a few years even if things fell our way. It was almost too much.

 

It just made the end of the drought that much sweeter. I was at the Miami game at the end of 2017, went into the concourse and celebrated with thousands of Bills fans at the game as we watched the Bengals beat the Ravens. (Somehow there was a Bills band there playing the shout song. I have no idea to this day how it was possible lol)

 

Now we have the makings of a really great team. I didn't know it in 2017 but we had finally hired the right guys after decades of an absolute clown show for management.

 

I'm in a really good place right now. I'm taking this season as it comes and trying really hard to look past the small stuff. 

 

 

[FlaFitz1]

On 10/14/2021 at 2:17 PM, Batman1876 said:

I'm enjoying the 2021 ride, best team in football, playing well on all sides, and fun to watch on top of it. But when I think of the job that leadership has done its really unbelievable. 

 

At the end of the 2016 season we were one of the most hopeless teams in football. Our record was 7-9 but the situation was worse. We had drafted poorly, over paid talent, chased over priced free agents all to build a team that was a poor fit for the modern game. Rex Ryan built a "bully" that scared no one and lost games. The team had been more concerned with the circus than being a pro football team. Our rebuild from that was quick, relatively painless (in terms of record)  and seems sustainable moving forward. 

 

The first notable thing done was... wait. There was no big roster churn during free agency. We picked up valuable players (Hyde, Poyer) but for the most part no big changes... until training camp. Once they started assessing what they had they started making moves, the goal seems clear now, ditch overpriced contracts, and gain draft capitol in the process. So they made a few big trades which accrued dead cap and draft picks. They were also purging players that did not fit the mindset they wanted, discipline, accountability, teamwork. On paper many would have thought the 2016 roster was better than the 2017 roster, but with an actual coach we broke the drought. I don't know if they expected that success but it certainly paid off, now they new team they built wouldn't have to deal with the albatross of the drought anymore. 

 

The 2018 draft was the culmination of much of that work, the Bills could move almost anywhere in that draft to get their guy, they Got him at #7 and even had a first round pick left. Its here that I'll note that since 2017 we have been one of the best teams in the draft, we have found at least 3 quality starters in each, a complete 180 from the years prior. At the beginning of the 2018 season McBeane were a joke in they eyes of the national press.  We had picked the wrong Josh, we had the most ever dead cap, we "blew up" a playoff team, we should have kept Tyrod,  and we looked awful after 2 weeks. When Vontae retired at halftime the punchline was that the bills were so bad, so lost as a franchise, that it was a wonder more players didn't leave too. But at the end of the season we had fixed our busted cap situation, had a QB that gave plenty of reason for optimism, and a developing roster. All it cost us was a 6-10 year. The lowest point of the rebuild was just 1 game worse than Rex's "playoff run" team. 

 

From there it has only gone up, wild card team, division champ, and now hopefully more. On top of that the roster is constructed in a far better way (built to win not "be a bully"), players that fit the scheme and no big stupid contracts anywhere in sight. The team is in position for their championship window to be open for years to come. 

 

Today Jerry Hughes is the last player standing who was On Rex's team. Yet despite that total roster turn over, we fixed the cap, and have a winning percentage of .609 and a poised to have our best football ahead of us. I don't know that any coach/GM pair has ever turned around a team so toughly so quickly but its truly amazing. 

 

 

I didn't "Reid" through all of the responses BUT Ferguson was signed in 2016

[JohnNord]

9 hours ago, Charles Romes said:

All GMs/managing coaches have visions. It has been shocking how many visions of McBeane have come to fruition with a cost sensitive strategy. I love how McBeane will adopt a multifaceted strategy to address a position which includes value free agents, draft picks, and mass competition. 

I’m not sure any GM/coach prior to Beane & McDermott ever had a vision.  Maybe Rex Ryan who wanted to recreate the 2009 Jets defense and win with smash mouth football.  
 

The rest just seemed to randomly stack talent

[Mikie2times]

Beane and McDermott had a vision, they properly identified players, then they executed on that vision. Then to throw some stank on it, they're locking up all of the elite young talent to long term deals. Then for even more stank, they seem  to found a chemistry in the type of player they like that almost resembles a college team. This team loves each other like few professional teams do.   

 

 

[4merper4mer]

13 minutes ago, KzooMike said:

Beane and McDermott had a vision, they properly identified players, then they executed on that vision. Then to throw some stank on it, they're locking up all of the elite young talent to long term deals. Then for even more stank, they seem  to found a chemistry in the type of player they like that almost resembles a college team. This team loves each other like few professional teams do.   

 

 

Tre White was the first piece.  So important.

[Mikie2times]

21 minutes ago, 4merper4mer said:

Tre White was the first piece.  So important.

I almost look at the Hyde and Poyer as the start of it all. Hyde had some starts and some ok years but wasn't very heralded. Poyer bounced between teams, rarely starting, coming off a bizarre injury. I would consider neither to be splash signings yet both were young with experience and we inked them to long deals. From day  one they started. It's almost like they knew something about them or how they would fit in this scheme that either nobody else knew or just gave them more value in the system. Then this theme has just kept playing out. 

 

How they stalked Manny Sands for years. Stole the closest thing to Julian Edelman in todays NFL in Cole. Brushed aside any of the diva hype on Diggs. Disregarded any of the accuracy death on Allen. It goes on and on. 

 

It's like they know things about players or look at players in ways nobody else does. The hit rate is just getting overwhelming at this point and just growing with the emergence of Knox and multiple players in the 21 draft class.