This Date In Transactions History: Bills Trade Sammy Watkins, Ronald Darby

[Doc]

3 minutes ago, Ethan in Portland said:

Yeah they just missed it by a year.  2018 was the real tank job when they fielded a non-competitive team and tried to start Peterman at QB while Allen developed.

 

They were likely looking to tank in both 2017 and 2018, figuring they had 3 years to get the team to the playoffs as long as they showed they had a clear plan and were willing to put in the work (unlike Rex).  The first year was meant to get rid of the players that didn't fit their vision and use draft picks the following year when they figured they would have a good draft position to get their QB and other talent.  And 2018 was supposed to be a lost year because of all the dead cap and having a rookie QB.  But a funny thing happened on the way to tanking the first year...

[QCity]

3 hours ago, sullim4 said:

Let's take a look at how this was received at the time....

 

 

Yes, let's. The board had a complete meltdown. 

 

Bills trade Sammy Watkins to Rams for CB Gaines, 2nd rd pick

 

A whole lot of hilariously wrong takes.

[stevewin]

5 hours ago, ColoradoBills said:

 

Yep.  That was back in the infancy days of the "process".

Man oh man, there was a lot of posters who hated McDermott and Beane back then.

 

If we all had a dollar for every time we read a post with "choir boys" in it!

Yep, the wailing "Sammy will be a perennial All-pro" crowd.  Didnt quite hit the level of the "Josh Allen sucks" crowd tho

[Saxum]

19 minutes ago, QCity said:

 

Yes, let's. The board had a complete meltdown. 

 

Bills trade Sammy Watkins to Rams for CB Gaines, 2nd rd pick

 

A whole lot of hilariously wrong takes.

 

Absolutely including those who said they are out of here or are done with Bills.  A number of posters did stop posting or changed posting aliases due to embarassment.

 

My stance is same as it always was - Coach McD cut far too many in scouting and coaching staff and replaced them with coaches he worked with or knew (That is when I changed alias to Limeaid).  Most of those coaches were gone in a year.  I had no issues with trading of players and did not believe they were deliberately tanking. A number who were cut went to play for Eagles under former DC whose scheme they fit better in. 

21 minutes ago, stevewin said:

Yep, the wailing "Sammy will be a perennial All-pro" crowd.  Didnt quite hit the level of the "Josh Allen sucks" crowd tho

 

Almost as bad as the Bills need a dome crowd.

[ColoradoBills]

58 minutes ago, stevewin said:

Yep, the wailing "Sammy will be a perennial All-pro" crowd.  Didnt quite hit the level of the "Josh Allen sucks" crowd tho

 

Scrolled through that Sammy Trade thread.  I'd advise a lot of posters not to visit it.   LOL

 

Best hot take:  "Cleveland Browns fans are saying, 'At least were not Bills fans'."

[Saxum]

1 minute ago, ColoradoBills said:

 

Scrolled through that Sammy Trade thread.  I'd advise a lot of posters not to visit it.   LOL

 

Best hot take:  "Cleveland Browns fans are saying, 'At least were not Bills fans'."

 

I disagree.  That thread might be as good as the John Skelton thread.

[TBBills]

1 hour ago, QCity said:

 

Yes, let's. The board had a complete meltdown. 

 

Bills trade Sammy Watkins to Rams for CB Gaines, 2nd rd pick

 

A whole lot of hilariously wrong takes.

First thing I see DR hating the move.

[beerme1]

Someone needs to show Bean this so he feels our frustration! 😈

[Desert Bills Fan]

5 hours ago, Big Turk said:

 

I believe it is called Good to Great by Jim Collins

Great read. Interesting in that one of the case studies is the failure of the South Buffalo Behemoth = the Bethlehem Steel Co. For those of us that lived through that, it was surprising to find that in this book.

[BigDingus]

10 hours ago, freddyjj said:

Thanks @Limeaid!  I remember hearing this and thinking why?  In retrospect, three things at work here.  Two about coaching and one about the long play.

1. Sammy was out of control drinking and smoking and McBeane knew this was not part of their Process.
2. Darby was a press man guy and didn't fit their scheme.
3. Beane needed draft capital to get a QB in 2018

 

I still don't think Darby being a "man coverage guy" really means he couldn't have been successful here. He was still very young in his NFL career. Even Kaiir Elam is known for being primarily a man coverage guy, & it's constantly highlighted as his strength. That didn't stop this group from drafting him anyway.

 

Not saying trading him was a bad move or that he was such a huge loss, only that he still would've been useful regardless & green enough to develop new tools.

[BigDingus]

3 hours ago, QCity said:

 

Yes, let's. The board had a complete meltdown. 

 

Bills trade Sammy Watkins to Rams for CB Gaines, 2nd rd pick

 

A whole lot of hilariously wrong takes.

 

Tbf, a lot of the reactions were completely understandable. Remember, this was going on 17 years of a playoff drought, so people were in a completely different headspace. 

 

Also, I only skimmed the first few pages, but a lot of the reactions made sense... a lot of people claiming it was "tank time," which was most certainly what we APPEARED to be doing 🤣

[BuffaloFan32]

While we are talking about Darby.  Please, DM me if you have a jersey you would be willing to sell me.

[Sierra Foothills]

21 hours ago, Big Turk said:

 

Oh man...you really need to go find it and read it...Watkins was talking some psychotic stuff like demons stalking him and other crazy stuff.

 

UPDATE: here It is...

 

https://sports.yahoo.com/wild-sammy-watkins-story-includes-how-constant-drinking-and-smoking-led-to-his-buffalo-problems-155348976.html

 

That talks about the Tyler Dunne story and some things in it, but if you can find the actual story it gets ever crazier.

 

UPDATE: and here the original story by Dunne is:

 

https://www.golongtd.com/p/the-sammy-watkins-effect

 

Thank you.

 

Here's the link to the Tyler Dunne article:

 

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2889029-what-sammy-watkins-believes

[Big Turk]

18 minutes ago, Sierra Foothills said:

 

Thank you.

 

Here's the link to the Tyler Dunne article:

 

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2889029-what-sammy-watkins-believes

 

Apparently he wrote two articles then about him...the second link I provided also was written by Dunne about Watkins

[Malazan]

15 hours ago, QCity said:

 

Yes, let's. The board had a complete meltdown. 

 

Bills trade Sammy Watkins to Rams for CB Gaines, 2nd rd pick

 

A whole lot of hilariously wrong takes.

This is the year! Sammy's gonna take the league by storm! He's just been derailed by injuries every single year, but now that he's health.. oh, what's that? he got injured again? Oh, well, next year when he's fully healthy..

[FireChans]

18 hours ago, QCity said:

 

Yes, let's. The board had a complete meltdown. 

 

Bills trade Sammy Watkins to Rams for CB Gaines, 2nd rd pick

 

A whole lot of hilariously wrong takes.

I may be in this thread and I may not be, but it is hilarious that Sammy Watkins was treated like anything other than a decent player. 
 

You would’ve thought we traded away Jerry Rice

[Doc]

23 minutes ago, FireChans said:

I may be in this thread and I may not be, but it is hilarious that Sammy Watkins was treated like anything other than a decent player. 
 

You would’ve thought we traded away Jerry Rice

 

It was fairly obvious at the time why they dealt him: too little production to warrant a 5th year option, much less a long-term big money deal.  Not to mention getting some draft picks for (the expected-to-be-continued rebuild in) 2018.  What wasn't know was his drinking and drug use that affected his preparation for games and ability to stay healthy, and the division in the locker room (I just read that Sammy made a comment that he needed 10 targets a game and one time in a team meeting Shady gave him an envelope with 10 red targets in it ).  And since the regime was new, no one had any idea if the "process" would work.  Which is why I made the comment that I didn't know (at the time) why they extended Wood.

[NoSaint]

On 8/12/2022 at 12:56 PM, Big Turk said:

 

Oh man...you really need to go find it and read it...Watkins was talking some psychotic stuff like demons stalking him and other crazy stuff.

 

UPDATE: here It is...

 

https://sports.yahoo.com/wild-sammy-watkins-story-includes-how-constant-drinking-and-smoking-led-to-his-buffalo-problems-155348976.html

 

That talks about the Tyler Dunne story and some things in it, but if you can find the actual story it gets ever crazier.

 

UPDATE: and here the original story by Dunne is:

 

https://www.golongtd.com/p/the-sammy-watkins-effect

 

I really have wondered what his whole story is. Just in a human level. 
 

obviously an incredibly gifted athlete, but his day to day life and when things got weird for him etc… 

18 hours ago, BigDingus said:

 

I still don't think Darby being a "man coverage guy" really means he couldn't have been successful here. He was still very young in his NFL career. Even Kaiir Elam is known for being primarily a man coverage guy, & it's constantly highlighted as his strength. That didn't stop this group from drafting him anyway.

 

Not saying trading him was a bad move or that he was such a huge loss, only that he still would've been useful regardless & green enough to develop new tools.

yea, I mean a starting cb for a 3 isn’t super exciting even if he’s not great. But if he’s not in the plans it is what it is.

 

I’ll own not loving the Sammy trade but also saying we have little knowledge of these guys. Sammys talent paired with good qb play could be remarkable. Unfortunately the remarkable part of his career seems to be mental health issues that are hard to discuss at such a distance. 

[Sierra Foothills]

4 hours ago, Doc said:

Which is why I made the comment that I didn't know (at the time) why they extended Wood.

 

I think that just happened naturally.