Random talking head says something about the Bills

[DrDawkinstein]

4 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

I will say this about Lamar pre-draft.  There have been accounts  that the Ravens had pre-draft meetings where they basically sat down and said something like:

"if we draft Lamar Jackson, we have to be willing to tailor our offense to let him be successful.  Are we All In for that?  Because if we aren't, then we shouldn't"

"Yes, we're all in, Let's Do It."

"OK"

They had Greg Roman already on their staff in 2017 who had designed successful offenses for Colin Kaepernick and Tyrod Taylor, who aren't nearly the athletes Jackson is but who were along the same spectrum when they played.  That may have helped them see it as possible.  So they put the pieces together in 2018 and turned him loose in 2019.

 

 

 

Sure, but that's pretty much how it should be done for any/all rookie QBs.

 

The Bills did it with Josh as well. Providing him a major support structure to help him develop, and Daboll calling plays and scheming to fit his strengths.

 

The teams that wanted to just plug and play were the Browns and the Jets, and that is why they are perennial basement dwellers and both of their QB picks are finding greater success elsewhere right now.

3 minutes ago, Augie said:

 

Why do they owe Lamar thanks? Shouldn’t it be shared with the guys who were drafted in the years ahead of him? Why are we singling out Lamar? 

 

Because the current discussion is on Lamar. Sure, they could also thank Cam and Mahomes, etc.

 

But I also think it's because Lamar is the most glaring example of NFL Execs getting it wrong, and having to rethink their approach. Which lead directly into a lot of those other kids getting drafted early.

 

Maybe even TOO early for some of them.

 

Edited 3 hours ago by DrDawkinstein

[Beast]

35 minutes ago, CNYfan said:

I believe the anti-Josh media among ex-players is very much race based.  

Of course it is.

[Augie]

Well, yes, the draft is a crapshoot. That’s not news. 

[CNYfan]

I liked Watson the best coming out of that draft.  

I think winning is important.  That is why I had Daniels above Williams.  Williams didn't win in college.  

[UKBillFan]

1 hour ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

Ryan Clark, former NFL player, current TV NFL personality (on multiple stations, podcasts, etc).

Marcellus Wiley, former Buffalo Bill, former(?) TV personality, now podcaster.

 

Ryan Clark is one of many African-American former players/TV personalities who witnessed the old-school, systemic racism against Lamar Jackson coming into the league. Lamar was a Heisman winner at a fairly major program and had years of tape of him throwing the ball. Yet, the "old school" NFL guys and GMs never gave him his proper respect as a prospect. Really hit a peak when Bill Polian went on national TV and said Lamar should switch to WR. Just an absolute horrible take and insult to Lamar.

 

Then draft day 2018 happened, and they watched Lamar slide all the way to #32, while other possible lesser prospects went before him. The most glaring being the super raw, major longshot project from a D2 school in Wyoming, Josh Allen.

 

For many of these guys (Stephen A Smith, Damien Woody, Bart Scott, Ryan Clark, etc) it was more of the same ol same ol. Disrespect of the young black man, while over-respecting the white kid.

 

And in many ways they werent wrong. And proven further correct by Lamar's success at QB in the NFL.

 

The issue is, a lot of these guys somehow blame Josh himself for his and Lamar's draft position. So they are ALWAYS trying to prove Lamar is better than Josh in order to right the wrongs of the 2018 draft. And they usually do that by tearing down Josh for no reason.

 

Marcellus called Clark out on those types of takes. And now we have the drama of today.

 

 

 

 

The thing is there is nothing to say now that Josh shouldn't have been drafted before Lamar. There should be no argument if Josh had gone pick one and Lamar two, or vice versa. They have so many strengths and qualities. For some reason they seem fixated on criticising Josh to build up Lamar, which then leads to others (especially Bills fans) doing the opposite to counter it.

[Beck Water]

54 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:

The Bills did it with Josh as well. Providing him a major support structure to help him develop, and Daboll calling plays and scheming to fit his strengths.

 

I beg to differ with you.  

 

The Bills were prepared to be patient with Josh, I grant that. 

But c'Mon, man: the support structure they had in place for Allen's rookie year was either non-existent or bad to very bad:

1) no veteran QB on the roster opening day after they cut AJ McCarron

2) the only other QB was Peterdude, who had flamed out spectacularly in his previous start

3) the OL sucked great big wads, to the point where it simply couldn't support an adequate run game let alone protect the QB

4) the WR give me BBFS flashbacks just thinking about them *shudder*  - Zay Jones, Robert Foster, and Fat Kelvin Benjamin.  Jason Croom and Charles Clay at TE.

5) David Culley, I'm told he's a good coach, but his previous QB coaching experience was 30 years previous, at the FBS level, in Southwestern Louisiana

Edited 3 hours ago by Beck Water

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

11 minutes ago, UKBillFan said:

 

The thing is there is nothing to say now that Josh shouldn't have been drafted before Lamar. There should be no argument if Josh had gone pick one and Lamar two, or vice versa. They have so many strengths and qualities. For some reason they seem fixated on criticising Josh to build up Lamar, which then leads to others (especially Bills fans) doing the opposite to counter it.

It’s kind of sad to see cuz both these guys definitely proved all their doubters wrong and are similar in a lot of ways.  

[BillsFanForever19]

48 minutes ago, CNYfan said:

I liked Watson the best coming out of that draft.  

I think winning is important.  That is why I had Daniels above Williams.  Williams didn't win in college.  

 

It's a good thing Beane didn't subscribe to that line of thought in 2018 and went with the guy from Wyoming.

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

1 minute ago, Beck Water said:

 

I beg to differ with you.  

 

The Bills were prepared to be patient with Josh, I grant that. 

But c'Mon, man: the support structure they had in place for Allen's rookie year was either non-existent or bad to very bad:

1) no veteran QB on the roster opening day after they cut AJ McCarron

2) the only other QB was Peterdude, who had flamed out spectacularly in his previous start

3) the OL sucked great big wads, to the point where it simply couldn't support an adequate run game let alone protect the QB

4) the WR give me BBFS flashbacks just thinking about them *shudder*  - Zay Jones, Robert Foster, and Fat Kelvin Benjamin.  Jason Croom and Charles Clay at TE.

5) David Culley, I'm told he's a good coach, but his previous QB coaching experience was 30 years previous, at the FBS level, in Southwestern Louisiana

That 2018 bills team was one of the most talentless groups I can remember and josh probably would’ve dragged them to a .500 record if he didn’t miss time 

 

it was very much a baptism by fire for Josh.  It makes me chuckle a bit when teams assume their guy will make a Josh Allen leap after a bad rookie year not realizing a lot of what caused Josh Allen’s bad rookie year lol 

[T.E.]

1 hour ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

Ryan Clark, former NFL player, current TV NFL personality (on multiple stations, podcasts, etc).

Marcellus Wiley, former Buffalo Bill, former(?) TV personality, now podcaster.

 

Ryan Clark is one of many African-American former players/TV personalities who witnessed the old-school, systemic racism against Lamar Jackson coming into the league. Lamar was a Heisman winner at a fairly major program and had years of tape of him throwing the ball. Yet, the "old school" NFL guys and GMs never gave him his proper respect as a prospect. Really hit a peak when Bill Polian went on national TV and said Lamar should switch to WR. Just an absolute horrible take and insult to Lamar.

 

Then draft day 2018 happened, and they watched Lamar slide all the way to #32, while other possible lesser prospects went before him. The most glaring being the super raw, major longshot project from a D2 school in Wyoming, Josh Allen.

 

For many of these guys (Stephen A Smith, Damien Woody, Bart Scott, Ryan Clark, etc) it was more of the same ol same ol. Disrespect of the young black man, while over-respecting the white kid.

 

And in many ways they werent wrong. And proven further correct by Lamar's success at QB in the NFL.

 

The issue is, a lot of these guys somehow blame Josh himself for his and Lamar's draft position. So they are ALWAYS trying to prove Lamar is better than Josh in order to right the wrongs of the 2018 draft. And they usually do that by tearing down Josh for no reason.

 

Marcellus called Clark out on those types of takes. And now we have the drama of today.

 

 

 

This argument is completely ridiculous when considering the fact that the same "racist" NFL front offices drafted numerous black QBs in the top 10 and even with the first overall pick years and even decades before anyone knew who Lamar Jackson was.

[DrDawkinstein]

1 minute ago, T.E. said:

This argument is completely ridiculous when considering the fact that the same "racist" NFL front offices drafted numerous black QBs in the top 10 and even with the first overall pick years and even decades before anyone knew who Lamar Jackson was.

 

I mean, ok. I'm not arguing much of anything. Just providing insight on how certain people feel about something to give context on why a certain discussion is occurring.

[colin]

i don't get how the allegations that the nfl doesn't want to draft black quarterbacks gets any play.  maybe warren moon being over looked, but that was 40+ years ago.  warren moon finishing college was closer to the end of WW2 than it was to today, it's not exactly recent.

 

even in the 90 akili smith was drafted super high, and he stank out loud.  didn't black qbs go 1 and 2 this last draft and the draft before it?

 

polian was obv wrong saying lamar should be a wr (lol) but rich gannon was told he should be a wr too, and i think he won an mvp at some point.  as for trubisky being drafted ahead of watson and mahomes (again, lol, oops) that was obv a terrible pick, but that rb out of LSU went ahead of mccaffery so you could wave some kind of racial bias flag on that too if you give the evidence the same weight.

 

i really think nfl gm's and coaches have biases about players and what they can do and so on (was it the miami coach who said he wouldn't draft moulds with the last pick in teh draft?), but the majority of the NFL are black and it's a crazy idea that nfl gm's under draft them at any position, not since like the 80s or something anyhow.

 

maybe clark does have a racial bias against josh in favor of lamar, but i suspect he's just catering to his audience who he figures want to hear that.  also, the realest bias i see from ex players are for guys who were studs and physical freaks early on.  so guys who were 5 stars or were bigger faster stronger than everyone else in college, and guys who won in college and went to the biggest and best schools since ex players all wanted to be those guys in their formative years, and most of the best players in the nfl were more like those guys than josh (late bloomer, no schollies, poor college team, raw, etc).

 

to me, the position that requires physical freak gifts more than any other is DT, especially nose.  and the two former bills who tell the story better than anyone to me is Pat Williams (one of my favorite bills ever) and Start lalalala (SP).  star was legit the most talent player coming out of the draft one year, but just so obviously didn't love football and never really worked hard to be the best.  he coulda gottan a d1 scholly after 6 weeks at a football camp having never seen a ball before, he was just gifted.  pat williams was a later round pick and kinda had to show a lot of flashes to get starts on buffalo (he was behind insane talent tho, no slight there).  he went on to be honestly IMO a top 5 guy at the position ever.  i think ex players always remember star splitting a double team at age 19 vs two future nfl DL and just one arming the RB into a concussion and remember how he was a force of nature more than they remember a guy like pat who was overlooked but ended up being an all timer.

 

narratives are so powerful they change people's memories sometimes.

[T.E.]

1 hour ago, Augie said:

 

Why do they owe Lamar thanks? Shouldn’t it be shared with the guys who were drafted in the years ahead of him? Why are we singling out Lamar? 

I wonder how Doug Williams feels. Taken in the first round in 1978 and was the first black QB to win a Super Bowl. Kinda get overlooked in all the "pioneer" talk, huh?

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

1 hour ago, Augie said:

I don’t think the NFL has any problem picking Black QB’s in the draft (see link). Lamar was a bit quirky in his delivery, as I recall. I could be wrong on that, but I think it was the player, not his skin color. 

 

https://wzakcleveland.com/playlist/black-nfl-qb-quarterback-first-round/item/1

He struggled on some routine throws in college at times and had a pretty bad performance in the passing drills in the combine and didn’t run the 40.

 

the ‘running back trying to play quarterback’ label followed him far too long into his nfl career imo and maybe that was racially motivated, but I think trying to paint it as ‘he was disrespected in the draft for no game related reasons’ is a bit of a stretch imo 

 

Josh’s stock likely rose post combine because he showed off absolutely insane arm talent and ran a pretty respectable 40 considering he had the worst running form for a track event I’ve ever seen 😂. Im

sure scouts knew his offensive line and passcatchers were absolutely dreadful in Wyoming also so the completion percentage type numbers were probably taken with a grain of salt 

Edited 2 hours ago by Generic_Bills_Fan

[CNYfan]

19 minutes ago, BillsFanForever19 said:

 

It's a good thing Beane didn't subscribe to that line of thought in 2018 and went with the guy from Wyoming.

True, but USC isn't Wyoming

[4merper4mer]

21 minutes ago, BillsFanForever19 said:

 

It's a good thing Beane didn't subscribe to that line of thought in 2018 and went with the guy from Wyoming.

Especially since Watson had already been on the Texans for a year.

[T.E.]

18 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

I mean, ok. I'm not arguing much of anything. Just providing insight on how certain people feel about something to give context on why a certain discussion is occurring.

I mean, you were arguing it, though:

 

"Look at 2011. Cam Newton, fresh off a Heisman and National Championship. But the scouts/executives/etc just couldnt fathom him being the best QB available so everyone pushed "golden boy" Blaine Gabbert to the top of the prospects list."

 

In your own example, you're claiming that the 3rd QB drafted at #10 was more highly regarded than the guy taken #1 overall.

[Governor]

Geno Smith was treated pretty bad pre-draft. They basically said he was too dumb to be a franchise QB.

[Augie]

2 minutes ago, Governor said:

Geno Smith was treated pretty bad pre-draft. They basically said he was too dumb to be a franchise QB.

 

Did he have a bad Wonderlic? Was he not great on the white board? 

[Governor]

14 minutes ago, Augie said:

 

Did he have a bad Wonderlic? Was he not great on the white board? 

I think it was more about his decision making if I recall correctly.