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Another GM killed for not having a Quarterback. Happens all the time. Not having a QB is a coach/GM killer. See Buffalo, Cleveland, NJJ, 49ers.
Having a QB makes everyone look great. See New England, Pittsburgh, Green Bay, Buffalo (Kelly Era), Miami (Marino Era), 49ers (Montana/Young) Colts (Manning), without Manning they go 1-15 to steal Luck, etc...
Good luck Doug. It's not your fault that there's only been about 2 good QBs drafted the past 3 years while you were GM.
I don't know if this was your intention, but your post comes across as though you were letting Whaley off the hook for the Bills' QB situation.
Doug Whaley's QB of the future was EJ Manuel. Manuel had the size and strength you want in your starting QB, and his 4.6 in the 40 meant he had good mobility. I've watched some of Manuel's college play, and nearly all his throws were dump-offs, or throws to guys who were wide open. Occasionally he'd throw to a guy moving vertically, at which point the WR would often have to slow down or even stop to catch the throw. Almost never did I see him throw to anyone moving horizontally. The vast majority of his throws were to stationary targets.
In college, Manuel ran a simplified offense. An offense in which he made only one read. If his one read wasn't open, he would run the ball or dump it off. Nothing about his college play even remotely suggested the possibility he could process information at or near the NFL level.
When the Manuel pick was announced, I felt the same feeling of sports-related defeat I'd felt about Wide Right, or the Music City Miracle, or No Goal. With that pick, I knew the Bills were throwing away the next few years on a physical tools-only type QB who'd never amount to anything. Even more importantly, I knew we were throwing away the next few years on a front office which couldn't evaluate QB talent. For me, the Manuel pick was like an announcement that the Bills would be home for the playoffs for the next few seasons.
Whaley was so committed to the Manuel pick that in 2014 he traded up for Sammy Watkins, instead of trading down for Derek Carr. Some of Whaley's supporters saw his decision to go "all in" on Manuel as a sign of his high testosterone level. I saw it as confirmation that Whaley was an incompetent GM.
As hope in the Manuel pick began to fade, Whaley found himself another physically gifted QB who was also not noted for accuracy or fast information processing. I'm not concerned about the low draft pick we wasted on Cardale Jones. But that pick demonstrated once again that the first and most important attribute Whaley looks for in a QB is his physical gifts.
The Bills will not win a Super Bowl until we find the successor to Jim Kelly. Whaley has very clearly shown us he was not the guy to find that successor. There is no reason for the Bills to deny themselves the possibility of a Super Bowl win, just to make Doug Whaley happy. It's not as though his draft day successes at non-QB positions have been so overwhelming, as to cause us to overlook his utter inability to evaluate QB talent.
Timing is odd especially with the Sammy decision looming as well as signing of undrafted free agents. Hopefully we don't forget all this during the GM search.
I don't think the firing had too much to do with Sammy, but if the McD's of the organization wanted to move on from what is inarguably Whaley's worst draft pick it would make sense. And to clarify, Sammy is talented no doubt. It's Whaley's worst draft pick because of what he gave up for him. It's even worse when you factor in the fact that we didn't have an NFL starting calibur QB when the trade for Sammy was made.
Sammy hasn't worked out for us. I don't even think he's that good to be honest so it makes sense that they don't want Whaley's clouded judgment being involved in the decision making on Sammy's future.
All Hail Josh Allen! Savior of the Buffalo Bills!
Freedom for the Ukraine. Down with Putin and every traitor in this country that supports him.
I see where you're coming from, and there is some validity to the points you're making.
But Doug Whaley clearly needed to go. Of that there is absolutely no question. Any time you have the fewest drafted players on your roster, out of any team in the league, it's hardly a ringing endorsement for the guy put in charge of drafting those players. And it's not like Whaley made up for lack of quantity with quality. None of his drafted players have (thus far) become star players, and very few could even be described as solid starters. There is absolutely no reason to trust Whaley on draft day.
As for salary cap management: the Bills let Gilmore walk, because we didn't have the salary cap space we needed to re-sign him. He was signed by the New England Patriots, instead. In theory, the more talent a team acquires, the closer to the salary cap limit it's expected to move. But that's only if both teams are equally good at managing the cap. The Patriots are clearly a more talented team than the Bills, and yet they somehow found the salary cap space to sign Gilmore that we lacked. They are getting much better mileage out of their player spending than Whaley was getting.
I agree that McDermott has not earned the authority he's been given. But that authority has to be given to someone, and it's not as though there was some other person in the Bills organization who'd earned it. Better to give the authority to someone whose GM abilities had not yet been tested, such as McDermott, than to a tried-and-failed GM like Whaley.
I agree with your point that, when you fire someone, you don't normally want to get rid of the good parts along with the bad. Had Marrone not left voluntarily, it would have made far more sense to fire him, than it did to fire Schwartz. But there isn't too much danger of getting rid of good elements with the Whaley firing, because there was so little worth keeping.
You make some decent points, but there is one that I think is just plain wrong, and that relates to Gilmore. I don't think we were that bothered about keeping him, at all. Pretty much irrespective of any cap situation, you don't give 'man coverage' money, to a CB who is going to be playing 'zone coverage'. And Gilmore wanted his money. Tbh, I seriously doubt that the Gilmore decision, had anything at all to do with Whaley getting canned.
Back to the cap situation. It isn't ideal, but it also isn't that bad, and there is still room to restructure guys if absolutely necessary, (Dareus and Glenn) which could free up quite a bit of room. We are by no means in 'cap hell'. If they really wanted to keep Gilmore, they could have found the money, I'm sure, especially after the Taylor restructure, and if they had done something with Dareus and Glenn.
Now, you might be right, albeit perhaps for the wrong reasons, in that the cap situation is part of, or one of, the 'few areas we need to get better in', according to Pegula. I'm thinking about the previous year, when we didn't have enough room to put the 2nd level tender on Hogan, and then simply couldn't afford to match the Patsies offer. I think that one stung the Pegulas, especially with the struggles we ended up having at the WR position, and was followed up by not giving Gillislee the 2nd round tender either. Who once again goes to the Patsies, because we decided not to match their offer.
Now, the above is speculation, but it is based on facts, and added to a couple of other things, may have been the tipping point, although we simply don't know.
QB aside, I don't think Whaleys drafting has been that bad. At least a couple of the picks who aren't here any more, were turned into better players, Alonso for Shady, being the obvious example. I'd also say that some of the ups and downs of form, that have some of those picks being castigated, are probably more to do with coaching changes (hence scheme), than the ability of the players. While the jury is still out on a few guys, Whaley has only whiffed once in the 1st round with EJ, and once in the 2nd round, with Kouandjio, and he might still turn out to be okay, although recent events make that a lot less likely than it was 6 months ago.
We will almost certainly miss his staffs ability to find guys off the street, to come in and contribute, when the injury bug hits us this year, and it's those guys I wanted to be retained, as I think they've done nothing wrong, and a lot right.
Still, it is what it is, and providing we can get someone sorted out promptly, it's time to move on I suppose. Our rookie HC doesn't need to be wasting his time playing at being GM, when there's a team to get coached up.
You make some decent points, but there is one that I think is just plain wrong, and that relates to Gilmore. I don't think we were that bothered about keeping him, at all. Pretty much irrespective of any cap situation, you don't give 'man coverage' money, to a CB who is going to be playing 'zone coverage'. And Gilmore wanted his money. Tbh, I seriously doubt that the Gilmore decision, had anything at all to do with Whaley getting canned.
Back to the cap situation. It isn't ideal, but it also isn't that bad, and there is still room to restructure guys if absolutely necessary, (Dareus and Glenn) which could free up quite a bit of room. We are by no means in 'cap hell'. If they really wanted to keep Gilmore, they could have found the money, I'm sure, especially after the Taylor restructure, and if they had done something with Dareus and Glenn.
Now, you might be right, albeit perhaps for the wrong reasons, in that the cap situation is part of, or one of, the 'few areas we need to get better in', according to Pegula. I'm thinking about the previous year, when we didn't have enough room to put the 2nd level tender on Hogan, and then simply couldn't afford to match the Patsies offer. I think that one stung the Pegulas, especially with the struggles we ended up having at the WR position, and was followed up by not giving Gillislee the 2nd round tender either. Who once again goes to the Patsies, because we decided not to match their offer.
Now, the above is speculation, but it is based on facts, and added to a couple of other things, may have been the tipping point, although we simply don't know.
QB aside, I don't think Whaleys drafting has been that bad. At least a couple of the picks who aren't here any more, were turned into better players, Alonso for Shady, being the obvious example. I'd also say that some of the ups and downs of form, that have some of those picks being castigated, are probably more to do with coaching changes (hence scheme), than the ability of the players. While the jury is still out on a few guys, Whaley has only whiffed once in the 1st round with EJ, and once in the 2nd round, with Kouandjio, and he might still turn out to be okay, although recent events make that a lot less likely than it was 6 months ago.
We will almost certainly miss his staffs ability to find guys off the street, to come in and contribute, when the injury bug hits us this year, and it's those guys I wanted to be retained, as I think they've done nothing wrong, and a lot right.
Still, it is what it is, and providing we can get someone sorted out promptly, it's time to move on I suppose. Our rookie HC doesn't need to be wasting his time playing at being GM, when there's a team to get coached up.
Good post, and good information about the Bills salary cap situation.
Gilmore was taken with the 10th overall pick. Any time the 10th overall pick goes first-contract-and-out, there's a problem. Letting your early picks walk after their first contracts is not how you build a winning football team. When a first round pick leaves after his first contract, the question is not whether to assign blame, but where.
In some cases, the player wasn't very good to begin with. In which case, you blame the GM who drafted him, for using a first round pick on someone who wasn't very good. But the New England Patriots, at least, do feel that Gilmore was a good player, or else they wouldn't have thrown all that money his way. It cannot be said that Nix drafted a bad football player in the form of Gilmore.
Your argument for not extending Gilmore is that the Bills would have to pay a premium for a man coverage CB, and that this premium is unnecessary because McDermott's defense is based on zone coverage. So we use a late first round pick on a CB, presumably hoping to get a guy who's good enough to be a solid starter in McDermott's zone coverage scheme, but not so good as to command the man coverage premium that Gilmore receives. Assuming you're correct, White will go first-contract-and-out if he's better than expected (thereby commanding a Gilmore-like premium), or worse than expected (such that he's not good enough to be a starter).
If the Bills had had plenty of extra salary cap space, re-signing Gilmore would have been an easy call. If your top 10 pick results in a good football player, as it did with Gilmore, you want to keep that good player over the long run. Letting guys like that go first-contract-and-out means you are not building through the draft. It means you are spinning your wheels. Since Bill Polian was fired, the Bills have used seven first round picks on DBs. Four went first-contract-and-out. One (Nate Clements) remained one extra year after his first contract was over. Of the remaining two, one was McKelvin, who remained with the team beyond his rookie contract only because he was not good enough to command a high salary on the free agent market. The other was Thomas Smith, who was here seven years. With the possible exception of Thomas Smith, none of our seven first round DBs have provided starter-quality play for any length of time for this team, after their rookie contracts had expired. That track record is disgusting, and is an important reason why the Bills have been playoff-free ever since the year 2000.
Bad cap management is an important part of the explanation as to why there's been so much churning at DB. TD allowed Antoine Winfield to go first-contract-and-out, so that he could squander what should have been Winfield's cap money on Troy Vincent and Lawyer Milloy. Likewise, the Bills chose to use their first round pick in this year's draft on a CB, in what was essentially a pick made for cap management purposes. (It's highly doubtful that White will be significantly better than Gilmore over the next few years, which means his one real advantage is that he's cheaper. That's a cap management draft pick, not an improving-a-position draft pick.) When first round picks are used for cap management, instead of for making the team better, that's typically a clear indication that someone (Whaley) has bungled the cap. It's not as though the Bills are bursting with so much player talent, that they cannot possibly be expected to retain all of it and still remain under the cap.
As for your comment that our rookie HC is "playing" at being GM: after the first few rounds I remember thinking we were having a much better draft than I would have expected from Whaley. That feeling was strengthened by the Peterman pick; which was the exact opposite of the type of QB I'd expect Whaley to choose. Peterman's physical tools are mediocre, but he seemingly makes up for that with accuracy and information processing. Also, acquiring an additional first round pick in next year's draft represents far-sighted thinking I don't associate with Whaley. I would argue that between McDermott and Whaley, it was Whaley who was "playing" at being GM. I for one am very happy Whaley's playtime is now over.
It's too late for me to edit my earlier post, so I'll just add that White represents the eighth time since the Polian firing that the Bills have used a first round pick on a DB. As with any first round Bills CB, the big question with him is not whether he'll become a good player, so much as whether he'll get extended beyond his rookie contract.
It's too late for me to edit my earlier post, so I'll just add that White represents the eighth time since the Polian firing that the Bills have used a first round pick on a DB. As with any first round Bills CB, the big question with him is not whether he'll become a good player, so much as whether he'll get extended beyond his rookie contract.
An embarrassment when you consider there are two CBs on the field normally whereas there are 5 OLs on the field always.
An embarrassment when you consider there are two CBs on the field normally whereas there are 5 OLs on the field always.
He said DBs, not CBs.
And did you forget about who is going to cover the slot receiver. I'd say there are FIVE DBs out there on most plays, and even more if the opposing defense is going with a spread formation. That's almost half your defense, and you also need depth there.
DBs are Impotant to have. Green Bay's downfall last year was not having them.
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