morny

My confidence in him is about a 3 or 4 now, and I was a huge Darnold guy. I legitimately feel like Gase/Loggains have ruined him. He looks worse, technique and mechanics wise, than he did in his first year. It feels like he started to get over his issues towards the end of his first year and was prospering, and he's just been left to waste. To draft a QB at three, who is so young, and not give him a specialist QB coach for his first three years in the league, is an absolutely criminal waste of talent.

Bills beat writer saying they close the season against Phins. So therefore, we will close against the Patriots.

What was your take on Mim's then mate - clear you rate him but didn't do a summary as assumed he'd be gone. If you don't mind me asking?

Yeah. I'll be honest, I think Sam is always going to be one of them QBs who is capable of a 'brain-fart' moment, and can throw a stupid interception or two. Similar to Big Ben - he can be brilliant but he's risky by nature and it can lead to daft moments. I don't mind him getting the odd daft interception if he's raking up 300-400 yard games and a ton of TDs. That's the part he needs to work on - at the minute he's got the daft decisions (albeit cut down drastically over the last couple of months) but he isn't racking up huge numbers to justify them.

This is true, but it's not just about talent around them - it's about coaching/organisational decisions. The Ravens have completely changed their whole scheme and way of playing for Jackson, and he is running in a system which is perfectly suited to his skills and is profiting greatly for it. The Bills realised that Allen is, basically, Cam Newton and deciding that rather than giving him a bunch of big-receivers to contest his very, very dubious jump balls, they'd combine (a) safe slot guys to get easy, safe completions and (b) a fantastic deep threat for Allen's big arm, where if he misses it's not the end of the world. They also bulked up the o-line so that his running skills could be best utilised. Meanwhile, the Jets mumble along trying to force a young QB, who throws brilliantly on the move, into being a statuesque pocket passer behind a paper-thin offensive line. At least our defence can run-stuff though.....

I love Darnold, and strongly believe in him, but it is cherry-picking somewhat. At least you still included the Jacksonville game, which a lot of cherry-picked stats exclude. I do understand the idea of excluding the Pats game - statistically, that game was a complete and utter outlier, unlike anything from his this year and it skews his stats. However, the Pats game is the type of game we need him to start performing - he's been pretty poor in-division so far (in particular, he's been awful against the Dolphins, who should be the easiest team for him to beat up on). He needs to start performing in division games, because if we can start winning some of these (sweep the Dolphins, win the home game against the Bills and we're sitting at 8-7 going into the last week and looking at a potential playoff place). We also need him to play a 16 game season - there's no point making up stats to project over a 16 game season. Until he actually completes a 16 game season, it's all hokum. And I reiterate, again, that I'm a big Darnold fan and think he has all the potential to be a FQB. Whether he fulfils that potential will be seen - i'm very worried Gase ruins him, but time will tell.

My nephew is a Panthers fan, and he reckons Paradis has been an absolute catastrophe for them. Sounds like a lucky miss for us (albeit it was still shameful not to address the position, although Harrison has been okay since he came in to be fair).

The West Coast games are brutal, but worth remembering that both the Rams and Chargers regularly host International Series games at the minute (combination of their new stadium getting built, as well as owing games for the Superbowl they'll be hosting soon), so one of them might be in London or Mexico. Similarly, I *think* the Dolphins might owe a home game for this year's Superbowl, so that could pop up in London too.

We 'blew it up' and started from scratch in 2017. If we do it again it's disgraceful. We should be trying to compete, if for no other reason than this would just give Gase extra excuses and reasons to stay here a number of years. We should be looking to overhaul the OL in the off-season (the Bills managed it last year, so with smart GM'ing and coaching it's very possible), and we need to add a pass-rush and a CB. Basically, improve the actual important positions. We have a decent number of draft picks and healthy FA spend, and will likely trade away Bell (because our genius HC can't utilise a HoF running-back into 'his' offence) for more draft capital. In light of all the above, there is absolutely no excuse for having a poor year next year - we should be looking at 9 wins minimum, or at the very least we should be an entertaining team to watch who compete and put up points. At the minute we're absolutely rancid to watch, so dull, slow and insipid. With an OC who is 'coaching where football is going', that shouldn't happen. If we start a 'tear-down' this off-season then there's no point. We're never going to have a perfect situation because no NFL team does - our roster is okay, with the right additions could be much better than okay. It's the coaching that needs to come together.

No, because I've travelled over for the game and as I'm currently 0-2 in the flesh, I'd love to see us win a game. Draft position be damned.

I'd never heard the Joe Vitt thing but if true then that's horrendous, and a damning indictment on Gase as HC. He shouldn't be near it. And if we had a kicker, then yeah we'd be 3-3 under Darnold (it ignores that if Cowboys kicker hadn't missed a gimme we would have lost). But it's not just the results - we've eeked out a win against a dreadful Giants team, and in your above scenario would have eeked out a win against an average Bills teams mainly due to Josh Allen being poor. We aren't good - we don't look coherent, the oline has poor talent but the coaching is clearly dreadful, and we're dull to watch. He's got no innovation, nowhere near the ingenuity or originality of a Shanahan. It's a slow, placcid dull offense. That's outside of the clear personal problems, in that players just don't like him. It is early, and maybes/hopefully he will prove me completely wrong. But so far, aside from 30 minutes against the Cowboys we look a very bad football team, with mounting problems and a HC who is killing our franchise QB. I'd get rid of Gase tomorrow to be honest, and take the risk he isn't going to turn into the league's next offensive genius.

It's an excellent point. It's a big reason that Darnold (and to a lesser extent, Mayfield) are struggling - they're in a disastrous organisation surrounded by bad coaches. Whereas Jackson (and to a lesser extent Allen) are in very well run organisations, with good coaches who fit everything to suit their QB and maximise their skills.

He looks rank bad right now, and I think it's fair to have legitimate concerns about whether he's the future or not. At this moment, he looks as far removed from a franchise QB as possible. And it breaks my heart to say that. That said.....I don't think we've come close to giving him a good platform. We are terribly coached and he's had two years in a row without a dedicated QB coach, and this year with a clown as an OC - a patsy who just stands whilst the HC tries (and fails) to do all three jobs of HC, OC and QB coach. It's allowing Darnold's flaws to flourish rather than clean up. Similarly, the oline problems - not so much the lack of talent, but the sheer confusion, disorganisation and disarray - means he's constantly got at and is crumbling in front of the world. Bad circumstances don't give him a free pass, plenty of young QBs do well in tough circs (Deshaun Watson), and he is rightly getting a lot of stick. But I can't help feel that he cannot have got a worse deal than us. He might never have made it, but we've not given him a remotely fair shot at success.