Thurman#1

So, no discussion on Waldman's info, which was fantastic? Jeez. Ok. In any case, no, we don't need a speed back. That's one of several directions we could go, though. Beane indicated that the reason they used Gore more than Yeldon was that he was a pounder, a hammer, in the last interview. Based on that, seems very possible that if they grab someone, there's a good chance it will be a physical smashmouth guy, ala Dillon or Benjamin.

https://rockpilereport.podbean.com/e/rockpile-report-199-2020-draft-series-running-backs-wmatt-waldman-of-the-rsp-filmroom/ It's a long podcast. The RB stuff with Waldman starts at about 1:07:00. It's a two-hour thing, and I wish I had skipped right to there, myself. But Waldman's always a good listen and has a ton of info. On A.J. Dillon, "There are a lot of people I think who are sleeping on A.J. Dillon out of B.C., who I wonder if people think he's an Andre Williams clone. And if there's anyone who he's a clone of it would be Derrick Henry. I mean, I think this is a guy who can be a very good running back. He's nimble for a big man. Got the vision ... And he leaped 41 inches at the combine which is a very explosive mark, so you're talking about a quick-twitch athlete who, from a vision standpoint understands how to set up his blockers, and the thing that I love about him is that he carried the ball 866 times in his career. There are a lot of people that you hear this and they say, "Well, there's not enough tread still on the tire, I'm worried about the odometer breaking down." Man, I discussed this ten years ago with a little-known back by the name of Bobby Raney, who used to play for the Buccaneers and Giants and Ravens because he had a high workload and people were worried about that in a small back. "And I was trying to explain to people that if you look at people, the histories of RBs in the college game? If they have a high workload, there's a high correlation to them being able to deliver with a high workload in the pros, if they have the talent to get on the field. You know, guys like Steven Jackson and Michael Turner, Cedric Benson, Adrian Peterson, Ray Rice, these are all guys who led the NCAA one year in carries. They didn't break down. There's a lot of guys ... as long as they didn't have consistent chronic health issues and there's nothing in their medical report to be concerned about, the only guy I saw on an extensive list that had a chronic health issue, which was a knee, which was Jay Ajayi. And everyone knew that he had a ticking time bomb in the knee. Otherwise, most of these backs that they get into a starting role and they've had that high workload, they generally prove that they can continue to get a high workload and produce for you so A.J. Dillon's the guy that I just don't get why he's not getting more conversation." Waldman's #1 is JK Dobbins, "by a fairly good margin." Asked about Jonathan Taylor he says that as a pure runner, Taylor is probably the best pure runner in the class, but in terms of pass receiving, blocking and ball security, other guys give you more upside. Swift catches the ball well. "But his biggest issue, as good as he is as a runner, it's as bad as he is as a pass protector." He brought up the Seinfeld where Jerry is dating a masseuse who never wants to give him a massage because she's off work. "Jonathan Taylor is like this stud running back but when you ask him to apply his skills at home in the pocket, forget it, he's done for the day. You see that. He's almost an artful dodger when it comes to his effort in pass protection." Waldman still has him at #2, and thinks maybe he could be good if he tried, but you have to project. Doesn't sound like a Beane guy, though. He also said that last year's RB class wasn't as strong as 2016, 2017 or this one coming up. He was asked, "Do you look at [the 2020 RB draft class], do you look at them and think there's more top end talent than what came in last season?" The question specifically mentioned Miles Sanders, who was the 2nd RB picked last year and went at #53. Waldman's reply was this, "This year I think there are a dozen guys that I think, just from the standpoint - obviously potential is always different from the reality of the situation - but there's twelve guys in this class who have what I would call a grade that would put them in a starting role ... they could play in a starting role, maybe in a rotation in a committee, but there are literally eleven guys who are graded higher than where I graded Miles Sanders last year. "Now, Sanders is in a tier ... to me the grade isn't as big a difference as the tier. So, let's look, ummmmmm, there's probably about six guys in the second tier last year, that Miles Sanders was in. And then in this particular class, there are also six guys in here but the class goes deeper, because there's also a bigger first tier. So this is a richer class, there's probably five ... I would say there's four guys who can be immediate starters depending on where they land, and then there's another eight guys I think that half of those eight guys that I'm thinking about in tier two will probably get a significant committee contribution and will look like ... I'll say Devin Singletary was a significant committee contributor, I would say for the offense in terms of production. And then I would say there's another four who probably won't be immediate committee contributors but when they see the field, you'll see the flashes of talent. And then you look at the rest and there's probably another twelve guys in this class who could give you contributions and maybe three to four of them could emerge into lead committee contributors at some point. So this is a rich group that ... we may see some guys out of this class who may give you top twelve, top fifteen production right off of the bat." Around 1:41 ... And for the Bills he likes Cam Akers in the 3rd or 4th, likes him a lot. Likes Eno Benjamin and Antonio Gibson ("around 98 proof of LeSean McCoy") for the Bills also. And just after that ... Interviewer Drew Gier: "There's people who exist out there, probably listening right now yelling at their radios, talking about, "We need the top tier running back." It sounds like there's some depth there to be had that if there's a running back by committee ... that's the way you should probably handle running back in the new NFL now. Is that correct?" Matt Waldman: "I mean, I certainly think there's a reason for that, and I'll just say real quickly that the fan inside of me would love for you guys to take Jonathan Taylor first overall and roll with that, but I think the more mature perspective again is, obviously you're not going to be able to do that. But also there are players that you can get that can work with Devin Singletary in a committee and who would be very effective." Then of Zack Moss, "very close to my first tier," has him #5, and breaks him down. Pointed out that at Utah they left him alone against defensive ends and that is so rugged that he wins. Can grow into a real blocker, screen guy, etc. Mentioned Travis Henry as a guy with some similarities. Interesting stuff, IMO.

It's an interesting question. Core muscle surgery can be fairly minimal, but can occasionally have bad consequences. It would be easy to know what to think for the Bills ordinarily, but with no ability to check him with team doctors it suddenly gets a lot more worrisome. On the other hand, I saw an article saying that it's exactly because he won't miss a lot of the pre-draft process as he would have any other year that he got this done now. Nobody has pro days or interviews or private workouts. It's hard to know if he'll fall or if he does, how much. If he does fall, I'd love to get him. I think he's going to be for real. But I wouldn't be surprised if the injury concern affected the Bills' view of the guy. And if you have a concern, the major bounty of WRs this year should make him a bit fungible, which might indeed lead to a fall. This is a great year for WRs and mid-round RBs.

Nice post. I have a slight quibble, in that I don't think he looked at the Diggs move as a draft move. It was a trade, and trades for players can certainly be about filling a need, as this one was. He did say that he thought the trade could be justified by looking at it as to how equivalent was the value between Diggs and the picks he was trading away. But this wasn't a draft move; he isn't getting a rookie. I wouldn't have made this trade myself, as I love Diggs and his contract but I thought the compensation was too high. But I'm fully aware that Beane is a lot better at this than me. I hope he's right and to me this was a move that improves our short-term chances with what Diggs brings without hurting our long-term chances. This says he wants them competitive with anyone in the league starting this year. Which was thrilling to see. I wouldn't have done it. But Beane is so good at this.

Again, his record doesn't show that he drafts athletic guys against bring it on every play high-effort guys early or anywhere. You keep saying it. But the evidence does not support that. It appears to be you, rather than Beane, who loves this idea. Cody Ford is an example. Ford was a 2nd rounder who they traded up for. Ford is absolutely a smart guy who gives everything he has. He's also big and strong. But to say that he's athletic doesn't particularly make sense. His combine numbers bear that out very clearly. His weaknesses were commonly said to be athleticism and quickness and his performance bore that out last year. Now, can they teach and develop him and maybe get him doing better against quicker and more athletic rushers? Maybe. They seem to think so, and maybe with work on fundamentals and mechanics he can get better. They thinks so and they know him a lot better than any of us here do. But if anything what Ford has is an extremely high floor as a guard. He isn't particularly athletic.

We like that DT was a need. But it is also extremely clear that Ed Oliver was the BPA. He probably had been for a couple of picks. When BPA meets need, that's heaven. And the board isn't a list of team needs. Singletary wasn't a need last year when we still had McCoy and Gore, with Yeldon on top of that. They wanted to make that group younger and add competition, but it wasn't a need. Yeah, they may drop a guy down a little bit if they don't have a need, but it's still a list of their opinion on BPA. Realistically, there are some positions that teams will not draft, especially in the first few rounds. If the BPA when we pick is clearly QB on their board, they shouldn't draft a guy who would be seen as competition for Allen, but at that point, you can trade back a bit to a QB-hungry team and go BPA when your pick comes up again a few spots later. Picking a "developmental" QB, on the other hand, could easily make sense. You're right that no team picks a player that "does not fill a need, as a starter, depth or developmentally." That's because if you throw your net that wide open, every team has a need at every position. If you're throwing in depth or development on top of starters and competition, there are no non-needs. Even if you're thrilled with every single player you have at one position, two or three years down the road you have no idea what will have happened, whether you'll have to let a guy go for contract reasons or injury reasons. You're likely to be thrilled you took a development guy even when you had no need. Every position is a need if you include depth and development wants. That's why BPA matters. It doesn't force you to pick someone you don't want; you can trade to avoid that. But it stops you from reaching for need. And reaching is a very human mistake. That's why they work like dogs bringing in FAs at positions of need to eliminate the hunger for drafting for need.

If you remember that article about Torell Troup's injury, he wasn't a bad draft pick. He's a guy who was showing every sign of being a very good pick until he got injured and was talked into trying to play through it. Far more of a good pick destroyed by an unlucky injury that the team urged him to play through. https://buffalonews.com/2015/11/21/torell-troup-one-pick-ahead-of-gronk/ As for my picks, the usual suspects: Perry Tuttle and at #1 Mike Williams.

No to the first sentence highlighted in red above ... they don't " I see what you mean, and they do fill the gaps in FA, but you say they fill positions they might not be able to address in the draft," as you say. Just the opposite is shown by their tendencies as the article points out. There's a ton of correlation between positions they improved in FA and where they drafted. Beane has said again and again that they fill the holes in FA, so they can avoid reaching during the draft. It's not that if they look at positions in the draft where they want to go and fill the others with FAs. Just the opposite, they fill gaps with FAs going by position so that they won't be forced to look at any position in the draft because they still have major holes. As pointed out in the article, there is a ton of correlation between positions they improved in FA and where they drafted. And no to the second sentence highlighted in red above ... they did indeed trade up significantly (more than the two spots up they traded for Cody Ford, giving up one of their two fifth-rounders) twice in the early rounds, but both of them were in 2018, the year when they had traded away a whole ton of guys to accumulate draft capital to move up to get Josh Allen. They'd agreed to a deal with the Broncos at #5 which would have cost them a lot more of that draft capital till the Broncos backed out. So both of those early tradeups, Allen and Edmunds, came in a year when they'd accumulated a lot of extra picks, including some pretty early ones. This year they've done the opposite, trading away their precious first rounder and leaving themselves only one round They've only made significant early tradeups in a year when they had a ton of trade material. This year they have far fewer high picks than normal, and only one round, the sixth, with more than one pick. And those are the picks they have traded away to move up. If they trade up significantly early, they will be directly breaking their tendencies. And no to the third passage highlighted in red above ... they haven't chosen try hard guys over great athletes as a consistent trend. They've gone both ways. Harrison Phillips, Taron Johnson, Wyatt Teller, Cody Ford, Jaquan Johnson, Darryl Johnson and Tommy Sweeney are all not especially athletic, they're guys who produced well are smart and worked hard. That's a lot of our draftees. At the very least it destroys your narrative that we want better athletes rather than try-hard guys. This FO goes both ways on that issue.

Very logical. Interesting look at the parallels between how he drafted and correlating with what he'd already done at that position during the offseason. Thoughtful and would make a ton of sense. Excellent predictions, it would appear.

First, "SB team minus one position"? Oh, please. That is a wild wild exaggeration. That was slightly above average, probably. A good defense helped out by very fine scheming of a rush to compensate for our lack of really good rushers. And second, it wasn't Whaley who built that "SB team minus one position." Go back and take a look at when they were drafted. Most of the players you're referring to are Nix picks. Unless you're talking about the Rexy teams, which were much more Whaley's but also far from being one player away. Nix was the one GM here who was pretty good during that stretch, though he did poorly with coaches (not entirely his fault as he was choosing when Ralph was ill and the team's future was up in the air and nobody wanted that job at that time), never got a decent QB or much at WR (though Woods was an exception) or OL outside of Wood and Glenn.

Three RBs. Jeez. If there's a position you are going to be good at acquiring, you should be hoping it won't be RB. QB, WR, CB, LT and EDGE. Be good at those. And not one of those guys spent even close to half his career here. Gore was terrific, though not last year. And while QB was our #1 problem it was far from the only one. Bad coaching choices, lack of continuity and mediocre drafting also hurt.

This. As they say, DYAR refers to overall value, and Singletary didn't get all that many touches last year, whereas DVOA refers to value per play. Singletary was quite a bit better there, and that was as a rookie. And you simply don't need a great RB to be a terrific team. KC's best RB last year in DYAR was 29th (McCoy) and at DVOA was 28th (again, McCoy). Damien Williams was a couple of spots behind. Last year's champ, NE, had Sony Michel at #26 as their top-ranked guy at DVOA and #24 at DYAR. In 2017, the champion Eagles best was Ajayi at #27 and #28, putting up 408 yards for Philly in eight games, and that was the year he played on two teams. Philly's #2 guy was Blount at #37 and #36. You simply don't need a great RB, or even a very good one. Singletary, Yeldon and either a late FA (remember, Beane brought in Yeldon himself on April 22nd, three days before the draft in 2018) or mid-rounder in a great draft for mid-round RBs.

That's the way I've always leaned too. We've got an evasive guy, now get a hammer as a change-of-pace, someone like A.J. Dillon. I do think that the people who would rather get a speed back to pair with Singletary have a point, but me, I'd rather get someone like Dillon. Now, it seems that Beane thinks that way a bit too, as shown in his pre-draft interview: "It’s also telling that Beane has expressed confidence in T.J. Yeldon. Skeptics will naturally point to his vote of confidence for LeSean McCoy last year before he was cut, but that was a different situation. Yeldon has no illusion of starting over Singletary and he’s on a modest contract. “ 'We’re very confident in T.J.. I can remember scouting him, coming out and watching him in his years in Jacksonville. He’s a three-down player. He’s smart. He fit us well. The great thing about T.J., he wasn’t up last year because of the way we had things with special teams,' Beane said. 'He’s a guy that we feel can play at any point. Very good out of the pass game. Was probably more of a threat than Frank out of the backfield, but we just felt Frank was that heavier downhill presence than Devin’s style, and that’s not T.J.’s biggest strength. Very confident T.J. can come in. Devin is our No. 1 as it stands and if something happened to him, T.J. has carried the load in Jacksonville and has proven it, so we look forward to bringing him back for Year Two.' "So, the Bills appear satisfied with their veteran back, downplaying the need to find another in free agency or early on in the draft. On Day Three of the draft, though, anything goes at running back. By that point, it’s about finding players who can make the team and contribute down the line. If the Bills can find a complementary runner with more of a downhill flair to his game, like Gore, that would be a great addition in the fourth, fifth or sixth round. If he could help on special teams, that would be even better." https://theathletic.com/1720052/2020/04/02/seven-thoughts-on-the-bills-draft-after-brandon-beanes-press-conference/?source=dailyemail They wanted a "heavier downhill presence." That's interesting. Not conclusive, of course, but indicative. My guesses that we are looking hard at Dillon have taken a tick upwards in probability, methinks.

Ah, people get it. I didn't have to bother answering, this says it all. Thank you.

Yeah, facts do matter. But they only prove what they say. Yeah, he was 23nd in rushing for RBs and 44th in receiving. What does that prove? It proves that in last year's situation, with everything as it was, with that OL and with Frank Gore as his backup ... and as a rookie ... that he was 24th in rushing and 44th in receiving. That's all it proves. You can infer some things, but ... ... you want to ignore the fact that his yards per carry was 4th in the league among RBs with more than 100 carries. That says far more about you and your need to prove we need an upgrade at RB than it does about the facts or your ability to put them in reasonable context. I think people are missing that you are actually no longer talking about improving on Yeldon, but instead trying to say that Singletary isn't good enough. Folks, he's said this several times in this thread. Here's one earlier time, and the one I'm replying to is the most recent. He thinks Singletary just isn't good enough : Implying that we need an upgrade at RB1 is absolutely laughable. Laughable. The FO ... and the fanbase minus pretty much you ... is perfectly happy with Devin Singletary as our RB1. At RB2, Yeldon appears acceptable, but yeah, they could easily want to try to get either an upgrade or competition at RB2. Could we possibly pick up one of the FAs still available or draft someone later on ... maybe even to keep three at RB? Yeah, absolutely. Oh, and by the way, what happened to your contention above that "a Super Bowl team should have a RB in the top 10, if they can." Haven't heard you mention that lately now that I pointed out how Andy Reid must be crying in his beer that sure they won the Lombardi but doing so when their best RB ranked 39th in the league means he just doesn't feel that last year was a success.

Please. Nice straw man. I'm supposed to have said, according to you, that "everything except [my] opinion is horse manure"? Again ... please. I was pointing out one particular argument, your contention that his production meant that Singletary was the 20th best RB in the league and that any Super Bowl team needed a guy in the top ten. I apologize for the "manure" comment. Poorly chosen word. Let me choose a less harsh word, and say instead that it was ridiculous, particularly as you only have to go back about two months to find a Super Bowl team without a single RB with production in the top 23, much less the top ten. And again, the winning team's most successful RB was ranked #39 by production. I am saying specifically - and I'll repeat since it seems to be necessary - that thinking that you can judge how good an RB is by looking only at how many yards he put up last year is nonsense, as it would mean Saquon Barkley would be the 16th best in the league and that Melvin Gordon would be the 32nd best. Which again, is on the face of it absolutely unreasonable. But if you want to argue now - switching yet again the ground of your argument - that Singletary sucks, hey, go to it. Doesn't make any sense to me, but ... whatever. You go, boy. Further, if we need an upgrade in the RB passing game, first maybe we could throw it more to Singletary and have him work on his skills, and second, as it happens, Yeldon has proven himself a fine pass catcher. Or we could bring in an FA like Lamar Miller or Ty Montgomery. Or draft Zack Moss or Eno Benjamin, to pick two of several with some pass catching success.

Again, simply not true. Right now, our #4 WR is probably McKenzie. To say that he is pretty close to any of our top three is utterly ridiculous. Yes, you're right that "there are a few positions where there are not enough high calibre players in the league to allow a similarly skilled backup." Yes, you're dead on about that. A quick rundown of the positions where that is true are these: QB, RB, OT, OG, C, TE, WR, DT, DE, LB, S and CB. In fact, if I missed any, you can throw those in too. As I pointed out earlier: And as for the idea that yards last year shows how good you are ... ridiculous on the face of it. If you could measure how good an RB is exactly by his production last year, then Melvin Gordon is the 32nd best RB in the league, and Saquon Barkley is the 16th best. The idea's ridiculous. The FO last year had a spectacular man crush on Frank Gore and as such weren't interested in putting our #3 out there much. But the few times when he got out there, Yeldon did a pretty good job. You may not like him, but the Bills do. And again, that #20 thing is utter horse manure, as can be seen by checking the production of KC and SF's backs last year. What we need is a guy who can do a good solid job. They appear to think that Yeldon is that guy. Though again, it's very very possible that they'll bring in another RB in FA or later in the draft.

Nonsense in every single way. First, there's no particular reason an SB team should have an RB in the top ten other than because you, some guy on the internet says so. Singletary is #24. San Francisco's highest-ranked RB was Mostert, at #25 and KC's was Damien Williams at #39. I somehow doubt that KC is telling themselves that last year was a failure for them because even though they took home the Lombardi their best RB was only #39.

While that's certainly true, it's also true at most positions on the team. If any of our starters pulls a hammy or gets a high ankle sprain, the level goes down. If Allen goes down? Diggs? John Brown? Beasley? Will we lose something when maybe McKenzie, Duke or Foster steps in? Any OT? Oliver? Edmunds? Milano? Feliciano? Poyer or Hyde? White? Knox? I'm not really including the positions where we have platoons, but it's just as true there. The platoon guy steps in and is decent and capable but then who platoons him? We have more solid depth than we've had in a long time, but nearly any starter being hurt will cause problems. Same with most team and positions in the league, really. Again, I expect another RB will be brought in but I greatly doubt it's in the 2nd, or at least not unless Swift or Taylor somehow fall a long way or something like that.

I don't think it's absolute. Fans here don't, but it's clear that the FO really likes Yeldon. Having said that, I think they get another RB, whether it's in the draft or FA. To me, less of an absolute need and more of a position that could definitely use an upgrade and more depth.

Makes sense, though I know very very little about Simpson and nothing about Heck. I like the other three picks, though, and think that if Duggar is still available he's one of the most likely options. Joe has them trading up to get him. I doubt they trade up as far as he guesses, but it doesn't seem impossible. I doubt he wants to give up his third, even if he gets a 4th in exchange, myself. We'll see.

Yes. Exactly this. Thank you.

We're agreed, then. Although I could see getting an RB in either FA or the draft if we do get another.

Well since this is predicted to be the best and richest WR class, if they bust at about the same rate they always do, it will still be the best WR class in history. Which is a reasonable prediction at this point. Seems like a pretty good chance we'll grab a WR and an RB at some point. The difference being WR at #2 seems like one reasonable possibility.

Please. This is not hate. Beyond a few trolls, hate for Allen doesn't exist here. Just because it's less than unconditional belief and faith absolutely does not mean it's hate.