JESSEFEFFER

Prime trade down candidates would be the NFC East teams, Atl or Det. Dallas and Detroit have end of 3rd comp picks which would make dealing some their others easier to do. I favor this because this draft is described as lacking on elite talent (less likely to fall to 30) but with good tier 2 depth. Trading down to get more top 100 picks and recover one in the 4th round makes sense to me and it might make sense to Brandon Beane when the Bills are on the clock. Package later round picks as needed to balance it out. True, BB has never made this kind of move before but he's never had the roster of a 15 and 4 team drafting at the bottom of the first round before.

Too many candidates splitting the votes? I read somewhere that according to Scouts, 18 or 19 of the top 100 are CBs and only 9 are Edge. That sort of tips the balance in terms of how the order of acquisition might best occur.

Read the Warren Sharpe piece on the Bills draft needs (nicely done) and he mentioned a website called Grinding the Mocks, which is a compilation of published mock drafts from many sources. The idea is that the "wisdom of the masses" might be of some predictive value. I had not heard of the site and the search I did here came up with nothing. Here's a link and here is a snip for the Bills using data complied from "media mocks" over the last 30 days. Grinding the Mocks

Considering what Josh has done vs. the Dolphins in his career, their fans should speak his name with hushed tones.

Last year QBDataMine put out a video compilation to justify their rating of Josh as having the worst accuracy. I started a thread on it because of the 20 or so throws, 7 to 9 of them were balls that were tipped or his arm was hit prior to release. I thought it was sloppy work and/or spoke of some sort of agenda. Some then brought up Cian Fahey as the source of it and labeled him "the worst." So, these "dropped interceptions" seem unsurprisingly consistent with his reputation.

Best to get CB2, whichever one that is.

His career road split is significantly better than at home. Some might say Josh is too amped up when playing at home and I would say it's more the result of playing more extra windy games in an open air stadium in a Great Lakes city but it shows the opposite of what's needed to support a view that Josh can't function during road crowd noise.

I would take the same circumstances and say that the Bills have their difference makers and are in the midst of extending them into second contracts. Now is the time to flood the roster with younger, cheaper talent on their rookie deals. I think this draft is more about its effect on the 2022 and 2023 team than the 2021 team. Just because Beane has not used this draft move in previous years, there may a shift in focus from trading up for blue chip talent to trading down at the top of the draft and trading up from the bottom of the draft to get more of their picks from the top 100 or 150 to refortify the roster every year. This may become part of their envisioned process to sustain success.

I was suggesting getting 4 in the top 100 and another in the 110 to 140 range via a trade down and some of the lower picks. That doesn't match your statement.

Joe Marino's Locked on Bills Podcast is the best resource for all things Bills at all times of the year and the ramp up to the draft is where he really shines. He has been able to show that his draft evaluations of the Bills picks have often lined up with where the Bills actually took them.

One bias that tends to exist in the mock drafts done in the TBD bubble is our members tend to take players that we have collectively liked/hoped for the Bills to draft. One or more of the edge defenders or CBs off the board in this mock is likely to still be there at 30 when the real thing goes down, imo.

Maybe another pick in the top 100 and a chance to fill in the 93 to 161 gap that lacking a 4th round pick creates. I can't see the Bills war room sitting on their collective butts and 67 players are taken while they watch without a chance to snag one of the guys they targeted.

Elijah Moore, slot candidate to replace Beasley when the time comes and a better version of a gadget guy / KR than McKenzie, maybe. They better have a better plan for KR than just Isaiah. Honestly, this draft board screams trade down, imo.

Players who are hurt/injured are in a tough spot. It's a risk to their careers to not be on the field at every chance and it's a risk to their careers to play poorly when they are out there. Get back on the field too soom and struggle and the entire NFL world will see it. I remember Andre Reed playing out his contract hoping for one last payday (probably for a Florida team) and he got a severe hamstring injury, missed some games and played poorly when he came back. He ended up re-signing with the Bills on a cheaper deal. From the linked story, it sounds like the play that injured him was a horse collar tackle. Andre Reed Injury

He was upset when a false positive caused him to miss a practice last August. I can't imagine he'd risk losing a actual game to COVID.

Moss was better as a pass catcher and blocker. That alone means he gets more snaps, imo. He also got the Gore role of short yardage/goal line and closing games out. The Bills seemed much more successful throwing the ball out of heavy formations than running but I like the tandem and whatever role Breida carves out is ok with me. Both averaged over 4 ypc and much like the reported death of Mark Twain, I think Moss and Singletary's shortcomings have been greatly exaggerated. That is my big takeaway from Erik's breakdown. I loved those clips of Moss stepping into the gap, sticking the blitzer and anchoring. One moment I fear is a RB cutting an oncoming blitzer who then tumbles into Josh's plant leg with his full weight upon it. Yikes!

The only solid opinion I have about Jimmy Garoppolo is that his female doppelganger is QB1.

Chris Simms put him in his top 5. He does not understand why there is not more talk about him but said there were other people in the scouting world that liked him too. So, where is he available? Maybe he's a similar draft value to Gabriel Davis. I like the idea of a trade down that gets them 5 in the first three rounds. It's easier to get good prospects at WR, CB, DE, OT and S or IDL that can make the roster and contribute over the next 4 years after Josh gets his megadeal. Chris Simms' Top 6 2021 Draft WRs

To expand somewhat on this, he has the Bills roster at 6, behind TB, Cle. GB, Dal and Sea. I think he has the Bills too low at RB, OL, DL but these do match much of the consensus thinking about the Bills predraft needs. Cle at #2 is original but I am way too tired of the constant love for all things Cowboys.

He does call it crazy early which makes it self aware but still interesting. I made a post last year about his predraft unit grades which I thought was interesting as well. His assessment was comprehensive, meaningful in terms of draft needs and obviously wrong in terms of the state of the 2020 Bills roster. He had them at ~23 and was way too down on Josh. This does have a Fantasy Football intent as that is his niche as a writer but I think the strength of roster units, version March of 2021, that his strength of schedules are based upon, is the more discussion worthy content. Here is his tweet about the remaining free agents combined with his strength of team units. Mike Clays RFAs and Strength of Team Rosters

When OJ hit 2000, that was Rick on the play by play call and not Van Miller. I am unclear as to why but it's one of his biggest moments in Buffalo sports history.

The Bills lack a physically dominant WR like Evans or Metcalfe. I think that the Bills tendency to use multiple TE sets near the goal line is their answer to that. At all the other parts of the field they are tough to defend and may be the "best."

The gamelog has it as 2nd and 10 at the 20. The highlight shows the first down marker as just shy of the 10. So, the ball was technically not "in" the RZ but who knows what counts as official by NFL standards. I always thought that the RZ was "inside" the 20, cross the 20 and the play by play announcer would say the Bills have entered the "Whoever has paid us" RZ (for ex. Murphy would say Hunt Real Estate?) But it's a classic example of splitting hairs, I suppose. The Chiefs website video claims it was but the overly analytical, too technical, chem nerd part of me wants to take issue with it. Josh intercepted in AFC Championship game. Sorry, you were on top of this before I posted. I agree, not "in" the RZ.

In 2017 he had 21 punt returns, 3 KO returns and 3 passes caught. Those possessions accounted for 6 fumbles. I think they might have all been on the punt returns.