Hapless Bills Fan

I thought you were harsh so I actually looked it up. 2014, rookie year, was the only time this guy has played a 16 game season. Wow.

I mean, it would be great if he could "coffin corner" a punt repeatedly, but that's not where he was last season.

His agent is Tom Condon. Yes, he's with CAA SPORTS, the sports arm of CAA. They're a regular sports agent group, not "Hollywood folk" or "Hollywood sharks". And no, team chemistry isn't their thing, but they understand salary cap - they have to, to fairly represent NFL clients.

That'd have to be Some Candy Like this, only more so, plus this

FIFY. In all seriousness, not a situation that is going to arise. The Bills will pick up Josh's 5th year option. The Bills will negotiate with his agents this summer, and as Beane said, if both sides aren't comfortable they will revisit. PS hope your boy makes the fullest use of preseason this year, 'cuz be nice if he could be the backup in 2022

How so?

I'm not dissatisfied with the Bills move signing Haack as our punter. Careerwise, he's got an average that's 0.3 yds/punt less than Bojo. He's been more consistent year to year. He also pins the other team inside the 20 more often vs. punting touchbacks. I still see Bojo as a "statistically, the other team's starting position is bad" kind of guy who booms them but also squibs them - inconsistent. Then there's the "flake factor" - "Laces Out, Bojo!" and the fake punt that wasn't, or whatever that was. But, it is surprising to me that Bojorquez is still unsigned as a FA. He did lead the league in yds/punt this past year.

And apparently we're not done...

How many of these guys they planning to sign? This guy has the best KR resume of the bunch - a couple years of 25/26 yds/ret kickoff returns for Hou and GB

According to Lattimore's attorney, it's a misunderstanding, nothing to see here: https://saintswire.usatoday.com/2021/03/26/saints-marshon-lattimore-arrest-attorney-statement/

FWIW, Powell had not that dissimilar punt return stats to Andre Roberts last two years..... -Roberts 29 returns for 286 yds, 9.9 yds/return (up from 8.0 yds/return 2019) -Powell 17 returns for 152 yds, 8.9 yds/return (did not play in 2019) Kick returns he's more similar to McKenzie, averaged 20.2 yds/return Competition at every position, "nothing is given, everything is earned" I'd say. Negative, Andre Roberts signed as FA from the Jets. So competition for KR/PR could theoretically include McKenzie, C.Wade, Breida, and Powell. Bills might need to bring in another kicker and punter to keep Bass and Haack from wearing their legs out LOL

Yeah, I think we discussed before. It's my understanding the NFL requires a team to keep aside a "rookie cap" that is enough to sign the rookies at their draft slot, but which is far less than the total value of the rookie contracts. So for the Bills it's a number somewhere between $2.24M (estimate from Greg of Cover1) - $1.5M (estimate someone came up with on this site, and supported with numbers). But I can't find clear instruction on whether that's required to be kept aside from the League New Year, or just as of the draft (I don't think it's allowed to use it up between draft and signing, that potentially wouldn't be fair to a draftee)

Just a note that as of right now, Spotrac does not correctly reflect: 1) Sanders reported void year, which reduces his cap hit by 1.375M this season 2) Matakevich reported extension, which clears $0.75M of cap space this season 3) There are a number of roster bonuses that were due and could have been renegotiated as signing bonuses and amortized but not yet reflected on Spotrac. Klein, in particular, is signed through 2022 and was due $1.8M, so the Bills could have saved $0.9M by converting that to signing bonus, especially given their penchant for retaining vet leadership in each room and his reputation as "Coach Klein". So, prior to Tre's restructure, we were reported as being something like $3M over the cap, while at least $2M of moves to reduce that weren't being captured. There could easily have been another $1M reduction somewhere without Tre's restructure. Spotrac currently doesn't currently include Efe Obada (reported as "up to" $2.2M), Matt Breida ($990 for a 5 year player), or Isaiah McKenzie ($1.15M) moves. All 3 of them will push a guy making $0.815-0.82M down the roster, meaning they will cost the bills all together no more than $1.89 in cap. Altogether even adding these guys in, we have at least $4.4M cap space currently, so enough to sign rookies and make a couple of other lower-cost moves without restructuring anyone else. I could be wrong, but I would expect the Bills would try to get Allen's contract set before they work on Diggs, and I would expect Diggs would be OK with that.

The Dolphins got him off the 49ers for what, a 5th round pick? Usually a guy who got swapped for a 5th round pick, isn't a guy who goes out of price range.

We see them on TV next to other big guys and we don't realize how huge they are next to normal people.

I could be wrong, but I don't see Feliciano as having that RG spot locked down. Maybe I'm mis-reading between the lines, but sometimes I think the player's post-signing presser reflects a bit of what was discussed about how the team sees him. Jon emphasized that he wanted to win, he wanted to be in Buffalo, and he'll do whatever the team needs him to do. Or maybe I'm off-base and it reflects my personal assessment that if we intend to run the ball, we need to improve our interior OL play Big Time and it's hard to see how we do that while keeping the lineup the same. I'm also not persuaded that Ford is the answer, though if I were a defensive player, I'd play very, very clean towards Josh with both Ford and Mongo in there.

I hearby appoint you as Official Thread Guardian. Don't sleep, watch over it, and immediately alert the mods to anything out of bounds. Don't Sleep.

Dawkins and Morse sounded pretty impressed with him. "You say Boettger, I say 'Stallion' " "He's been a comfort to Mitch as far as protections there" Since the Bills benched Spain to give Ford a shot at LG, I think they view Ford as legit LG competition as well. So Bates would be #3. Whereas on the R side right now, it's Mongo and *crickets* competing, right? And if the Bills are serious about improving the run game, they have to see that sometimes Jon was the problem there. One of the points made by Feliciano in his post-signing media availability was that he feels he can play anywhere on the line - not just any interior position, anywhere. I thought that was interesting and could possibly provide a clue to how the Bills view their OL competition. OTOH, just 'cuz Mongo sees that as within his skill set, doesn't mean the Bills agree. But I looked it up and his arms aren't any shorter than Bates arms. 🤷‍♂️ Why do you see him as a better LG than RG, just curious?

Boettger says "Hi!" If Bates wants to target a starting role, go for RG IMHO.

This from the article caught my eye: Dawkins is listed at 6'5" 320 Williams as 6'6" 330 Wild to me that 1" and 15-20 lbs would make a guy "undersized"

What he said is also my understanding. Last year when he was doing a bunch of upgrades IIRC Scott solicited a bunch of feedback on the cutoff levels. You can get paid double my salary.

I see your point, and he may well have been part of some scouting or convo earlier that spring. My point is I don't think having previously scouted the guy on film etc. would form a particular connection. I'm sure he's scouted many guys since. I think the connection is that McDermott is highly motivated to find players who "buy in" to his defensive system. That was apparently some of the strongest feedback he got after he was fired from Philly. I think it's significant that players like Tre' White and Micah Hyde talked about everyone being "bought in" before the AFC Championship game, with the implication maybe they weren't in Week 6. One way to assure that is to focus on guys where someone on the team has deeper knowledge - and in this case, having Carolina's DL coach and two former Carolina DL players able to give "scouting reports" is probably very significant. Personally, I'm a little "twitchy" about ultimate success in a system where it's evidently a regular and significant struggle to get the front 7 to "buy in", to the extent that perhaps sometimes this concern even supercedes going after the absolute best, most physically gifted players. I keep thinking of Wade Phillips commenting to the effect that "if you can't fit a talented guy into your system, maybe your system needs to change".

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/31129410/new-england-patriots-justin-herron-hailed-hero-police-helping-stop-sexual-assault In this specific instance, I have no trouble saying something good about a NE Patriot player: "Well done, Justin Herron!" Then there's this: 11 am on a sunny day in an open field? Yikes.

He may have done, though I don't think scouting potential low-end roster additions was his primary Carolina role. And how is scouting a guy on film in Carolina different from scouting a guy on film in Buffalo? Then why did you say "If they were there when Beane was he obviously knows and likes them"? There's no "if they were there" in this case and several others.

I'm just curious how you reach this conclusion? No one saw preseason. No one saw practices. No one sees the meetings and how much of the playbook a guy has mastered or no. But yet (not to pick on you, you're not alone) fans speak with such absolute certainty they know more than the coaches: "clearly a much better option than Singletary". It just puzzles me. Maybe in practice, Yeldon couldn't block worth kittens. Maybe he struggled to pick up the playbook. Maybe he fell asleep in meetings. We just don't know. I think he has the decimal in the wrong place. Breida ran a reported 4.38 40 at his "Georgia Southern" pro day.