st pete gogolak

The general consensus before the draft is that the Bills wouldn’t be one player or a handful of plays away from a Super Bowl because of the loss of Diggs, Davis, Morse, White, Poyer and Hyde. I think a lot of folks are forgetting that fact. Maybe that was Beane’s thinking in accumulating some extra picks instead of going all in and overpaying for a blue chip WR.

Sorry, no. Great player in his time but that time is gone. The ex I’d take back? Risto. Veteran RHD with a physical presence and a mean streak.

So Matt Miller of ESPN says that 31 of his top 100 prospects for upcoming draft are defensive lineman. Have no idea whether he’s correct or wildly mistaken. Assuming the Bills’ brain trust agrees, shouldn’t that dictate how the Bills approach not only the draft but free agency as well? We are close to set on offense. So little in the way of needs. If we trade Knox or Kincaid, we’re still pretty much set at TE. If we can’t sign Ty Johnson, we draft a RB in the 4th or 5th round. Only real difficult question is if we don’t sign Cooper and/or Hollins. At that point we should dip into FA for a vet boundary WR (Hollywood Brown?). Add a speedster in the mid-rounds. Assuming we can’t pull off a mega-trade for Garrett or Crosby, we should target a top end CB (DJ Reed?) in FA and use our #1 and 2 #2’s on D-line. Add mid round safety and call it a day.

I’ve been saying, with 20/20 hindsight, we should have moved up to grab BTJ before JAX picked him. Then I went back and looked at first round selections. Go ahead and tell me who would dealt with us. Rams? They picked Verse. Eagles? They picked Mitchell. Steelers? Maybe. Looking at it again, we probably would have had to offer a significant overpay (#1 plus 2025 #1?) to move up enough to grab him.

Great news. No reason to even waste a late round draft pick on OL. We are good to go!

Given limited amount to spend on FA, I’d rank position of need as DE, CB, DT, WR and S. Move Taron to FS (because we’re going to a base 4 - 3!). Add Bishop, Rapp and a mid round draft choice and we are good to go.

My God, I’m on this forum too much. This is sarcasm, right?

You really want to know what has cost us MULTIPLE Super Bowls? The 2019 draft. Instead of Oliver, pick Wilkins, Simmons or Lawrence and we have a game wrecker in the middle of the D Line. Instead of Cody Ford, pick AJ Brown or Metcalf and we have quality boundary WR. (As an added bonus, maybe next year we don’t trade for Diggs, we pick Jefferson or Higgins.). Of course, it’s all 20/20 hindsight but if it had turned out this way, tell me we wouldn’t have a championship or two.

Isn’t Rousseau better against the run? To me, he’s a perfect complementary DE with a high level pass rusher on the other side. On the other hand, $25 million? Not going there.

Either Kincaid or Knox. If we aren’t going to play a two TE offense (we’re clearly not), it’s dumb to have both of them on the roster.

I’m pessimistic that we end up with either Garrett or Crosby (for starters, they’re not free agents and if they end up on the market, other teams could very well be positioned to make Cleveland or Las Vegas much better offers). On the other hand, Josh Sweat and Milton Williams are free agents. I could live with a front four of Sweat, Williams, Oliver and Rousseau and concentrate draft capital on the back end. I could live with that even without adding a quality boundary WR. Thoughts?

The play wasn’t to draft Worthy. The play was to move up and pick Brian Thomas Jr.

I have nothing bad to say about him as a person. From all accounts, he was a genuinely good human being. As a coach, however, I absolutely hated the hiring from day one. Does anyone remember the formula for continuous 7 - 9 seasons? Great special teams play and play ultra conservative football to beat bad teams. One year during his reign, we were near the absolute bottom in both offense and defense (30th and 30th if I recall). Yet the team was, yep you guessed it, 7 - 9. I suppose you could call that great coaching. I’m not sure what it was.

Oh come on. You’re seriously calling that a good hire. If you are, I’ll give you two more words. Buffalo. Sabres.

Two words. Rex. Ryan.

I skipped my fantasy league this year. I’m kind of glad I did because the one guy I was going to target was Kincaid. I agree with the earlier comment: did he forget how to catch the ball. Catch ratio dropped from over 80% his rookie year to 56% this year. That’s absurd. He was sure handed in college and rock solid as a rookie. Then this? Plus, I was sure Bills would play a ton of two TE sets. They didn’t. Made no sense. Why extend Knox and then draft Kincaid in the first round unless both are going to be on the field. Too bad Browns and Raiders are both set at TE. I think Kincaid has real value but I would gladly throw him in a deal that gets us Garrett or Crosby.

They’re missing an Allen.

Would you have preferred Jayden Daniel’s or Bo Nix?

I agree that we don't have to do a lot on the offensive side of the ball this offseason. Sign Johnson and Hollins. Can you get a reasonable two year deal for Amari? I'd be ok with that. A healthy Cooper and Samuel should be sufficient for next year. I don't get the red-hot hate for Coleman on this thread. In hindsight, trading up for Brian Thomas Jr. (if that was possible) would have been ideal (giving up the #2 we used on Bishop but saving the #3 we used for Cooper) or drafting McConkey. But still, before the injury almost everyone was very high on Coleman. Post-injury was a disaster. I do agree that he is best suited for a big slot role and we appear to have an overabundance of slot receivers. Not sure how that is rectified.

And we passed on Jackson . . . to pick a receiver!

Yes, exactly!!! You couldn’t just kick it to the end zone, give them the ball on the 25, and play Charmin soft defense with 15 - 29 yard cushions. They would have trotted Butker out to try a 60 yarder and he would have had a decent chance to make it (he did the following year under similar circumstances). That means that they needed 32 yards in two plays with the whole field in play. Hardly insurmountable. Instead they went all the way to the 32. Even if we were up by four, they would have had a shot at the end zone without a Hail Mary. Face it. They were petrified of Hill and it looked like they were playing for a tie.

Bit off-topic but speaking of Dawson Knox, did we scout him before we drafted him? Just saying because two of his college teammates drafted the same year were AJ Brown and DJ Metcalf. Did any of our scouts say, “hey, these two other guys are pretty good. Maybe we should draft one if they are available in the second round.”

Please. They aren’t losing the equivalent of Diggs, Davis, Morse, White, Hyde and Poyer this offseason. Next year’s schedule is fairly favorable (hardest games are at home), they are bringing a record setting offense back pretty much intact (including the OC), they have specific needs on defense (DL and DB’s), at least some space under the cap (which was not true last season) and a ton of draft picks, including three in the first two rounds. Next year’s team will be better than this year’s team. Whether that translates to a better finish we’ll have to wait and see.

Your analysis of the four SB’s is spot on. Agree 100%. Realistically, how could you fire a HC that has taken his team to four straight SB’s. PR nightmare. On the other hand, they fired a GM who had put together a team that had made three straight SB’s. Even though Washington and Dallas had stronger teams, our performance in those three games was pathetic. Eleven (11!) turnovers in one game! Just thought after the four that Levy would never win a Super Bowl with the Bills.

Spots have been crappy all year long. One of literally a thousand examples. Week before against Ravens near the end of the game. Josh is tackled at the one. For some reason unbeknownst to anyone, it’s spotted at the two. If it was spotted at the one, maybe tush push TD and no late game theatrics and no onside kick and no Benford concusssion.