billsfan89

I think that there clearly wasn't any offers for Washington or else they would have taken even a 7th for him. That being said I think he more than likely makes the roster as the 4th DT. I don't see a 4th DT on the roster that will push Washington out of a job. Kyle, Star and Phillips are locks to make the roster, that leaves Washington with the 4th spot as his to lose.

Cooks is a better deep threat decoy than Watkins, I originally thought Watkins could be a more complete player than he is. But he seems to be a more of a DeSean Jackson type big-play threat than a complete all-around threat like Antonio Brown (Which was the type of player he was drafted be.) That's not to say a DeSean Jackson type isn't valuable in the NFL but Sammy was expected to be much more than that, Sammy is still young so he might develop more into that kind of player but 4 years in he just hasn't. Anyway I think that The Rams had too much invested in that "Deep Threat" receiver position to let Cooks walk after the season (EJ Gaines, pick 56, pick 23 and a 6th round pick for one year of Sammy, a pair of 6th round picks and Cooks.) That's a lot of draft capital and a solid defensive player invested for it to just result in 2 seasons of WR play. Cooks is young too so locking in a 25-year-old receiver to a long-term deal makes sense (esp since they need that pop the cap of the defense type player to make Gurley and Goff's abilities work better.

Shady is a modern day back, he catches pass and works great in space. Having that player on any type of offense is a positive.

Considering how bad the talent is on the offensive line and at receiver, I am not shocked a lot of pundits are predicting the Bills to be in the 5-6 win range. The defense should be good enough to scratch out a few wins but the QB situation is bad and there are a lot of other areas of concern on the offense.

If you want to say that the Bills thought Rosen had too significant a concussion issue for them to draft him then I think your argument could hold weight if the chatter about concussions is true. However, Rosen coming from an extremely wealthy family has nothing to do with anything regarding him as a football player. Josh Allen coming from a more modest background doesn't mean that he loves the game anymore or less. If Allen were to collect a massive 10 figure contract 8+ years into his career then he is set for life and just as likely to retire as any other QB.

I wouldn't mind Lacy because he is young and recently productive (5.1 YPC in 5 games in 2016 before getting hurt) and Lacy is still only 27/28 with some injury history but not a major one. I think there exist better options but Lacy has some sort of chance to be productive.

With Murray retired I have no idea why Alfred Morris is a free agent unless he is commanding a higher asking price. I much rather have Morris than Chris Ivory, Morris had a 4.8 ypc in 2017 as a backup for the Cowboys, granted the Cowboys O-line is pretty solid and may inflate production but 4.8 ypc is good no matter what. Morris is also 29 and will be 30 by the end of year so age isn't a big factor.

I thought he could have had one more productive season. His 2016 with the Titans was a strong season, he fell off a lot in 2017 and being banged up a bit didn't help. I thought maybe at age 30 with only 7 years and well under 2,000 carries he could be worth kicking the tires on.

I love the Vonta signing, seems like the perfect type of player to take a chance on, not too old, recently productive but banged up a bit in recent years so his price came down. Overall I think it is very high reward low risk. I still think it would have been good to also sign EJ Gaines, esp considering the price he signed for in Cleveland. I am not too confident in the nickel spot and Gaines played so well in the system, I much rather the Bills not signed Ivory (There were cheaper backs of similar quality available) and maybe cut some other fat on the roster to sign Gaines and Vonta. I think Gaines/Vonta/White could have made for an amazing CB combo with Hyde and Proyer on the back end crushing it. That secondary could be among the best in the league and with an average front 7 could form a top 10 or better defense. Also even if Gaines or Vonta were to get hurt or have a down year the other one could be solid and they could maybe find a young player to be the nickel. It just seemed odd that a front office that traded for Gaines let him go on such a modest deal.

I wouldn't mind kicking the tires, I thought he showed some flashes in San Diego back in 2014 but he got hurt and never got back on track. Only 27 certainly someone that can provide competition.

McD has only been here for 1 year, granted that was one hell of a year but the results are limited. Tons of coaches who had fantastic opening years but then went on to not have a good long-term tenure. Now I like most of the moves on paper this regime has made. But 2018 might be a rough 6-10 type year and 2019 this new regime might be on a shorter leash.

That's what makes football analytics so much harder than Baseball and even Basketball analytics. There are 11 players on the field vs. another 11 players, that's 22 moving parts some players with specialized roles and assignments that are hard to account for unless you are the coach that knows the assignment and role on that given play. Star might not grade out well because a lot of what he does is within the context of occupying players and holding the line of scrimmage. That could be a valuable utility that might not show up on how they grade metrics (If you aren't getting past the line of scrimmage that is a neutral to negative grade.) The success or failure of the Star signing is something that will be determined by how good or bad the run defense is.

Murray was pretty productive in 2016 and is only 30. Adrian Peterson's last productive season was in 2015 and he is 33. Murray despite being 30 has only been in the league 7 years and has nearly 1000 fewer carries. I think Murray stands a chance at having 1 more decent season left in the tank (Not a very good chance but a chance) while AP is just flat out cooked and a possible locker room issue.

Cordy Glenn a very good Left Tackle, pick 21, pick 53 and pick 56 may not be the farm but that's a lot to give up. If Allen is a bust that decision may prove to be hard to come back from since it would be sinking not only a lot of draft capital and a good (Although injured in recent seasons) veteran player into drafting Allen but you could see him start 2-3 seasons and play poorly at the one position that could sink a season. I just don't see Beane coming back from Allen being a bust.

This team is a year away from winning the division. The dead cap money and trade-ups for Allen and Edumonds compromised the ability to put resources into certain areas of the roster (O-Line and WR in particular.) That's not to say that those weren't good long-term moves but rather that the team competing in 2018 on that level (winning the division) isn't likely because of those factors.

A GM is heavily tied to his team's performance (obviously) and the QB decisions heavily impact how well a team does. So if Allen is a bust and Beane doesn't find a good QB (Which if Allen is a bust will be unlikely) then, of course, the team won't sustain success and then a regime change will happen. There have been a ton of GM's who have made "Good at the time" decisions and they just didn't pan out for various reasons (some in their control other not) and then they eventually get canned. Trading up for a QB was the right move, the positioning to acquire assets and clear cap space were the right decisions. But if the QB you pick can't cut it then in a results-driven industry it won't matter if the moves were "right at the time." Results are the only thing that count.

Funny video, loved when that one player realized he never returned kicks.

My point overall was that looking at the numbers neither Sammy nor Woods were dramatically better in 2017 than they were in 2018. These weren't stud receivers in 2017 who sucked in 2016. Goodwin was the only receiver that flourished in 2017 that didn't have a good year in 2016 and considering that Goodwin was hurt in 2016 that might explain that somewhat.

Tyrod looked like a franchise QB in 2015 because the Bills had not seen competent QB play throughout an entire season for a long time (At best you could say Bledsoe and Fitz had a good half season each.) You also could have projected Tyrod to get better after just one year of starting. But that development never occured. We saw Tyrod's flaws in 2016 and 2017 at points but an NFL team throwing Tyrod out there as a starter has a solid shot of winning if the talent around him is pretty solid. The Browns needed to settle down their QB situation and not force their number 1 pick into action right away. Tyrod buys them a year of development time, he should look as good as he did in with the Bills. I liked the deal for both sides. The Bills got good draft capital to move on and the Browns bought themselves a year at QB.

Tyrod really grounded Robert Woods into mush in 2016 when Woods played in 13 games and caught 76 receptions for 613 yards, compared to 2017 when he was healthy for 17 full games and caught 85 receptions for 781 yards. In 3 more games he caught 9 more receptions and 168 more yards not exactly a lot more production for 3 more games played (A slight uptick at best.) The only thing that went dramatically up were TD's. If Woods was ruined by Tyrod in 2016 how did Woods get a massive contract from LA? The supporting cast for Tyrod skill position wise in 2016 was compromised by Sammy missing half the season and coming back from injury. Losing your #1 receiver hurts big time as it trickles down to the rest of the offense and it didn't help that Woods got hurt late in the year missing 3 games. Sammy was on IR with a serious foot injury in 2016 and only played 8 total games where he still put up 28 receptions for 430 yards compared to the 15 games he played in 2017 where he only put up 39 receptions for 593 yards, the only thing that dramatically went up were TD's. The only 2016 receiver you could truly saw flourished without Tyrod was Goodwin. But even Goodwin was a bit banged up in 2016 but he certainly crushed it in SF in 2017. I am not saying that Tyrod didn't have any receivers in 2016 but losing Sammy and some of the other players being banged up didn't make for a top-flight core. In 2017 they lost a lot of talent due to injury (Matthews and Benjamin) and Zay Jones was not as effective as a 2nd round pick should have been. I guess my point was that factoring in Sammy's injury I would say that the skill position corps was slightly below average in 2016 and dreadful in 2017. I am OK with the team moving on from Tyrod (Although I think short term we will miss him) but I just think there has to be an honest assessment of his time here.

Character issues make this an unlikely but certainly not impossible scenario. I don't see Beane offering up a 2nd but a 3rd might be in the cards. Locking down the position after Vonta and possibly nailing down the nickel position for the value of a 3rd round pick in next years draft is a pretty good deal but once again low character guys just don't fit the process.

They took a rookie in round 5 this year, that's not a major investment of draft capital in the position. But the Bills did invest a late 2nd in Dawkins last year which was a significant investment. Doing two trade ups in the first round (one for a QB which is always going to cost you more and eating a lot of dead cap was always going to compromise the roster in some areas. Our O-line and WR corps, in particular, were not able to be addressed due to having cleared out 3 of our 2nd and 3rd round picks to trade up for Allen and Edumonds. The D-line was where most of the team's limited free agency dollars went as well. To get your QB and add a premier young piece to the defense along with getting out of the cap sins of the past came at a cost of possibly handicapping the 2018 season. That might prove to be a worthy sacrifice as the team should have enough cap space come next season (69+ million with the ability to easily get that number up to 96 million. Or 91 million if you don't cut shady which is a more realistic number) without likely losing anything of value, a lot of the bigger contracts on the roster like Hughes, Clay, and even Shady if he dramatically falls off become a lot easier to cut with limited dead cap. Toss in another draft class and you could see the Bills really take that step up and fill some gaps and make the roster more complete.

I get why they traded Dareus but it was no coincidence that once he was traded the run defense fell off a cliff. It almost sabotaged the defense on the season but longer-term shedding that salary and getting him out of the culture might be worth it. Ragland was not a fit for the system that McD wanted to run. Ragland was a thumper in a 3-4 system, I don't think he would have been bad in a 4-3 but he might have been an early down run player who would be a terrible liability on passing down. Grabbing a 4th for him seemed like a good deal for both sides.

Benjamin in my mind is an injury prone high end number 2. Kerley is decent but not that great, Clay is good when healthy but hurt a lot and ineffective when he is banged up and Zay, Holmes and the rest are really unproven players. There really isn't that much to be optimistic about.

The context of that statement is that the original poster knocked the player Tyrod Taylor currently is (A player 7 years removed from being drafted) by where he was drafted. Is Antonio Brown a **** player because he was a 6th round pick? No of course not. Evaluating a player 1-3 years into their career their draft stock might be a factor worth considering but once a player gets deep into their career their pro resume speaks for its self. So if you want to critique Tyrod because of his 3 years of starting fine but to say someone sucks because they were a late round pick is just silly.