billsfan89

Cook is an obvious choice on the offensive side of the ball. I also think Shakir might have a mini-breakout. I think people are overreacting to one pre-season drop, he had a solid game otherwise and I think will show up to be a reliable slot WR as he continues to grow in year two. On the defensive side of the ball Groot is at a point where I could see him having a breakout.

Although I think Dorian Williams will be a nice player that's kind of my feeling on the draft. If they got Allen an elite starting guard and TE they did great getting one other starter/role player with the back 4 picks that's a bonus. I do like what I have seen from Dorian Williams and I think Shorter can be a ST player who maybe develops some receiving upside. I don't know if the back two picks will develop but they certainly add some developmental players to the roster.

I thought he was a nice "kick the tires" type player and a darkhorse to take the starting RT job from Brown. But he never seemed to get any traction to make the roster. Queese and Doyle seemed to even displace his chances of getting a backup role.

The Bills nabbed the best guard and TE in the draft if Kincaid and Torrence are very good to Elite players around Josh that’s a good draft. If they can get one more starter from the rest of the picks that’s a home run draft in my opinion especially considering that the Bills didn’t have too many picks and traded down for some additional late round picks in 2024

Not surprising, they have the cap space and are in win now mode with a RB that is coming off of an ACL they probably also needed some more playmakers too. Moves the needle a little for the Jets but that Offensive Line is what is likely going to sink their season

Zeke is a nice backup, solid pickup but not really moving the needle much. He last was a true "workhorse" RB1 in 2019. The last three seasons he has been pretty average. Pollard surpassed him in 2021 as the more efficient back. From my limited time watching the Cowboys last season it seemed like Zeke was still a decent back but just far from the elite player he once was. I think in NE he will have a decent run, he is just 28 and his workload the past 2-3 seasons has declined a bit so he isn't someone with a ton of wear and tear so to speak. TLDR: Not a bad move but not a dynamic needle mover either.

Interesting that he hasn't gotten signed yet. I was thinking the Jets would make a play for him, they have the cap space to make a decent offer and they could use a playmaker in the backfield while waiting for Hall to come back to form. Then I thought Miami would try to sign him. But nothing materialized, if the Bills were to go out and get him on a cheapish deal that would really up the skill position level on the offense.

Top 5 Rosters KC Philly Bengals Bills 49ers Dangerous "outsiders" Detroit Jets Ravens I think the Bills will be very good this year but until I see the improved guard play and the other components on this roster added to address 2022 issues (Poona Ford, Kincaid and the like) in the regular season I can't put them over KC and Philly or Cincy. The 49ers likely have a better roster minus QB but the QB is a huge gap. As far as outsiders, the Jets have a really strong roster but they will have some o-line issues which will keep them in the good not great category. The Ravens have a good complement of weapons around Lamar (2 of their last 3 first-round picks were WRs and they brought in OBJ and Andrews is still there) and a good all-around roster, if Lamar can stay healthy they have a chance to make some noise. In the NFC I like Detroit, they had a lot of positive developments last year and they made some quality additions in the off-season via free agency and the draft. In a fairly weak NFC I could see Detroit winning their division and making noise in the playoffs.

Overall the returns seem to be good, like any game you have some that did well others that didn’t. I think week 2 is where we will get a better glimpse of starters and such. The flow of the three game preseason has yet to really be standardized throughout the league. When there was four preseason games you had a good understanding of how teams approached preseason. Game one was almost completely backups, game two starters played a quarter and a half, game three starters played the first half and a bit of the second and game four was almost all backups last shot to make the roster. But now with one less game the whole flow is off. Not the biggest deal but just an observation

Interesting week 1 of pre-season. Game 2 will likely be the "dress rehearsal" game where we might see Josh and the starters for a few series and then the higher level backups and the bubble starters deeper into the second half. If Andy is the teams best returner I wouldn't hate seeing him on the roster. But its hard to put him at the top 6 WR slots given that Diggs, Davis, Shakir, Shorter, Hardy and Sheffield are all there and if the team carries 7 WR's for ST purposes where do you get that extra roster spot.

I would be all for an extension if the price is right but it just likely won’t happen, the Bills are not gonna commit high WR2 low end WR1 money to Gabe and I doubt Gabe who with a good season can get big money is going to take a discount to stay.

Not the insignificant minor injury everyone thought after a major injury was ruled out. I hope for Burrow's sake this isn't a nagging injury that hampers him all season, better they sit him out weeks 1-2 than have him try to play through it and be banged up all year because he didn't get the proper rest he needed.

Boogie Basham and Tim Settle are relatively quality NFL-caliber rotational D-linemen that might be displaced on the roster but may draw interest from a team looking to give up a mid to late-round pick for them. At CB the room is also crowded but I think the coaching staff likes depth there so I don't think we will see a Dane Jackson trade or anything like that. On the offensive side of the ball, I don't see anywhere the team has quality players to spare so to speak. The bubble O-line players I don't think will draw trade interest (Snell, Doyle, and Ike) but then again Cody Ford fetched a pick so maybe there's an outside chance a team wants someone on the bubble of the Bills O-line. But I don't see anything going on elsewhere for trades via WR/TE/RB and QB. TLDR likely a D-linemen gets traded and a small chance an O-line player gets traded, outside shot on the CB market too. No where else is there really an overflow of quality depth.

PSL’s are so ludicrously corrupt and awful. The worst part was that in NY/NJ the PSL’s were promoted as some sort of investment which even by their own logic offered little in the way of value or return beyond being another massive fee. I would actually think that any stadium that receives tax payer funds shouldn’t be allowed to sell PSL’s

The coaches need at least a few preseason games to determine the PS, positional battles and to work out the last few roster spots. So while I massively dislike the preseason games being forced onto season ticket holders I don’t think abolishing the preseason is the solution. I would say simply giving season ticket holders the option to not buy preseason tickets is the way to go. That way if you don’t want the tickets you don’t need to pay for them. The NFL would never do that because they would lose money, but I wouldn’t mind local regulations stepping in given that public money is used to fund these stadiums so the public should have some reasonable influence in how these teams do business. But I also think local legislators have a billon more pressing issues to deal with

Fins offensive line was bad to mediocre last year and I didn’t see them make any meaningful moves to improve It in the offseason. So I am not shocked to see that the offensive line has issues.

I think Kincaid will make a nice impact as will Sheffield and Harty. I think that Shakir also making some improvements year two will add some improvement to the WR core. I think the Bills last season were hoping to have Crowder/Mac split the slot WR spot last season. Crowder was supposed to be the veteran "zone breaker" and Mac the more speedy "man-to-man breaker". That split made sense but once Crowder went down it forced Mac into a full-time role which he wasn't great at. The team also lost Kumerow at the WR4/5 which forced Shakir into more snaps that as a rookie he wasn't ready for. Hopefully, with Kincaid, Harty, Sheffield and an improved Shakir all eating up time in the slot there is more depth and more production from the WR3/4 role on the field.

I think he spends the first six weeks on PUP which would give him the extra time needed to recover and get in gear

Between the addition of Flowers in round one and OBJ in free agency to complement Andrews, former first round pick Rashod Batemon and their other skill position players and they had we are really going to know a lot about Lamar’s ability to pass. I do think that Lamar has had a legitimate grievance about the lack of skill position players in recent seasons but they have now added a WR in round one 2 of the past three seasons along with a big veteran addition in OBJ there are no more excuses for the QB to not get it done.

Not shocking that Barkley is ahead of Kyle Allen. Barkley has been with the team 3 out of the last 5 seasons including last season. So he has a familiarity with the players on the roster and the playbook. I would give it a few more weeks to see how this shakes out for the regular season.

I do not think restructuring Dawkins which frees up about 4 million is going to bankrupt the team in any significant way. The restructuring would only "lock" the Bills into one more season with Dawkins in 2024 when he will be 30. D. Jones is 50/50 as he is older but a pretty key cog in the defense and the Bills only have one other DT on the roster in 2024. So if they feel like they want Jones on the roster for another 2 seasons they could simply do an extension to save some money now and lock him in longer term. I don't think the Bills should go all out to make space such as restructuring Tre and extending Hyde (both of which would hamper future flexibility.) But Dawkins seems sensible if they need some extra space and Jones is more of a judgement call on if they want him on the roster beyond this season. The Bills have been bottom 10 or even bottom 5 in dead cap since 2019 so I think they have done a good job not always borrowing from Peter to pay Paul so to speak.

Phillips seemed dominant in some stretches of games. His only issue is staying healthy. As a cheap role player the Bills are getting a good deal.

I doubt Elam a first-round pick will get consistently displaced by Dane Jackson long term, I think Elam is still going to need to adjust his playstyle to zone. I also think that there will be much more patience and snaps given to a first-round pick vs. Teller who was a 5th-round pick.

I think an in season trade will occur, likely on the offensive side of the ball. Good WR’s likely be available either Mike Evans, Jerry Jeudy or some other WR’s will be on the market but It is more rare that offensive linemen come available but it has happened

There are a lot of players in their late 20's and early 30's at key positions. Which is a concern short term and a massive concern long term. They are going to have to draft really well in the next 2 drafts to sustain the current success. You always need to draft well but once you are up against the cap your drafting needs to be even more impactful. I like what they did in the past draft, adding the best TE and Guard are going to help Josh out a lot long term hopefully. They need to likely spend 3 out of the first 4 picks on offense next year as well and then hit on some mid to late-round defensive players. Luckily the Bills have been fairly good at drafting and they make smart mid-level free agency additions. But for 2023 I don't expect the team's age to be a massive issue just yet.