transient

I would love to see the team that faces them second rest their starters and give a half-ass effort as a “yeah, well FU right back” to Goodell.

I'm still expecting a double digit win season, but I expect it to look ugly, especially early on, and I expect a lot of bitching about it in the process.

Watching interviews with Coleman really does make you wonder how much of trading Diggs NOW was all about a locker room reset. It will be interesting to see if Allen reverts to the locked in version that embodies a big kid having a blast that's been kinda MIA for the past 2 seasons now with a personality like that, among others, instead of Diggs on the sideline.

I remember when, as a rookie, he had to tell Kelvin Benjamin where to line up... man, I hate Kelvin Benjamin.

This seems like a TBD challenge to me... 🤔... accepted! Anorexic Kelvin Benjamin Rocket scientist Leodis McKelvin Mild Mannered Ritchie Incognito Overzealous Billy Joe Hobert The courageous Kyle Orton Thorough topic searching @NoName Edited to poke a little fun at the OP.

The passing offense was worse in large part because in addition to Davis, Diggs also stopped catching half of the balls thrown his way.

And if all of this meshes in 2024 and the talent is there, they're a true WR1 away from replicating the formula they used in 2020 and 2021. One player, whether by trade, FA signing, or going up and getting the best one in the draft. And they should have the cap space and/or draft capital in 2025 to do it. Better yet, aside from Samuel, who's 27, and possibly Cook, who may not be offered a 2nd contract, they'll still have most of their careers ahead of them unlike Beasely, Brown, Sanders, and in the end, Diggs.

Indirectly, I did answer your question regarding winning the SB. I clearly stated "regardless of what fans want to believe, this Bills season is a retooling season. It's not going to look like a finished product. We're not going to compete for the SB unless this team unexpectedly catches fire late in the year." That would seem to suggest, regardless of circumstances, that no, I don't expect them to win a SB in 2024. If you're specifically asking if I think they're able to win with defense to get them there, not with the defense they've brought to the playoffs the last few years, both from a philosophical and from a personnel perspective. Re Kelce, I think Kincaid has the potential to be a similar player with time, but he's not there yet. Regarding Reid, no, I don't think Joe Brady will be on the same level as Reid, but you could make that argument about the majority of the teams in the league. Regardless of the points you think you're making about Kelce and Reid, I don't expect the Bills to compete for a SB in 2024 and while they would never point blank admit it, I don't think the organization does either. If there is a year to ask Allen to make do with an inferior WR corp, 2024 would be it. They're going to have rookies and new faces all over the starting lineup on both sides of the ball, and they're carrying 55M of dead cap space. If your point is to soley focus on my assertion that "it's a similar situation" and hammer at that because the organizations are not identical with respect to coaching staff and personnel, then you're being very concrete about this. KC gave Mahomes crap WRs last season and, gun to their heads, I would imagine they would have told you at the start of the season that they expected to be competitive but didn't expect it was their strongest team or their best shot at a SB victory. Thus, I consider it a very similar situation. Where it's not likely to be similar, KC has let most of their WRs from last season go because they truly were scrubs outside of Rice. With what the Bills have currently on the roster, I think they're asking a group of WRs to play a step above their natural slotting. If Samuel, Coleman, and Shakir can hold their own despite that, they may be a true WR1 from a pretty good WR corp and offense in 2025, when I do expect them to be in contention for a SB again.

It's not a lazy talking point, it's a similar situation. And asking fans anything with the expectation of a rational answer is an exercise in futility. Do you think the Chiefs organization went into the season last season expecting that it was their best chance to win the Super Bowl since Mahomes arrived? Are you expecting the Bills to compete for the SB this year? My point is, regardless of what fans want to believe, this Bills season is a retooling season. It's not going to look like a finished product. We're not going to compete for the SB unless this team unexpectedly catches fire late in the year. My point is, asking Allen to work with a less than ideal WR corp for a season is not "inexcusable". Drafting a few rookie WRs without filling out the depth on a team that just went through a cap bloodbath under the guise of competing this year at the cost of future seasons would have been inexcusable. If the value was there in the picks they made over whatever WR was left at the time I'm glad they did it their way. For comparison's sake, in 2019 the Bills WR corp was essentially John Brown, Cole Beasely and a bunch of scrubs at the rest of the skill positions, with Singletary as the feature RB. That's all Allen had to work with and they went 10-6. This season, they're likely expecting Shakir to fill the role of Beasely and Samuel to fill the role of Brown, except in addtion they have Kincaid and Cook to lean on as well, and whatever you can get from Knox. Those are the known quantities. Add to that the fact that Allen has much more experience than he did in 2019. Now add to that a big rookie in Coleman who should provide some assistance even if he's not the WR everyone wanted the Bills to draft, and a back in Davis that may also take some targets. If you get anything from the remaining bodies in Hamler, Shorter, Bocephus, whatever WR they bring in between now and the start of the season, etc it's a bonus. Yes, the offense will regress. It's inevitable. But they should still be competitive as a team. Now look ahead to 2025, which will hopefully be the equivalent of the 2020 season when they added Diggs. They have draft picks and cap space. Any one of moving up for the best WR on the board, signing a big-ticket FA WR, or trading for a WR1 would upgrade this to a pretty formidable WR corp assuming Samuel and Coleman pan out and Shakir continues to ascend. Now, if they suck this season and fail to do something along those line next season, then I couldn't agree more, they're clueless and they should all be fired. I think we need to temper our expectations for this season, though, look at the reality of the situation, and give them the benefit of the doubt. We've enjoyed some pretty good football since they've gotten here. So much so that we feel like every year should be our year and anything less is a fireable offense.

It is mesmerizing. So many questions go through my head... who's standing there recording this as that little monster is clearly deliberately tracking down her victim... what sort of counseling does the driver need to prevent this sort of behavior as an adult... is it humanly possible to have choreographed a more perfect take down and smooshing than that... why do I find this so horrifyingly funny... what kind of counseling do I need... is the victim alright... why is the health of the victim literally the last thing I wondered about... no really, what kind of counseling do I need? 🤔

Sooooo... you don't think other GMs would have known the relative value of the 5th, 6th, and 7th rounders that Beane would have been attempting to unload on them in order to move up? Kinda sounded like after the mid 5th round there was little difference between draft picks and UDFA's due to the lack of underclassmen.

I still don't like my odds... I think I'm going to wait until the midpoint of the season.

Pretty good receiver out of the backfield, both as an outlet and as a downfield option. Brady should be able to have fun scheming up some misdirection with the combination of him and Cook. Throw in the hybrid Curtis Samuel and they might even rediscover how to run a screen.

No TEs or RBs? Dude better stop playing favorites before he loses the locker room... I'm curious if he only invited the WR half of Curtis Samuel. 🤔

It depends... how many stepbrothers does she have in Depew?

My point was more that it's a bit hyperbolic to say it's inexcusable to ask your elite QB in his prime to throw to an inferior cast of WR talent around him. It's not ideal, but once the axe started to fall on the roster after the end of the season with the Bills in cap jail, it is what it is. 2024 was destined to be a reset regardless of what we wanted to believe. Drafting a WR in the later rounds of this draft wasn't likely to change it for next season. Bringing in has-been headcases would only make it worse. Like it or not, it appears that the Bills are going to be asking Allen to make the offense in 2024 greater than the sum of its parts. If the guys they brought in can at least catch, outside of Shakir and Kincaid, that would be a nice change of pace from last season.

1. The Chiefs did a similar thing to Mahomes’ WR corp the last 2 seasons… was that inexcusable? 2. If this offseason has been bad, adding 2024 OBJ or Michael Thomas, both washed up headcases, would make it that much worse.

Kincaid was targeted 91 times last season as a rookie TE, second on the team only to Diggs... he already has a major role in the game plan and he did fine with it. No reason to think he couldn't be up for more in year 2.

That's the concerning thing. We've seen this FO do this before with Davis, overestimating what the player had to give based on promising results in a limited role the season before. Regarding the point about where do the remaining targets come from, for comparisons sake I took a look at KC's target distribution from 2023; they had a pretty middling WR corp but obviously still won the SB. 599 targets, with 319 going to 8 different WRs, and only Rice with more than 100 targets with 102. That left 108 targets to the RBs and 171 to the TEs. Kelce led the team with 121 targets. I suspect we'll see something along the same lines next season, likely with a similar drop in offensive production. If the room stays as it is or similar to where it is I don't think they're going to replace all of the WR production lost with WR production. I think it's going to have to be spread around with increased production from the backs and TEs as well as redistributed within the WRs, and I think they're going to have to hope Kincaid plays a big role in that.

So out of curiosity, I went back to last season's stats to look. Here are the targets: Diggs 160 Davis 81 Shakir 45 Sherfield 22 Harty 21 Among WRs that's 329 targets. I think you can make up 329 targets between Samuel, Shakir, and Coleman with a combination of Hamler, Hollins, and whomever else they bring in added in. Among TEs it was: Kincaid 91 Knox 36 Morris 3 Gilliam 1 Among TEs that's 131 targets. Kincaid was already shouldering a pretty big load, and there's no reason to think he couldn't hit 120+ targets in season 2 IMO. Among backs: Cook 54 Murray 22 Johnson 7 Harris 2 So for the backs that's 85 targets. I could see Cook's workload going up out of the backfield if he learns to concentrate on catching easy TD's, and R Davis was a weapon out of the backfield in college. I'm not saying it's going to work. My biggest concern is who's going to draw the coverage that Diggs did and can these guys step up. My point is that from a purely numbers standpoint the WR targets are not insurmountable with this group.

Not fundamentally disagreeing, but even as a hybrid player, in that season in Carolina with Brady as his OC he saw ~100 targets (I don’t know the breakdown of targets lined up as WR vs out of the backfield). I don’t think he sees Diggs 160 targets, but I’m also anticipating they want to spread those targets around more. For better or worse, I think they’re taking the approach that KC has since trading Hill, rolling without a true WR1 and hoping to make up the production with a cast of WRs. There was a lot made of the depth of the WR class in the draft, but it seems to me a lot of teams passed over a number of “highly touted” players a number of times before they finally came off the board. Suggests to me it was a bit overhyped, and with all of the recent holes created on the roster Beane decided he could get more value selecting other positions and addressing the WR room this season with lower tier FAs. It’s hard to imagine a WR drafted in the 3th rd and beyond generating much production this season anyway.

Leading up to the awesome quote by Booger McFarland - "He's a Popeye's biscuit away from being a tight end".

Given that I posted it before the pick was even made, I would have assumed it would have been recognized that this was a joke based on mrags response to every other pick that has been made after the after the Coleman pick...

He's faster than Coleman... @mrags, saved you the trouble.

Shakir 4.43, Cook 4.42, Kincaide 4.48… I think you’re wrong.