BADOLBILZ

The funny thing is.........GM John Elway did get held accountable for his lack of success in a string of drafts. AFTER he had built the Broncos first into an offensive juggernaut that carried the franchise to a SB.......and then did a complete 180 and turned them into a team that won a SB 2 years later with dominant defense. If those feats were accomplished in Buffalo, that GM could probably be mediocre for a decade and not get held accountable. It really surprised me how quickly Elway became a pariah in Denver. Standards are very high in bigger markets.

1986-1996 Kelly era. Just because lot's of my teams won championships and the Bills almost did. But the current one is very close and could easily surpass it. My teams might not be as good but the viewing quality on giant TV's in HD(including some 4K) and the availability and exchange of information is amazing and just what I'd hoped it would be.

I didn't say you were debating the rules changes you and others were totally ignoring them from the discussion......and instead using counting stats as the foundation of your argument. The year after those rules changes 7 QB's had top 25 all-time passing yardage seasons. It was not the kind of gradual change that took place between the 80's and then that you are poo-pooing it as. And specifically, in the case of Kelce, the changes also.....almost certainly.......lead to Patrick Mahomes choosing football over baseball and becoming the league's best QB and altering Kelce's career outlook drastically. Kelce was very good back in 2017.........a 1,000 yard receiver playing with a top 10 QB in Alex Smith throwing him the ball. But he wasn't nearly the weapon Mahomes has made him. When McDermott's Bills beat KC in Arrowhead in 2017 they took BOTH of Kelce and Hill right out of the game. They COMBINED for 80 yards that day. Kelce was running open that day too.......that's just the difference between a playoff caliber QB playing at his prime level and an all-time great at QB like Mahomes. Hopefully, Kincaid gets the same synergy with the also truly elite Josh Allen at QB.

What Is The Definition Of A Bust In Football? 1. A bust is a player who was drafted on the first day of the NFL draft and failed to meet expectations. A player who is labeled a bust is usually drafted in the first round of the NFL Draft. Like I said........he was CLEARLY a bust. What a player was briefly "capable" of 7-8 years ago doesn't matter a bit in that regard........it's what the player accomplished in the 5 year rookie deal. He had one productive season and injuries took him out. Injuries don't exempt you from bust status it's only about production. Now as for you calling Ray out as being "unfocused" I have no idea where you have come up with that analysis. His primary issue has been injuries. He couldn't stay on the field in the CFL either. I wish him luck but your vibe isn't based in reality it's coming from an imaginary place where he's able to stay healthy......7 years ago.

I thought that was the best spring football league season we've seen in a long time. Took a while for the offenses to get in sync but it was a pretty decent product.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/37647296/de-shane-ray-nfl-2019-signs-bills He was a bust. Didn't show much juice in the CFL action I saw him in recently. Agree that it's a favor to Von and he probably ends up on PS but when it comes to rushing the passer sometimes old dogs can actually get better with age. I hope he finds a niche in the NFL in his 30's. Kid had a tough story growing up with his college football star father wanting nothing to do with him.

Personally, Gronk belongs in the All-time TE conversation in any era..........Kelce almost plays a different position altogether than those other guys. The 2010 rules changes really had their biggest impact on receiving in the middle of the field.........which is where TE's operate. Kelce has basically played his entire career with a different set of rules than guys like Gates and Gonzalez played well into the primes of their careers.

I think he revived it with the Raiders in 2021...........the Jaguars threw to him more so his counting stats went up with Jax in 2022 but he had the highest drop % in the NFL among regularly targeted WR at 10.7%. Worse than Gabe Davis (though Gabe was second worst). And that was Zay Jones' second season of 10% or more drops in the past 3 seasons. His drop problems are much worse than they were in Buffalo, actually. "Drop Zone" Jones lives!

Make Believes = pretenders.......again.

You repeat the same "nonsense" because you don't adapt. That's why you keep making the same mistakes wrt your rationale as well. As for the math.........why do you keep doing this to yourself? The Bills signed Von Miller to a 6 year $120M contract last offseason with $51M guaranteed. His first year cap hit was just $5M. Year 2? Only $7.9M. To say that the Bills couldn't have fit a young player under the cap who might actually play out a 6 year deal is.........what's the word I'm looking for? Well, let's just say it's clearly wrong.

I think Lamar getting hurt running and missing games is what Lamar is going to do most years. And Tua started 13 games and lead the AFC in passer rating.........that might be closer to a ceiling than a worst case scenario. Set aside the concussions the guy almost lost his career entirely to a serious hip injury and was constantly getting injured at Alabama too. He's a tough guy but talk about high mileage on a light frame. The Jets, you have a point at QB, but they had a best case scenario health wise on defense last year.........least injured defense in the entire NFL.......after being the 4th most injured defense(and terrible) the year before. They are due for a serious market correction. Typically defenses that make such amazing leaps in one season tend to "give it all back" the following year. It's a strange but real phenomenon in the NFL. Most recently with the Redskins. After they almost beat SB-victory bound Tom Brady with Tyler Heinecke at QB in the wildcard everyone assumed next year that D was going to be unreal going forward. Nope.

There are fluid, dynamic route runners like Stefon Diggs who can run about any route and win. Davis is a very different type of receiver. He's a big, relatively mechanical mover who wins with buildup speed and long strides. Factor in having a (chronically?) injured ankle/foot for 3 straight years now and you have a guy who is going to have a much more limited route tree to win with.

So 43 IS the mic?

Playing well paid players in garbage time late in the season and exposing them to unnecessary injury to earn incentives really doesn't impact negotiations with other players positively in free agency. I know fans think that things like not using franchise tags and other broadly "player friendly" stuff done at the expense of the organization builds your reputation as a team but they really don't. See the Marv Levy GM'ed Bills. Agents simply abused their hyper-accommodating approach and it got so out of control Aaron Schobel refused to play unless he could just fly in for games. There is a kindness/weakness dynamic at play. And really, players don't care all that much about other players money. You had a reasonable chance to make plays and didn't achieve incentives? That's a you problem. Every player worth signing thinks they are the exception in some regard. How they are treated day to day, the facilities, coaching and schemes......things like that matter a lot. Allowing an underachiever or meh player like Vernon Butler to reach a playing time incentive just to show you care about all your players money? Not a bit. The way to earn credits as an employer thru incentives? You build in those incentives........but then if they get close to them and they do it the right way all year and you really value them.........you just find a way to pay them the bonus one way or another. You don't make them come to work in "garbage time" to force them to reach a number. Re-inforcing the right kind of commitment and effort is what's important and valuable to the organization long term.

I thought DK Decaf was a good one for Shorter too........but the perceived negative one's are tricky on a fan site.

Much like with Edmunds last year........yeah, that's the plan for the fan base. Hope he has a big contract year and they get a comp pick for him and Shorter or someone else fills his role. The Bills reportedly want to keep Davis long term, though. And there is more smoke around that rumor than there ever was with Edmunds. They really had much more reason to extend Edmunds LAST offseason if they had any real conviction to retain him long term. His cap hit last year was large. Davis? He's dirt cheap. Best to let it play out. If he plays great and earns a Kirk+ kinda' deal......turn him into a comp pick. If he's just slightly better than last year and none of the huSh brothers......Shakir, Sherfield or Shorter show for sh!t........then offer him an MVS type deal.

Yeah he was a hot mess as WR2 last season. He just shouldn't be that guy for a SB team. If Kincaid can bring the juice they hope from the slot and Gabe's targets can be cut significantly he stands a much better chance of getting CB3 matchups and getting his efficiency numbers up while continuing to be a big play guy.

Yeah but that's said by them without context as well. They may also think that there are a lot of other receivers don't come down with a lot of passes thrown to them. There aren't. He was 5th in drop % among all WR.........but all 4 of those with worse drop % also had much better catch % on targeted balls than Gabe. He was definitely the least reliable of all regularly targeted WR in the entire NFL in terms of coming down with a catch. That's awful. Hopefully the combination of more 12 personnel with Dalton Kincaid and a free agent walk year creates a new level of focus for him and he expands his route running skills while fixing his mechanics at the catch point so he not only stops dropping the one's he has no excuse for dropping but also starts winning some contested throws the way his size advantage suggests he should.

Anytime you are nearly the very worst in your category........as Gabe was in % of targets dropped.......it's not overblown. As I said.......he was a top 50 targeted WR because he was blessed to have JA17 as his QB and Stef Diggs as WR1 (and no competition for snaps). Among those receivers only the notoriously unsure-handed Zay Jones was worse at securing catchable passes. 9 drops can be 9 drives killed. That's why it's a lot. There is also the issue of not being a good contested catch receiver. Those are the "forgiven" drops. He's very poor at those as well and just because those don't qualify as "drops" doesn't mean a WR2 shouldn't be catching a lot of those. All in all.......Gabe ranked 186th of 197 qualifying players in the NFL in catch %(51.6%). Just a tick behind his speedier doppelgänger Marquez Valdes-Scantling (51.9%).

Yeah of course anyone who dropped 50% of the passes thrown to them would be absurd.......like a QB completing only 25% of his passes over the course of a season..........you aren't saying anything remotely cogent with your attempt to make a point.........it's not really possible for an NFL player to be that bad over the course of many hundreds of snaps. What matters is his production relative to his peers and his near 10% drop rate was abysmal. Among the 50 most targeted WR in the NFL last season.......only Zay "Drop Zone" Jones had a higher drop %.

Gabe wasn't a top half WR2 last year, IMO. What his counting stats giveth his terrible underlying metrics taketh away. He hasn't even proven that he's cut out for WR2 at this point. He's a specialist like Marquez Valdes-Scantling.......... and when you go from a star in Diggs to a top-end specialist WR3 and then there is no WR4 at all.........that's two big holes in the middle of your WR corps. With the abundance of talent added to the league by many strong recent WR drafts there aren't many teams with 2 holes like that in the top 4. I am sure the Bills are counting on Allen elevating low pedigree nobodies like Shakir, Harty and Sherfield........and he might.........but for the purposes of ranking groups on sheer talent I think they rank in the 20's at this point. I thought they had already fallen to that 12-15 range in 2021 when they still had Covid Beasley and Ol'manuel Sanders and that group was much more established than this one. They had Gabe in that 3-4 range where he gets good matchups. 2020 they were a top 3 unit.

I disagree that his ankle was fine. His gait was not right after plays even late in the season. What I KNOW wasn't hindered was his hearing. He really did not like the "catch the damn ball Gabe" attitude of the rightfully disillusioned crowd behind the home bench. It really pissed him off and he gave it back. Hopefully he takes that experience to heart and works on closing the deal on the football this offseason.

Diggs........a top end #3 in Gabe..........and a bunch of dudes WE like because we expect the upside........but in reality.......extremely low floors and even lower pedigrees. Their ranking is fair, IMO.........they certainly wouldn't be in a top 20. McBeane have let their fastball go to hell the past couple seasons. Hopefully Kincaid becomes good enough to make the actual "WR" room much less important.

Tough act following Fleezoid....... But hopefully Boo-boo foot Gabe is just keeping his perma-sprained ankle elevated and on ice all offseason

Yeah maybe Purdy is the real deal but he really caught the league by surprise. It would seem to me that if you are an opponent you want to force Purdy to make more big time throws this season.