BADOLBILZ

So you are taking satisfaction in the pain of your fellow Boston pro sports fans? I can see why you went to youtube and didn't just go bust balls on the Celtics or Red Sox boards you are part of as a Boston fan.........but man that's still awkward. In pro sports you take up for the city or you don't root for the teams. I really thought you'd sit out this episode of schadenfreudery.

I thought they took DK Decaf in the 5th? This is the UDFA thread.

He played for the Bills but he's always a Dolphin to me

Their payroll used to be 80% of their revenue back in the early 2000's. George gauged profit in the millions. Hal has payroll at 30-40% of revenue and gauges it in hundreds of millions. He is the reason they don't win championships. Both because he won't spend what it takes and because he refuses to change his management team because he's not compelled to win at the expense of decreasing profits. And that's how greed works........the more you make the more you want. As much as the draft is seen by some as a crap shoot........the top 10 is still typically where teams get superstars and they haven't sniffed a top 10 pick in decades. The Judge contract is a pittance in the grand scheme of a team with $900M+ revenues. Signing Ohtani at $50M aav barely moves the needle compared to George either. Now they are forced to on-the-job train 3-4 modestly talented rookies to fill roles all at the same time. That's going to be painful to watch them learn how to hit major league pitching. Hopefully if they don't get the ship righted they bring up even more young players and at least set a foundation for their ultimate plan........which is 7 positional starters on entry deals and under team control for several more years by 2025.

Cashman isn't creating any synergy with his moves..........but ultimately the lack of lineup depth is on Hal Steinbrenner. When you have 30 consecutive winning seasons you never draft high. You need to EXPECT to be by far the highest spending team by this time. Drawing the line at the Cohen tax and hanging on to dead weight like Hicks because of his salary was just idiotic. He would have washed out of the league a couple years ago without that contract. Harrison Bader? League average hitter with injury issues and hits from right side. They shouldn't have gone into the season with these guys figuring prominently in their OF mix. Cashman should be gone, because other GM's have proven they can get more talent than the sum of their capital indicates they should have.........but Hal knew what he had in Cashman and should have kept spending if he wasn't going to make a change. They aren't the Red Sox or Mets just a year or two removed from losing seasons and drafting high......they've never had any kind of reset at all since the early 1990's. On the plus side.........pitching coach Matt Blake continues to be a difference maker........THAT guy squeezes production out of a pitching staff. If they had some bats at the bottom of the lineup they'd be doing well.

Kelce entered the league in age 24 season.......immediately suffered a season ending injury and really didn't begin his NFL career in earnest until age 25 season. I am less concerned about TE's starting a bit later because I think knowing how to protect yourself from injury is half the battle at the position.........and maturity is a plus in that regard.

It's the Star Lotulelei effect. Fans got used to the Bills paying top dollar for a lousy DT1T play so solid rotational play seems like premium production. Jones is literally the same player he'd always been at $4M per year.......and the two teams that had him were still like "meh" and let him walk. He got a bump in pass rush production with the Bills but that should happen when you join the team who tends to win by the most points of any team in the conference. It's not like TN or Carolina where they were hoping to be tied going into the 4th quarter every week.

"He's just not Matt Barkley. Which I hate."

Yeah he's a RB in the "if you need 3 he will give you 4 (and so forth)" vein. The definition of average ypc production.......but at 230#. Which is plenty for RB4. Just wish it was no guarantees and vet minimum. Which it could be but guessing it's a $1.7M with some guarantees.

Yeah I think it's a time/reps issue. You can always add players if you have injuries. And with the two spring league's there should be an abundance of bodies in shape with recent tape. Also only 3 preseason games now.

A guy to keep an eye on at DT in the Bills future is Arik Armstead. Had an injury plagued year and a big production drop-off so I wouldn't be totally shocked if the 49ers cut bait rather than pay his base salary. He met a girl in Buffalo after a 49ers/Bills game and subsequently married into a family of Bills fans. If he changes teams in the next 10-11 months I could see him coming to the Bills.

Yeah I don't see him as a guy who receives one of those $1.7M deals with $500K plus in guarantees.........but I think he gets the vet min and some assurance that he gets a PS spot. I don't think that's one of the UFA's Beane is referring to. I think those are both DL.

Definitely agree it should provide a big advantage in the running game........in all situations..........but getting the Bills to run the ball more is at least something of a win for the opposing defense if how they defend the pass doesn't have to change. That's where the floor of the strategy would fail to be a 1st-round-pick kinda' result, IMO. For it to really work out.......Kincaid needs to be able to regularly beat the defensive back in the passing game. And it's the confidence that he can do just that which made the Bills use that pick on him, IMO. As PFF noted he was the best receiving weapon in the draft.

He nailed his second pick as offensive coordinator with Ben Johnson. Johnson was the most effective OC in the NFL last year relative to the talent on hand. I suspect that if/when Ben Johnson leaves for a HC job the meaty head of Dan Campbell will be on the chopping block very soon after.

It's a valid concern. He needs to be a better receiver than a lot of very good TE's before him for it to work the way Beane was talking it up. It's probably most notable that putting a good CB on Jimmy Graham basically erased his impact in Seattle. And in Buffalo we have seen Antoine Winfield and Tre White really neutralize Tony Gonzalez and Rob Gronkowski at times in the past. He really needs to be in the range of Kyle Pitts or Kelce. If he just ends up being an upgrade on Knox they will need to upgrade the quality of targets at WR. Which would already have been on the immediate to-do list with Diggs getting up there in age.

Yeah, as I've said before........if you don't have one of the top 10 DT's in football your DT room probably looks a lot like everyone else's. There was a big influx of DT's into the league over a number of years so there is an abundance of adequate ones. The problem is that Beane has paid good money for a ton of minimum wage level DT's like Lotulelei, Butler, Q Jefferson and Settle. Gave Daquon Jones about twice what he was earning in TN and Carolina to basically do the same job at the same level, as well. Not really worried about DT in 2024.

I doubt any fanbase was more in on Mahomes than Bills fans either. He was already getting hyped here on TSW in June of 2016. @thebandit27 was all over it.

I think ideally you have a bunch of late picks and get a mix of value players who achieved in college and have a good chance of helping the team.........and then a couple of guys with traits that may have a lot more potential than shown in college. Part of the reason Whaley's drafts look worse in hindsight was that he tended to throw a lot more picks at big traits underachievers. I don't think that really made or broke him.......not getting a QB did that.

DK Decaf

It's simple really........use the early portion of the draft to address premium positions. Edge/island players are the individuals who have the opportunity to change games by themselves by virtue of their positions. That is why they are the most expensive of players to acquire. The Lions had numerous ways to do so in round 1 and did so with neither pick. Now they have Jared Goff as their long term QB solution.........a hole opposite Hutchinson at DE.........and holes at CB. And that is NOW. You should be addressing premium positions even when you don't have current needs there.

I guess the process is called Dolorimetry..........and Gouraige may have practiced Dolerimetry instead........which is disarming an opponent just by use of numerous kung-fu-like kicks.

I liked LaPorta a lot. I thought he was TE3 with a higher upside than TE2(Mayer). Otherwise........just a lot of poor positional drafting. Generally speaking your 1st round picks should be $20M-$30M aav type players when they eventually hit UFA. Only about 50% of first rounders play well enough to get their option picked up but almost NONE of the RB's do. The Lions have long term needs at a lot of premium positions. They failed to take advantage of a huge opportunity with the extra picks in this draft, IMO. They took the "you can't go broke making a profit" approach and that doesn't yield difference makers.

What's remarkable is that the reason he only played 1 game is that he had a season ending injury immediately in year 1. Now he's Mr. Durable at one of the toughest positions to stay healthy at in football. Those guys take a beating. He's cracked the code in this regard. TE's entering the league should be looking as much at how he stays healthy as any aspect. Some of it is probably genetics........his brother is durable too.........but there is more to it than that.

Yeah that's the likelihood I think. They've moved on from him. They aren't going go pay him $19M to catch passes from a backup QB and possibly finish last in the division and then additionally risk him getting injured and guaranteeing his 2024 salary as well.

It's not. No. Still no top-half-of-league WR2. Hopefully this Kincaid plan works out but if not they need somebody to play way above reasonable expectations based on their track record to be a very good WR corps. Right now it's Diggs, a very good WR3 and a bunch of question marks.