BADOLBILZ

The depth at CB in this draft is better than safety, IMO. Part of Beane's issue is that he's not great at valuing players yet. Still over-paying and over-investing draft capital. I believe he is a smart guy and is subsequently getting better as a GM. In year 10 maybe he's a great GM. Howie Roseman wasn't the way he is now early in his career either. The key is not doing too much damage while he's learning on the job. He's done a lot of that wrt salary cap. He needs to not waste the value of his draft picks. Three "Day 2" RB's was absurd. That stuff adds up.

Problem is.......pretty poor safety class. Again.........this is why you don't reach for needs..........next year you could find a better safety in round 5 than round 2 this year..........that kinda' stuff happens. Get the best haul of talent/positional value that you can and address the 2024 needs you fell short of in UFA next offseason. The quality of safety you could get in round 2 is not likely to be better than Taylor Rapp..........and he signed for $1.7M. The drop in street value from very good to adequate at safety is precipitous. Same with slot CB.

In fairness...........Miller noted that he was told by one GM in the AFC that the Bills are the most likely team to trade out of the 1st round because they only have 6 picks and have more needs than that. So last year at this time the rationale was that the Bills were loaded and didn't have much roster space for draft picks........so they should draft to address specific positions of need. Now the perception of some GM's is that they have a lot of needs. Needs come at you fast in the NFL. The truth is you should never use the draft as a hole-patching exercise...........it's a process not just an annual event.........trust the process and pick the best players and especially at premium positions early.

40 to New Orleans.

Based on what has been told to the public by the league and Williams' agency.........probably isn't enough to make a team not want to acquire him. But considering that they caught him I am sure the league has a lot more detail about the investigation that every team would have full access to.

The flip side of that argument is 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. Beane has paid dumb money to some DT's in recent years that weren't any better than league minimum guys........and yet the defense has been good. People like to use other SB contending teams strengths as examples of how it has to be done but they don't want to point to the Eagles signing two DT's off the street in November to shore up their near league worst run defense or the Chiefs winning the SB with a bunch of rookies starting all over the defense.......none of which may ever become "stars". You simply don't have to be good everywhere to win a Super Bowl. The Bills have probably been a bit too concerned about having established talent everywhere and not enough on having difference makers on offense other than Allen and Diggs.

Imagine telling Bills fans in February that McGovern, Harty and Sheffield was going to be their first week UFA haul. Don't worry..........whoever the Bills actually pick will likely be a list of even more obscure names to the average fan but there will be spin galore about it to make everyone feel like they got some real potential. "This guy was all mid-mountain conference 5 times after transferring from West Virginia as a sophomore and holds the state HS shot-put record in South Dakota"

Yeah I haven't been following it closely but last I checked SF was the #2 betting favorite behind KC. Bills were 3rd. Personally, I always expect major injuries to un-do the Niners. They play hard and get beat up and their QB's seem to take a lot of punishment that Shanahan has failed to address despite a lot of talent on the OL. But the NFC is weak so they are a good bet to be in that championship game again.

It only takes one dumb GM............just like when O'Brien traded him to Arizona for peanuts in the first place...........but on the surface his trade value would appear to be equivalent to what 2023-2024 salary the Cardinals would eat, IMO. I'd think the dollar value of a late 2nd round pick would be around $20M today based loosely on the Osweiler trade of 2018. At $34M in guarantees required to match what is due if Arizona doesn't release him........his market just as a free agent would be limited to just a few teams anyway.

I like Johnston a lot better than a guard or RT. I know that much. Why people think it's ever a great idea to draft the worst athletes on the field in round 1........especially when they see so many good ones allowed to hit UFA and so many good ones drafted much later..........I just have no idea. I'll reach a little bit for a LT in round 1 but fat guys with guard feet? Nope. Like I said with regard to the Addison/Johnston options..........I can just see a situation where the Bills either retain Gabe Davis or find an elite WR1 in the draft and then you end up with the outside-only, body-catching Johnston on the sidelines. I don't expect either to be true WR1's but I think Addison will play all 3 positions well enough to be hard to get out of the lineup. And I expect he will find a way to stay healthy just like I expect Johnston to be because they both have been to this point. If you told me that the next 3 WR drafts were going to be like 2015-2017 I would certainly lower my expectations in round 1 even further but I hope it doesn't come to that.

The larger point is probably who really cares who wins the Super Bowl if you don't? I never even cared when New England was winning them either. Yeah, I don't like them but I also like knowing that our conference is definitely preparing the Bills to WIN the SB. There are a lot of Bills fans who sided with Philly out of spite. All I can say is if the Bills ever played ONE important game against the Eagles they would never root for a Philadelphia team again. They should know better from our experience in the NHL. Possibly the worst fans on the planet.

Yes a lot of people are underwhelmed by this group of WR but I will say that at this time last year........the 2023 class was headlined by arguably the two top producing 2021 receivers in CFB(Njigba and Addison. Marvin Harrison Jr is a stud of the 2024 class but after that there isn't a player who stands out like Njigba and Addison. A bunch of players could break out and the overall class of players in general will probably be a bit deeper because this years class was depressed a bit by NIL payments that kept some players in school..........but I don't think it promises to be like the 2018-2022 classes at WR in round 1 next year either.

Yes that was the discussion at the time.......I remember discussing it with GB.........Watson late first was not a reach in terms of talent. Beane was really thirsty for a CB though. Turned out to be a very deep draft of CB's..........which it also appeared to be at the time, fwiw. Could they have drafted a CB who could have split snaps with Benford early in the season with that 4th rounder they used to trade up and been fine? Yep. Hopefully Elam pans out big-time........he's a young pup compared to Watson so there is that...........but thinking "need" in a deep draft class is a good way to end up looking like you didn't do your homework.

Yeah I am a fan of Raising Cane's. Excellent Vegas hangover food.

So Matt Miller just did his full 7 round mock draft on ESPN. I'm not going to post every pick in the draft since it's supposed to be exclusive content and mods won't allow.........so you kinda' gotta' have ESPN+ to see who else was available. But below I am listing the picks........along with who I think I would have selected and why in parentheses if the available players showing were still there. Obviously if one pick is different in every round then each subsequent round might fall differently so it's just an exercise for fun.......but have at it. 1. Quentin Johnston WR (Jordan Addison WR......I prefer Addison as the better prospect but also the less likely receiver to be relegated to the bench if a young WR1 were drafted in the next 2 seasons because Addison should be inside/outside versatile and Johnston is probably an outside-only like Gabe Davis). 2. Jartavius Martin CB/S (Sam LaPorta TE........Bergeron was still on the board and if I thought he had LT potential I'd go with him.......but I don't......so I think I go with the TE LaPorta here as high ceiling insurance against a Dawson Knox injury and bad weather weapon with some RAC ability. LaPorta has excellent tape and is a player I have been watching for a couple years in anticipation of him coming to the NFL and sorta fits that 6'4" 250# mold that seems to be a sweet spot for blocking leverage and durability for TE's. Miller is about Buffalo drafting replacements for slot CB and safety and I like Martin but I just don't worry much about those spots.......especially early in the draft. You can find those guys cheap in UFA or later in the draft in the Bills system). 3. Nick Saldiveri G (Jaelyn Duncan OT........I think there will be comparable guard talent available later in the draft and Duncan has an outside shot at becoming an adequate LT in the future or maybe a good RT so the value is with Duncan, IMO. He could be a bust but in this draft I like the risk here.) 4.Jordan Battle S (Kyu Blu Kelly CB.........I just like this guy as a fit in the Bills system.........I don't love the pick but solid player with ball skills that I'd rather draft than a comparable safety-only type) 5. Eric Gray RB (Nick Broeker G..........this is a good spot for a tackle who can play guard like Broeker. I tend to think he will go earlier but I think he'd be a good value and potential starting G with the ability to get you thru a game or two at a tackle position down the line. I like Gray but I think the difference between Gray and a UDFA option isn't big. Athletic Auburn MLB Owen Pappoe was another consideration for me here. I think he has an average MLB ceiling which would be ok here.......but since I think job #1 of any organization is to prop up your star QB I think it's an easy choice) 6. Tavius Robinson DE (Jake Witt OT......Witt is an athlete getting some hype as a potential developmental LT. Shot in the dark here but I think a player like that can get thru and end up on the PS for a year and then you see what you have in year 2. Don't love much of the talent left at this point on his board and for the most part I think the non-premium position players are close enough that you can get similar talent in UDFA. )

Whatever the rationale was.........that was simply a bad scouting evaluation. I don't scout the draft from A-Z anymore but I really couldn't fathom how anyone saw his lack of traits and over-seasoned body of work and viewed him as a first or second round pick in that draft. He is the perfect example of a guy you take in the 4th or 5th and if he turns into a 30% snap guy for you then you did OK.

Yeah we see the draft differently. I don't worry about immediate need too much. That's what UFA was for. And most of the UFA's they signed are short term fixes so they don't incline me to pass on a better player at that position. Needs change fast. As for the Eagles.......the Chiefs forced Hurts to win the game for them by eliminating the RB's from the equation(despite that bad ol' turf monster working against them). And I think Hurts played as well as he could have given the vast passing talent disparity between he and Mahomes. If you re-played that game 10 times that's probably the best Hurts would have played. But the bottom line is Mahomes still was just far more efficient. By the second half the Chiefs were going to score on every drive no matter how long the game lasted. But the excuses some bitter Bills fans make for the Chiefs winning are at least comical.

Well yeah........but you don't get suspended the first time you get caught in the NFL. Frankly, I think it's obvious that most players are doping to some extent. Just look at MLB where testing is strict........they can't keep players on the field despite being a non-contact sport. Without PED's the NFL doesn't exist. The player turnover would be outrageous. But those who are doing it to the extent that they get caught........even though the NFL goes out of their way to make it easy to avoid detection........those players might be pushing the envelope with PED's. And once you get caught.........THEN you are under scrutiny and subject to testing that the average player is not. It's a reason for concern.

AZ can convert his salary to a bonus and then execute the trade. So yes, they can pay his contract.

It's actually a legit point. The Bills have a long history of terrible 2nd round drafting. Which, IMO, is likely due to a mindset where they tend to feel like they nailed their first round pick after months of fixating on it and now they can use round 2 to fill a "need". The list of "we needed a" in round 2 and they turned out to be bad is LONG. The exceptions.......where they get studs in round 2........seem to be the years when they either view everything as a need(usually year 1 of a regime) or years where they don't have a 1st round pick. Guys like Schobel/Henry and Dawkins are the former.........Thurman, Cowart and Darby are the latter. I expect Epenesa to have a 10 sack year in his walk season and become the best of Beane's 2nd rounders........and also a player picked in a year without a 1st.

The fact that he hasn't played a full season since 2020 is very significant to his value, IMO. We've seen sudden and unexpected drop-offs from similar 30 year old HOF talents like Julio Jones and AJ Green in the past few seasons following missed time.......and despite the fact that they seemed to produce well for the parts of seasons that they had played. That greatly reduces Hopkins value, IMO. If he were coming off a 100 catch and 1,200 yard season........sure he's worth a 2nd round pick despite his age.........and the acquiring team probably takes on the whole contract and re-works it. The potential for a Titans/Julio Jones situation in a trade has to be very much in mind for any interested GM.

Yep, and this was the guy with the the two greasy, stinky bags on the flight to Charlotte after every Bills home game his first 3 seasons.

Straight up? No. They'd have to eat most of Hopkins 2023 salary to consider a second round pick. When you start talking about higher than comp-pick level value I think you start looking at adding later pick swaps or maybe expanding the deal to include Isaiah Simmons($1M cap hit) for a bit more.........a player they are not going to pick up the 5th year option on, IMO. But if they release Hopkins outright they have to eat none of that $19M+. This is why most in the NFL think he will be released. Hopkins agent can talk all he wants about re-working his contract but either way it's going to cost the acquiring team at least $34M...........I can't see him taking some big pay cut after he just had a very productive partial season last year. Maybe NEXT year he has to take a big pay cut but not right now.

I hadn't considered it...........but the Bills would not if they thought it was just a dumb mistake and not a result of a potential gambling problem. The Lions might. They traded TJ Hockenson which made even less sense. The Bills did have a star receiving back in the 1980's........Ronnie Harmon........who had been accused of throwing a Rose Bowl game with 4 fumbles............and then later had a pass go thru his hands at the end of the 1989 wildcard game in Cleveland which cost the super-talented Bills a victory..........and he was dropped like a bad habit weeks later with zero compensation. Harmon went on to catch nearly 400 more passes for San Diego with a remarkable 10+ yards per catch average but nobody in Buffalo ever lamented his loss for one second. Players who are a gambling risk are pretty worthless regardless of talent. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-06-29-sp-25-story.html