BADOLBILZ

It's not an easy call but part of my philosophy is that the team should recognize that the 1st round pick is both the best chance to find a star player but also the most overrated personnel chip. It's still pretty much just a 50/50 swing whether you swing big or just try to make contact. If you swing and miss BIG........at least you gave yourself a chance at a home run. You can draft poorly in round 1 and win. But drafting non-premium positions becomes a double edged sword because you eventually have to pay them close to premium dollars if they pan out.........which is not ideal at all. How bad does the Quenton Nelson pick look in hindsight? He was as sure of a thing at a non-premium position as Bijan Robinson........and he played well enough for the 5th year option decision after year 3 to pressure the team into a 4 year $80M extension and now he has already turned into a middling performer when Josh Allen is just entering his prime. I'd rather have swung and missed at a Josh Rosen level than that. That 5th year option coming due after just 3 years.........when a second round pick has 4 years before you have to decide on anything beyond that........really complicates the decision and truthfully most fans put zero consideration into that. The GM having to decide whether to give a #1 pick RB an extension to keep him to year 8 or 9 or to choke down a $15M+ cap hit in 2027........that is a very unappealing situation. Especially if he has the huge ups and downs like sure things of recent past in Fournette, Barkley and McCaffrey.

My preference, of course, if there isn't a premium option available is to trade out. To either acquire a good player or accumulate more picks. That's what I am actually hoping for........I'd love to have another top 100 pick. But if it came down to there just being a top CB prospect available who checks all the boxes of being a future stud........and nobody wants to pay the price for the pick..........I'd take the CB. Who knows? There weren't any shut down CB's on the field for the Bills last season. We assume Tre White will bounce back but what little man coverage he was once capable of he may never be again. So yes, they appear to have starters but by this time next year CB1 might actually be a need. And bad CB drafts happen too.......so my philosophy is if you can't move then get quality at a premium position when you can. And another CB in the rotation might also allow them to move Taron Johnson to safety..........which is probably something I'd be asking for if I were him. He's earned the right to have the chance at that promotion, IMO. It wouldn't be a throw away pick. Changing your philosophy is a slippery slope..........when you take a Bijan Robinson or James Cook in the first two rounds..........you almost certainly DON'T take a Tyjae Spears or Isaiah Pacheco with a considerably later pick. This draft isn't great but I don't think it's terrible..........it just isn't great for the Bills current needs in the early rounds. But needs change fast. There could be a C who goes in round 5 this year that might have been pushed up into round 2 or 3 by need in past years. Lot's of RB's. Plenty of safeties and a fair amount of promising OTB LB's as well. So when you take those guys real early you kinda' set yourself up to fail in later rounds if you aren't willing to pick more of them when they actually represent value.

Yeah for the most part I've thought Beane has been sticking to the premium position model. MLB isn't a premium position but at the time I saw Edmunds as an excellent edge rush prospect that would probably assume the Lorenzo Alexander role and add coverage ability. I saw Oliver as a pass rusher. So in that regard they've all been premium positions in round 1. It's rounds 2 and 3 where they have had a tendency to reach for needs. Epenesa was the only one that kinda' met both premium position and upside, IMO. Ford and Basham were just JAG's IMO. Sometimes players get elevated because there is a lack of talent at the position(like Ford in a bad OT class of 2019)..........and other times the perception of a great class raises a few guys who don't pass the eye test(like Basham specifically).

Yeah not a "great" time but expected. The NFL made the track at Indy faster a couple years ago because everyone complained about it being slow for years and used that as an excuse for not running. Nobody is saying that anymore. A 4.47 this year is more like a 4.52-4.57 a few years ago.........which passes the eye test on Robinson for long time observers. He has adequate speed but falls short of the "whole package" that he's sold as. The tape shows that. It causes confusion though when they run the "simulcasts" showing a player running on the 2008 track alongside the guy on the 2023 track. We can look forward to a couple more years of every record being broken and then they will have to lower the bar again.

Washington is not Gronk. Not even close. If Washington stays healthy he has a chance to be a Marcedes Lewis type. Which was a lot more valuable back in 2006 when feature backs were still a thing and the game was more violent.

The answer is yes you take the best player at a premium position on whichever side of the ball is available unless you can trade the pick for a good player or more value. If you draft for immediate need you end up with Cody Ford instead of DK Metcalf or AJ Brown. The logic behind taking Ford was simple.........sure we may be passing on better players at more premium, but less immediately needed positions........but if Ford is at least solid at RT, it will work out fine. But he wasn't at least solid.........he was terrible. And that's the way drafts go............in the lead up to them it seems like very little separates tiers of players..........but in reality one pick could be a HOF'er and the one's on either side of that selection could be failures. The early rounds of the draft are the place where you are most likely to find your superstar, foundational talents..........so you should aim high and not let temporary need dictate those choices.

His actual hands? Maybe, maybe not. He's a more natural receiver than McKenzie though. McKenzie has bad hands AND is a bad arm/body catcher. The comp to Tyler Lockett makes some sense but I don't think he's on that level either. Either way, smurfs in round 1......no thanks.

Yeah he's more of a McKenzie+. With the plus being that the ball doesn't rocket off of his pads like he's wearing a mini-trampoline when he body catches.

That attitude is fine if you proved your ability and durability on the field and are just trying to hold your position. JSN says he should go top 5 in the draft. *Maybe* no one will have any pause about him opting out of the 2022 season with a national championship run a distinct possibility............but there is no question not playing has lessened his stock at this point. How could it not? Greg Rousseau went thru a similar thing. He didn't skip the whole season because of a hamstring injury.....he opted out for Covid.....but if he had repeated his 2019 season in 2020 instead of opting out........ his modest workout numbers wouldn't have kept him out of the top 10.

I just remember being astonished that they gave him 4 years/$11.5M. The salary cap had been $40M in 1997. Seumalo is a lot more athletic than Panos. How much runway they have left is similar concern though because Seumalo is a lot older than Panos was. Both had injury problems in their Eagles history.

Yeah........Seumalo was tremendous down the stretch this season. Excellent in the SB too. If he can keep that up he'd be a great addition at RG and allow Bates to go back to LG. Would cause some 1998 Joe Panos flashbacks for some though.......Former Eagles 3rd rounder of similar stature signed by Bills in UFA with high expectations to plug the RG position......

I have the reverse bias against him because his brother Canaan was a top prospect in the Yankees organization and was always injured. Canaan was a QB in HS but is the type of baseball player that his younger bro is in football.........instincts, hand-eye coordination, fluid athlete. In small spaces he's probably always the best athlete in the room......which is what Olave and Wilson were talking about. It's just always another injury with Canaan and the length of time missed didn't seem to add up. Usually leg injuries, but always something. When JSN called it an entire season with a hamstring injury.........that was all too familiar. Not running the 40 after 6 months to recuperate? I know everyone prefers to run at their pro day but that's some diva sh!t after skipping the season to prepare.

Gabe Davis' bulk stats say he's a WR2..........but for the team that eliminated the Bills last season he'd have been a clear WR4. In 2021 Tyler Boyd didn't drop a pass in the regular season. He had a higher yards per target and yet caught 20% more of passes thrown his way last season. The gap between he and Gabe is WIDE. As it is versus guys like Devonta Smith or Juju or Aiyuk as #2's on the other final 4 teams. The question isn't how the Bills stack up at WR with non-contenders.

Did you read the Bills report? It literally said that the Bills players don't think the nutritionist is available to them enough because of time split between teams. It may seem silly but in truth most of what employees b!tch about is silly, petty bullsh!t. But employers address the issues anyway.

I suspect McDermott feels comfortable enough on the sidelines now to also be creating the defensive game plan himself and taking control of play calling when he wants to.........which probably wasn't the relationship he had with Frazier.

I remember when John Butler said he'd do cartwheels to the podium if hyped Texas A&M RB Leeland McElroy was on the board when the Bills were up in 96'. Instead they took Eric Moulds. Bills haven't passed on RB that's gone in round 1 and regretted it since at least the 1980's..........this time will be no different.

Had to laugh when Beane said that he expected Hodgins to continue to do well.............which is code for, he doesn't expect him to continue to do well.

Not being able to trust the slot receiver was one of the biggest pivot points of the season. It really took Allen off schedule after the bye. We tend to remember the early part of the season as when the Bills were playing their best........but the Miami and KC games both should have been blowouts. They barely escaped 1-1.

It's a positive, for sure. They've been using a clock in the minors for a while and it cut the better part of a half hour off of games. Right now the effect is a bit exaggerated because the players don't feel the clock so they are rushing. But overall, will make a big difference. Also big.........pitchers can only step off the rubber twice in an at bat. So no more throwing over 5 times. If they step off a third time they have to throw the runner on base out or he advances. So no more "running game slowing down the game". And the bases have been enlarged to shorten the distance between 1B and 2B and 2B and 3B by 4.5". So lot's more stolen bases. And action. Distance from plate to 3B and 3B to plate is 3" shorter so more infield hits are likely. Maybe less DP's as well but I've seen a bunch the first few days.......good throwing arms beat runners and these infielders all throw about 90mph+ now. But the biggest impact on quality of play might be banning the infield shifts. Two infielders on each side always. Left handed hitters and batters who hit the ball up the middle(which was always a good thing before shifts) are suddenly playable again after years of being auto-outs in a league where the pitchers now throw so hard batters can't count on hitting the ball where it's pitched. Even the ultra sh!tty Aaron Hicks had 2 singles go thru gaps as a lefty hitter in the first two games that would have been shift blocked in the first two games.

More like "definitely not". PSE doesn't own the stadium and the value it adds to their asset is negligible. It's likely just going to be a basic stadium that barely brings them up to standard for the league. My point is that people are stressing about the cost of this stadium.........and it will most certainly cost over-run..........but long gone are the days when the facility was more expensive than the team it housed.