BADOLBILZ

I think that's another "not" unpopular opinion..........but it's true that even the organizational water carriers who have had to poo-poo the notion that the team wasn't physical enough to protect their access to the team(like Shill Capaccio, for instance)......... are now having to admit as much because the coach himself is saying it in actions and words.

There was no indication that was what you meant.......learn how to communicate better or you'll be looking like buzzed vacation @McBean creating conclusions from thin air . And no, there was no doubt that Dawkins would start somewhere on the Bills offensive line as a rookie. There was zero chance he'd redshirt even on a very veteran Bills OL that had lead the NFL in rushing and big plays the prior 2 seasons. There would definitely be uncertainty whether Harrison could earn a starting role. For sure. The question with Dawkins was whether he was a tackle at all or if his lack of height and flabby body would limit him to being a potential high end guard. Power he had in spades and he also had "adequate" LT length with longer arms and bigger hands despite his squat build. Power and length/hand size are not strengths for Harrison entering the league.......hence him being a project and unlikely to translate to interior positions early in his career. The two players aren't good comps.........whoever said that was lazy scouting........perhaps trying to talk themselves or others into the Bills fit. If Harrison succeeds at LT it won't be done looking like the powerful Dawkins, IMO........... it will be more about footwork, awareness and technique. He enters the NFL as a finesse talent.

They said what about Dawkins?

Ironically, you hated the Josh Allen pick and were near inconsolable on TSW at the time. And I like how you drew a total nothing blow-off, leave-me-be-I-am-on-vacation statement from someone affiliated with a team that plays Buffalo every 4 years as proof that a specific unmentioned aspect of the Bills was seen as their most glaring deficiency. Humor is content. Not in 2023. In fairness, I didn't think Dawkins was going to be a good LT either but Harrison seems like less of an athlete and more of a project.

I don't see a Dion Dawkins comp at all. Dawkins was more athletic, more coordinated AND more powerful coming out of Temple.........he could have been an upgrade to the very good Richie Incognito at guard as a rookie. He was quite a versatile player.

That's what could have happened. He's the modern Alvin Harper type for sure. Back in the early 90's very few teams had 2 solid CB's...........the Bills made it to 4 straight SB's with only 1 of them..........so if you had a stud RB and stud WR1 your WR2 could EAT. Which Alvin Harper did and he then got PAID to be WR1 in Tampa and to this day remains their worst UFA signing ever. Today, there are a lot more dudes in the secondary........and all those stud offensive players gotta' be receiving targets in order for the 3rd best offensive player to get the favorable matchups in the secondary. Davis moving to WR2 by his lonesome doubly exposed him because he often had to face CB1's as teams chose to double Diggs with CB2. If Davis had hit free agency after the 2021 season he would likely have surpassed the Christian Kirk contract numbers and been a Harper-esque bust. If he had hit UFA after getting fully exposed this past season he would have been lucky to get the deal Marques Valdes-Scantling got in KC.

They got bounced by the team with the worst OL in the playoffs...........who nearly beat KC in KC after beating them the 3 prior meetings........and likely would have beaten your other best OL in the league Philly in the SB as well. They need to get better on the OL and replacing Saffold was addition by subtraction but it's rather obvious that the Bills particular affliction is not matching up with the elite teams in the receiving weapons category.

Well, if operated correctly, the west coast offense is a good, versatile offensive system and Shanahan happens to be the best play caller in the NFL. The 49ers team that Kyle took to the SB had Matt Brieda and Raheem Mostert as the lead RB's though. In fact, the Shanahan clan is as responsible as anyone for the death of the "star" RB. Mike could get any bum off the street over 1,000 yards in his Denver days. As for needing a better QB..........not really.........Brock Purdy is an excellent and perhaps elite fit for their system. It was always the main selling point of that offense that you could get by with a much less physically gifted QB so long as they were a quick processor and accurate with good ball placement on short throws. All that said.........the 49ers haven't been as good as the Bills offensively since Josh Allen broke out in 2020. You may like the way it looks because the WCO is more familiar to all the old timers but San Francisco is good offensively but their success is driven by their defense. When they aren't stout defensively, even with all their stars on offense, they aren't really equipped to get in shootouts with elite QB's.........as evidenced by the curb stomping KC gave them in SF last season.

Nah they had held the Chiefs to like 270 yards with less than 3 minutes left in that divisional game loss. They lost a shootout because they tried to slow the game down in the 3rd quarter and took the ball out of the hands of Josh Allen on a couple third downs and punted. Couldn't afford to give away those 2 possessions in a game where KC already had 2 extra possessions due to coin flip luck. The Bengals loss was just a disgrace on both sides of the ball but make no mistake that the offense was even worse than the defense.

I think it's the whole "worst quarterbacked game in NFL history"......and accomplishing that feat in just 2 quarters of play........thing being associated with the Bills. I don't know what the big deal is........they did have one series without an interception in that half. Granted.........the Chargers dropped a sure pick 6 on third down on that drive..........but you are what your record says you are in the NFL and it was NOT his 6th interception of the half!

I thought the moves at guard were uninspiring and that they certainly overpaid for McGovern based on his production.......but they raised the floor on the position a bit and got younger, which are the positives. That might be plenty if they had something close to a Jamar Chase/Tee Higgins kinda' 1-2 combo. As far as the draft they should go BPA at premium positions regardless of which side of the ball. That's the way the draft should be executed. I don't subscribe to the "well this draft is bad so let's take a non-premium position guy". I understand the logic but I don't agree with it. Trust the draft process. My preferred option is to acquire a difference maker via trade as their second pass receiving option (or the more remote possibility a stud LT).

I don't care about anyone's money.....let alone some broke-ass who can't accurately calculate the difference between 3 and 1. 😂 I care about cap space. Veteran minimum for the 31 year old Phillips would be $1.165M. Phillips contract is reportedly $3M-$4.6M. That's $1.835M to $3.435M more. That is in addition to being paid about $4M last year when he should have been receiving league minimum. Hell he already accounted for $1.25M in dead cap space on the Bills 2023 cap from his voided contract dummy year. Paying $4M-$7M above minimum over two years is not an inconsequential amount of cap space given the Bills limitations.

I'm more in on the playmaker aspect because the unfortunate reality is that you can't keep offensive lines together. There is a reason that there aren't any memorable offensive line driven teams in the past 20+ years. The closest thing to one is the Patriots........and while they had maybe a HOF level line coach they were more a product of a QB who got the ball out lightning quick than they were some kind of dominant blocking unit. And that's it. We just saw a tremendous OL in Philly last season........but two years from now they could be trash(like Tampa last year versus their SB unit). QB and receiver combo's can be kept together for long stretches........making them all the more worthwhile to invest in. On the OL the clear formula for not being undermined by that unit seems to be a good LT and two solid guards gets the job done. C and RT can be JAGs or even a bit less as blockers.

Yep and the first thing that went around the league were the offensive lines.........which made quick hitting west coast offenses almost a necessity........which allowed the DC's to bring out concepts like "zone blitz" that would have been laughable against say, the 1983 Redskins offense. Imagine if this board existed back when UFA first started and the NFL immediately awarded the Cardinals a 1st round pick for not even attempting to re-sign safety Tim McDonald........and initially gave the Bills nothing for losing stud LT Will Wolford who they had tried to retain but were duped by an escalator clause that required Wolford to be the highest paid offensive player on the team. A year later the Bills got a measly 2nd round comp pick for a stud LT out of that fiasco. TSW freaks out about 3rd round comp picks now. 🤣 Incidentally, there was an Ed Kilgore thread on here recently. Anyone who feels bad for those old farts who are casualties of the internet and 24 hour news cycle needs to remember that those days SUCKED when it came to following the league. Nobody talked about that Wolford BS at all. There was a passing mention that the Bills would get some kind of comp pick next year then nothing in the media thereafter. It got close to that draft and there was still nothing. So I called Ed up at his desk and he was pissed that I asked him to look into and mention such an inconsequential issue. He had no clue about it. Imagine the local news not knowing if the Bills were going to be awarded a draft pick now. 😆

And unfortunately Jim clearly doesn't want to accept that the structure of the modern game makes it ill-advised to go back to his glory years formula. Those happened right before the full onset of unrestricted free agency when you could keep players in development forever because there wasn't freedom of movement. This was huge for the quality of offensive line play. It allowed the lines to be better and more cohesive. One of my favorite examples from that period was OT Ray Brown. The Redskins kept him around on the bench mostly for 4 years(after 4 years prior as a reserve elsewhere). Then in year 8 he became a full time starter and started almost every game for the next 11 years! That kind of development simply could not happen in todays NFL. Because of things like this there was an entirely different rhythm to the game back then and it was much less complicated. Free agency fractured the continuity aspect of the game and created openings for the more diverse and complicated game we see today. It's not necessarily better but everything happens A LOT faster nowadays. From the personnel side to the on-field play. Jimbo needs to recognize.

The one player answer is obvious.........get him a star WR2. Another SB has passed and another team that won without a star RB.........it was a "trend" 18-20 years ago(when teams started going to split carry backfields)..........now it's blatantly obvious that you don't need or even want a star RB taking the ball out of your stud passers hands. McBeane should really clam up about Allen running too much if they don't intend to get him a better receiving corps............only an idiot thinks that Josh Allen running is a result of the RB's not producing.........he doesn't run on run downs he runs on passing downs...........he runs because the receivers aren't open, are dropping passes or the pass pro broke down.

Thanks for the data.......it's a reality that McDermott and Beane are inclined to draft defense early. As I've said before, defense is the matchup side of the ball so it always seems like you are needy there. When you have an elite QB........some teams(Ted Thompson Packers, for instance) just don't worry as much about matching up physically on that side of the ball(even if they should). I gotta say though.......Beane really wasn't actually involved with scouting in Carolina until AFTER he got promoted from DoFO.......which is basically an executive logistics job that really doesn't have much to do with actual football but is a great way to learn what everyone else's jobs are and how to run an organization from an executive standpoint. He was green as grass as a scout when he came to Buffalo and it showed, IMO. He was "in personnel" all those early years in Carolina in the same way that Smithers was in "engineering" at the Springfield nuclear plant.

Yeah things like that are the quiet reason why some players stay healthy and others can not. People around the league preach "100% injury rate" to brush off 100% of injury criticism....... because random things still happen........but there are ways to avoid many injuries. As discussed in his re-signing thread......Jordan Phillips is a good example of someone who has a knack for doing unnecessary dumb sh*t that gets himself hurt. His hamstring injury and his shoulder injury last season both happened unnecessarily.

Yanks win opener 5-0. Judge back at it.

The talk about Beckham getting big money and long term was always ridiculous.............but he was a 1,000 yard receiver in 2019 and then tore his ACL midway thru 2020. It's not like he's had a series of bad performing seasons. The last time he was on the field he was playing excellent football. He's probably a $5M-$7M aav 1 year deal player at this point but he could be a very good WR2 for that money if he returns to the form he was at in January 2022. He just has a higher level of skill than a guy like Gabe Davis who struggles even with basic catch mechanics as a WR2.

Pretty sure he's this guy

Yeah Eric Wood had to learn to control his competitive nature on the field to manage his health. He had his leg snapped under the weight of a DT that he was unnecessarily trying to win a wrestling match with and also tore his knee up chasing DeMarcus Ware downfield just in hopes of getting a big hit on him when he was clearly of no use to the RB in the play. Fred Taylor was the other player I've talked about who learned how to stay healthy. He and his agent gathered data to identify players who had managed to keep themselves healthy and reached out to many of them and found out how they took care of themselves and he modeled his behavior after them and suddenly he went from a 10 game per year average for his first 4 seasons to 15 game per year over his next 5 seasons. Part of the challenge is learning to keep themselves healthy BEFORE they've done irreversible damage. Hopefully Milano is in that category.

I am waiting for the @Chaos mind-blowing thread suggesting drafting both Jack AND Daiyan

You would think that for sure. It's obvious that he is no more than a league min type player at this stage........especially at a time in the offseason when young and productive players like Taylor Rapp and Damien Harris are apparently signing 1 year deals for south of $2M. But I thought Phillips was only going to get league min from Beane last offseason and Beane gave him guarantees(including $1.25M still on the books for 2023 in unamortized bonus from that deal).

Yeah I assumed Phillips would be brought to camp as the 5th DT or that he would be on a practice squad somewhere next season. The Ravens cut the productive and inspiring Calais Campbell because they felt like he was about to decline..........the Bills brought back Phillips with apparently some guarantees even though he washed out 3 years ago. Clearly different standards. The Ravens know that they are good at filling their interior DL roles.........the Bills don't trust their scouting, clearly. Phillips is(or was) a very talented player but I would not be surprised to see him beat out in camp by a healthier scrub and Beane having to eat some guarantees to cast him adrift.