BADOLBILZ

Nice weekend for prospects........Volpe and Dominguez continue to rake.

Syracuse seems to be f*cked in the NIL world of college sports.

The RB addition for this team shouldn't be a significant part of their offseason work. James Cook should be getting half the carries at least either way. I'm sure it's probably just Williams agent leaking info to drum up interest in him but if he's not a cheap signing he's a waste. Yeah, he's a good blocker and solid short yardage guy.........but the likelihood is you are getting the Green Bay version.........which will look a lot like a taller Zack Moss.

When you hire a culture guy instead of an innovator..........you've chosen the longer path. But it's a win-now league so criticism follows coaches like McDermott who are great during the week but a work-in-progress on Sundays. Don't get yourself exercised about it. The criticisms might be exaggerated but not unwarranted. McDermott(and Beane) have to get better at what they do if they expect to win a SB. I actually like that McD is probably taking over the defensive play calling. That represents an attempt at progress with disregard to the potential for added accountability.

Yeah the important optics are that it's something that ownership has to pay for though. NYSIF charges a figure based on per $100 paid to employee.......so essentially a tax rate. It's significant........it's in the millions in annual contributions that an NFL team has to make and I'd expect it to be more like 8 figures given the high risk nature of the job. You have to offer an alternative privately funded option if you are taking it away though. I've been perplexed how this notoriously frugal franchise has been able to steal some free agents that the Bills were also interested in. DJ Reader in particular. Why do players sign on with that team?

I'm bemused by the McDermott criticism. He's very predictably been too defense-oriented but that was a given when he was hired. He wasn't McVay or Shanahan and everyone should have known that at hiring. And he isn't great at game management. But he's getting better. But coaches like McDermott do win SB's. Cases in point Bill Cowher and Andy Reid. Yes, Reid. Philly was too defense oriented under him and his clock management was often horrific. He tried to win with less on offense.....in KC early on as well........and fell short over and over. Took him a couple decades and a lot of circumstance to turn into a genius. I knew McD wasn't a quick fix guy so I guess I'm not surprised that he hasn't won a SB in essentially just 3 legit chances to do so.

I haven't seen it reported that the Bills were interested in Derrick Henry. Just a "here's a cool idea" suggestion by a sports writer. Like the one in TBN about how the Bills should trade Elam and a 2nd rounder for Jalen Ramsey. They WERE at OBJ's workout and have been linked to him consistently though.

Having to leave your feet to catch the ball is a definite sign that you are a hack as a receiver......can't walk and chew gum.....so there is that. That was the reason Andre Holmes sucked.

They both suck in pass pro. 6 sacks isn't good by any means. After 11 games this season Saffold was crowing that he hadn't allowed a sack per PFF. He ended up only allowing 2 on 1058 snaps. You saw how terrible he was. Everyone thinks Spencer Brown was impossibly bad and he only allowed 4 sacks on 858 snaps per PFF. There aren't many good RT's because there doesn't need to be. The focus by fans on trying to improve RT position with a big name is misguided. You can have a good OL with a not good RT. The quality of blockers is most important at LT and the guard positions. RT's can be helped by TE and RB's chipping and the QB can see the rusher coming if he is right handed. Centers aren't tasked with a lot of single blocking on passing downs anymore either.

I agree......it's mostly accounting. One advantage the Bills currently have is that there is one ownership entity.......Kim and Terry. For the Chiefs, "they" is the important part. Decisions about putting many millions of dollars in escrow to push salary cap debt down the line are split up among all of the heirs of Lamar Hunt. The guy who most people think owns the team, Clark Hunt, only holds about 1/8 of the Hunt family wealth.

Yeah getting a star WR to team opposite Davis outside in 11 personnel and move Diggs to the slot works great too. When they go 12........and I'd hope they get a TE out of this draft and play more 12 as well..........take Davis off the field. I don't think they will get a DHop or Evans but if they did, that's how to do it.

They should have won that game by 3 scores........instead they had to drive late to put it away. The opportunity for a slot receiver in the Bills offense the past few seasons has been enormous. I don't get why fans want to fill the spot with some JAG. The WR2 the Bills get should be a guy with inside/outside versatility and he and Diggs can split the slot snaps.

The combination of losing 2021 Beasley and Sanders both hurt..........but the 2021 passing offense had already dropped off from the 2020 version because Beasley had fallen off and they missed what John Brown had provided when healthy in 2020. Last year Allen lost confidence in his slot receivers after some crazy McKenzie-impacted games early in the season. A further declined Beasley returning helped a little but was far too little to expect to matchup with the Bengals/Chiefs types.

Who knows. Maybe Beane asked his agent to add a dummy year to Ed's deal to cut his 2023 cap hit down from $10M to $7M or something.........and he said you aren't touching my contract unless you extend me.

Yeah Oliver got a high ankle sprain in the opener and then after a strong run at mid-season he got hurt again and was ineffective. It's a popular take to play up DaQuan like he was a hidden-All Pro but the reality is that he merely exceeded expectations that some had because they figured he was going to be yet another of Beane's no-impact DT signings. He actually was what he always was but for the first time he was playing on a team that forced the opponent to pass the ball a lot. Everyone's play/impact dropped off when Miller got hurt and Rousseau got the high ankle sprain. The pass rush did not recover.

It makes sense for them for the reasons I stated...........they have cap space and are an unattractive destination and if he pans out then paying him half of what his market value would be if totally healthy($15M) leaves them at worst with a tradeable asset. Paying him half rate is too much for the Bills given the uncertainty around his rebound. They don't have that kind of flexibility.

Can we include John Holecek? When Ralph hired Whitey Donahoe the fan base was eating up every stupid move he made because he claimed to be doing it to fix the cap. In the midst of that he paid Holecek a $2M bonus and then cut him like 3 weeks later to save cap space. It went largely uncriticized because people were angry at John Butler and wanted to believe in Donahoe and "no fat chicks" Greggo. Very reminiscent of some of the dopey deals early in the the "Big Baller Beane is a Wizard" era that appears to have come and past. Will be interesting to see how Beane addresses the MLB hole in UFA.

Winning with a QB on his rookie deal is a good plan...........but the last 3 SB winners all had QB's on big non-rookie contracts. It's a QB DOMINATED league.........they are far and away more important than any other position.........you could literally pick the best available QB in round 1 every year and be better off organizationally in the long run than hunting and pecking from season to season to fill needs. Case in point.......when the Bills reached the playoffs for the first time in 17 years the ONLY first rounder of theirs on the field in Jacksonville was Tre White. 17 years of mostly drafting top half of round 1 and nothing to show for it.........and STILL were able to make the playoffs. Had they been just picking the next QB drafted after their pick during their drought that list includes eventual SB winners Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Joe Flacco to name a few. So I guess what I'd say is that GB was not dumb to take a QB if they thought Love was a franchise talent. What was not smart was drafting for defensive need in round 1 ALMOST EVERY YEAR during Rodgers career. That's where they f*cked up. Big time.

No, Von Miller was their best DL he was on like a 14 sack pace.........followed by Gregory Rousseau who improved on a rookie season where he lead all NFL DL in run stops. Oliver was better than Jones when healthy, which unfortunately wasn't much of the season. Jones was exactly the same guy he has always been........you just hadn't followed his career. And when he hit UFA in 2021 he got $4M. That's the going rate for 30 year old run pluggers. The only difference was that last year he was playing opposite a high octane offense and getting more pass rush reps. Everything else was same ol' Daquan. Coming off the the complete fiasco of spending $40M plus for 3 seasons of Star Lotulelei, Beane was in desperation mode to find a DT1T and overpaid again.

I agree with most of that...........but one thing we need to accept is that the free agent WR3 market is $10M+ aav now. The Chiefs gave that to Valdes-Scantling then drafted Sky Moore in round 2 and THEN at midseason traded for Kadarius Toney because they thought the drop-off from Kelce down to MVS as WR3 was too much. The Bills gotta' raise their expectations wrt weapons. They've really let their "fastball" go the past two offseasons.

The Bills actually still overpay for average free agents........Daquan Jones is a steady $4M aav snap-sharing block absorber and they gave him about $7.5 aav for some reason........and the $6M for Rodger Saffold deal made no sense at all. The "Buffalo as a destination" value-acquisition-thing hasn't really materialized as promised. They keep some of their own on good deals and do actually get some cheap prove-it and ring chasing low end deals like Crowder and Quessenberry that they would have never gotten when they sucked though.

Still dangerous in the screen game

It's expensive given Woods play last season but if he returns to form they either get a good player for a couple seasons or a mid-season trade chip at a position that is bringing real value back in return.

Joe Marino thought 2 years $10M would get it done. Nope.

They won a Super Bowl in that run. I think they were also the #1 seed entering the playoffs times weren't they? I'm not advocating their approach but mediocrity with extended periods of SB contention isn't true mediocrity to me.