BADOLBILZ

Why are you willing to give Basham another year and not Epenesa? Epenesa is a year younger than Boogie...........and basically tripled his sack production and had twice the QB hits, forced a couple fumbles and did it all lining up against LT's. Basham was an over-ripe prospect and his slow start should be quite discouraging. I'm not happy with Epenesa and he's entering his walk year and given his slow development I find it hard to envision him having a place going forward whether he puts up 2 sacks or 20 next season..........but at this point Boogie is a "surprise cut" kinda' candidate.

Because it always mattered. The draft is a process that comes off to some.........like fans and NFL regimes on short leashes.........as just an annual event to patch holes. If you are doing it right you aren't drafting for immediate results...........but teams that do it right often get them anyway.

I have some ideas why. Because they value Dawkins, Bates and Brown long term.......and Mitch Morse is their most consistent OL. And at center Bates figures to inherit that role from Morse in 2024 and is as good of an athlete as any C in the draft and only 2 years older than John Michael Schmitz despite going into year 5 in the NFL. If you are drafting OL early they need to be immediate starters..........if only because they need the reps to develop...........and you need to anticipate that they are likely to suck and get your QB hit a lot........like early first rounder and super guard prospect Kenyon Green did last year allowing 8 sacks as a rookie. So 3 of them? Nah. I expect a combined effort in UFA and the draft.........and I'm not expecting miracles from who they draft. The guys that need to step up are Brown and Doyle........year 3 is when you expect OL to really start paying dividends.

What if they started out 11-0? The thing about announcing you think you'd be pleased with a certain W/L slate is that we really are rarely impressed with records in the final analysis..............it's how they got there and how it ended. I do think 11-6 is a reasonable estimate but what remains to be seen in the next couple months is how they re-tool the roster: 1. Are they all in on both sides of the ball, pushing big money down the line? 2. Are they chips-in on offense at the expense of defense? 3. Or do they get sucked back into the defense first, not wanting to lose Edmunds and Poyer, and re-use the "let Josh figure it out" approach to offense? We really don't know which way they are going yet..........but they should field a 10+ win team either way.

Yeah I definitely don't want a safety in round 1. Ever. ESPN just did a re-draft of 2022 and they had Elam going to Dallas (ahead of McDuffie which would surprise some)...........and the Bills then taking S Kyle Hamilton from their original spot(ahead of McDuffie). If they had gotten the top rated guard-specific Kenyon Green........yikes........the sure-thing, off-the-bus starter allowed 8 sacks as a rookie. Zion Johnson was better but still not nearly as good as was expected. Those guys may develop into very good players just in time to put their team on the spot about their 5th year option.............but in general I think fans want guards because they think they will be good immediately while premium positions like Edge/WR/CB are expected to have growing pains. Interestingly two late round TACKLES were re-drafted into the top 36 overall in Jamaree Salyer and Braxton Jones. I am still a believer in drafting tackles and bumping them inside if you have to.

There are no premium guards on the market..........which is unusual..........there usually are. I don't see them making a high dollar free agent move at tackle with their prized draft pick Spencer Brown still viewed as ascending. Seumalo is maybe the top of the market guard this year...........and he's just now ascended to being a quality starter for the first time........in year 7......going into his age 30 season. I expect they will sign someone like Will Hernandez.......or a more athletic option in the same price range if they insist on trying to be an outside zone blocking unit.......... and then go into the draft looking for at least one OL in the first 2 days.

Your mistake was doubling down on the same joke for some reason.

There were about 11 elite QB's in the NFL for varying lengths of time in the 2 decades prior to when Mahomes/Watson entered the league and started a several year run of multi-talented QB's entering the NFL. And it was pretty well split evenly between conferences during that period that began with Manning, Warner and Brady all arriving as star players between 1998-2001. But there is more depth/talent in the AFC now than there has ever been and the athleticism is off the charts as well. Whether they are elite or not at the moment is debatable..........for instance I'm sure you don't think Herbert is in there but his stats say otherwise. And not all of the players you listed were elite all throughout their careers or at the same time either........Favre and Rodgers were elite at the same time for 1 season, for instance. Same with Ben and Mahomes. Rivers was inconsistent for the last 10 years of his career etc..

The problem is that the available guards all project as short term fixes...........none of those G's are players like Edmunds who could conceivably play at a top 10 MLB level......and maybe ascend to All Pro level in that time.......for 5-7 more years. If that is the case you can backload the cap hits on Edmunds deal and keep going back to him for re-structures for a few years etc.. because he projects to have value in 5+ years. The guards are all your typical warty, short term fixes. Mostly guys who ascended to league average starter for the first time in their walk years. I am down with adding those players rather than using premium picks on them...........but they might be trash after a couple years and then if you haven't front loaded their deals to some extent they become a real burden. That's the Bills problem........they can't front load deals.

I'd add that for most of their run there weren't as many talented QB's in the NFL as there are today. And certainly not as diversely skilled both in terms of passing and running...........the latter of which has always been an achilles heel of Belichicks' defenses. 6 of the 7 teams that made the AFC playoffs this year did so largely because they had MVP or even HOF type talent at QB.........injury kept one of them out(Jackson)..........Miami with Tua is the only exception and he was outperforming all of them at one point in the season. During most of Brady's career there were only 3-5 extraordinary QB's at any given time in the entire league. He basically just had to beat Manning and/or Roethlisberger to get to a SB. I'm certainly not complaining because if it didn't get easier to find a QB the bumbling Bills franchise that traded Mahomes away would probably not have gotten one........but it's not as easy to get thru the AFC now as it was for a long time prior, IMO.

I'm on board with change on defense so I'm inclined to let Edmunds walk and see if we can't become more of a team that funnels the run to the middle than outside and in the process get better at rushing the passer............but I know there is potential for Edmunds to get a lot better still.............and he could sign a very long contract at his age which would allow for a couple years of cheap cap hits. It's a lot more tempting around $15M than $18M-$20M. Lot's of players on that list that are short term that I'd take. The guy not on that list that I'm hoping comes free is Calais Campbell. Just a personal favorite and good culture/physicality fit for a ring chaser. And I do wonder if they will be an interested party on one of those inexpensive old pass rushers this time around if they don't think Miller will be back to 100% early next season.

He has not shown the skills to be a great #2 WR..........he is Alvin Harper 2.0.........and this isn't 1993 anymore. Your WR2 really needs to be route diverse option if you expect to be playing in a SB. The quality of your WR2 may have more to do with advancing deep into the playoffs than having the better WR1 than your opponents.

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-2023-free-agent-rankings-free-agency Surprised to see they think Poyer only gets 2 years $8.5M per season but it makes sense given how busted up he was this season. They seem to believe a lot of the massive crop of RB's available get franchised..........which is the relatively low $10M per because they are just runnin' bax, afterall. The people dying to expend the Bills first round pick on a RB or Guard check out some of those low contract estimates.............you don't use first round picks on positions that command such modest dollars in UFA. Added 2/16.......... 15 players who could be cut and become free agents: https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/agents-take-aaron-rodgers-joe-mixon-among-15-players-who-could-be-on-new-teams-via-trade-as-cap-casualty/ Also CBS top 25 offensive free agents: https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-free-agency-2023-ranking-top-25-offensive-free-agents-as-qbs-dominate-list-of-players-likely-available/ CBS top 25 defensive free agents: https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-free-agency-2023-ranking-top-25-defensive-players-as-eagles-trio-among-10-best-available-including-no-1/ Edmunds #9 behind a slot CB/S in Chauncey GJ https://www.nfl.com/news/2023-nfl-free-agency-unheralded-players-who-should-be-kept-off-the-market-by-the RB D'Onta Foreman is an interesting potential bargain option for Bills from the "who should be kept off market" list Best team fits?: https://www.espn.com/nfl/insider/story/_/id/35673514/2023-nfl-free-agency-best-team-fits-top-50-available-players-free-agent-landing-spots-new-deals Ben Powers to Bills. Jordan Poyer to Patriots. Here is The Athletic top 150 free agents list: https://theathletic.com/4242104/2023/02/27/nfl-free-agent-rankings-list/ Edmunds 14th @chongli added PFT's top 100 free agents: https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2023/02/27/nfl-top-100-2023-free-agents-lamar-jackson-derek-carr-geno-smith-top-the-list/

As the quality of the Bills short game targets has declined since 2020 and with the Bills receiving corps having a lot of ball droppers outside of Diggs........Allen has focused more on getting the ball downfield. Allen is certainly not without blame but inefficient targets like Davis and Knox need to be just a bit further down the food chain in the Bills pass game.

I don't know.........what I tend to see are worse behaved parents and better behaved kids. But the greater investment in the kids by the parents.........along with easier access to information and instruction........has created better, more prepared and predictable behaving, polished players. As for things like players slacking on grades and being allowed to slide? That's always gone on. In spades. I can remember the day of the biggest baseball game in my HS history numerous members of our team skipped school, showed up for the bus, no questions asked and then we won that night. 🤷‍♂️ I went to a D1 school and had star athletes in classes with me that never came to class and there was no discipline so I assumed they were passing. This was the 1980's and 1990's. In general, kids can get away with A LOT less bad behavior nowadays and their lives are a lot more structured.

Admit it........you thought it was impossible that Cody Ford wouldn't AT LEAST be a good starting guard. The problem is that offensive lineman like the lumbering Ford are generally the least athletic players on the field all during those HS and college years.........just throwing picks at these lesser athletes because they played a lot in college or looked good surrounded by great players doesn't necessarily translate to "problem solved". That's why teams are always taking chances on athletes at the O Line positions even if they know they need years of coaching up. The Bills OL room is actually full of very high RAS guys at various stages of their careers like Dawkins, Saffold, Brown, Doyle, Bates and Morse. Saffold has been an All Pro. Dawkins and Morse have been very good player in their careers. The others are works in progress. I suspect if they were all in their prime together it would be an excellent OL..........but that's why it's hard to put together 5 good OL........they are typically one of the least if not the very least pro ready groups of prospects.......and fans think it's the other way around. It's actually quite possible that the Bills could throw 4 picks at OL and not get 1 even average starter out of the group as rookies.

Free? They already had Morse under contract. What good is being cap inexpensive if Humphrey was a backup or you had to eat a fortune in dead money by releasing Morse to give him the job? The assumption people make around here is that a good center can just move over and play guard well.............my point is that good centers are usually lesser blockers than good guards. In general, guard>center in terms of pure blocking talent required. For all we know Creed Humphrey wouldn't be worth a sh!t at guard. Same with Morse. The highly athletic college LT Ryan Bates might be a pro bowl level center for all we know.......it's said to be his best position(of course)...........but we know he's just meh at guard.

Yeah, that sounds about right. But they aren't going to give Higgins a $100M contract.........they aren't likely to franchise him next year with a new Burrow deal done and Chase eligible for extension either.........so trading 1 year of Higgins for 5 years of a promising OT is a business decision with some potential upside.

The way this draft lines up they could get a better LT prospect around 15 than the quality of WR prospect, IMO. Then they would have their second first rounder to go after a WR where the available option might be as good as anyone in the top 15. It's a good time for Cinci to make that move and I agree with @GunnerBill about the order.

This is not a newly raised concern. I've seen mock drafters hypothesizing Higgins trades since early this season...........because common sense tells you that notoriously cheap, "relatively" cash-poor Bengals ownership isn't going to be putting half a billion in outlays or in escrow for guarantees to Burrow, Chase AND Higgins.

I wouldn't just compare him to Rivers.........but I made a similar point here last week...........there are a lot of parallels between these Bills and the Schottenheimer/Turner Chargers for whom Brees and Rivers were the QB's. A LOT of them. Vegas loved those Chargers too, strong regular seasons, lauded rosters, defensive minded "culture" driven HC and of course, the QB whom unnamed GM's would all say "he's going to win a SB in the next few years" and.........then they would fall flat in the playoffs. Those Chargers teams are long since forgotten. One difference though is that Schottenheimer got fired after a season like McDermott had this year...........which didn't work out well for San Diego because Norv Turner was a sloppy HC like Wade Phillips and their program steadily deteriorated.............but part of Schottenheimers firing was likely tied to that being the 3rd culture driven re-build he had overseen and the prior 2 times, in Cleveland and Kansas City, things hadn't gotten better so I believe the Spanos family felt he had proven he simply could finish.

I mean, growing up in the 1980's a high % of my friends parents(boomers) were divorced and/or were kinda' indifferent to their kids extracurricular activities. Numerous kids I grew up with just lived wild lives and there were lot's of deaths and accidents and it was a real survival of the fittest and luckiest situation. So starting with GenX we started to see a lot more helicopter parenting, IMO............and when you do that parents really start living "vicariously thru their kids" as you said and that takes everything out of perspective at the events. I've seen it coaching and officiating. It's a real issue when you are in those positions........but at the same time I think the kids themselves behave a lot better on the field/court then we ever did. The behavior of kids in The Bad News Bears movie actually bore a good deal of resemblance to a lot of games I played in back in the 70's and 80's. The parents are a pain in the ass.........but we are getting more dynamic and pro ready professional athletes despite much less participation..........so I suppose in some regards it benefits us sports fans.

Not really. It's been decades since the Bills passed on a RB drafted in round 1 and later regretted it.

Weren't a lot of prospects to see. Play was dominated by a bunch of very over-aged pass rushers and running backs. Some of them 6 or more years out of HS.

Well you are wrong about that. A lot of people aren't bought back in yet..........and if you think anyone outside of a 25 mile radius of the arena takes issue with being called not a "real" Sabres fan........they do not. The Sabres are still in easily the worst stretch of hockey in NHL history. They are again on the outside of the playoffs looking in at this point and have a difficult schedule. So I am not surprised when I walk into a sports themed restaurant/bar an hour from the arena and the Sabres game is not on anywhere. They have been a complete embarrassment to their fans and WNY in general and as such are largely irrelevant still. But you aren't here and going to games either so I guess you wouldn't know. You are a New England sports fan first and foremost. If you think having your co-favorite team be the Bruins doesn't keep you from being a "real" Sabres fan.......well, I disagree. 😆