BADOLBILZ

You like the way NBA teams just halfass it all season and how it's so easy to back into playoff spots at the end? I enjoy the NBA for what it is but their regular season setup sucks. I don't love the NFL divisions........I preferred the 3 division setup to the 4......but fairness dictates 8 four team divisions. And they ultimately do create late season drama that is fairly easy for the league to guesti-schedule into existence............see the Jax/TN and Balt/Cinci matchups at the end of the year.

Simple. The quality of their WR corps declined dramatically from 2020-2022. First they lost explosiveness in 2021 (losing prime Brown and Beasley losing a step from 2020). Then also their savvy in 2022 (losing the washed but technically still reliable versions Sanders and Beasley).

When is the last time adding a stud RB took the pressure off a top 3 passer and established MVP candidate and resulted in a SB win that would have been otherwise out of reach? Gotta' go back to the late 90's with Terrell Davis and then Marshall Faulk going to StL. Doesn't work that way anymore. By far the two most likely things that would come out of the Bills using a 1st round pick on a RB are ultimately MORE pressure on McBeane either way: 1. Either they give the ball to a RB more and start winning less because they are taking the ball out of the hands of an MVP candidate in Josh Allen and trading 8 yards per play for 5. 2. Or they don't give the ball to the 1st and 2nd round RB's 50% of the time and then every time they lose a game they have to explain why they didn't give the ball to those RB's they invested premium picks in consecutive years into. There are a lot of reasons to not over-invest in a RB but one of them definitely is that a 1st round RB needs 250-350 touches...........and those aren't there in this offense with an MVP level QB...........and even if they were a lot of them would have to come at the expense of James Cook who had ELITE numbers per play in both the rush and receiving part of the game.

They are just floating nonsense out there because the Bills cause a conundrum for them...........their job is to assign players to needs.........and they don't really have a good feel for what the Bills would do if they were drafting desperately for need. I will give Beane more credit than they..........thus far he's used his 1st rounders to address premium positions........CB's, Pass Rushers, QB, WR.......with the only exception being Edmunds but I do think they thought they were getting a lot better player in Edmunds than they have gotten. RB's are the bottom of the food chain.

Yeah I loved Reddick as well........he was often mentioned as a trade or cut candidate in Arizona and it always intrigued me because the guy can get to the QB..........when you have a player like that you put him in position to succeed and naturally, a smart organization did. The thing is.........if Epenesa breaks out he will get PAID.........there will be no "tweener" discount like Reddick had to take because AJE has ideal size/length for a 4-3 NFL DE........and I can't see the Bills affording that in 2024. The best scenario was for him to break out this season while the Bills still had some contract leverage and so that he figured into decision making ahead of spending on Edmunds/Poyer. I think they will try to find $30M to spend($50M in cap adjustments) this offseason on UFA's and draft picks and that they aren't budgeting in either Ed Oliver or Epenesa. Either way I think those 2 are gone. Their next big ticket home grown target is probably trying to get Rousseau locked up in the 2025 offseason.

Why not, though? Get Diggs open quick........get the ball out of Allen's hand a lot quicker.........solves a lot of the Bills offensive problems. They still have to add another receiver.........but I could see Diggs having an 1800 yard season and 15 TD's from the slot.........maybe the slot work takes a year off the back end of his career but it gives him a potential HOF-chance-boosting season...........and more importantly maybe it tacks a year or two onto Allen's career. Ideally the receiver you add can play both slot and outside as well..........I don't know if they can reach a SB without a good second WR........it seems to be a defining characteristic of SB winning teams in recent years.

Because of Beasley I think people just have this impression that you can plug in a good undersized, quick receiver in the slot and be fine. I would say that we should look at the position as the replacement of what the RB was for the offense in the 1990's. In regards to 3rd downs.........it literally is.......the 3rd down back was essentially replaced by slot receivers. And as Cooper Kupp proved.......if your best receiver is there that's not a bad thing. That's why I say put Diggs there...........or sign Michael Thomas if he takes a reasonable prove-it deal. The Beasley-lite approach they used last season was a major fail. I like Shakir but I'm not putting all my eggs in that basket...........he looked like more of a "tweener" inside/out guy than a guy with true slot skills, IMO.

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.