BADOLBILZ

Actually haven't heard much positive at all about Addison or Lotulelei in camp. With most of their salaries guaranteed whether they make the team or not.........and likely having next to zero market for their services elsewhere........it might be an option to cut them and have them as vets on the PS to have available for injury replacements while keeping the young talent on the roster. Can pretty much guarantee that if they were cut on the eve of the season they would at least not be signed elsewhere until week 2 when their veteran minimum salaries would be unguaranteed and they would only have to be paid week-to-week. Could also see Beane exploring some trades to swap depth at one position for help at another.........like the Eli Harold for Ryan Bates trade. I'd be interested in seeing @GunnerBill use his extensive knowledge of recent drafts to put together some swaps..........like Daryl Johnson for a promising but blocked LT prospect.......deals like that.

It's literally NOT spin. It's fact. They got White and Edmunds for the most valued player in the entire league........a likely first ballot HOF QB. 5-6 years from now White and Edmunds will be wrapping up their careers..............and Mahomes will be nearing the mid-way point of his. There is no way to spin that transaction as a win for anyone but the Chiefs. Allen was a totally separate series of transactions. A negative "spin" would be to say that trading that pick to the Chiefs may have cost the Bills multiple SB wins ALREADY.

Doesn't change anything. When the only concern is getting to the QB the action unfolds a lot quicker...........the rush has to maintain some gap integrity either way.........but they don't need to pause for the threat of a handoff and that greatly accelerates the speed they can play at. Ideally you stretch the defense vertically and horizontally on every play.........that's why well executed play action is extremely difficult to stop........and 5 wide really only gives you the the horizontal aspect. Go back and watch the 5 wide stuff the Bills ran last year............it didn't result in big plays............and generally doesn't for ANY team. McDermott would love to see opposing offenses run 5 wide.......his defense......and many others.........try to get teams to dink and dunk down the field and that's all 5 wide is good for. In practice last week I saw the Bills line up 5 wide and then have McKenzie motion back into the backfield............that would be a nice wrinkle if McKenzie shows he can carry the ball out of the backfield like a Curtis Samuel. He's certainly a MUCH better receiver than anyone they have in the backfield.

The funny thing.........prior to fateful day when Bruce, Andre and Thurman got cut..........99.99% of Bills fans were in utter denial about what was coming. They didn't ever bother to understand the cap because John Butler kept pushing debt down the road.........so every offseason they would be told the Bills were going to be over the cap.........and then Butler would then find a way to extend every Ken Irvin and Sam Rogers. So they thought there was always going to be an answer. I had been pointing out exactly what the deals that Butler was making in the late 90's was going to result in............it wasn't that complicated........and even though I have some financial background and my math was right on.............I even had a couple accountants on here try to tell me how I was going to be wrong. When Donahoe came in people were so shell-shocked and in search of a savior that he was able to use the "cap hell" excuse to gut the ENTIRE identity of the team...........it was a bad situation.........but some of the cuts were simply unnecessary (Ted Washington, in particular). The narrative was "it has to be done, even now we won't have a penny to spend for several years"...........but then, of course, Ol' Whitey was shopping in free agency the very next offseason. Cap hell hit the Bills fanbase like an unforeseen natural disaster..........and then the guy who was supposed to be stewarding the team out of it was a hard-headed dipsh*t and instead ushered us into an ice age. People are still twitchy about it.

The reality though is that empty backfield = DL can just attack the QB = quicker and subsequently shorter throws. It's the recipe for dinkin' and dunkin'.........boring offense.

Again........NONE of the picks acquired for Mahomes were utilized to acquire Allen. You can say "you know" but if you don't know that they got the picks they used on Tre White and Tremaine Edmunds with the pick KC then used to select Mahomes and the first pick of the third round in 2018...........then you just don't know *****. The reality is that the Bills traded the most valued player in the entire NFL to a conference rival.......and Mahomes then proceeded to win a SB and block the Bills from advancing to one. Even later acquiring Allen......the Mahomes trade could block the Bills from numerous SB appearances/wins.

Just have some more peanut butter

Right now, it looks like there will be significantly less quality WR prospects in the 2022 draft than there was this year..........particularly wrt speed and quickness guys. Not a drought year........but down from the past two and less quality at the top. Despite the very small # of players overall.........the 2021 class was very deep at WR using any prior draft as a measure. But I agree that they should be able to cut and PS him. The league is loaded at WR, I expect there will be many better prospects than Stevenson on the waiver wire at the end of camp. Bills might even go that route. I don't think it's a given that he is with the Bills in any capacity even if he goes unclaimed after cuts.

These practices are very competitive.......especially now with pads on........nobody is letting Knox have anything for lack of trying. I don't think his problem is gonna' be correctable by catching ping pong balls.......he might want to try hypnosis or something else before it turns into outright "yips".

Look at it this way..........when the play becomes uncompetitive.....an easy grab....Knox level of performance drops. He has made tremendous, tightly contested grabs. He excels after the catch when challenged. I assume you saw the catch in Saturday's practice.........the defenders had no chance.......but he had to leap and fully extend for the TD.........he was challenged........there was no time to think about mechanics or how bad it will look if he doesn't catch that ball. I don't see anything to indicate that his problems are broad/chronic/random...........it's a pretty specific, isolated issue and the common denominator is being unchallenged. When he is running wide open toward an uncontested throw........I believe he has shown that he needs to get himself in the same frame of mind as a contested catch situation. IMO, the way to be there is to be thinking......"this is me competing against these guys fighting for my snaps". A guy like Tom Brady can find a slight in anything and use it.........but for Knox it might be harder to suspend disbelief and think that he's in danger of losing a roster spot when you are as superior athletically as Knox is against his feeble competition at TE in Buffalo. Short, slow, physically compromised.........these TE's are not in Knox class physically He's talented.......if he gets to the next level, that could become...."this is me competing against Travis Kelce or Gronk" but for now he needs to fix his mindset when unchallenged.........because with Josh Allen at QB and these WR's he is going to be left open A LOT.

Yeah, IMO it does. It indicates that the drops aren't a physical problem..........the more time he has to think about it, the less efficient he is catching an easier ball. He's thinking too much.........competition takes a player out of his own head and serves to create productive stress in competitive people. This isn't something you need to have been a pro athlete to understand........it applies to occupations of all kinds.........and most anyone who has played a lot of organized sports has experienced the value of one's frame of mind on performance. If you are so dubious about this concept, I gotta' ask..........why do you think coaches love competition in camp? Not a believer in the steel sharpens steel way of thinking?

This should be the year for Hamilton. Been 21 years since TiCats won it all.

I was at the practice Saturday and I said it here when I got back...........it looked like he was pushing more for WR4 than in any competition with Hodgins/Stevenson. Just a different tier. He's intense and competing every snap out there. Hopefully Davis rises to the challenge. As @dave mcbride pointed out a few weeks ago........sometimes Davis seemed in his own head last season and dropped some easy ones.

When players aren't in competition they often get into their own heads and struggle with things like this. The Bills haven't provided Knox with a lot of competition since he's been there..........he's always been the only TE with all the physical traits you want. Davis also has some struggles with dropping easy ones to some extent. Hopefully the heat from Kumerow will get him focused on competing against someone rather than battling his hands. The pool of players was shallow overall.........but not for WR.........very deep draft at WR. There have been plenty of years when a guy like Stevenson goes 3rd or 4th round. Ask Buddy Nix about TJ Graham. Not nearly the prospect Stevenson was........but sometimes there have been WR droughts that last for several draft classes. 2015-2017 was like that most recently.

As Russ Brandon once said......."the brand is tarnished". One season as a SB contender isn't going to change that. Winning a SB would help a lot. Josh Allen having a long and illustrious career in Buffalo could help immensely.

The Bills put in a good deal of work on Anderson in the draft process. Sometimes the late picks are about interviews and access/exposure to the player. I always like to see them go with the high upside guys late........Smith over Doyle or Anderson would have been a popular choice with me...........but sometimes drafting like that is also how you end up with Cardale Jones and Kolby Listenbee.

The best Ford has looked as a pro was in the preseason of 2019 lined up at guard on the right side next to Nsekhe. Somehow a bogus narrative came about that he was somehow better suited on the left side.........he stunk when he played there. His best shot is on the right side, IMO. Boettger definitely outplayed Ford on the left side last year.

Excellent synopsis. Obviously injuries will also help sort it out and to me it sounds like Hollister might be the first IR candidate. Your picks certainly reflect a McBeane that are afraid to move on from veterans.........which makes sense because they are in SB contention........but while I think the Bills should be all-in on this year..........IMO it would be good for both 2021 AND 2022 if they cut some of the deader weight like Addison, Klein and Star and Taiwan now. Klein and Jones played well last year but another year older at athletic positions like that matters. As @Rochesterfan pointed out, they might be able to PS one or two of those guys.......there is a lot of guaranteed money in their pockets.......and not a lot of fits for them on decent teams elsewhere (see how long it took Justin Houston to get his little contract). On paper, Star is an obvious fit for a cut and stash. He's already going to get his money. Give him half a season to practice back into shape and insert him into the lineup fresh late in the season. If they can't get one of the vets to take one for the team and chance to win......there will be comparable veteran LB's, ST's and 1 techs available cheap off the street all season. Also a 7th WR isn't on my radar right now..........they should be able to field capable options on the PS with such great depth around the league. The Bills have a highly productive WR corps but the "potential" of their WR corps.......QB'ing being equal........fell well down the list with all the explosive talents entering the league the past two seasons. I don't think teams are drooling at the thought of getting their hands on Hodgins or Stevenson. But as you said, if they play great in preseason they could force the team to keep one of them.

It was on one of the telecasts, I thought it was late season but it might have been at a point in the season when the Dolphins and Cardinals were in the playoff seeding. Entering December they had played 7 games against teams over .500, which was the most in the NFL at that time. They did have a strong schedule. Now in 2019........they had an easy schedule and faced a parade of laughable QB's.

Yeah everybody has heard about the Bosa brothers grandpa being a mob boss........they get a lot of attention because they are star players.........but that's the Kumerow side. John Bosa was from New Hampshire. Eric Kumerow came out of HS in Chicago and he and his sister both attended Ohio State. That's how the Bosa boys ended up at Ohio State despite living in SFLA. If Jake Kumerow turns into a key contributor we can thank them for him..........but we can always thank the two former 1st rounders for all of those beatings that the Bills gave Tom Olivadotti defenses.

Anyone who saw #83 leave Darrell Green behind in that game in Buffalo knows that there is no caveat to Andre Reed being the greatest WR in Bills history.

That part of the story is interesting but the fact that John Bosa married Eric Kumerow's sister.........both players having been ineffective 16th overall first round selections in successive drafts(87', 88') for the Dolphins.......is quite a story in itself. Those guys not panning out for Shula had a very positive impact on the Bills SB years.

In a world where the more highly regarded college "prospect" is always the better player........yep, Stevenson should be the guy. Unfortunately, Stevenson wastes motion that most of the veterans in camp do not at this point.........which negates some of his speed/quickness. If you take a good long look around the league there is no shortage of guys on roster bubbles with similar raw tools to Stevenson. The NFL has been absolutely bombarded with WR talent in the past few drafts. The right play at this point is to take the guy who is best for them THIS season.

But dropping your 27 year season tickets because you had no faith in the Pegula's and the frickin' McDermott guy..........you really put your money where your mouth was there. In your time here on TSW you are lucky if you are hitting a buck and change.

You and @mannc are both wrong.........the Bills had a projected tough schedule going into the season and they ended up playing the most regular season games against playoff teams of any team in the NFL.