BADOLBILZ

Depends on what you mean by "high end". In recent years 4-6 teams have had 2 receiving targets rank in the top 32 in yards receiving. Including, regularly, your Chiefs. Having 2 top receiving targets has become one of the greatest indicators of whether your team has a legitimate chance to be playing on Super Bowl Sunday or not. So..............I think THAT second target on those teams is the real "high end". The Bills were one of those teams with 2 top 32 receiving targets back in 2020.........which is the farthest they've advanced in a postseason with Allen.

Has another Bills WR ever played a half of football that great? Maybe Moulds in that playoff game at Miami? But even then I don't think so. Watkins couldn't be stopped that day. Until they stopped throwing to him.

Yeah he was an immense talent. There were a lot of outstanding players on the field that day but he was clearly the best.

He wasn't overdrafted based on his talent, though.........he was an extraordinary talent with no limitations in terms of skill/talent. If he had been drafted into a winning culture with leadership at his position and subsequently stayed healthy he would have been a perennial All Pro, IMO. You'd be hard pressed to find a worse situation for a young WR than the one Watkins was plugged in to. That said........the Bills should have stayed put and drafted Aaron Donald.........he was the best defensive player in that draft by A LOT and I didn't think there was any stopping him whether he played inside or out. Back then, the Bills drafted like fans though.........always for immediate need. Stevie Johnson out........Sammy Watkins in.

Keon versus Freeze (unconfirmed)

Watkins was one in a long line or talented 20 year olds drafted onto the rudderless ship that was the drought Bills. They developed bad habits in a losing culture. Some went on to more success elsewhere and looked back on their Bills tenure as a real wtf experience. Watkins was not one of those who had more individual success elsewhere because he tore his body up training hard instead of smart. Similar thing has been going on with the Sabres for the past decade.

Cook is definitely NOT one of the top 5 RB's in Bills history. Not top 10 either. He's put up some very nice per play numbers but the RB position isn't what it used to be in the 60's thru 2010 when the rules were changed to increase passing offense. For decades the 2 or 3 best athletes on an NFL team were often the RB's. Now, the position is largely manned by players who can't play other positions due to size limitations. Cook would have been a backup for most of the existence of this franchise.

Being an NBA head coach is a thankless task. It's a sport of individuals. Winning at the NCAA level still brings glory. For someone already making $5M per year getting a raise to $10M isn't life changing money. He'll get a bump from UConn to boot. Pretty easy decision if you have an ego like Hurley's.

You are a good example of the reason why points/facts have to be repeated on TSW. Because someone like @Thurman#1 can post unsupported, illogical nonsense with conviction and the lazy and dimwitted will accept it as fact.

This is the kind of ridiculousness I am talking about. "at the time" was like a month ago. Tyreek Hill signed a 4 year $120M deal two years ago. Who makes the argument that the top of the market won't be higher for a premium position 2 years later? That's the definition of arguing for arguing sake. Jefferson's deal obliterated Hill's because in addition to being $5M more aav it had way more guarantees. The market for an item is the value it has if put on the open market today. What's idiotic is having to explain this to an "adult".

I wouldn't press the pencil too hard writing Coleman down as WR1. His range of potential outcomes also includes "inactive on game days" or moved to the slot at the expense of Shakir and/or Samuel snaps.

These inevitable posts are always some of the most illogical and pointless content of the year. Not everybody reads everything you do. It's a message board not a broadcast that everyone is listening to simultaneously. If you know what direction the topic is going to go and don't want to hear the same points, don't open the thread. Problem solved. You answered your own question with the last sentence of the post.

LOL. Nobody argues with more complete nonsense than you Mr. Curator. Then when your ridiculousness is proven wrong that is when you vanish. Remember a few weeks ago when you were insisting vehemnently that the top of the WR market wasn't in the mid $30M aav range?

This woman.........

Just stating a fact, B. New England pro sports are the undeniable arch enemies of Buffalo pro sports. Not even a close second region. Never the 'twain should meet. I am aware that we have some of you New England fans on here but most wisely hide their band-wagon allegiance to New England pro sports.

Boston/New England teams are Buffalo's natural sports rival. You should be ashamed to even admit your Boston sports fandom on this board.

I'd love for that to be the scenario. I will be right here to say My experience year-after-year though is that something this obviously askew tends to play out just like you'd expect. And the homer's like yourself who insisted that it was going to work splendidly or was a case of the Bills being ahead of the curve........they run and hide from it when it doesn't go nearly as well as planned.

Well, maybe not you or the superstitious types. But people who followed the Pats and the NFL objectively would still expect him to suck. When the Pats signed Chad Mucho Stinco he went from 800 yard receiver the year before to out-of-the-league. Some players fit in there, some did not. For some we have people here equating Claypool's couple 800 yard seasons to Randy Moss when Moss put up 1400+ yards per season his first 6 years in the league.

Did Aaron Maybin ever "get his head on straight"? Last we knew he was kicking it living the artists life in his studio. No regrets. Back in the 1995 the Bills drafted a guy named Corey Louchiey 98th overall to be their RT of the future. Really talented player with vines for arms and seen as a potential LT even. What the Bills and their fans didn't know is that he didn't want to play pro football. Hated it. He just wanted to get thru his rookie deal and sign a second contract with some guarantees and retire. He was very open about it to his friends. But people who just thought he needed some seasoning were still calling in to WGR drooling over the idea of his talent turning him into a solution to the post-House-Ballard struggles at RT. Lot's of NFL players don't like playing football. It's violent and it hurts and often has long term impact on their health. It's not necessarily illogical to want to avoid those results. There is no indication that Claypool actually wants to excel as an NFL player. Yeah he talks the "I'm the greatest" talk like Mayhem Maybin did. That was just part of the kayfabe with Maybin. The actions spoke much louder for Maybin and the vanishing act Claypool has pulled also tracks as "don't care". Maybe the Bills get lucky with him.........it's unlikely but there is a chance.........but if it doesn't happen it does not necessarily mean his head isn't on straight. His head might just be pointed in the direction of other things he prefers to do with the money he's made.

They are definitely high up in the conversation. Tua's best team too. Guys like Mac and Harris bring it down because they've sucked as pro's but their reserves were actually more talented. Speaking of reserves, I've said it before but Frank Gore was a freshman on that 2001 team and was the best RB prospect I'd ever seen or have yet to see. He was like the 49ers version of Frank Gore crossed with Marshall Faulk in the open field. He was a threat to go to the house on every carry. 9.1 yards per carry so 562 on just 62 carries. The repeated knee injuries subsequently turned Gore into a relative plow horse and he's still going to be an NFL HOF'er.

Yeah I don't buy this Gregg Williams "stop the run with numbers" mentality with their "in aggregate" approach to addressing boundary WR. If none of Coleman, MVS, Claypool or Hollins steps up as a legit 900 yard type outside WR...........which is the most likely result from that raggedy bunch...........then the Bills are probably just going to have to play a lot of tight formation football to manufacture clean releases and try to avoid "giving away" players on the outside. That can work with a great QB and I still expect them to be a top 10 offense because of Allen's willingness to throw his body around............but generally speaking spreading the field puts more pressure on defenses. I will be very surprised if they aren't in the WR1 market by the trade deadline at least. And if you are Beane and you think that might be the case, it makes no sense not to do it now and get that WR in the system. The risk to your rare, prime aged elite QB is not worth trying to squeeze by without using a high draft pick to address the problem.

Yeah 27' and 28' Yankees swept both world series. Only MLB team to do that back-to-back. The 27' team set the MLB record for scoring differential and the lineup put up video game numbers offensively and pitching staff lead the league in ERA. They are the standard in north american pro sports. 6 HOF players plus the coach and GM. The Big Red Machine is often bought up as a comp but there really isn't a comp to that dominance. Closest in NFL? I'd probably say the 1989 49ers that waxed that Broncos team or the 1976 Steelers that got decimated by injuries in the playoffs(that team should have been the high point of their dynasty). I love those 2001 Hurricanes...........I think they might be the most talented ever in NCAAF. But the QB makes it subjective. Dorsey was a very good college QB but he wasn't an NFL starting caliber talent. That being the most important position makes it more debatable.

Yeah it hasn't just been a "maturity" issue..........it's been a "lives in his own world and probably doesn't actually even want to play football" issue.

The issue here is likelihood. Hope is not a strategy. It's unlikely that a player who has been unproductive for 2+ seasons and a locker-room problem for the past 3 seasons is going to become productive and not a problem. And yes, there were issues with him with the Steelers all thru 2021. Simply put, he's been a low character, coach-killer type of a player.

No, from a production perspective his issues began in 2021 and have gradually worsened. No need to play Dr. Phil @racketmaster...........he's just sucked since then. One notable game over the next 40 game stretch isn't "continuing" to flash talent. It's one good game. Some of you act like he just needs to adopt a positive attitude about his situation. He's a sh!t show in terms of technique. He literally ended the Dolphins season last year with that sh!t route he ran that Rapp intercepted. Coach killer type of play. Players who don't really WANT to be great at football end up looking like Claypool does on the field. See Aaron Maybin. I have no problem giving talented washouts a camp flyer but Claypool could be a total tomato can in TC and he might beat out the nobodies they got fighting for 6 or 7 in this suspect WR corps. He's not necessarily even really being asked to step up that much to potentially get one more NFL paycheck before he can retire to the safety of the TSN studio to be a CFL talking head.