OldTimer1960

Still, unreasonable to expect every draft pick to be good. You can think it is an egregious miss if a 5th round pick doesn’t become a starter, but that isn’t realistic to expect.

For sure. I think Diggs was a 5th round pick, too. That doesn’t mean that it is a major failure of an organization to not hit on a 5th round pick.

Point is, you can’t count on 5th round picks as being long term starter. Yes, you *hope* to find starters then, but counting on that is not wise.

If that is the case, I agree, except for Diggs.

Stop. He was a 5th round pick…

Probably true, that is his track record. I would not spend a lot for a middling FA WR on the open market. If they have any FA $, try for decent IOL to compete with what I hope are 2 draft choices on the OL. Hope for 2 OL in first 4 rounds, if value lines up.

I disagree on Diggs. He is plenty athletic and Route running is really the best skill. Most receivers are not markedly faster than most DBs in the NFL. Quickness, route running and scheme are important. Yes super top end speed and leaping ability and size help, but there are plenty of great receivers that are good NFL athletes, not great by NFL standards. Agree that Davis and McKenzie are not top level receivers, but that doesn’t mean only super top athletes succeed at receiver. Look at the NFL receiving leaders, some are super fast, many aren’t.

Might Crowder return? He has shown that he can play and be productive- injury derailed last season. He has played a number of seasons, but think he is younger than Beasley.

Just look at Milano and then look at Bernard. Milano looks much more muscular.

1. Dorsey is coming back because Allen has trust in him 2. Dorsey is coming back because if you replace him it will either be a retread or a newbie 3. He is coming back because the team doesn’t need to completely change their successful offensive scheme and changing it is almost surely a regression. 4. With as poor as the OL was and the obvious struggles of Davis and McKenzie, who do you think would have done better? Players matter and they need better play on the OL to enable some plays that are just off the table with the problems the OL presents. Yes, they also need to do better at WR 2 & 3. I suggest that Rousseau is working his way there and they were picking late in each round in 21 and 22.

I haven’t watched a ton of Rice, but I have watched a full game against UCF and he had a really bad drop on a 3rd down, right in his numbers and it went right to the ground. Every receiver has drops, but that was a bad one. I’m not dismissing him as a prospect, but he is definitely not completely clean and he isn’t getting a ton of separation on mid-level routes.

There isn’t going to be any big FA signings

I think Bernard may be just too small, but so was Milano and he is pretty jacked now.

I think 13-3 with an injury decimated secondary, losing Von Miller, injuries to DTs, Dawson Knox brother dying, Spencer Brown playing with little offseason training, 2 blizzards- one costing a home game the other causing travel problems and finally Damar Hamlin’s heart stopping on the field is pretty respectable. And the division competition is all pretty good, too.

Me too, but I don’t think there is any chance of that. I don’t think there is a WR as good as either of those two this year and Bills can’t afford to trade their picks and still get help for OL and S.

So, who is that 1B going to be in the draft? They will be picking among consolation prizes at WR at end of round 1. Can they find a good one there? Maybe…

I don’t think it’s fair to assume that they didn’t know that Davis might not progress. There are only limited number of draft picks and very limited money for other issues. Beyond the above, I don’t think it would have been unreasonable to think Davis was improving after the KC playoff game. It hasn’t materialized clearly, but he played really well that game.

I wish I knew why Davis has so much trouble with drops. I think we’ve seen him make some great catches, especially along the sideline, but there are too many drops to consider him reliable at this point.

Thank you for such a large amount of effort. You really know your draft stuff, kind sir! Question: would you have considered Matthew Bergeron in round 2? Idea being that if Spencer Brown doesn’t pan out, Bergeron could play there and if Brown is up to the RT job, put Bergeron at one guard spot.

Why not take Bergeron in the 2nd over Vorheese? Bergeron would give them insurance at RT in case Spencer Brown doesn’t improve and, I would think, he could play guard if Brown improves. If Anthony Richardson is still available, someone might want to move up from 2nd round for him. Other than that, I can’t see much hope for anyone else available that a team would trade up for. As many here, I would not be very excited about Rashee Rice in round 1. He does have good hands and is pretty good at contested catches, but can he get open in the NFL? I’m not sure what his combine 40 will tell us, but I don’t think he is going to win many battles on speed or quickness. He seems to have had a pretty quiet week at the Senior Bowl.

It used to be that there were only a few outstanding QBs, but today there are many more. The Bills are in a group of teams that have great QBs, any one of which could win the SB. While we all watched Brady dominate thinking if only we could get a great QB, we would win, it turns out just having a great QB isn’t enough.

Screens and draw plays as well. I suspect that the lack of screens may be related to the OL struggling to block in the open field.

It is a fair question. All that I am arguing is that there were mitigating circumstances. I do think all of the above played into it. McCaffrey got a lot of carries and I speculate that taking handoffs takes less familiarity with the O than does getting into pass routes. Fair to question the coaching decisions on that.

Not a complete excuse, but 1. coming to a new team mid-season meant that he had to learn a whole new offense and develop relationships with his new teammates 2. He was also playing Special Teams which drew some of his attention away from learning the new offense 3. The OL was really struggling so RBs needed to be held in to block more often than usual 4. Singletary and Cook were both playing well ahead of him Do you really think that they purposely drafted Cook and traded for Hines, both pass catching backs, and then forgot about using them? I think more likely, circumstances like the above made incorporating the backs into the passing game difficult. Specifically regarding Hines, imagine starting a new job at a different company. Do you think you will understand everything and perform all roles immediately?

They were 13-3 in a season where the secondary was decimated by injuries, they went through two major blizzards and lost a home game because of that and had a teammate nearly die on the field. I cannot even imagine what that must have been like. They lost to a very good Bengals team and lost badly, but I think part of that was mental exhaustion from the Hamlin injury and having to struggle so hard throughout the year. Yes, outside of the above the team has weaknesses and I am confident that they will try to address them within the constraints of the cap and picking late in every round of the draft. I think they will try to give Allen more weapons to work with - I am sure that is what they were trying to do by acquiring Cook, Hines and Crowder. They may have overestimated Gabe Davis and McKenzie and underestimated the poor state of the OL, but I believe they tried.