earthtobrint

That'd be a terrible way to determine, or even influence in the slightest, a draft board so I'd expect not.

Has speed but only a straight line runner. Doesn't make defenders miss nor break tackles. Former safety. Very good on special teams. More of a special teams addition but another body at RB. Feels redundant since we have Dixon. Younger, cheaper version I suppose.

As of now, over 1/3 (6 out of 17) of the picks following the Bills pick have been offensive linemen.

I don't think Peters needs to be brought into the conversation to compare to the Brown situation but... Pro Bowl LTs you pay. Pro Bowl WRs you don't necessarily have to pay. WRs are more expendable/replaceable/less vital to success especially when compared to LT. Peters was making $3 mil a year whereas Brown is unhappy with $8 mil. Peters should've been given his $10 mil a year and the Steelers don't need to cave in to Brown's hold out. Brown has marginally outplayed his contract. Peters was playing for less than 1/3 of what he was worth and at a more vital position. OP is trying to make this a Steelers vs Bills public perception issue when the two situations aren't even comparable.

AD is only 22 and is already one of the top 4 players in the NBA. He's already a dominant force on defense even though he hasn't even grown into his NBA body yet. His shot will probably reach 3pt range eventually. The Pelicans have a young talented team around Davis, though. Personally, I think they have too many ball-dominant guards (Jrue, Tyreke, Gordon) on a team that should revolve around AD. Up until Reke and Jrue were acquired by the Pelicans a couple years ago, all three of them were used to having the ball in their hands all the time on their own three respective bad teams. Although I think Jrue is a better player, in a way it worked in their benefit that Jrue missed so much time this season. It allowed Tyreke to shine in the PG role he's more used to. I could see a healthy Pelicans team beating Dallas or Portland but not Golden State, though I don't expect a sweep. Next season if they could ever stay healthy (It feels like they are always missing one of Jrue, AD or Ryan Anderson for long stretches of time) this team could easily be a top 4 or 5 team in the West, which would be an accomplishment.

In less than 30 minutes, the Eagles called back asking if Alonso was available. Unless the Bills were the very last of the 30 NFL teams the Eagles inquired about taking McCoy for picks, it seems strange that in less than 30 minutes Chip went from wanting draft picks to doing a straight up Shady Kiko deal. You'd think some team out there would maybe give a 2nd for McCoy, or at least a 3rd + more.

Better move the Bills to San Diego now, too.

The Bills don't have a halfway decent QB on the roster to trade for the another halfway decent QB.

Unless he's unhappy, Brown would be the one RB I would not cut. If LeSean were to ever get hurt, Bryce is the only guy out of the three capable of handling the workload and being a decent to good starting RB. Dixon is a quality special teams player but he's never been that good a runner of the football. Fred at this point in his career is probably limited to 3rd down duty. More than that I wouldn't expect him to stay healthy. That small role could be useful although he's not essential. I don't think there's a need to cut any of the three unless we sign/draft a replacement, which isn't really a need.

Buffalo should be the one ignoring Powell and considering Vereen. I'd take Fred, Brown, and Dixon all over Bilal Powell. Vereen on the other hand I'd take over any of our backup RBs in a heartbeat.

Mariota doesn't seem to share that proclivity, at least not in college. Yet to be seen how he'll be in a pro offense (or if he falls to the Jets) but the Jets could end up with two huge acquisitions this offseason at their biggest needs. Mariota at QB and Marshall at WR.

Shady in the short term (2 seasons maybe), Kiko in the long term. Shady has a massive amount of touches on his back and will be 27 going into the season (626 the past two seasons and that's not even counting receptions). At that age, coming off that sort of workload, he has maybe 1 or 2 more seasons of playing at a high level. The Bills will possibly have to restructure/extend his contract to make him happy, leaving us on the hook with a bad cap contract long after he's fallen off the RB age/carry cliff. I'd like this trade and be all in for the short term...if we had a QB and could make a run at the super bowl. With our QB situation, we're not winning a super bowl in the next 1 or 2 seasons. Rex Ryan may believe we can but he's under the delusion that a team today can win it all with ground and pound with a game manager (bad) QB. I know there's little options at QB right now, but it still doesn't feel right investing this much in a RB with a lot of tread on him, then end up regretting what we're paying him after his play inevitably falls off, when we're not a RB away from being a super bowl contender.

McCoy will be 27 going into next season and has had 600+ carries the past two seasons. The RB cliff isn't far away for him and yet he wants his contract to be extended. You've got to be thinking of future production not past production, ESPECIALLY with RBs. With a quality offensive line, you can get production out of a RB that you don't have to invest much money/years into. I don't get why the Bills are the only team that doesn't seem to understand that.

Clearly there's a secret video tape of Manuel misbehaving in a Walmart parking lot.

You can go down a list of their entire roster and Brees would be the very last person they'd let go. It's not generating a discussion. Practically all the posts are "tearing him down" because there's nothing here to discuss.

Ironically, we've lost our window to find a franchise QB by having a quality roster. The good to great QBs in the league right now are almost exclusively top 10 draft picks. Yes there the draft histories are littered with busts at the top 10 but that's still where they are found. We wasted our years of being bad without finding (or even trying?) to find QBs by drafting them early in the draft. Seasons wasted on the likes of Trent Edwards and Ryan Fitzpatrick. When they finally did take the plunge (EJ) it was in a historically bad QB draft class. Now our only option is to draft many in mid to late round QBs and hope we get lucky by finding the diamond in the rough. There's enough talent on the team to get by, maybe even make the wild card, with mediocre QB play, but it's unlikely we'd ever be true contenders without a QB that is at least capable of raising his play to elite levels at times.

Exactly. The play call was as much about stopping the clock quickly as it was trying to score. Carroll didn't go with his team's strength and instead chose to maximize the number of plays rather than the quality of plays. He said himself that was basically a "throw away" play. Belichik didn't necessarily psyche him out. Carroll had reasoning behind his decision, but his decision allowed there to be unnecessary risk involved. If he was going to call a pass, a play action roll out would've been a much better call. It would give Wilson time to choose pass, run, or throw it in the stands. The pick play forced him to just hike and throw to a spot immediately without time for judgement, completely depending on the WRs executing and the CBs not knowing exactly what was coming. Also, they chose to target the guy 9th on the team in receptions on the season. Back to Belichik's decision not to call timeout, I believe that also was a mistake. I could see letting the clock run, minimizing the offense's number of plays, putting everything on the defense to get a stop, if the ball was on the 10 yard line or something. However, when they have three shots at it from the one yard line, odds are they are going to score. Belichik got lucky there by way of Carroll/Bevell's blunder.

I was going to mention this exact thing after reading OP. The second team would be able to use all 4 downs. However, I still prefer that proposal over the current one. IMO If there are any scenarios at all that one team can lose without having an offensive possession, then that is a major problem and is putting way too much of the advantage into a coin flip. Most importantly, before any special overtime rules come into play, they should play an overtime as if it's another 4th quarter, even if it's an abbreviated quarter time (And this extra quarter is only for playoffs). After that quarter, then they can use some special overtime rules.

The only possible issue is that the Bills don't have the prototypical offensive lineman eating NT required for the 3-4 defense, so there's a possibility that they regress a bit in run defense. But I doubt it will be 3-4 all the time. With all the talent on defense Rex has been handed, it'd be difficult for it not to work. The offense on the other hand needs some personnel upgrades.

Bradford is on top of the poll and I'd like to bring him in but I just don't see St Louis dumping him no matter what his cap hit is. With a healthy Bradford, the Rams are a playoff contending team. With no Bradford, they are the Bills but with an even worse QB situation. If you're the Rams you only have to bite the bullet for one more season on Bradford's contract and then sign him to a reasonable extension if he manages to stay healthy. In fact besides Cutler, practically all of these non-FA QBs on this list are a pipe dream. The 49ers and Eagles are playoff contending teams if Colin and Foles play half as well as they've shown in the past. Without them who exactly do they turn to at QB? That's the situation with the lack of competent QBs in the NFL. The Bills will pursue trade options but most likely only be able to bring in a FA that will only end up playing if EJ falls flat on his face again (entirely possible). Out of the scrap heap FA I suppose I'd pick Hoyer.

Sure...two with nearly polar opposite philosophies and schemes. Unfortunately I don't see us retaining Schwartz now, unless Rex somehow is willing to go hands off on the defense.

In the scenario where we don't trade up for Sammy, we also don't forfeit our draft pick at #8. You're ignoring the fact that there's plenty of quality players we would've picked from there. The question is how good would we be with Kelvin Benjamin or Odell Beckham or Eric Ebron this season (or a player at a different position), plus a first round quarterback next season. I'm glad Sammy is on our team but as always it still comes down to whether we are able to find a QB. No first round pick next season greatly hinders that pursuit, although it doesn't ruin it.

You do realize what Marrone got into a heated argument with director of player personnel Jim Monos about, don't you? The potential of the Orton signing damaging EJ's fragile confidence. Pulling EJ in the first week of the season would destroy that. It's not going to happen no matter how badly he plays.

See my other post. I'm fine with them paying Orton $5 million but it's happening right now two weeks before the season starts because they have no alternative whereas there have been better alternatives for the same price range as recent as the start of this offseason. Instead they've been relying completely (or hoping) on EJ not being as bad as he has been thusfar.

Part of my point was McCown was available for the same price we're now paying a guy to come out of retirement after the preseason is already over. Would you prefer Orton or McCown? McCown likely wanted to be a starter but all you had to do is tell him it's an open competition at QB. It'd either push EJ or McCown would win the job. Instead, they give EJ a ten mile leash by telling him before the offseason even starts that he's the definitely the starter, and having incompetent backup QBs to compete with. I'm not saying McCown is some savior but he's one of many examples of better options at QB the Bills chose not to invest in.