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Also, I think OJ's less famous lawyer, Barry Sheck, convinced the juror that a lot of the forensic evidence wasn't credible. And while some might dispute Sheck's forensic competency, let's remember he was performing for a juror that did not think police officers or forensic experts were particularly credible in the first place.

The draft pool may be more shallow this year but solid starters will come out of every round. Good GMs and scouts will find them. Hopefully Beane and his guys are looking at the right things.

Obviously, I'm interested in seeing who the Bills do and don't draft. But I think Brady is the biggest wildcard when it comes to the production of our wideouts. If it turns out he's good at scheming guys open, something he did not prove last year, we'll be fine. If he's not, even drafting one of the better rookie's won't optimize Josh's potential.

Absolutely agree. "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts..." That's exactly how I see McD's defense. I don't think he gets enough credit for our excellent regular season defensive performance over the years. He creates elite defenses with a paucity of elite players. That - and injuries - is why we don't excel in the playoffs. McD's magic fails when we lose too many one-on-one battles against elite players in the playoffs. Somebody mentioned Poyer and Hyde as a freakazoid combo. I agree. I don't know if either was individually elite but, man, they played well together. I think a number of things contributed to that: their communication and teamwork, the fact they were interchangeable, their football IQ, and McD's defensive scheme. Tre was freakazoid but drafted right before Beane came onboard as I recall. But Beane is trying. Diggs was a freak but expensive and possibly a distraction. Von should have been a freak but he was also expensive, and injuries have limited his impact. We can't keep paying top dollar for game-changing players. We need to draft some. Beane did draft Allen but that was in 2018. I want Beane to be good enough to draft one freak each year. That would get us to the Super Bowl.

100% agree. And I think that's been Beane's problem thus far. He did pick Josh. And he builds good rosters with solid depth. But Josh is the only elite player on the roster. Beane needs to get us more game-changers in the draft because he hasn't left himself enough cap money to do it any other way.

Good catch. The Bills drafted just 1 of the 10 players they visited most with last season. The chart doesn't seem to be much of a clue.

If he was innocent, which I sincerely doubt, it's a shame he was never exonerated. If he was guilty, it's a shame he was never appropriately punished. I've seen lists of the NFL's top all-time RBs that didn't include OJ in the top five. At first blush, that's insane. But I get that his post-career crimes will always taint his career achievements - and rightly so. But I also remember the divinely gifted athlete he was before his devilish acts. OJ played in the Golden Age of Running Backs when America's best athletes wanted to tote the ball and defenses were focused on stopping them. Yet in 1973, OJ rushed for 2,003 yards when the next best Golden Era RB only produced 1144 yards. OJ nearly doubled the back who would have worn the rushing crown that year if not for OJ. Tom Brady, the Golden Boy of the Passing Era, never achieved that kind of relative production. Not even close. If not for his crimes, OJ would be in the GOAT conversation. Instead, he's a chapter of NFL history most would like to ignore and forget. It's sad for me because he was my first, and last, football idol.

I already acknowledged that Diggs is the more skilled player. But the poll question asks, "Who is the real #14?" The first #14 to imprint on my memory was Reich. Diggs gave me more good memories, but Reich gave me my greatest one.

Doc, let me explain my love for Reich. (1) He was a great guy and teammate. (2) The win against Houston was so unexpected. We couldn't beat the Oilers the week before with Thurman and Kelly (partially) in the game. In fact, they destroyed us. We certainly weren't going to beat them with our stars out after spotting them a 32-point lead in that playoff game. And then something miraculous happens. Reich, the perennial backup, starts playing like he's a football god who came down from Gridiron Olympus, throwing TD passes all over the place. And that improbable win helped get us to the Super Bowl. I watched a lot of great Bills moments over the decades including OJ breaking 2000 but The Comeback remains my favorite Bills game of all time and Reich was its principal author.

People define "best" differently. Best (i.e. most talented) player... best teammate... best Bill to root for... produced the best memories... and so on. I appreciate your effort to promote logic on a fan board. But my vote remains with Reich.

For those too young to remember the context. We were playing well in 1992 but still needed to win the last game against Houston to win the AFCE. Instead, the Oilers dismantled us, 27-3. We were embarrassed in all phases of the critically important game. And as luck would have it, we had to play Houston again in the WC round. Our chances didn't seem good. Kelly got hurt the week before and, if I remember correctly, Thurman got hurt in the first quarter. And Houston looked like the better team, clearly outplaying us for 6 consecutive quarters. We found ourselves down 35-3. Kelly was out. Thurman was out. Life looked bleak. And then Reich caught fire...

Stefon will be remembered in NFL history as the best, most-productive player of this group. But for me, #14 belongs to Reich. A great team-player who authored the greatest, most-unlikely comeback in NFL history.

The offseason should be a combination of preparation and relaxation. I don't know how any of us can gauge if Josh is getting the ratio right.

I'm a Purdue alum so I watched a bunch of March Madness games this year and enjoyed Purdue's run. And for me the answer is still an emphatic no. Even if the Boilermakers had won the championship last night, it wouldn't have moved me nearly as much as a SB win. My rooting energy is divided something like this: Purdue football: 1%; Purdue basketball: 1%; Buffalo Sabres: 1%; Buffalo Bills: 97%. After the game last night, I've accepted that I'm just not destined to ever experience a championship. The Bills lost in four championship game attempts. The Sabres had two tries and came up short both times. This will probably be Purdue's only national championship game in either football or basketball in my lifetime and they failed. I'm 0-7 in championship games/series.

I'm not bemoaning the trade. I'm convinced that it would be a mistake to keep Diggs for four more years on a cap-killing contract. I also tend to think that there's more behind-the-scenes going on with Diggs and his attitude than we know. On the other hand, Diggs counts something like $30 million against our cap this year - and he'll be playing for an opponent. It's screwed up - not Beane's best moment.

It's an interesting trade because you could argue that everyone loses... The Bills lose their best receiver with only a 2nd round draft pick to show for it. The Texans rent a declining wideout for $22.5 million for one year of service. Diggs has 3 years cut from a lucrative contract at a time in his career when big money offers may never happen again.

I'm not disappointed Beane and McD moved on from Diggs. But I don't see that Brady got the offense 'back on track.' Brady's offense last season neither scored a ton of points nor moved a lot of yards.

Logically, these are all good points. It's just odd to me that Diggs was an effective receiver (at least in the regular season) under both Daboll and Dorsey but not under Brady. It doesn't seem probable he suddenly became slower or forgot how to run routes in the middle of the season when Brady took over as OC. It seems more likely Brady was misusing him in some way. Which may have contributed to Diggs wanting out of Buffalo.

I agree that we won't miss most of the dearly departed. But I'll comment on a couple of positions where we have worries. Diggs. The OP wrote: "He [Diggs] also was clearly no longer a fit in a Joe Brady offense." This is clearly true but maybe because Brady didn't know how to utilize Diggs's talents. Diggs was far more effective under Daboll and Dorsey than Brady. Brady spread the ball around better than Dorsey but he didn't statistically spike yards or points. Schematically, Brady didn't seem any better at creating downfield separation. The misfit between Brady and Diggs is as much a Brady problem as a Diggs problem. Maybe more. It's the OC's job to maximize the production of his players. I'm curious to see what Brady can do with a full offseason but I don't see a lot of objective reasons to be optimistic. Brady is not (yet) a proven commodity as an OC. Secondary. We won't miss Hyde, Poyer, and White a whole lot because they were hampered by age and injuries last year. But I'm not looking for a secondary that equals last year's disappointing performance. I'm hoping for a secondary that can get us to the Super Bowl. I won't miss last year's versions of Hyde, Poyer and White but I will miss the versions of Hyde, Poyer, and White that once anchored perhaps the best secondary in the league.

Maybe. But this is from a woman whose son-in-law is a coach who know Austin Proehl (who spent a few months in two stints with the Bills - not a few years as she asserts) who vaguely knows Brandon Beane who supposedly disclosed a confidential conversation to him, something Brandon does all the time. Not so sure.

I agree with most of what you're saying. But humans are complicated. Diggs was talented, gave us a lot of good memories, came to practice every day, said nice things about Buffalo, and worked his butt off. So did OJ. Then, years later, we learned OJ had some horrible character flaws. I'm thankful for Diggs's contributions and appreciate his classy goodbye. At the same time, I think Aaron Kromer's daughter and Maddy Glab both had reasons to say the things they did. I think Tim Graham is telling the truth about the interaction between Diggs and Josh after the Jets game. And I suspect all that stuff is just the tip of the iceberg. Like a lot of people, Diggs has good angels on his right should and little devils on his left.

I hope you're right about Brady. I loved him during the Dallas game. So fun to see us roll up yards without depending on Josh's heroics. But neither scoring nor yards spiked under Brady. The TDs and yards were just distributed differently. I'm curious to see what he can do with a full offseason to install his own offense. I see no objective reason to believe he'll do better in 2024 than he did the second half of 2023. But I'm a fan so I live in hope.

What you say makes sense... in theory. I really hope you're right - in fact!

The whole zone-versus-man may be an oversimplification. Sometimes one side is in man while the other is in zone. Sometimes it's more complicated than that. Depending on where the receiver breaks, the defender might stick with man or switch to zone (or vice-versa). I'd like to hear an OC or DC break it down: how much is pure man... how much is pure zone... how much is some kind of hybrid.

All GMs swing and miss sometimes. All of them. But I don't know if anyone is giving him a pass. I don't see any Bills fans naming him "GM of the Century" or something like that. If you look at his whole body of work, you have to say he's an above-average GM. I'm too lazy to look it up but I think we've won the 2nd most games of any team in the NFL since 2020. Beane's doing better than most GMs. And, yet, we have no Lombardi's to show for all his work. The mistakes you mention are part of the reason why. I've been a Beane critic for years. I don't think he's a bum by any means. I do believe, however, that he needs to up his game for us to win a trophy.