hondo in seattle

I agree... We got two speedy wideouts in free agency and now a jumbo slot guy with good hands. We needed a big target with good hands. I won't say our receiver corps is elite but it's solid - certainly better than last year. I just hope Gabe gets over the dropsies. My biggest offensive worry remains the OL. The two new guards will help some but not enough. I don't think the OL gets fixed this year.

Dorsey looked like a genius for the first half of last season. I began the year with huge concerns about the OL - as well as lesser worries about our RB room - yet Dorsey generated tons of points. I was super impressed. Then Josh's elbow happened. But it also seemed like defenses caught on to us. Opponents sometimes said they knew what we were doing, Gabe's routes were predictable, and so on. And Dorsey's inability to productively integrate Hines and Cook was worrisome, too. But I've heard coaches say that coordinators often improve a lot from Year 1 to Year 2. I'm hoping. I wish the OL was better, but Dorsey certainly has weapons at the skill positions.

Devil's advocate... I get the positional value argument. But let's say both these guys turn out to be perennial all-pros and future HOFers. No All-Pro pick is a bad pick, regardless of position.

Dorsey has a ton of weapons. Besides the wideouts, he's got TEs and RBs who can catch. We've got size, speed, and soft hands. And, for a pass-first team, Harris is a fine starting RB. But the OL is below average. And then there's Dorsey himself. Can he design an offense that succeeds despite the shortcomings on the offensive line? Will he know how to optimize the production of his varied weapons? Like others, I'm waiting, with fingers crossed, to see.

After the runs on Tackles and WRs, I was looking to see who the best guard available was. But, after some research, I'm happy with Kincaid. Though I'm still hoping for some OL help.

Everyone suggesting we consider Kincaid as a big Beasley or McKenzie: Thank You. That does make me feel better about the pick - my initial thought/fear was that we traded up to get Knox's backup. Now I'm hoping we find some OL help.

Nothing against Kincaid but my first thought was, we traded up to get Knox's backup??? But I'm warming up to it. Somewhat. Like others, I wonder if Dorsey will know how to use him. It's a different position but it bugs me that Dorsey didn't know how to integrate Hines into the offense last season. Not sure how creative Dorsey is.

Thanks GB. As the draft unfolds, I will reference this to see how you rated the young men picked.

On the one hand, I don't think this is great for the Jets. They, more-or-less, give up a second-round pick and a first-round pick for a guy who probably doesn't have very many good years left. It's a high price for rental. On the other hand, this isn't great for the Bills either. Rodgers's good Jets years will overlap with the Josh Allen SB window. Every win is important, and it just became significantly harder to beat the Jets on the gridiron. It might become harder to beat them in the standings, too.

Talk about obfuscation... “If I was in Vegas right now putting money down I would say if we were going to do anything, it’d be more likely to go back than go up,” Beane said. “But listen, you’re talking to a guy who gets antsy at times and goes up and gets guys. So Vegas probably would still go against what I just suggested would happen.” www.syracuse.com/buffalo-bills/2023/04/nfl-draft-analyst-predicts-buffalo-bills-to-make-big-splash-by-moving-up-in-draft.html

We looked like an elite team the first half of the season. Not the second half. Wonder which Bills squad shows up this season.

Like a lot of fans, I was underwhelmed with our receiving corps last year (not including Diggs). Still - and this is an admittedly a crazy idea though not as crazy as the infamous Ditka Ricky Williams draft - I wouldn't be upset if Beane drafted nothing but offensive linemen. With 6 picks, we'd be bound to upgrade our line... wouldn't we? Give the receivers more time to gain separation and they'll get open.

Which puts him the top quartile of self-appointed draft experts. Pretty good, actually.

Good post. But here's my issue. Beane made a franchise-transforming move when he traded up and nabbed Allen. But other than that, he's been rather mediocre in the draft. Can we find a good WR in the second round? Yes, we can. Will we? Sorry, I'm not feeling your optimism - I don't think the odds are great. That's why Hopkins is attractive - he's a proven commodity.

1st Super Bowl. I was in Saudi Arabia, near the border with Iraq, waiting for a war to begin. My guys and I had no access to any kind of tv, nor normal radio programming if you don't count Baghdad Betty. But one of my soldiers did have a shortwave radio and sometimes was able to pick up the BBC World Service. I asked him to tell me if he learned the Super Bowl score. He woke me up in the middle of the night, "Sir! Wake Up! The Bills won!" I jumped out of my sleeping bag, ecstatic. "You sure? I pressed him. And then he explained he heard something about a last-second field goal but his reception was full of static so he wasn't entirely sure. But he thought the announcer said the Bills had won. I frantically scanned the radio waves for the next two hours before being crushed by the awful truth.

I don't see RB as an overwhelming need. I like our RB room well enough. Harris can run powerfully inside but get outside too. Cook is a quick outside guy who can catch. And Hines was woefully underutilized as a pass-catcher last year. In space, he's dynamic. But to say drafting Bijan makes "zero sense," I think, is an exaggeration. The Bills want a better running game - he gives us that. But the Bills are a passing team - Bijan can line up as a receiver and perform well there. When the Bills huddled up with Bijan, defenses wouldn't know if he'd be lining up as an RB or WR. Bijan's versatility would be useful in the Bills offense. King has Bijan going in the top ten. Maybe. But if he falls to 27, I have to admit that I'd be tempted if I was the GM. It would depend on who else is available - maybe another player I like as much but fills a bigger need.

I voted yes but only if it's cap friendly. DHop is worth a 2nd round pick. It's his salary that worries me. I don't know if the 'yes' I registered is even realistic with our cap situation.

It's a good point. But all we need is one team to love a guy at 27. But I'm not entirely convinced Beane wants to trade back nor am I convinced that he'll find a dance partner even if he does. It'll be an interesting evening. I remember the year Buddy picked CJ Spiller. He practically announced his intentions to the world before the draft. The pick was no surprise. Beane hasn't been dropping meaningful hints and nothing he does this year will surprise me.

Not to be ethnocentric, but I'm embarrassed that a Brit knows 10,000 more about American college football than I do. Nice job, GB!

I was just thinking about this again yesterday when I read Bucky Brooks' article on NFL.com. He has 5 guys graded as ALL PROS and 10 guys graded as PRO BOWLERS. So what would we get at 27? An average starter? Probably not a 1st round talent. So why waste a 1st round pick on a 2nd round talent? I'm not entirely convinced but I think Beane may indeed trade down. www.nfl.com/news/2023-nfl-draft-all-pros-pro-bowlers-and-overachievers-in-this-class

I don't watch a lot of college football but when I was at Purdue, I attended most of the games and continued to watch them after graduation on tv. Back in the 1980's they had a QB named Scott Campbell. The team around him sucked and his stats as a three-year starter are hardly impressive. But his numbers didn't do him justice. I watched him sling the ball around the field with authority - making all the throws. And I started to tell people: this guy's gonna be an NFL quarterback. I didn't believe he'd be Joe Montana but I was convinced he'd be a competent starter. Well, he was chosen in the 7th round by the Steelers and made the squad as the third-stringer running the practice squad. One game, both the starter and backup got hurt, and Campbell has to come in despite not running any plays with the offense that week. He didn't light it up but he played decent. And, at that moment, I was feeling right about him. But poor Scott spent 6 years in the NFL, mostly as a backup, throwing more incompletions in his lackluster career than completions, and more picks than TDs. And, having watched his mediocrity unfold, made me realize that I know jack about scouting college QBs. Scott has done well in PA real estate, though.

Agree emphatically. Given we're in a passing era with a pass-first offense and have an All-Star QB, I'm reasonably happy with our diverse RB room. I'm not sure how much confidence I have in Dorsey scheming either run or pass plays for RBs. But the big issue is the OL. A better OL will bodyguard our QB better and open holes for the backs. Looking at value-added in the RB position, I don't know how much we can get in the draft. Seems like bigger upgrades are probably available elsewhere. Though I don't know how I'd feel if Bijon was available at 27 but I'm certainly not itching to trade up for him.

The devaluation of RBs is interesting. Go back to the 70s and most of the #1 overall draft picks, and most of the Heisman winners, were RBs as I recall. Because they were on the cover of magazines and signing big contracts, the best athletes wanted to be running backs. Now you often hear, "Running backs are a dime a dozen." These days the best athletes become WRs, CBs, and sometimes even QBs. And, yep, the stats about the comparative unimportance of RBs are impressive. Yet, imagine if there were an OJ or a Jim Brown available in the draft. A preternaturally talented RB would add wins to your season - if your scouts were smart enough to identify him. But, as others point out, a good running game does not necessarily require a good RB. I'm old enough to have witnessed unheralded Willie Ellison run for 247 yards - the NFL record at the time - through gaping holes back in '71. An offense that's multifaceted and can run inside or outside, throw short or deep, is extremely difficult to defend. That's what I want to see from the Bills. The passing game works better when the defenders respect the run.

AD, I didn't watch Josh's interview. I really hope you're right and Josh is truly in a good place with Diggs and not talking happy-talk, either for the media's sake or because he's trying to mend fences with a disgruntled partner. I'm not going to belabor my worries. There's no point in trying to convince anyone else to worry. But the Diggs-Allen relationship is something I will personally monitor. As I mentioned previously, decades of fandom have made me a bit cynical. Small warning signs I blew off have often become large real-world problems. My homer hopes for progress were often followed by Sundays of painful regression. I take the little warning signs seriously now. As cynics often say, if you expect the worse, you're less disappointed when and if it happens.

Funny response. There was obvious friction between Diggs and Allen just a few months ago. I started this thread with my worry that the tension may continue into this season. I don't think it's an unreasonable concern, but others do. Okay. But somehow folks who disagree think they need to make assumptions about my personal life. I actually enjoy my life quite a bit - thanks - and spend a good chunk of it outside hiking and trail-running with my husky in the mountains and forests of Northern California. I hope the Bills roll through the AFC, the grievances between Josh and Diggs are long forgiven & forgotten, and everything is kumbaya. And then someone will remember this thread and gloat and insult me for being wrong. But I'll just smile because I want to be wrong. I want kumbaya. Sometimes smoke indicates fire. Other times smoke is just smoke. But, because I'm a hardcore Bills fan, the Diggs-Allen relationship is something I'll be paying attention to this season. If you don't think it's worth watching, don't.