hondo in seattle

And he's well-worth 6.25M if he does all that!

Fair or unfair, I'll remember Davis as a guy who contributed 2 monster playoff games and, besides that, a lot of nothing. Davis and Diggs combined for 1900 yards last year. That's a lot of production to replace. Then again, someone is always going to get yards when Josh throws. Davis's and Diggs's 240 targets will now go to other receivers. We'll see if the other guys can get as many yards on those targets. Right now, I worry the answer just might be no. Davis is not a huge loss but, as a player, Diggs is. I think we need at least one more quality wideout. But I think the biggest wildcard is Joe Brady. What kind of passing game can he scheme up?

Aaron Kromer's daughter, commenting on Diggs trade, said this: "Good riddance. There's always a reason & always a plan. #trusttheprocess" Since I saw that, I've wondered what the plan was. I think it's very possible Beane already has a deal in place to trade up.

I think Beane likes to fill as many holes before the draft as he can to reduce his draft needs and simplify his draft strategy.

During the drought years... Eric Moulds, Fred Jackson, Kyle Williams. All of them would have been better known & appreciated around the NFL had they played on better teams. I was disappointed they didn't have an opportunity to play on better Bills squads.

With a strong OL and an OC who knows how to scheme guys open, you don't need receivers better than the ones we have right now. The problems are: (1) we have maybe an okay line, not a strong one, and (2) I'm not convinced Brady knows how to scheme guys open.

I think McD is a solid HC though not elite. I'm not sure about Brady as an OC. With 32 teams in the NFL, the average team has about a 3% of winning the SB. McD and his staff get us to 5 or 6%. Josh gets us to 10%. As I see it, not many teams get above 10%. KC is the current unicorn.

Andre Reed, Eric Moulds, Bobby Chandler, Lee Evans, Elbert "Golden Wheels" Dubinion... Minus that, I'm good with Kirby. But being in Cap Hell sucks. We have too many holes to fill, including at WR, and not enough money/picks to do everything we need to do. It's hard to imagine how Beane will fix all this. He's the one who got us to this dire point. Let's see if he can get us someplace better by September as he says.

Beane said publicly that he informed Allen that teams were inquiring about Diggs. But Beane also said that there are certain things that need to remain in-house. I wonder if one of the in-house things is that there were more blunt conversations about Diggs between Allen, McD, and Beane. Maybe Allen was unhappy with Diggs' attitude. Or maybe Beane told Allen that they intended to unload Diggs and Beane wanted to know how Josh felt about that. We'll probably never know the full truth.

I am just pondering here... We know Diggs is an excellent route-runner. Yet we all saw that he didn't get separation with consistency last year. Somewhere I saw a chart showing Diggs as below the NFL average in separation yards in 2023. And Josh's passer rating when throwing to Diggs (or Davis) wasn't good. Were teams defending Diggs differently last year than they did in the past? Did he lose a step? Was it poor play design and calling? When we first got Diggs, he was a deep threat. Yet last year Josh didn't connect deep a lot with Diggs. Because of 2-high zones? Or is the anonymous NFL coach who said Diggs is not a deep threat any more accurate? Too often last season Josh had nowhere to throw the ball. Either our receivers sucked, or our OC sucked, or both. I tended to blame our OCs, but - with the Bills jettisoning both Davis and Diggs - I'm wondering how much Beane and the coaches blame them instead?

I think Beane and McD are good enough to give us a 10% chance to win the SB in any given year. I'm just hoping it happens sooner rather than later. And/or I underestimate them.

I think the potency of the 2024 Bills depends more on Brady than it does on Diggs' replacement. I don't think this receiving corps is great, but I don't think it's impotent either. Shakir's okay - not elite. Samuel is a multipurpose tool with some speed. Kincaid and Knox are an excellent TE duo. Cook can be a good threat out of the backfield if learns to hang on to the ball. Somewhere I saw a chart that showed that both Davis and Diggs were below average in separation last year. I wondered how much of that was their fault and how much was the fault of the OC (i.e. scheme and play-calling). I think both were to blame. So I'm going to be very interested to what Brady does this year with an offseason to implement his own offense. I expect he'll follow KC's lead. With so many teams playing 2-high against strong-armed QBs (and with Cheetah gone), the Chiefs started throwing more quick-hitting, underneath stuff. I get the impression that Brady is the kind of OC who wants to take what the D gives him. Hopefully, he does a better job scheming guys open than Dorsey did. I still think we need another quality wideout. But as Beane said more than once in his presser, it's not September yet.

At the presser, Beane said, "Certain things need to be kept in-house." That leads me to believe Brooke Kromer (Aaron's daughter) knows what she's talking about when she tweets: "Good riddance. There's always a reason & always a plan." There's some behind-the-scenes drama with Diggs we may never learn about.

"Certain things need to be kept in-house."

I'm hoping Beane already has a deal in place to move up and get a good wideout who we can enjoy on a rookie contract for a while.

I'm surprised by how binary this conversation is. Most folks are either applauding the move or criticizing it. Pro or Con. I'm ambivalent. I don't like the cap ramifications. And I want Josh to have better weapons this year than last, not worse. With both Gabe and Diggs departing - whatever their shortcomings - we've lost a lot of receptions & yards. I'm sure Beane has a plan to replace the lost production with Samuels being part of that plan but we can't see the whole plan yet which makes me wonder how solid it is. On the other hand, Diggs had attitude problems, wasn't much of a deep threat anymore, didn't thrive under Brady, and, given his age, the clock was ticking on his Buffalo career anyway. Neither happy nor sad, I'm just curious. What's Beane going to do with limited resources to get Josh the targets he deserves?

How many have Josh Allen throwing to them?

Weird career trajectory. Played mostly soccer in college. Scored 4 goals in his career. Played some football too but as a kickoff specialist. Obviously has a strong leg. Tried out for the Texans last year but didn't make the cut.

Shaw, you're probably right. Reid probably did become incrementally better with experience. But I stand by my point. I think commentators are too quick to judge that a coach or player can't win the big one just because they haven't yet. An average team has a 3% chance of winning the Super Bowl. A very talented coach or player might elevate the chances to 10% or so. That's it. No matter how talented a coach or player might be, they might not reach the SB. Too many other variables are at play. I thought the Eagles were crazy when they sent Reid packing. No rings - at the time - but the skill was undeniable. I don't think Allen's lack of trophies means anything other than all the necessary conditions haven't fallen in place yet.

Not complicated. Just saying that the narrative that a coach or player can't win the big game just because they haven't yet is wrong-minded. All the conditions have to be right. For coaches, QB is one of the conditions.

I was at Camp Casey in Tong-du-chon (aka Dongducheon), about an hour north of Seoul. I visited Yongsan a few times. It was where the 8th Army was headquartered. In 1988, before credit cards were commonly accepted in Korea, you had to carry cash. One time - long story - I found myself broke in Seoul on a Sunday evening with no way to get back to Camp Casey. So I went to Yongsan, where there was a cashier's booth where I could maybe cash a check, hoping and praying it would be open late on a Sunday. From what I understand, the U.S. garrison that was once there is now gone. I loved serving in Korea and still love Korean food. That was one of the best years of my life. What was it like to live there as a kid?

I think you have to standardize it so you can perfect it. Do thousands of reps at 7 yards: snap, hold, kick... snap, hold, kick...

Andy Reid coached for twenty years before reaching the Super Bowl. The book on him during that stretch was that he was a good regular-season coach but didn't have what it takes to succeed in the playoffs. Now he practically owns the Lombardi. Reid didn't suddenly become a better coach. He's the same coach he was when he supposedly wasn't good enough in the playoffs. Making a playoff off run culminating in a Super Bowl win is hard and the stars need to align: good coaching staff, good roster, good health heading into the playoffs, maybe some luck with calls and bounces... Allen will be the guy who can't win big games until he does. It's not his fault and it's not factual. It's just how sports commentary works.

In the army I hated calling cadence, the call-and-response songs we sing to keep soldiers in step when marching or running. So once when I was stationed in Korea, I learned some Korean cadences from the Korean soldiers serving with us. Korean cadences sound odd and unrhythmic to an American audience. And that's what I sang when the commanding officer called on me to sing cadence. He never called on me again.

If we're going to do anything revolutionary on special teams, let's get rid of our punter, bet on our offense, and never punt the ball. Our scoring would go up. So would our opponent's scoring - we'd just have to outpace them. We could use the extra roster spot on DL - McD loves to rotate there and keep guys fresh.