hondo in seattle

You make a good point. In a passing league where most yards are gained through the air, it's better to be good against the pass than the run. Yet it's not quite as much a passing league as it was a few years ago. And I think it was Chris Sims who said that if the Bills played the Ravens 10 times last year, the Ravens would win 9. His point was that they have the better overall roster. I'm sure our mediocre DL was part of that assessment. We weren't great against the run or the pass last season and in my dreams, both concerns are fixed this offseason.

I get that this is supposed to be a humorous thread, but if we were to give them a gift, it ought to be something unique. I'd do a statue of a buffalo mounted on a pedestal with a plaque that says "With Gratitude ~ the Bills Mafia." Something kinda like this...

Maybe I'm just grumpy today but I feel like we now have 4 mediocre safeties - great depth but no excellence. But I really hope you're right with the Poyer comparison.

I don't take Allen out of the picture. Overall, I think Beane is a good GM who built a good roster that includes an MVP QB. But it's not a Lombardi-quality roster. And getting the Josh pick right just means he got the pick right. It doesn't mean Beane's some kind of QB-whispering, sixth-sense, personnel guru who sees things in players that other GMs can't see. In the Josh case, he did his due diligence and placed a bet that Josh was the most likely destined for greatness. I'm thrilled he won that bet. Let's recall that while more people on this board probably wanted the other Josh, there were people here who wanted Allen. Beane wasn't the only one who was smart enough to want him. Every pick is a probability. None is a certainty. You hope your scouts do good work and evaluate the odds correctly so you can win more than you lose. Beane won on the Allen pick. He lost on Elam and others. We're lucky he won on the more important one.

I get what you're saying but it's hard for me to say anything congratulatory about Beane for a 1st round pick that never contributes and then gets dumped for a 5th and a 6th.

Drafting a QB is an imperfect art. Bill Walsh drafted SB winner and HOFer, Joe Montana, then famously recommended the hugely disappointing Trent Edwards to Marv Levy. In other words, there's some skill involved in drafting a QB, but there's also a large element of chance. No GM can prognosticate a college QB's future in the NFL with precision. Beane hitting on Allen is kind of like this: He did his due diligence. He liked Josh. But he knew from his knowledge of NFL history that no QB is a sure thing. So, being a good Catholic, one night he prayed. And St. Red Grange - patron saint of the NFL - appeared to him. And the good saint proclaimed, "If you choose Allen, I'll let you roll this golden die. If you roll a 6, Allen will become a generational talent and MVP. If you roll a 1, he'll be an erratic bust you'll forever regret. Any number in-between will give you a middling result." Big Baller Beane, hand dripping in nervous sweat, rolled the golden die. I give Beane credit for Allen but I'm not sure how much. If you take Allen out of the picture, there might be a dozen GMs with a better draft record. And Bill Walsh would be a forgotten man with zero Lombardi's to his name if he was born a few years later and made Edwards his first big QB pick. Lady Luck plays a huge role in this sport.

Thanks. I'm not excited about our free agency thus far but this makes me feel a little better. At least we're not the 49ers.

DL was one of the weak spots on a team dreaming to reach the SB. I'd personally like to see a massive upgrade. I think, so far, we're treading water. But let's see what the draft brings.

"A+" would be building the best roster in the league, something he's never accomplished and is unlikely to accomplish this season. Remember, the Bills were $15M over the cap because of Beane's past decisions. We could have been chasing bigger names and better talents if he had managed the cap better in previous years. I'm not giving Beane an "F" by any means. But he's got a lot more to do before I award him an "A+."

I recall Beane once saying exactly what you've observed: he tries to plug all the holes in free agency so he doesn't have to reach for need on draft day.

Hamlin isn't bad. He just isn't the guy you want at safety if you have Lombardi aspirations.

FWIW... Ogunjobi received an overall PFF grade of 49.4 for the 2024 regular season, which was the lowest grade of his NFL career. He was ranked 150th out of 219 defensive interior players.

I don't get this. If he doesn't get 10 sacks, you take your boyfriend out to a nice dinner. If he does get 10 sacks, you get rid of that stupid pitbull that's been peeing all over your carpet. For you, it's a win-win.

I know cap availability is problematic... as is talent availability (the guys we truly want aren't UFAs). But we haven't been to the Super Bowl since the 1990s. We need an injection of playmakers to get there, and we haven't gotten that. Color me "meh" so far.

It's perfectly okay for a guy in Seattle to say, "I was hoping to work for Microsoft, but Amazon offered me more." But in football, there's a tradition of pretending it's not about the money. Players like to cite all sorts of reasons for choosing a team rather than crassly admitting, "Team X offered more." When the average NFL career lasts a mere 3.3 years, most players get paid while they can. I think it's rare for a player turn down the highest offer - whether the team is a contender or not.

Maybe I'm not an adept connoisseur of wide receiver work but his stats say he's a jag and, to me, the video of all his '23 targets says the same thing.

I was always ambivalent about Von's signing. We needed to provide more pressure on the QBs and Von was available to the highest bidder. It made sense. But the opportunity cost always bothered me. We were - and remain - a team with multiple needs and I always wondered who we didn't sign afterwards because we signed Von. To spend all that money on one guy seemed pretty reckless - particularly on a guy in his 30s. And, yes, I realize that some players (even DEs) remain productive in their 30s. But some don't because of age and/or injuries. Signing Von was a significant gamble with a high opportunity cost. It could have worked out better but it's not a shock that we ended up paying $3 million per sack over three years. We won the bidding war because the cost-benefit analysis done by other teams wasn't as optimistic as Beane's. It turned out they were right and Beane was wrong.

We signed Von because he was a sack artist and ended up paying him $3.4 million per sack during his tenure with us. In comparison, Trey Hendrickson led the NFL in sacks last year and earned less than $1 million per sack.

Bull, I get your point but let's count how many receivers got 1k yards and 10 TDs last season with Josh throwing them the ball. Either our receiver corps is really weak, or Brady can't scheme wideouts. In either case, a 1,000 yard receiver with 10 TDs would be a welcome addition.

This is so Billsy... 25 years after the fact, we're still arguing about Johnson versus Flutie. I enjoy it in a warped kind of way.

Fairly or unfairly, this is how I remember Flutie: He'd play like badger doo-doo for three quarters, but our stout defense would keep us in the game. Then in the 4th quarter, Flutie would do something magical with his legs or complete an unlikely pass and be hailed as the hero of the game.

Beane questioned the validity of the survey, the F- in particular: "My question is how many people actually completed this survey? This is the problem when you do anonymous surveys. Are we talking about six people, 12 people? You're talking about we have 70-something players when you count our practice squad and beyond. So, it's really hard to ascertain who gave the F-minus for their plane travel. Ultimately, we love feedback, but we're not getting that in the building..."

Thanks for posting. I hadn't realized that the Bills had finally, finally, finally broken .500.

I get the point, but I don't think so. Could Chan Gailey have been a good (i.e. winning coach) if he had found a good DC? Could Dick Jauron have been a good coach if he had found a good OC? And would they have both been more successful with good GMs? I don't know but maybe - if we had more patience. I think NFL organizations, in general, are too quick to pull the trigger on coaches. This creates chaos. Chuck Noll went 12-29 his first three years with the Steelers. Most teams would have fired him by then. He went on to win 4 Super Bowls. But his legacy was even bigger than that. He helped the Steelers build a culture and a way of doing things that has sustained success for decades. Rolling out a new coaching staff with new offensive and defensive schemes & philosophies every three years creates chaos. As Art Rooney II has said, "I don’t like to criticize other people’s way of doing things, but we do feel there’s value in stability and continuity, and so that’s worked for us.” I guess so: over the past 50 years, they're the winningest organization in football.

The team with the very best winning percentage - the Steelers - have only had 3 coaches during that time. Meanwhile, the Bills had 16. Continuity matters.