hondo in seattle

If anyone wants to know about my state of mind... I'm no longer bitter about trading away Lamonica.

When you shop at the dollar store...

I've got to say, I'm happy with this approach. I worry about short-term cap decisions that hurt us later on.

I'm very appreciative of Beane's work. He took a crap roster and built the franchise into a perennial contender. But this thread underscored my problem with his work thus far: not enough difference-makers. The best teams have more elite game-changing type players than we do. Some will rail against this opinion, but I think this is the main reason we haven't won a Lombardi. McD hasn't held us back. Beane just hasn't - yet - given him a SB-worthy roster.

I voted that we'd be out in the divisional round. It's hard for me to imagine the Bills being much better this season than last with all the roster holes Beane needs to fill. But who knows? Maybe he does. And maybe Brady, with an offseason to install his offense, turns out to be a lights-out OC.

Great start? We've lost a bunch of starters and contributors, signed a backup QB, and restructured some contracts to keep a couple of guys without emptying the bank. Objectively, not a great start. But I get the point. Given the circumstances that he himself created, Beane seems to be doing a good job managing the cap challenges.

We once boasted an elite secondary anchored by White, Poyer, and Hyde. Now only one of them is left. Sad.

We were blessed to have the Hyde-Poyer duo when they were in their prime. All good things must come to an end.

I expect the roster to be somewhat worse because of our cap situation. I'm hoping that Beane proves me wrong. I'm also hoping that Brady schemes up a better offense and that our D remains mostly healthy this year. Oh, and I'm hoping Von and Tre return to form.

There are analytic sites that chart separation, and some receivers are more 'open' (i.e. gain more separation) than others. And some schemes get guys 'open' more than others. I'd like for the Bills receivers to be on the good end of the spectrum rather than the poor end where we are now.

Every draft pick is a crapshoot and I hope Beane doesn't trade up and leaves us with more rolls of the dice.

Maybe. It'll be interesting to see who Beane gets to replace him (if he leaves).

I'd love to have a good run game. Kelly had Thurman. This offense would be hard to stop if it could both run and pass. But currently it can't do either with consistency. And with Josh as, by far, our best player, we need to build around him. We need a good group of bodyguards up front that keep him upright and give him time to throw. And we need receiving weapons. Too often we see Josh scrambling around either because (a) protection broke down, or (more commonly now) (b) no one's open.

I'm happy enough with Shakir and Diggs in their current places. But I want Eric Moulds in Gabe's place. If not Moulds, give me a Lee Evans - a speedster with hands who can stretch defenses. Josh's arm strength allows him to throw effectively both to the boundaries and deep. Cook is a decent running threat both inside and out. With the right receivers, defenses will have to defend the entire 53-yard width of the field from the LOS to 60+ yards downfield. So much real estate, they'll fail. The biggest piece we're missing is a legit deep threat. We need speed more than size.

In today's pass-happy NFL, it's good to have an elite secondary. And I remember when we had one with Hyde and Poyer on the backend and Tre as one of the corners. I'm afraid we're going into the 2024 season with a secondary that's much less than elite with the safeties and Tre (if we even keep them) now beyond their prime. Releasing Douglas doesn't help. Yikes, indeed.

Specifics on McD: 98% of players feel head coach Sean McDermott is efficient with their time (4th overall) Players feel that head coach Sean McDermott is very willing to listen to the locker room (11th overall)

But restructuring doesn't save you any money. It postpones a problem but doesn't solve it.

If these data are reliable... interesting. Benford and Taron Johnson are among the best CBs. Not targeted a lot and not giving up a lot of separation. Our old friend, Levi Wallace, is worse than average in both categories. Jalen Ramsey: not targeted a lot but worse than average in separation. Jets have two stud corners.

I've seen wrongful accusations in the past. We all have. I'm not making a snap judgment.

Other than 'sheltering' the kid, I'm not clear what he did. But the family seems both impressed and thankful, so congrats to CEH. Sadly, our country has too many bad role models: actors smashing cars while high, ballers beating their spouses, and so on. It's great when an athlete does something selfless & good that maybe inspires someone else.

He looked like a breakout superstar at one point. But after a while the drops, miscommunications, and inconsistency at creating separation drove me crazy. But he seems to be a good guy who plays hard, and I wish him the best.

You're right, of course. I shouldn't have said, "only by restructuring some contracts." Though Beane will almost certainly restructure some contracts to give himself some cap space. While I understand the necessity of it sometimes, I hate restructuring contracts because I don't want a cash-strapped future. I'm hoping he gets a couple of guys to take pay cuts.

I think cash-to-cap is an intriguing idea though transitioning to it would be painful. Yeah, most teams restructure contracts. Most teams are NOT sitting $55 million over the cap (using the OTC figure) and forced to restructure just to get under the cap even with 22 FAs no longer under contract. The Chief, in contrast, won a SB and are $15 million under the cap. They have the 2nd least dead money ($457,000) in the league because they don't continually kick the can down the road. How do we catch up to their roster strength when they have $70 million more to spend?

I've been concerned about Rousseau since we drafted him. I'm not a college football fan but watched his highlights and had issues with his rawness and lack of power. And he hasn't won me over since. In my eyes, he's not a SB-caliber player, though I grant he's young-ish and may still be improving.

Only by restructuring some contracts and kicking the can further down the road, making it harder for us to sustain excellence. I fear that Beane's personnel and cap skills (or lack thereof) will result in us fielding a playoff-caliber team every year, but never a championship one.