hondo in seattle

This is a tough call but I think the Bills go with experience (and Coleman) and maybe stash the inexperienced guys on the practice squad. And I think the Bills keep 6: Coleman. I think he'll be a starter from Day One. Samuels. Most proven guy on the roster. Shakir. Looked strong in the second half of last season. Hollins. Versatile, process-type guy. MVS. I think McD wants some speed in the WR room and MVS beats out the other field-stretchers (Hamler and Isabella). Though I wish he had better hands. Claypool. I don't think Beane would roll the dice on this kid if he didn't think there was a good chance he could return to form. This is going to be a very interesting camp battle.

Thanks for finding and linking that. Interesting article. I could swear I heard his career nosedived because of a problem with his peripheral vision though I don't recall the source. I didn't remember that he was such an excellent athlete when young. And I didn't know about the bank fraud. The article makes him seem like a good and humble guy - outside of the felony, of course. I didn't think he was OJ's equal of course, but during Miller's rookie season I did think we'd be blessed with good RB play for another eight or ten years.

While I hate that this year's WR room is so unproven, I am glad Beane is managing the cap for sustained success. Every season, if you build a good team, you buy yourself a lottery ticket for the Super Bowl. No good team has a guaranteed path to the SB but the really bad teams have no realistic chance at all - they don't get lottery tickets. Only the better teams do. And if you buy enough tickets, the laws of chance say you'll probably eventually win. Beane's not the very best GM but he is getting us into the Lombardi Lottery every year.

On the one hand, it bugs me that Beane is spending less this year on the WR room than the majority of NFL GMs despite having a QB who can throw the ball all over the field. On the other hand, I don't think the cupboard is bare. If a couple guys with spotty or unproven backgrounds step up, and if Brady is good at scheming up an offense, we'll move the ball and score points. Yeah, there are too many ifs but they're not complete longshots. Keeping my fingers crossed.

As a long-suffering Bills fan, I have concern about every opponent. I've experienced too many disappointments and witnessed too many unhappy surprises over the years. When I was in the army, we planned for different scenarios: most likely, most favorable, most dangerous... The most dangerous scenario is Saleh puts together another good defense and Rodgers stays healthy & has a good year.

I can't find this online, but I remember hearing Miller's career was derailed by some eye disease that caused him to lose his peripheral vision. He ran for over 1,000 yards with a solid 4.5 YPC in his promising rookie season with the Bills. He only put up about 500 yards with a 3.4 YPC for the entirety of his remaining NFL career. Anyone know the story?

Fergy had an interesting career evolution. At first, his job was to hand off to OJ. He only surpassed 2,000 yards passing once in his first four years. But in '79 and '81 he threw for 3,500+ yards, which was pretty good back when the NFL was still transitioning from a running league to a passing one. Buffalo Bills franchise records: Highest touchdown percentage in a single season – 7.8 (1975) Lowest interception percentage in a single season – 0.7 (1976) Most sack yards lost in a single season – 387 (1979) Most interceptions thrown in a career – 190 Most sack yards lost in a career – 2,529

I think we retain Knox both for tactical and financial/contract reasons. While Kincaid may be the better receiver, Knox and Kincaid have different skill sets. Knox is the better blocker, works better in contested space, and can run through contact. I don't think McD or Brady would want to give up what Knox offers. Another consideration is that we don't have a bunch of proven wideouts, so we probably want to keep our two 'proven' TEs.

I still think my point is valid but yours is too. It is a very diverse WR room with a lot of different skillsets for Brady to use: big guys, quick guys, man-beaters, zone-beaters, speedsters, possession receivers...

I doubt it, but... One of my wife's relatives owns a construction company in a country I won't malign by naming. The relative had a lot of trouble with delayed and/or failed building inspections for a while. Then she started hiring the building inspectors as 'engineers' theoretically to pre-inspect work. The conflict-of-interest laws there forbid the inspectors who work for her as a second job to inspect any of her projects. But their friends do the inspections. So now the inspections get prompt passing scores. She explains that the inspectors don't want to get their friends in trouble, or potentially cost them a job, by failing them.

GB, I agree with you something like 99.9% of the time. But this one is an exception. NFL refs are trained and selected because of their ability to make good calls instantaneously. I personally love this move. I wonder if he'll also help out at camp.

It almost seems like Beane is trying to fix the WR room with numbers. Get a bunch of flawed but affordable guys with potential upside and see who's good enough to stick.

He felt unloved and underappreciated when the Rams ditched him. This contract is some consolation prize. Hope he spends his riches wisely.

The 1975 Braves had Tom McMillen, Jim McMillian, and the phenomenal Bob McAdoo. As I recall, they said at the time it was the first time in NBA history a team had three Macs. If Von was a Van, this might have been the first NFL team to have three Vans.

Weird Buffalo sports trivia... When did a major league Buffalo sports team have three Macs (actually: "Mc")? The current Bills have two Vans and a Von which is not as unique maybe but still unusual: Van Prang-Granger, and Van Denmark, Von Miller.

I personally wish there was more X-and-O stuff during a broadcast. But, you're right, football tactics doesn't bring in the viewers. It's the drama of individual players and their performances. You're also right that casual fans aren't well educated in the X-and-Os. At least, I'm not. I've watched Kurt Warner and other former NFL players and coaches do video breakdowns of the Bills. And I find myself sometimes thinking something like, "Holy Cookie Gilchrist! I've been watching the Bills for decades and think I know football, yet I didn't notice that when I watched the game live!" If Warner and I sat down on a couch and watched a Bills game together, we wouldn't have the same experience because he'd be seeing it in so much greater depth. It would be like I'm watching on an old, 1950's fuzzy b&w tv while he's watching on a giant 3D IMAX screen. You're right for wanting to defend your daughter, and the women of the world.

It's possible that McD will use more 4-3 this season. But the long-term trend in the NFL is toward more Nickel and Dime defenses. It would seem weird if McD reversed himself.

Yeah, it's the offseason.

I've read enough of your posts over the years to know, (1) you're humbler than you're giving yourself credit for, and (2) you make informed, reasoned arguments. And I agree about judging McD on whether or not he produces a Mona Lisa. Recent draft picks are hard to evaluate. The team on the field is not. We can all see whether the team plays well or not, wins or not. The only question, I suppose, is how much credit/blame to attribute to Beane and how much to McD. That makes for a good debate, I think.

Agreed! While I know a few scientists sometimes let political and personal agendas shade their work, the devaluation of science scares the heck out of me. This is a little overdramatic, but the present anti-science/expert environment reminds me of China's "Cultural Revolution." Pretty soon we're going to send scholars, doctors, and scouts to work on Western New York's dairy farms and let amateurs teach college classes, perform surgeries, and run the Bills personnel department!

Shaw, my main point was simply this: We need to have a little humility. I've seen posters write as if they're smarter about football than Beane and the entirety of the Bills personnel department. These same posters often disrespect the opinions of their fellow posters - which I think is wrong. I had the honor of leading soldiers into combat during the First Gulf War. Before the war, I read some articles about how it was going to be a long, protracted fight against a battle-hardened enemy with significant American losses. This was not the kind of stuff I wanted my soldiers to read. What really annoyed me, and made me laugh at the same time, was the sense of certainty and intellectual superiority that dripped from some of these articles. Of course, the talking heads were cluelessly wrong and American armored units quickly rolled into the Euphrates Valley with minimal losses leaving a trail of destruction in their wake and Iraqi soldiers crying the Arabic version of "No Mas" by the tens of thousands. Non-experts thinking they're smarter than experts is a type of hubris. Just think about amateurs commenting on your own profession, whatever it is. Expertise is too often underrated. But it's also true that so-called experts aren't always expert. Matt Millen, case in point. And there are so many unknown/unknowable variables in predicting which college players will succeed in the NFL and which won't, that sometimes fans will be right and GMs wrong. And I'll acknowledge this, too... my main source of information about the draft is TBD. I always appreciate your commentary, GunnerBill's, etc. I think the collective Bills IQ of TBD is much higher than the collective Bills IQ of the national media. This is my primary source of information about the club. What I read here heavily influences my own opinions. I'm just hoping people can be humble - and kind - with their opinions because we're not as smart as the pros and, even if we were, there's no certainty in this game. Every pick is, to some extent, a roll of the dice. Personally, I've watched video on all our draft picks, reviewed their draft profiles, read the opinions here, and have some weak opinions of my own about the likelihood of their success. Mostly I'm just keeping an open mind and hoping the dice fall in our favor.

Finn, I hear you... I was kind of riffing off of "Debi Downer." I have a wife and two daughters - one of whom is entering med school, something I certainly didn't have the grades to do. Each of them is better than me in many ways. If anyone in my family has monopolized stupidity, it's me.

As a homer, I love this. Thanks for posting. As a sceptic, I had to look up Brentley Weisman. He's a former NFL scout. Hmm.

Shaw, I always value your opinion and you make a good point here. But imagine this scenario. Take the 20 best posters from TBD. Pay them enough so they quit their jobs and study football full time all year long. Send them to scouting seminars with America's best personnel guys. Give them access to an analytics department to provide them with good predictive data. Introduce them to, and give them the contact information for, 100 or so college coaches. Show them tape of every D1 college football game. Let them attend the combine. Have them interview players. If they want to fully vet a player, allow them to hire PIs. Give them an annual budget of $3 million or so to make all this happen. And with all that, you have the Bills personnel department. But you are right about the law of diminishing returns. And someone else brought up the idea of collective intelligence. Maybe no one Bills fan can draft better than Beane and his team. But maybe if we put together a team of the 500 smartest Bills draftniks, they could outperform Beane and his staff. I'm open minded to that idea. I just want and hope others to remain open-minded and humble. Some of the picks will turn out better (or worse) than we think.

I think Fred is woefully underrated by some. I watched him take handoffs, see no hole whatsoever, and still make a positive play. He led the NFL in Yards After Contact in 2011 with a YAC of 3.75. To put that in context, Christian McCaffrey had 2.2 YAC last year. No 2023 qualifier surpassed 2.7. It's easy to gain yards as RB when you have gaping holes to run through. Freddy was given lemons and made lemonade. Additionally, he was an all-around back who could catch out of the backfield and blocked really well. Obviously, he was also a high motor guy. When you combine skill set and effort, Jackson was a very good back. FYI...