jwhit34

The thing that isn't mentioned is that Beane has been on the record stating that they had a deal with Denver for the #5 pick if "their guy" (Bradley Chubb) was already taken. So if Chubb was gone, Elway still wasn't taking Allen, he would have dealt the pick to the Bills so they could pick Allen. So Elway would have turned down the chance to draft Allen no matter what.

It seems that many have bemoaned the brutal stretches of the Bills' schedule each of the past few years. It is inevitable for division winners based on the way the schedule is put together, particularly now with the addition of the 17th game. Here is the schedule formula for an AFC division winner: 6 games - 2 games each vs. the other teams in your division 4 games - 1 game each vs. one of the other AFC divisions 2 games - 1 game each vs. the other AFC division winners 4 games - 1 game each vs. one of the NFC divisions 1 game - Vs. one of the other NFC division winners So, each team that wins their division play 5 of the other 7 division winners, and will play two, 2nd place teams (the games against the entire AFC and NFC divisions). That is potentially 7 playoff teams. They will only play 4 games outside of the division games vs. 3rd or 4th place teams. If you only have 4 games a year vs. non-division opponents that finished in 3rd or 4th place teams, which is just under 1/4 of your games, it is impossible to avoid really difficult stretches of games. And it is the same for all division winners, not just the Bills: Ravens start the season: Chiefs, Raiders, Cowboys, Bills, Bengals. Texans starting 11/10: Detroit, Dallas, Tennessee, Jacksonville, MIami, KC, Baltimore It's just how the schedule works.

Re: people saying schedule is tough/brutal: As long as they win their division, it will always be tough. Division winners play their 6 in-division games, then will always play 5 of the other 7 division winners and two 2nd place teams. That's 13 of the 17 games, the other 4 are the 3rd and 4th place teams from the divisions in which they play everyone (one NFC division, one AFC division). Should be used to that by now.

Comparison of the Bills picks at beginning of the draft and now: Original 28, 60, 128, 133, 144, 160, 163, 200, 204, 248 Now 33, 60, 95, 128, 141, 144, 160, 163, 204, 221 Analysis: Picks retained: 60, 128, 144, 160, 163, 204 Trade down from 28 to 33 (-5) Trade up from: 133 to 95 (+38) 200 to 141 (+59) 248 to 221 (+27) That's good maneuvering presuming that their WR is still available.

But it is a move up from the end of the 6th to the top of the 5th so around 60 picks. That's essentially moving up 2 rounds.

Good for him and good luck. As for the Bills impact, he had one really good season which he cashed in on with the big contract when he left the Bills the first time. Other than that, I always thought he was overrated for many of the reasons already detailed in responses, and also because a segment of the fans liked his "energy" and demonstrative persona on the field, which to me was a lot of over-hype. It reminds me of when fans wanted Cowher as the coach because he was fiery on the sidelines. I know he had a lot of injuries, but compare the 2019 season with the aggregate stats for the last 4 seasons (2 with Arizona, 2 with Bills): 2019: 16 games, 9.5 sacks, 13 tackles for loss, 16 QB hits 2020-23: 44 games (which means he missed 23 games due to injury), 9 sacks, 9 TFL, 18 QB hits I suppose if someone's willing to sign and pay you, why not keep going, but the falloff and injuries scream it's time to call it a career.

The Bills are my #1 sports team by far but I love basketball, it's my favorite sport. Played it, coached it for a long time, our kids both played. I was in high school when the Braves left town. Super sad day for me. I actually went to high school with Paul Snyder's (Braves original owner) kids and played basketball with George Daddario's (who was the Braves VP of Marketing) son. Alas, Buffalo is not a basketball town as shown by many of the responses. I love March Madness. Every year me and 7-10 of my college buddies go to the first two rounds of the tournament somewhere. We target a destination site when the first couple rounds are not in the area that one of us live (love it when it's in Buffalo). The first day is awesome watching 4 games in person, then the off day we hang out and watch games on TV all day. Then the 2 round of 32 games are usually really good. The women's game has made March Madness even better. This year's women's tournament I think was better than the men's, it definitely had more star power between Caitlin Clark (the biggest star men or women's game), Camilla Cardoso, Paige Bueckers, and all the great coaches like Geno Auriemma, Dawn Staley and the controversial Kim Mulkey. For the basketball junkie, the first weekend when it's non-stop games from Thursday on is tough to beat. Sprinkle in the women's games and it's even better. But as much as I love the tournament, and can't get enough of the games, the Super Bowl is tough to beat. You're watching the whole thing. I think the NCAA does itself a disservice playing the men's championship starting at 9:20 PM on a Monday night. For east coasters, that's too late.

No one on this board has any idea how hard Allen or any other player for that matter works in the offseason. It's all hearsay.

This wouldn't be necessary if they adopted what basketball does - go to the tenths of a second in the last 5 seconds on the shot clock. While they are at it, they should also go to tenths of a second on the game clock in the final minute of each quarter.

Actually, yes. Here's my rationale: The Bills currently have 58 players under contract. 15 "Cuttable" players: 1 punter (Martin or Haack), McKitty, Buechele, Kyron Brown, Isabella, Cline, Shorter, Davidson, Gouriage, Jarvis, Shavers, Thompson, Williamson, Hamler, D. Evans That takes them to 43 Other potential cuts include Tommy Doyle and Damar Hamlin They will probably sign a couple more free agents. Not all 11 picks make it but at least theoretically a draft pick will be better than an UFA. Maybe a late round pick or 2 make it back to the practice squad. If they draft a punter both Martin and Haack can go. There's a good chance all picks rounds 1-5 make it, that's 7 of the 11. With 3 6ths maybe 1-2 make the 53.

Always amazes me this board's obsession/fixation on WR5/6 candidates like that is going to put the team over the top. What's a WR 5/6's WAR? .00000001? I'm much more intrigued with who they are interested in selecting in the 2024 NFL draft, hopefully in the 1st round.

The depth of the OL class may be one reason they moved on from both Bates and Morse. Cleared salary both this year and in future, and opened up 2 spots, which one was taken by Edwards and I think the other will be a developmental player in rounds 3, 4 or 5. This year's line can be Dawkins-Edwards-McGovern-Torrence-Brown with Alec Anderson, VanDemark and rookie draft pick as first 3 subs. Maybe Tommy Doyle stays healthy this year. That's good planning.

O'Cyrus Torrence, heard Eric Wood's podcast with Aaron Kromer he raved about him.

Good holder and they are going to invest so much into offensive weapons that they are not planning on punting this season.

Hines, Harty and Neal cuts would save $11.7 million, Allen convert salary to bonus would free up about $18-22 million depending how they do it. That gets them to about $11 million over the cap without impacting the roster really at all (RB4, WR5, special teams guy). Easy restructures/extensions for T Johnson, Douglas, Dawkins will get them under by $5-8 million, other things can be done without terrible future consequences, I bet they end up at least $20-25 million under at start of free agency.

This is what I would guess for targets in '24: # passes per game: roughly 35 For 17 games that's 595, call it 600 Diggs 160 (same as in '23) Kincaid 100 WR2 80-90 Shakir 80-90 (call it 170 between WR2 and Shakir) That's 430 to your core WR/TEs Cook 60 Knox 35 WR 4/5/6 50 (3 per game) Other RB/TEs 25

From the beyondthesteelcurtain website, as good an explanation as I've seen: Void Years Sometimes teams add void years onto a contract in order to spread out the salary cap hit of the initial signing bonus. A void year is simply fake years on a contract just to spread out the signing bonus but the player does not have a base salary for those years and are set to become a free agent once the contract voids. If a player has void years in their contract and they are not re-signed before the contract voids, all of the remaining money from any of the void years gets transferred into dead money for the next season. Unless any of the 5 re-signed today, it all goes to dead cap in '24. Also of note per Spotrac it lists the Bills as having 58 signed players, once these all void then they are down to 53. That money is all accounted for in the amount over the cap so shifting from void years to dead cap has no impact on the cap status. This is just one of the cap work-arounds that most/all teams use.

A good transition would be to name Babich DC but McDermott calls the D. Have him do that for 1 year, kind of like an apprentice gig, then 2025 turn the calling of the D over to him. He can do all the other stuff a DC does. That's a logical progression.

Thank you for referencing my original post on this. If anything, 2023 further dispels the "McDermott doesn't play rookies" myth. Torrence played every offensive snap, Kincaid was the 2nd leading receiver. 2nd year players Cook, Bernard and Benford all started, and Shakir ended up as WR3. The "McDermott doesn't play rookies" is a complete falsehood.

As long as the Bills keep winning the division the schedule will always be tough based on the previous year's W-L records because of the formula they use to set the schedule: 6 - Two games each vs. AFC East games 4 - One game each vs. one of the AFC divisions (obviously includes division winner) 2 - One game each against the other AFC division winners 4 - One game each vs. one of the NFC divisions (also obvious includes division winner) 1 - One game vs. one of the other NFC division winners 2024: 6 division games 4 games vs. AFC South 1 game each vs. AFC North and AFC West winner 4 games vs. NFC West 1 game vs. NFC North division winner

I think back to the Chuck Knox era, he brought in Phil Villipiano, Isiah Robertson and Bill Simpson. All were at the end of their careers. Robertson and Simpson played significant roles. All 3 were showing younger players like Fred Smerlas, Shane Nelson and Jim Haslett the way. Villipiano was on the team for 4 years but barely played, but he influenced the defensive mindset. While the Bills have guys like Von Miller that have the championship pedigree, it is also good to mix it up and inject something new into the equation. Douglas will play and probably start over Dane Jackson. Joseph will be a rotational player and Fournette probably will be RB3 or maybe more accurately RB2 1/2 (split with Murray). So they should all play a part. That's why to me they are reminiscent of Villipiano, B. Simpson and Robertson.

Body type-wise, he reminds me of Ted Washington. Nice addition.

I'm not a salary cap wizard, but per Spotrac the dead cap number for Elam in '23 is $11.2 million. If he's traded they are responsible for at least the unamortized part of the signing bonus which would be almost $5.4 million. I think the total guaranteed money comes into play too and that may raise the dead cap number some more. Trading him would be challenging from a cap perspective. No team bats 1.000 on 1st rounders. White, Allen, Edmunds, Oliver, trading pick for Diggs, Rousseau and Kincaid all have been good. If you count Diggs as a hit, this regime is 7 for 8 or .875 with White, Rousseau and Kincaid (and Elam) being picks in the 20s.

But has he ever caught his own pass like Herbert did Monday night? To quote RJ, he's good, scary good. Outside of Mahomes, is there anyone else in the NFL right now that you would consider trading Allen for straight up? The answer is no, with an admitted dose of Buffalo bias, I don't know if I trade him for Mahomes. And like others, I thought this frivolity was confined to the preseason.

Since he only has one more callup, maybe they add Ja'Marcus Ingram to the 53 and for now use the call up for Ty Johnson.