jwhit34

Early days: Also WRs - Marlin Briscoe and Bob Chandler. Though he had a great playing career, OJ's first 3 years (year 2 he got hurt) were wasted. Imagine if Saban had been here from the beginning of his career. Tony Greene and late 70-80s, Charles Romes Later: Moulds for sure

With Epenesa, Rousseau and Basham, if 2 of 3 end up being productive players, starting caliber edge guys (with versatility of kicking inside) the Bills have 2 value picks for the next few years. Edge rusher is great to have on rookie contracts for value. That is an example of the subtleties of the draft, roster building and cap management that Beane understands. Combined cap #s next 3 years: '21: $4.4 million '22: $5.6 million '23: $6.5 million If all 3 work out Beane hits a HR.

Has anyone ever see both Chuck Dickerson and Buddy Nix in the same room at the same time? I think they may be the same person.

All of this...against a bunch of guys who never made a 53 man roster. The coaches see him every day in practice and he hasn't been good enough. Beane uses the roster rules to their full advantage. Bringing him back for a 3rd year doesn't mean anything in terms of a "plan for him". See Spain, Quinton...

Christian Wade, the RB equivalent to the WR camp champs from Da'Rick Rodgers to Duke WIlliams. If Wade makes the 53 something has gone terribly wrong with Singletary, Moss, Breida and even Antonio Williams. That doesn't detract from his story, it just doesn't get him on the roster.

One of the better jazz vibe players...signing him would be music to Bills fans' ears.

A lot of people and articles say if there are only 20-25 players with first round grades and you have #30 and they're all gone, you should trade down. The flaw in that logic is if everyone else has the same grades why would they want to trade up? Of course not everyone has the same grade for every player so it is possible.

Definitely one of the top, well deserved. I would think that OJ Simpson would merit a lot of consideration but with the stuff after his playing days he is not given much thought for a lot of "best of" lists.

Trade to Raiders for a 5th rounder.

Shades of Marshall Newhouse.

Looking forward to Matt Breida becoming the best version of himself with the Bills. This is so smart, a relatively low/no risk, high reward scenario. If he plays at his 2018-19 level it's a terrific pickup. I think part of Beane's strategy is that if you sign enough of these low-budget, "be the best version of yourself" type guys you're bound to hit on a couple and if you do you really add value to your team (and end up looking pretty smart).

Signing Trubisky and Sanders and bringing everyone back = We're all in to win Super Bowl LVI.

If Wallace is the 11th best starter on D then the D will be pretty good. He probably will have significant competition for the starting spot. This also means that the Bills have all 11 starters back on D plus Taron Johnson the nickel (or AJ Klein as 3rd LB) so top 12 are all back, 9 of 11 on offense, with #10 Boettger tendered. Only John Brown is gone and they get potential starters Cody Ford and Star (on D of course) back from injury and opt out, respectively. In the salary cap era that has to be extremely rare.

If Wallace is the 11th best starter on D then the D will be pretty good. And probably will have significant competition for the starting spot.

Probably tried to work out a deal and when they couldn't they tendered him.

Fitz is #30 all time passing yards. If he starts the whole year he can get to #23: Fitzpatrick 34,977 Cutler 35,133 Kelly 35,467 A. Smith 35,650 Hasselbeck 36,638 McNabb 37,276 Esiason 37,920 Krieg 38,147 Next two are Unitas and Montana. Way different eras but still amazing he's that high on the list.

Jonnu Smith's numbers by year (year, rec., yds., TDs): 2017 18-157-2 2018 20-258-3 2019 35-439-3 2020 41-448-8 Gerald Everett's #s: 2017 16-244-2 2018 33-320-3 2019 37-408-2 2020 41-417-1 Dawson Knox's #s: 2019 28-388-2 2020 24-288-3 They play in very different offenses. You could make a case that Knox is further along in his development than Smith or Everett were at the end of their 2nd year. I was interested in Smith when first learning about him being a free agent, now I am thinking more that Knox is on the right path. Is 45-450-5 realistic for Knox this year and is that enough from the position given the other weapons/options? I look at passing yards breakdown like this (presuming all healthy) in 2021: Diggs 110-1350-8 Beasley 80-900-6 Davis 55-800-6 Other WRs 40-400-4 (hope McKenzie is part of it) RBs 50-400-3 TEs 55-550-7 That's 390-4,400-34, pretty close to 2020. Add in a better run game and it's high-powered offense again. My point is that the $8 million or so to bring in Smith probably does not align with the value. I don't think him or Everett come in and has a 65-700-8 season. If the Bills can get 100-105 receptions for close to 1,000 yards and 10 TDs from the RBs and TEs that will diversify the offense enough and still get the WRs, their best position group in terms of weapons, the requisite touches they need for the offense to be near the top of the league again.

For the draft now, they definitely can go BPA but for the first round pick my guess is they pick a position like CB or edge rusher because of relative value, particularly in years 3-5 of rookie contract. Then in rounds 2 and 3 I could see offense - interior OL, WR and wouldn't rule out TE or RB. I could also see them trading down, something like #30 for an early 2nd and early 4th. Trade value chart possibilities for #30: Atlanta's 2nd and 4th (#35 and #108) Cincy's 2nd (38), 4th (111) and 5th (149) Bills could throw in their 6th (211)

Someone posted the question the other day will McDermott eventually pass Marv as the best coach in Bills history. What does Beane have to do to pass Polian as the best GM in Bills history? I would say either (a) win a Super Bowl or (b) have about a 15 year run of excellence with multiple Super Bowl appearances.

Do the Bills have a John Nash clone working the salary cap for Beane? Brilliant. I'm going to guess that Williams counts $5-6 million against cap this year. Still room to maneuver. No Lee Smith saves another $2.2M. They have to decide what they want at G, they have Ford, could sign Boettger and/or Feliciano, could draft a G. Lots of options. Most of all it is so nice that they have a sound plan and strategy.

Probably go vet minimum salary to go from $4M to $1M and the $3M becomes signing bonus spread over 3 years so gives $2M cap relief. Diggs, Hughes, Brown and Morse all prime candidates for similar move (extension, restructure), probably could save $10-14 million on cap if all 4. The thing is cap will go up a lot in future years if 100% fans and then new TV contract so moving salary to future years isn't necessarily delaying the inevitable, it's shifting cap impact to years that will be more manageable.

In regards to the notion that the team over-performed in 2020: Josh Allen, Stefon Diggs had career-best years (I'm not saying career years because both are young and have a good chance to perform at that level or better). Beasley had a career year. I don't think anyone else had a career best or career year (never to be duplicated). So by definition you cannot have 3 players at peak performance and 50 at or below their potential and say they over performed. Maybe if you want to add a 4th you can include Bojorquez, but for a guy who punted 41 times I don't think that puts the team in the over perform category. Spending in free agency: The nature of free agency (open bidding on players) is that way more times than not a player is overpaid. It's just the way it is. Every team misses on free agents. Murphy and Kroft were misses, the others, particularly Morse, Star, Brown, maybe Matakevich, have been productive but probably overpaid by varying degrees. You have to be good in the draft, undrafted free agents, etc. and get value so it gives you some leeway in free agency to probably overspend a bit. It's like your own personal budget, if you have some level of discretionary income there are things that you purchase that are a value but there are things you want a little more and are willing to overspend on them, whether it's cars, your house, maybe you're into wine, heck even sporting event tickets. You afford yourself those luxuries because you're good with your money on other things.

How likely is it that the Bills kick off the 2021 NFL season by playing at Tampa Bay on Thursday (opening) night? Just a few juicy storylines in that one. That would be fun.

This probably will not be a very popular opinion... I see a lot of similarities in fans' feelings about Feliciano and Jordan Phillips. There are many that overvalue both of them because they are very demonstrative on the field, have a fiery attitude. I think that blinds some when it comes to evaluating their performance. Excluding 2019, Phillips has had a journeyman's career: 5 years, 69 games, 7.5 sacks, 15 TFL, 2 FFs. Feliciano was a backup for the 4 years he was with the Raiders, never taking more than 22% of the snaps in a season. Like Phillips, he had a career season in '19 and also like Phillips, he was hampered by injury in '20 and only played in 9 regular season games (ironically same # as Phillips). Phillips got rewarded for his one good season with a 3 year, $30 million contract. Beane was wise to let him walk. Feliciano? He is a nice player, but has limitations. As several people posted, maybe his biggest attribute is his versatility. In a normal year, someone would overpay him in free agency like the Cardinals did for Phillips. The Bills may luck out between teams being cap challenged and Feliciano possibly taking a hometown discount. But Beane will not and will be smart not to overpay. Is Feliciano 20%, 40% better than Cody Ford? Let's say he's 30% better, Ford has a cap # of about $2 million. That makes Feliciano worth about $2.6 million comparatively if he starts over Ford (I know Ford seems slotted at LG but...). If Feliciano is going to get at least $6 million, he's not 3x better I know that's cold, but that's the business.

Pretty nice when your QB and coach are runner up, OC wins assistant coach of year and DC also gets a vote. And in other voting, the GM wins Exec of the Year. That's quite a year. Congrats to all