Bleeding Bills Blue

Baker has the 5th year option and i expect Cleveland to just have him play on it. I don't think they can get out of it as he won't pass a physical by that deadline. I think its a spot where they could look for some other players around the league like Trubiskey, Mariota, or Winston. The team is too talented to not have a serious backup plan.

5/6 on 4th downs over the last 3 games, and improved in the RZ the last few games too. 4/5 against carolina, 4/7 (5/7 if sanders catches that TD), and 4/5 against atlanta - 70%. I also like how McDermott is starting to coach a bit more aggressively - there's a time and a place for it obviously but he's picking more spots after some head scratchers a few times this year.

1 - Still only 26 sacks this year too with all the shuffling and a sack % of 4.1. The run blocking has been the biggest concern, and it really does have to factor into what you can do. 2 - Beasley is money for first downs, and still a good player. I'm not just benching him for Mckenzie - they both should have roles. Sanders has been a disappointment tbh. Mckenzie torched the patriots man coverage, and beasely is great against zone. 3 - They have a good TE, why do they need 2 TE sets? We mostly run 11. I'm not taking my 3rd WR out for a weak TE2. Play to your strengths. 4 - The play calling has been suspect, but with a constantly shuffling line they have had to make changes and adjustments as the year went on. They're also seeing a lot of man again so you have to adjust what you're doing. 5 - I think weather wise this has been a considerably worse season than last year. Allens home numbers are worse than they were last year - but the bills pass def. numbers at home are absurdly good as well. There's 5 games where they gave up under 20, and 2 others where it was low 20s and the Indy game where everything went off script. The red zone struggles are probably overblown (8th in the NFL in TD%, and they lead the league in RZ Atts), and they're starting to get more effective at running the ball there which will help create some opportunities.

Still made some big money 3rd and long throws. He zipped a few in there that were a bit too hot and were deflected. Diggs dropped a TD. The first INT was a dumb decision, 2nd was a miscommunication, and 3rd was another deflection. The first one cannot be thrown - you just scramble for the 6 yards. He had a blocker too so it could have even been a possible first. The 2nd one he missed the safety bailing off diggs and had diggs for an easy 15. 3rd one was a great play by the spy. After that i think they decided to just make them commit to stopping the run, and would hit them with PA checks if they brought the safeties down or committed to more effectively stopping the run - they did not.

If you can't beat them you can't beat Tenn/Indy either so it doesn't matter much.

He's had 2 punts blocked in his career. It was also the first game of the year with a new team and it was more of a protection issue than anything else - the player came in right up the middle and johnson missed the twist. I haven't really noticed any near blocks since then, they may have made some protection adjustments.

9 misses... yikes

Yep - almost like prioritizing consistency of holding/punting vs. poor holding with boom punt potential was possibly the intention. If you aren't going to punt a ton, make sure your FGs improve and you don't give up big returns. 38.7 vs 44 is 5 yards per punt - but extrapolate that out and its like 200-250 yards of field position on the year... which is 15ish yards of field position per game across 3-4 punts. The problem is CB was never super consistent. And yes - haack had one blocked. Both have been blocked twice in their careers - haack has 352 punts to CBs 215. Bass kicking is improved from 82.4 to 86.7 on FGs (with 1 miss coming in a wind storm, and another from 60+ against miami), and perfect on XPs after missing 2 the previous season. I think the misses in baltimore could have been something where they saw an issue that could have cost them a tight playoff game. Meanwhile - Crosby has missed 9 FGs this season. Punt stats in 2021 - Haack at 44.3 per punt vs. CB at 47.4. Difference of 3.1 yards. Buffalo has 90 return yards allowed on 14 punts, vs 268 on 21 returns for GB (and one for a TD). Where Haack missed the mark the most this season is with the 6 touchbacks (2 in a windstorm where NE was no longer fielding punts). It shows a lot in his net yardage, however he is only about 2 yards short of CB in net average 2021. So - superior holding by Haack. Consistent punting, and coverage could improve when trying to pin the team deep. CB - worse holder, and with 270 return yards allowed on the year, a tendency to outkick the coverage.

I mean, people around here clamor for speed. This guy ran a 4.6 at 21 and there is no way he's anywhere near that at 29 with a few injuries in there. He looks slow on the field, and even with the vision he has he just doesn't appear to have the juice to make plays. Maybe he can behind the bucs line, but he would've looked terrible in buffalo imo.

I think NE is going to attack with jet motion - be it jonnu smith or meyers or whomever is healthy at WR. They like to run tricky pass plays out of these too.

The pats blueprint also only works if you can break one off. Otherwise you eventually have a negative play - holding, run for loss/no gain, incompletion, sack, etc. Heavy run plans CAN work - bu they can also hit the skids and you need to be able to pivot.

I kind of prefer it this way - i hate when you have to challenge a play where the receiver clearly didn't catch it. Then we have to wait 10 minutes for them to overturn an obvioius call.

Eh - i'd probably do it against GB. I might also call something a bit trickier than a sprint out pass

No excuses now - gotta bring it for 60 minutes every game from here on out. Foot on the friggin gas. Bury these teams.

Trade Edmunds for what? to whom? Who's starting? Klein?

Epenesa was a 2nd round pick 2 years ago. I'd hate to move him for literally a pick - at a position thats already being thinned out by free agency. Morse is the largest cap savings. Feliciano could be moved to starting center (or swing guard if we draft or replace the center).

Addison is gone, same with Hughes. You can bring one back if you deem it necessary for depth. Star's cap savings with a release are only 4.25m which might not even be enough to find a suitable replacement. Wallace to me is good as gone unless his market craters and we can get him cheap again. When they extended johnson it kinda became writing on the wall to me. Bease isn't easily replaced with the 6M savings you would get. With a lowered cap a year ago 6M got you in the Sanders, Green, Cole, Watkins tier - either guys as old as bease, or injury prone. While Bease has missed 0 time with the team and actually played through some injuries here. Do we have a target to replace him?

Hughes is a UFA - if he comes back it'd be for a cheap swan song. Ford is in the last year of a deal and could be released/traded with cap savings. Nothing is really gained by moving moss (700k in space which is enough to sign... zach moss), but if you could get a pick maybe? Sanders is gone. Epenesa is in a similar position as moss, nothing would really be gained by trading him.

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/tools/roster/buffalo-bills/2022/ If you want to play around with releases etc. It doesn't give you option to extend a player ie. add a void year (like buffalo did with the sanders/addison contracts this year). Any restructures just convert base salary to bonuses. The for sure cuts - Morse, Klein, Matakevich The maybe cuts - Beasley, Williams, Feliciano, Ford (only because the savings aren't that big and he's a camp body til you cut him - maybe someone gets desperate and trades for him) Extension candidates - Edmunds, Oliver, Diggs Restructure Candidates - Tre, Dawkins, Milano Sanders is gone and has a void year cap hold for 2022. Epenesa would carry about a 1M cap hit if traded vs. the 1.6 if hes on the roster so i don't see moving him for any reason.

Actually its 11.75.

I'd add a void year to bease. 6M for a WR is likely a downgrade for who you get.

It depends who is there - i'm not taking a CB2 in the first or probably even the 2nd. I probably just buy a back in free agency and use a 6/7 because they aren't expensive. Offensive line clearly impacts both the run game and pass game - it needs to get better, and it needs to probably get younger.

Spotrac is assuming a 2022 cap of 199 (probably low) - 10.1 mil Assuming you cut Morse - 7.5M savings Klein - 5.2M savings Ford - 1.5M savings Williams - 5.3M or Feliciano 3.7M savings (I'll use Williams as the example because he was paid to play right tackle, can't swing to LT, and he sucks at RG - feliciano probably also moves to center) Matakevich - 2.5M savings Beasely - 6.1M savings (i'd probably just add a void year or extend him 1 more year to space cap hit rather than create a hole here, so i'm not counting it - his replacement will not be cheaper than 6M) That would give them 32M total. And they'd have QB - Allen Webb RB - DS, Moss, Wade FB - Gilliam WR - Diggs Davis Beasely stevenson hodgins TE - Knox Sweeney OL - Dawkins Feliciano Brown Doyle (Bates RFA) DE - Rousseau Basham Epenesa DT - Oliver Star LB - MIlano Edmunds Smith (Dodson ERFA) CB - White Jackson Lewis Johnson S - Hyde Poyer Hamlin johnson Free agents Hughes, addison, butler, sanders, kumerow, trubisky, boettger, wallace, jones, obada, mckenzie, Breida, Phillips, Zimmer, Neal There are a fair amount of candidates to restructure as well if they need additional space - but as it stands now its going to be tough to go after any premier free agents with that many holes in their depth. On the plus side, the defense is already pretty good- and the unit is largely intact outside hughes/addison. I think they can get by with the corners they have, but CB depth could probably be improved upon - also important to note what they do about losing a gunner in Neal. A premier pass rusher would be wonderful... they're just insanely expensive.

Yeah - get them to pin their ears and hammer them with draw plays when you see a blitz package you recognize.

Agreed. Pennington's was on 4th down, in the 4th quarter. Also robinson legitimately fell over.