BarleyNY

The new offense requires TT to do exactly what he isn't good at - throwing accurate anticipatory timing throws. It's to an almost whole new receiving corps, Clay aside. I'll give him that. But if early returns are an indication of the season in general, then we will be seeing Peterman.

Cherry picking is weak. 3 seasons, 37 games, 153 catches, 2,459 yards and 17 TDs. Those are solid stats, it they're sure not elite. Even in his best season he barely broke 1k yards. That's not enough for a #1 WR so yes, its underperforming for that. He's obviously got talent, but he doesn't have the production to match. He very well might change that this season. It's his contract year so I'd bet he will do everything he can to produce. He'll probably have his best season yet. But I do not want any part of him long term because I expect him to be way overpaid with his second contract. I'm glad we aren't the ones that are going to give it to him.

Wow. An eight game run two seasons ago. You've just proved my point. No one knows if his foot is fully healed and whether or not it can stand the rigors of a full season. It's certainly a risk. And until he can produce consistently he is what he is: A highly talented, but under productive WR.

Couple issues with that. 1) Either injuries that he has played through have prevented him from producing more or he's not as good enough to warrant a big contract. And don't give me BS about it being scheme or QB. No OC leaves the kind of yards we're talking about on the field because the just feel like running the ball. Also WRs have done much better with much worse at QB. Hell, Josh Gordon led the league a few seasons ago in 14 games with hot garbage at QB for the Browns. 2) The only way to keep him from getting the free agency after this season was going to be the franchise tag. Sometimes going to go crazy and break the bank for him, but it'll be a big risk. It will probably be done by a team with a regime that is in trouble and won't have to deal with the mess if it blows up. This regime doesn't have to take that kind of risk at the present time.

If this regime was willing to sign Watkins to a big contract even with a healthy, productive season then they'd have kept him. They moved on because they didn't like the risk (and/or attitude). It's over. On a side note, Sammy fans seem to be getting through the stages of grief at a decent clip.

Darby did not make the Pro Football Writers Association writer's short list for DROY runner ups (top 6), but he did win PFF's DROY award outright. Notably, Gaines was named to by the PFWA to their All Rookie team.

I'm sure they'd do that and probably even kick back a day 3 pick. They seem to be preparing to move on from him.

I'd be the they'd move Haden, but would not be interested in Ragland. No place for him on Greggg's defense.

Stuff like that gets overplayed every year. "Look who's working out together" articles are nice fluff pieces, but rarely amount to anything on the field. Besides, it was highly unlikely that either was going to be here after this season anyway.

The HC just chose his GM a few months ago. They're on the same page. As for competing, I'm not convinced that the Bills are any better or worse right now than they were right before the trades. They swapped a more talented, but less productive WR for a less talented, but more productive one. They traded a man coverage corner who had one good and one bad year for a zone corner that had one good, one injured and one bad year. Makes sense seeing as how we are a zone team this season. Plus they picked up draft capital in the process. You know, they might actually be better off in the short term and long term now that I think about it. Hey, they did do both.

What if they've been told to build for the long run and for an eventual SB run rather than to expend capital to push to be one of 5 or 6 teams with a shot at a WC spot and an early playoff exit in the short term?

That's incorrect. One of the fundamentals of the WCO is replacing some of the running game with short passes. But that isn't the whole system. Another fundamental is the use of Hi-Lo concepts in the passing game. A vertical threat comes in pretty handy for that.

Maybe. Still, it is odd to hear - especially from both. McD sure doesn't seem like a guy who'd let players slide on being out of shape.

/thread If it's such a chore to for him or others to play now, they're free to retire.

4.45 forty for Zay. Sammy ran a 4.43. Hopefully Zay adjusts to the NFL quickly. He certainly has the speed to play on the outside as an X. Whoops. Didn't see that you slready covered Jones.

Amen. Pegs going with Wrex and his 3-4, 2-gap read and react scheme while the team was already sitting pretty with Schwartz's top defense that played an attacking 1-gap 4-3 was a horrific mistake. Just Bush League.

Agreed. Now is the time for this new regime to mold the team into the type they want. They're getting rid of players that they don't want to keep - or can't keep. They've jettisoned and replaced pretty much the whole defensive backfield from last season. It had been one in transition from press zone, C2 to man, C0. Now we're moving to C3 with a lot of bail tech by the CBs. I didn't expect such a thorough house cleaning, but I can see why it was done. Watson, however talented, is a huge risk. He has yet to produce at a level near his talent level and with one more season left on his rookie deal, there's a tough, risky decision in the near future. Sammy is going to get paid well by some team after this season, but it'll be a team who's regime is in trouble and doesn't mind taking a big risk. The stable teams won't value him as highly because they won't shell out big money for such risk. And that's why the Bills got what they could for him now - they aren't in a spot where they need to take big risks like that so they were moving on after this season anyway. Also this.

It's getting a little late for Indy still to be screwing around with this. They should've had a semi-viable or better QB (besides Luck) on their roster weeks ago.

Probably had to get treatment on his chest during interview time.

Watkins' value takes a big hit due to him being in the last year of his contract. I'm not sure how Young valued him, but I'd bet it was a weighted average of his 3 seasons or at least the last two. Maybe even a linear regression that projects some improvement. I get fans' excitement over Watkins' potential - and that's okay for fans to do - but it's not how a GM should calculate a player's value. The best way is to assign probabilities to various realistic outcomes and take the weighted average. That factors in the risks of a certain player. There's going to be a difficult decision teams are going to have to make on Watkins next offseason because of his mix of potential and risk. One GM is going to talk himself into paying Watkins based on the best case scenario. It'll probably be a GM or coach that is under pressure to win immediately and they'll take the risk because it'll either work out and help save their job or they won't be around when the mess needs to be cleaned up anyway.

Yup and yup. He's probably not a good fit for this defense. Some 3-4 team with need of a thumper at ILB will deal for him. This sort of thing is why I hate the coaching carousel here. 4-3 in 2014 to 3-4 in 2015 and 2016 and now back to 4-3. Rex's insistence on completely retooling a top 5 defense is still haunting us.

A big concern with Ragland is that he's a 3-4 ILB, not a 4-3 LB. He could legitimately have mid round pick value to a 3-4 team in need of a downhill, thumping ILB.

This might help with your optimism: https://mobile.twitter.com/NFLDrafter/status/896100220341174272 I can't figure out how to post a pic of the chart, but it shows Ethan Young's MAVEM calculation for the trade. It's an "analytics" style tool he developed to value trades involving draft picks. In short, the Bills cleaned up on these trades, adding $17.85M in value. It's further proof that Beane and McD are using analytic tools to build this roster.

A) The article is spot on, as is the OP. B) Not FAIR to those players. That's ridiculous. I'm not even convinced this team changed its win total for the worse this season with these trades. Even if for the sake of argument I assume that it does, I'm at a loss to find any sense in that comment. Playing football is those players' jobs. If Kyle Williams is so depressed about the moves that he wants to forego his $6.3M salary and retire early, so be it. And would you have felt the same way if, instead of being traded, Watkins had gotten injured again?

#1 CB hasn't changed, it was always going to be White.