BarleyNY

Obviously you’re free to use those interchangeably, but it’ll cause unnecessary confusion since they are much more commonly used to mean different things. So it’s on you if people misunderstand you. As for the rest of your post, I was not arguing any of that. Just pointing out where a misunderstanding might have been. Since you’ve made a lot of incorrect assumptions about my opinions, I’ll put my take on Coleman here for the record. I was not impressed by his senior season’s tape and had a 3rd round grade on him. That was driven by potential and “wow” moments that made him intriguing. His performance was very inconsistent though and he did not impress on a play-by-play basis. Thus the 3rd round grade. In general, I very much dislike contested catch WRs as they rarely find success in the NFL. But here’s the thing - on the occasions that they do, they are often among the most elite. Coleman obviously has some special gifts and he is young and still developing. So he’s definitely got a shot at hitting and becoming one of the best WRs in the game. The Bills swung for the fences with him and while my brain tells me the odds favor a miss, it also knows there is the possibility they knocked it out of the park. My heart is certainly rooting hard for the home run.

X refers to the outside WR who is lined up on the LOS. WR1 is more nebulous though. It typically refers to a team’s best/most productive WR. But sometimes it simply refers to a WR who is elite. In that cast a team can have more than one - like SF with Debo and Aiyuk. So a team’s WR1 can be their X, but a team’s X is not necessarily their WR1. For example, for the last several seasons the Bills WR1 was Diggs who was usually the Z (tho they moved him around). Gabe Davis was usually the X and he was definitely not WR1. The Bills have been clear that their plans is for Coleman to be the X. But he’s going to have to earn his stripes, be those WR1 or WR2 stripes - or whatever else anyone wants to call it.

Sure. That’s how the league valued MVS. The league also valued Claypool at minimum salary plus $25k and Hamler at minimum salary. That should tell you which WR the league consider the best of the three and is the most likely to make the team.

I think everyone realizes that it’s possible to win a championship while fielding a below average WR corps. But most also realize that betting big on exceptions is a poor strategy.

$7.5M is not adequate cap space to go through the season. OTC has it at $10M, which would be about the minimum the team would need. The Bills still have to move to a 53 man roster (~$2M), add a practice squad (~$4M) and make in-season moves ($4M-$5M minimum). There really isn’t any wiggle room unless they create some more space - and there are precious few ways for them to do that.

While $2.25M is no guarantee that MVS makes the roster, contracts do matter. They show that the Bills expect MVS to make the team and they’ll give him more opportunity to do so than they will Claypool or Hamler. He’ll also get the benefit of doubt if it’s close since the overall cost of keeping Claypool or Hamler over him would be higher by over $1M. Don’t get me wrong, I think that your argument that the Bills should not have given MVS those guarantees is reasonable. I also think that on a level playing field Claypool - if he’s really gotten himself together - might beat MVS for a roster spot. But it’s not a level playing field.

The contracts matter. Looking at them and their guarantees is telling when projecting cuts. Usually you just need to follow the money: MVS - 1 year, $2.25M, Fully guaranteed. Claypool - 1 year, $1.135M, only the $25k signing bonus is guaranteed. Hamler - 1 year, $1.055M, no guarantees. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/cap/_/year/2024 Barring injury or complete disaster, MVS will make the 53 over Claypool and Hamler.

I think a lot of people will be surprised when Chase Claypool gets cut.

Marino is off-seasoning hard. TBF making lists like this is pretty much what every NFL podcaster is doing. Nothing happening this time of year - and that’s the best case scenario for any NFL team. No complaints from me.

Not sure why Torry Holt hasn’t made it yet. I’d put him in.

I looked at this again. The cap implications of a post 6/1 cut of Miller (which he’d obviously be at this point) are actually manageable. His 2024 cap hit would reduce by $280k. The full contract details have not worked their way out into the public so there might be some guarantees for him to be on the roster this year. But from what is known it looks like cutting him this season might actually be feasible.

I took this to be a challenge to correctly guess the most surprising cut that actually happens, or at least has a chance to happen. Von Miller realistically can’t be cut due to cap implications. If that weren’t the case, then the Bills would have already cut him. If he comes in lazy, lost, spent, then he’ll be inactive or, more likely, they’ll find an excuse to IR him as a face-saving measure for both sides. Edit: see update below

I can't see it from a cap perspective. His cap hit this season goes UP by over $8M if he's cut. Plus we'd have to roster a replacement which would add to the cap. Even if he isn't physically right to play, they can't cut him until next offseason without some offsetting cap moves.

As @NoSaint mentioned, Dorsey is the OC in Cleveland. Hines was brought in because he wanted him. It’ll be interesting to see if/how he’s utilized there. As for 2 TE sets, Dorsey doesn’t use them very often. Stefanski and the analytics crowd loves 12 personnel so the prevailing opinion in Cleveland is that Dorsey was selected as OC to help the Browns move to more 11. Njoku is pretty much the only TE of any note they have on the team so that fits the narrative. They’ve had a good TE2 and decent TE3 in the past. Not this year.

Vet minimum plus incentives.

Seems like something that the parents should be held responsible for.

While Buffalo is definitely a Bills town, it’s much more a hockey town than football town. Other than the Bills the city doesn’t much care about football at other levels. Hockey has huge grass roots support. It’s big from pee wee to the NHL. The only reason it isn’t bigger is that the Sabres are perpetually hopeless.

That question was asked on this board and a surprisingly high percentage of posters answered that they either exclusively or almost exclusively watch Bills games. That context explains a lot of posts here so I try to keep it in mind.

1. Samuel is at least as good of a player as Davis IMO. Davis just got paid more than Samuel so (some) NFL GM’s apparently think differently. Also I always saw Samuel as more of a Diggs replacement (and posted that when we signed him). He’s obviously not been on Diggs’ level. 2. I’d be a lot happier with Diggs here one more season - especially if he was still “on board”. But alas, that wasn’t an option. He’s no longer a top 4 or 8 WR as he was in his prime. But even if he’s in the 16-24 range this season he’d be our best WR. 3. Depth quality is TBD. It very well may be better than last season (when it was pretty poor), but every season people get excited about new additions and they don’t always work out. The WRs just shown the door were thought by many to be quality players just a year or two ago. Agree that filling the void left by Diggs is what all the discussion boils down to. Let’s face it, sometimes navigating a difficult situation is, well, difficult. Sometimes a step back is necessary. That doesn’t always equate to a failure or mistake. As for Diggs, the guy who was a problem here and got traded away is the same guy we acquired via trade. Same movie. And I knew that was a possibility, but I was fully on board with acquiring him because of the upside. But this was the risk. If there was a real mistake made in the process it was the extension. I was against that. The rumblings were there already and we knew his history. Handing someone like that more money at that point is never the answer.

Why did you ask one question in the title, but a different one in the poll?

This season - his age 35 season - was my main concern when the Bills signed him to the contract they did. I understand why they did it and don’t want to rehash that. I’m very glad that Beane and Von worked out the modified contract they did. At his age and after that injury it would be a major accomplishment for him to get back to being an above average DE this season. If he’s able to do that then he deserves some real respect for it.

Well, we sure could use a slot WR.

Von fell out of the running for me because there’s no long term benefit. Sure it’d be great to have a good (or better) 2024 season from him, but I don’t think there’s any way he’s here in 2025. It would be more meaningful for a youngster like Coleman to hit and be productive for the Bills for a decade.

Coleman - easy kid to root for. I saw a lot more potential than finished product on his college tape, but he’s young. Here’s hoping he makes a great transition to the NFL and the potential develops into performance.

I said nothing of the sort. Nor am I particularly optimistic with McDermott at the helm. As evidenced by your last few responses, you seem to be having a very tough time with reading comprehension so I’ll leave you to your loser mentality and bow out.