BarleyNY
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Posts posted by BarleyNY
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42 minutes ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:
I will say this about Dawkins, he had a lot of whiffs last year and guys going right by him and getting in on Allen, wasn't all that impressed with his play. When I saw him at the NFL honors show, my first thought was this guy hasn't missed a meal in a long time.
I guess if he's really struggling in camp and one of these other guys does look much better, I suppose it could happen, but think for him to be let go it will more have to be a case of him looking real bad rather than one of these guys looking real good, more of a desperation move as the Bills are at a loss of feeling they have no choice. I do think too, he needs to play much better or he will be gone in the off season.
His play last season definitely fell off. He has had the ability to play at a high level while carrying a lot of bad weight, but I hoped that as he got older he would prioritize staying in shape so he could prolong his career. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, but here’s hoping that he can at least hold it together one more season.
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2 hours ago, Kelly No huddle said:
👀
Insanity. Ot at least malfeasance. They need Dawkins’ replacement in house and up to speed prior to moving on from him. I thought that they should have made an effort last draft. At least they took a shot with Bowry this one. It’d be crazy to have Josh Allen’s blind side protector be a question mark. Unless Dawkins has fallen off a cliff he has to stay.
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35 minutes ago, NoSaint said:
but last year he wasn’t flagged a lot. It’s an older narrative that he seemed to address very wellBuckeye who watches every tOSU game here. Ohio State plays a lot of Cover 3 Match under Patricia. Leonard plays a lot of Cover 3 Match, so the fit is certainly there. While Igbinosun dramatically improved his grabbing from 24 to 25, I think that only made him draftable early day 3. His ceiling is CB2 IMO. Or, more likely, he eventually winds up being the first outside CB off the bench. He does play the run well though. That’s important as we see more condensed formations and more TE usage. There are things lo like with him, but drafting him in the second round really leans hard into him developing a lot more and hitting his ceiling.
Edit: Remembered a couple more things:
- He’s been durable. I do not remember him missing any time at tOSU.
- The team made him wear oven mitts in practice to stop him from grabbing so much.
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In general I don’t mind picks like Bowry. He has the necessary talent to be a good starter in the NFL, but has not put it together. He can be off the team and/or out of the league in 2-3 years or things can click for him and he can take over for Dawkins by then. The odds favor the former, but it’s a reasonable risk/reward. And one way or the other there will be an easy decision down the line.
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10 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:
And this team's problem is the playoffs. If we were trying to go from 6 wins to 10 wins I might take option 2. We are trying to get from 12 wins to Championship.
I could not agree more.
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Building around an elite 21 sack player is far easier than building around the other options. And as @GunnerBill said, those elite players matter most in the playoffs.
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I’m very happy that the timing of John Harbaugh firing led to Jesse Minter’s hire rather than Mike Macdonald’s. I’m glad that MM went to the NFC a couple seasons ago instead. The Ravens wouldn’t have been a soft also-ran team under him.
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2 hours ago, MikePJ76 said:
If she was smart she would just go and tell the whole truth. The first one to tell the actual truth is going to get some credit and have a chance to rebound from it.
well I mean vrabel doesn’t need to because the local and national nfl writers will fix his reputation for him because they want to be buddies with him.
he must be pretty nervous because if she does tell the truth he is probably in big trouble and with the league.
training camp for the pats is going to be a circus
Kraft and the Patriots have a lot to lose here. I can see them paying Russini off to quietly go away. Whether that outweighs her desire to tell her side of the story remains to be seen.
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Just now, eball said:
I hear ya, but Tre has made a good chunk of change in the NFL and seems like a smart dude so I doubt (but could be wrong) that squeezing every dime out of his last year or two is the issue. But we’ll see.
He may also want to see if the opportunity to start somewhere presents itself. It could be about getting on the field.
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6 minutes ago, eball said:
Particularly given Beane’s secondary depth fears, I’m surprised this hasn’t happened. Tre is currently unsigned and I think we’d all agree he had a pretty good season. Seems like a no-brainer to add his experience (and skill) to that room.
No, but I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t get signed by the Bills or some other team. With his experience I don’t think he needs a lot of time to get up to speed anywhere. I expect that he’ll either go to a team that gets hit with the injury bug or come back to the Bills as depth. More money in the former, so he’s doing the right thing taking his time.
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16 hours ago, SoonerBillsFan said:
I agree on both. I feel Bell could end up pur #2 WR by years end and Kilgore will play a ton. Both were absolute steals where we drafted them.
Kilgore and Bell are my two favorite Bills picks of this draft. Can’t wait to see them play.(For the record I like Parker as a player too.)
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9 hours ago, GoBills808 said:
We knew this since 2021
Agreed. I guess those of us that have been saying the same thing for years might not get shouted down anymore.
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15 hours ago, Mikey152 said:
That's true for literally every WR in the league. Slot is harder to cover because of formation and motion. Tons of #1 WR move to the slot to manufacture touches.
Big slot is just code for "not good enough to play outside even though he is big" If you are saying he is too slow, runs bad routes, isn't sudden and isn't good at contested catches, he isn't a good big slot either...thats describing a bad player.
You can believe that if you want. I am just using Puka as an example of someone with even worse measurables that still plays fast and gets open. It isn't impossible or even far fetched knowing what we know about Keon.
The bet with him is that:
- his play strength
- body control
- ball tracking flashes
…are real, and the technical stuff (releases, route detail, timing) improves. That’s how a lot of bigger WRs develop.
As I said, I do not think he’ll be a good big slot WR either, but I do think it was his best chance at success in the NFL. His chances on the outside as an X are near zero. He is a liability there. As a big slot he might have had some utility due to better matchups.
As far as his development and how best for him to reach his ceiling, this is year 3 for him in the NFL. He hasn’t developed at all. A big part of that is his immaturity so it’s on him. But he is much further behind developmentally as an X than he would be as a slot. And X is a much tougher job. That hasn’t helped. I’ve got no delusions that the Bills will move him to slot as they have a logjam there as it is. That would have been his best chance though.
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24 minutes ago, Mikey152 said:
I think the idea that he can only be a big slot is dumb (no offense) and super short sighted. A lot of these draft websites love to pigeonhole guys based on college tape and measureables, but there is a huge difference between being fast and playing fast.
Take Puka, for example. Bad 40, bad 10 yard split, bad agility, bad 3 cone, bad jumps. Pretty much an awful combine...except he ran the gauntlet smoother and faster than everyone. You know, the drill where you run fast and catch footballs. Do you know who else ran slow at the combine then killed the gauntlet? I'll give you one guess.
Keon plays slow because he isn't a good wide receiver yet. He could play big slot to take advantage of his natural ability, but you might cap him artificially. He is plenty strong and athletic enough to play outside. He isn't a separator because he doesn't have great technique...he needs to learn it.
Strawman.
What I can't tell is if people actually believe things like this, or if they are just trying to push buttons and rage bait.
No offense, but this whole post is dumb. It’s just cope. None of it is logical.
So according to you Keon is Puka because they both ran the gauntlet smoothly? That’s like fans saying that every late round QB is gonna be great because Tom Brady was a 6th round pick. They just cling to the one thing their draft bust has in common with a superstar player. SMH
Not every WR can play effectively in every role. Some are limited. Keon certainly is. Why wouldn’t any team put their players in the best position to succeed? Keon’s would be as a big slot. And, no, that wouldn’t artificially cap his upside. If successful at that, he could continue to develop. But starting him out where he’s likely to be most successful would be, you know, smart.
Explain to me how Keon develops on the outside. He's not fast or sudden enough to win with speed or agility there. He is strong, but not good at contested catches. He’s not a savvy route runner. That is the reason he got so many back shoulder passes.
To be clear I don’t even much like him as a big slot, but he has been good at RAC. He is also likely to draw a better match up there. A smaller nickel/safety or a slower LB is a better match up for him than most outside CBs. His odds of catching a slant against a nickel and running for good yards is way better than running a 9 against a bigger, more athletic CB.
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17 hours ago, DapperCam said:
People definitely talked about him being raw. About how he was a basketball player at MSU, and that he didn’t have a full route tree and would need to develop.He’s basically a rookie!
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5 hours ago, Kirby Jackson said:
So by my quick math that leaves the Bills about $8.5M of available cap space after the draft class using OTC or $9.4M using Spotrac. Let’s assume that they’re comfortable using $4M - $5M of that space prior to the season. That’s probably enough to sign 2 of the guys whose names we’ve been floating out there.
The Bills still have a couple places to create space. They may need one of them. As it stands they’ll probably be just a little light. Draft class, fulls roster, practice squad, elevations, injury replacements. It’ll add up. No need to do anything now, but they can make room for a signing or two if they need to do that. 2027 is getting tight though so I don’t expect them to add any large contracts.
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1 hour ago, DapperCam said:
It was known he was super raw. Kind of unfortunate he became the top boundary WR on a team with high expectations immediately.
He will never win with his speed, and the back shoulder jump ball stuff can’t be your main thing in the NFL. He needs to improve his route running. I hope he does.He turned 21 between being drafted and playing his first game, but I never saw anyone talk about him being raw. Not until very recently at least. What I did see was a lot of people talking about big slot being his only viable position. The Bills felt differently and miscast him as an X. So it is not a matter of him being raw at playing X WR, it’s a matter of him not being suited to playing there.
Also he’s been very immature. That’s not the same as being raw either.
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10 hours ago, GottaRun said:
Dumb question alert - Does it help financially that we didn't draft anyone in the first round?
Picking at the top of the second round versus the end of round one does save some cash/cap. The contract difference between the 32nd and 33rd picks is $3.4M total over the four year contracts. Teams lose the 5th year option tho. But if a team can get the same quality of player then it’s a win. As you get further into the second round you’ll also see that contracts won’t be fully guaranteed, tho that cutoff seems to be steadily creeping down the round.
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32 minutes ago, mjt328 said:
Overall, I was not a fan of this year's draft class.
I guess I just don't agree with Beane's overall strategy for team building... or his overall lack of urgency. Going in, I was hoping that he's been trying to satisfy Sean McDermott all these years. Now I'm wondering if McDermott was actually the one holding him in check.
A lot of people seem to believe that some Day 3 steals can makeup for a poor first two days. The problem is that a successful pick in the 4th-5th Round is one that becomes a solid starter. People will be thrilled if Skyler Bell eventually replaces Josh Palmer as the #2. A successful pick in the 1st Round is one becomes an All-Pro. Beane seems to prefer quantity over quality, and I think it really shows on the Bills overall roster.
As I've stated many times, I believe every draft should yield one high impact player and two other solid starters. If this was such a weak draft, I would have greatly preferred trading up for a 1st Round graded player instead of going the other way to load up on Day 3. Of course that becomes really tough to accomplish when you go into Draft Day with a half-dozen needs, so I also have to fault Beane for failing to address all of our holes in Free Agency.
The way things stand, the Defensive Tackle position is still a huge mess. Linebacker is still very shaky. We still lack speed at Edge. I'm really not sure how much any of these rookies will be getting on the field or how much.
I am not a big fan of it either. Outside of Igbinosun, who I thought was a big reach, I actually like a lot of our draftees if I view them in a vacuum. Kilgore was a great value where we got him and I think he brings something unique to the team. The issue I had with the other picks is from a team building standpoint. It seems like many of the players are in the molds of ones we already have. I don’t see how we’ve really improved much, except for depth. For instance, Bell was a nice value pick and looks like a good prospect, but he also looks like he brings much the same as Shakir. And we already have a logjam at slot. So how does he help us?
Likewise Parker’s pro comp I saw was that he is “a less explosive Bradley Chubb”. Realistically this pick might be because they aren’t sure Rousseau can play 3-4 OLB. Which brings me to my other issue. Beane seems to have created a lot of the issues he’s having to deal with. Hiring a very good DC is great, but wasn’t there one available that runs a 4-3 base? The changeover in personnel is not going to be painless. He didn’t want to trade up a little in the first to get Conception because we didn’t have a second round pick. But we didn’t have that pick because he substantially overpaid for Moore. The. there are the contracts handed out last offseason to defensive players who fit McDermott’s scheme. Now they have to figure out what to do with guys like Rousseau and his $20M AAV salary. A lot of cap space is being used on retaining good players. That has really added up and limited our ability to take advantage of opportunities with higher end talent. It just seems like we’d be in a lot better position to win it all if Beane could get out of his own way.
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2 hours ago, buffblue said:
I seem to remember Landon Jackson having an insane RAS score. And he looked as athletic and explosive as my grandma
Case in point. 9.88 RAS, but Jackson didn’t bench and he didn’t do any of the agility drills.
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2 hours ago, BuffaloBillyG said:
Seems like every year we take these RAS wizards and they don't really hit their potential.
Tired of the RAS guys....get me football players
The problem with RAS scores is that prospects stopped doing things that they aren't good at. That typically is the agility stuff like the 3 cone drill. And since RAS averages the available data and does not ding players for missing data, some players get much higher scores than they should have.
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52 minutes ago, eball said:
…and not for the reason most of you probably think. I’m happy because I get to focus on the NHL playoffs and not the ignorant, ridiculous “evaluations” of draft picks by supposed fans of the Bills.
With a very few exceptions, none of you have a clue how these picks will work out and you all look like jackasses.
Enjoy and Go Sabres!!!
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48 minutes ago, Mikey152 said:
I had a big long response written out, and I decided to can it.
I’ll just say this: adding more layers without growth is rarely a good idea. At the end of the day, Beane makes decisions either way. You don’t like his process (pun intended), that’s your prerogative.
Several years ago I said my preference for Bills organizational structure was Beane as President with a GM and new HC reporting to him. The caveat was that the GM would have full roster authority and autonomy. I get your point about layers, but I don’t think it’s valid in this case. @GunnerBill laid out the case very well. I’ll add that Terry Pegula isn’t getting any younger and we may see a gradual or even rapid change in which member of that family is running the show. A competent team president would be a big asset to such a change.
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Rd4, Pick 102: OT Jude Bowry, Boston College
in The Stadium Wall
Posted
While the teams that are most aggressive in cap management might still do so, the Bills aren’t one of them. It’s worth pointing out that Dawkins has, by far, the biggest salary on the team. The top four are:
Dawkins $15.465
Palmer $9.66
Hoecht $6.04
Rousseau $4.92M
Fifth is Torrence, who’s still on his rookie contract. Based on how Beane prefers to manage the cap, they’re preparing to move on from Dawkins next offseason. That doesn’t mean it is 100% certain,. He may ball out and stick around for 2027, but the groundwork has been laid for him not to be here then. Ditto Palmer and Hoecht as cuts. Rousseau’s fit in the new scheme is a big question mark, so I think they’re hedging on him and keeping a trade possibly open (likely next offseason). I think that’s a smart play given the choice to change to Leonard’s scheme.