GunnerBill

He was better.

It isn't that for me. It is just I don't rate Diontae Johnson.

“Look, this game, it’s so hard to be good year in and year out and you just more than anything you have to have a roster that can handle the physicality of this game and the injuries. ... So when we thought about this opportunity long and hard and to infuse not just the picks but the cap space over the next few years, it just made a lot of sense to us and I think it worked out for both." "We’re gonna have a lot of young guys play football for us this fall. There is going to be a transition period. But after the draft ended and from the time they’ve been here through the rookie minicamp, we’ve been certainly impressed with them and their attitudes." Both of those quotes are Brett Veach after trading Tyreek Hill in the 2022 offseason. 2022 was supposed to be a transition year for them and they were not good a lot of the year. But they bucked the trend, their rookies balled out, they got a bit of luck with the Damar situation giving them homefield throughout the playoffs and Mahomes was clutch when they needed him to be. I mean Veach had been GM for exactly one draft when they fired Sutton.

I agree on Karlaftis. Disagree on Sneed. I think he is a legit corner. He is one of the best matchup guys around.

Bit like the 2022 Eagles. They beat nobody.

Ah hadn't looked at the contract structure. Yea think you are right. His spot to lose. Definitely better than the 2018 roster which totally sucked. I think it's similar to the 2019 roster..... but Josh now is much better than Josh then so I'd give this roster an edge in that regard.

Ah yes, I had forgotten him. I think he has a shot at that final DE spot.

Yea and I think the Bills want to at least have an internal option. And that isn't Vandy (who is much better on the left than the right) or Collins (washed and 1 year deal). If Grable shows any promise at all he is making the 53 IMO.

I'm not defending that model. I have criticised it. But spending lots of capital on defensive front 7 and not much on wide receivers is Beane's MO. It is the team building ethos he grew up in. I'd like to see him flex too but I'd not sure he is going to.

Was literally his last year. Was a bit of a shell of himself. But hey, old, over the hill pass rushers are part of the Carolina model and Beano loves them.

Best wishes to Murph for his continued recovery.

The build is very similar to Carolina. Constant resource allocation to the front 7 on defense in FA and the draft. The numbers are staggeringly similar in terms of drafting. In the TEN drafts where Beane was in a senior role in the Carolina front office (2008-2017) the Panthers had 69 draft picks and spent 20 of them on front 7 on defense. That is 29%. They had 28 picks in that time in the first three rounds and spent 12 of them on the defensive front 7. That is 43% In the SEVEN drafts Beane has been GM in Buffalo (2018-2024) the Bills have had 55 draft picks and spent 14 of them on front 7 on defense. That is 25%. They have had 21 picks in that time in the first three rounds and spent 9 of them on defensive front 7. That is 43% (identical to Carolina). Is worth saying at this point that defensive front 7 is around 30% of your starters, so those numbers should be seen in that context. But Brandon Beane is building his team the way he witnessed it done in Carolina. He tells us himself he will never apologise for prioritising the defensive front. And he is as good as his word in that regard.

I think this is pretty close. The only player you don't have as at least an either/or who I think has a realistic chance is Tylan Grable. I'm just not sure they will be able to sneak him through to the PS and I don't think they drafted him on a whim, I think they are already bracing themselves for the possibility that Brown is out of their price range after this season if he has a strong year. If he shows anything at all in camp and PS Grable will get claimed if hitting waivers with his experience and his athleticism. So if they want to try and develop him I think the play is put him on the 53, cut Collins (not subject to waivers) and put him on your PS. If a team then comes and picks up Collins for their #53, so be it, you grab a similar vet tackle cut by someone else for the PS. Similar to what they did last year with AJ Klein, where they retained all their young dudes at linebacker in the 53 cutdowns and then stuck AJ on the PS (after a little flirtation with Kirskey as the PS vet).

Yea he is longer than 6'1 sounds because his arms are freakish.

I had a late 4th on him, so to get him in the 5th was good for me. I think he has been pinned more as a 3-4 guy because he is small to play a 4-3 base end but I actually like him with his hand in the dirt, I just think he is probably always a pass rush specialist more than a 3 down player.

So one of them is someone I can into contact with indirectly, through a former NFL position coach who I know personally who married a Brit and now lives in the UK, and that person is no longer in the organisation. The other is someone I started engaging with through a scouting forum before they got a formal job in the league and long before they worked for the Bills.

Not beyond the broad agreed vision for building the team. On the picks specifically? No. I think Beane made them, because that's his job.

They know who they are going to pick before the draft? Really? Picking at the end of each round? The drop off before Kneeland was rather large. He sucks. Beane did say right after the Bishop pick he was the guy they were trying to get up for and he got lucky that nobody would take his offer because he was about to give picks away unnecessarily. Now that might not have been true, obviously, but I have a tendency to believe him on that.

I'm saying that is not how it works. There is no "tick the box" process. There is a higher up alignment so that the GM picks guys that fit what the coaches want but there is no player by player "tick, cross, tick, cross" process that happens beyond guys who they meet with and don't like and take off the board which happens way before Beane is faced with any decisions. You are insisting on a process that doesn't take place. When the team that holds the #1 pick goes on the clock every player on Brandon Beane's draft board is available to him. Are there a handful of guys every year that are not on the board because they have met with them and don't like them? Yes. But if that is what you are equating to the "tick" or the "cross" then you are saying McDermott has ticked everyone who is on the board and so you are saying he has 100-120 people he has detailed opinions on.

That is not what Head Coaches do between the season and the draft. By the time they have got through exit interviews, staff changes, self scouting, deciding on schematic changes, engaging with the FO on sign / re-sign decisions, prepared their programme for OTAs and mini-camps..... they really do not have time to sit there doing the GM's job as well. He actually rarely attends the Senior Bowl these days actually. I'm not 100% sure but I think the last time he went was 2019. He does the Combine interviews and he no doubt meets people on top 30 visits and you are right those do affect the final board. But if a guy has a line through him after that he is off the board. So there wouldn't need to then a discussion on draft night where he tells Beane not to draft him. Everyone who is on the board is available for Brandon Beane to draft. And he decides which ones to pick. That is just the way it works. You are totally right that McDermott has a significant input into the vision. I'd even say he is the driver of that, but he and Beane are totally aligned. That is why they work so well together. I'm not the one concluding anything concrete from one video. I have spoken to two guys who have worked for the Bills, one of them is still there. I have asked about their process. The argument here isn't whether Beane and McDermott are aligned. They unquestionably are. The debate is whether McDermott is telling Beane who to pick because he's a "classic micromanager" and he isn't. Beane runs the draft. Beane makes the picks. The chance of him picking someone that McDermott doesn't like are slim because they are aligned on the vision. But Beane runs personnel. That isn't an opinion. It is the reality.

How many others? 5? 10? 20? How big do you think their real board is then? Because if they could only draft people with the McDermott tick it would reduce the board down to the guys he has evaluated in detail. What if those guys are not there? Everyone on the board is considered by the Bills draftable. Brandon Beane decides who to draft.

So there are some dysfunctional teams. The Bills are not one (though for a long time they were). But the process as it works in functional organisations is that they have clear specifications of the types of person they want and the types of player they want at each spot and everyone from the area scouts up understands the schemes that the team runs and what that means for the skillsets of the players they need. The scouts and the senior personnel people do the evaluations over the course of the season, the GM and his top assistants use that to build a board. In the spring they involve the coaches in meetings at the Combine and 30 visits etc and then give them special projects to look at (particularly if there is a question about a player's fit or they have little clusters of players at a spot similarly graded). Then they use all the info they gather through the spring to make any adjustments they need to their board (from interviews, from coaches projects, from medicals etc). Then the GM uses the board on draft day to make the picks. That is the collaborative type of process most teams use. I've long believed that the Bills veer towards the smaller side on board size. More in the 100 to 120 space than the 150 plus space, just based on how they act in the draft. So as for the "McDermott pre-approves everyone they pick" in a sense if they make the draft board then everyone at the top of the organisation has approved them as a potential selection by the Buffalo Bills. But in the other sense the idea that he has personally evaluated all 100 to 120 guys on their board in the level of detail to govern their choices is for the birds. That's why he wanted the man he trusts as the GM. Because he knows he can't do that.

FBS school, small size, not much of a run player. But MAN he can rush the passer.

My key take aways: 1. Impressed with Keon's knowledge of the game and coverages. For someone who has only focussed on football the last 3 years he talked ball impressively. 2. No secret I thought they reached a bit on DeWayne Carter. But as I always say the bits the amateurs can't know is the interviews and the person. Love his attitude, love him turning up in a suit. I once turned up in a suit for an interview at a sports shop back when I was a student. It's about being professional at whatever you do. Yea, he's my kinda guy. 3. The chemistry and trust between Beane, Gray and Gaine has clearly developed. That first year that Schoen and Morgan left I remember watching the draft videos and feeling really strongly that Beane looked isolated. Still to an extent last year you felt like it was all on him. This year felt more like it was previously, he has his top two lieutenants in place and he can trust them and feels more relaxed. 4. Laura Pegula being featured was interesting to me. Given what has been written about the fact that she (Terry's eldest daughter from his first marriage)is increasingly powerful in the organisation in Kim's absence. Succession wise it bears watching. 5. I don't think there was any grand plan when they started moving down from #28 to draft Coleman. It felt much more like "no firsts left let's focus instead on recouping that 3rd rounder and then see where we are left" but equally it is clear that as night one ended there was no re-stacking the board they knew Keon was their pick.

And then Beane took the running back..... because Beandon runs personnel not McDermott.