GunnerBill

I would have been interested pre-draft or had we not spent resource on corner. Think the Bills have to roll with what they have at corner now though.

I am arguing if you have more guys to make plays in those end of game situations the tariff of the plays you need Josh to make comes down slightly. It isn't about whether Josh did or didn't make mistakes on the two game enders (and I happen to think he did make errors on both, not massive errors, slight errors) it is about their general ability on those drives to make the plays they needed to make. And when you can't win down the field outside it really has the effect of reducing the play calls available and the yards of the field available to use. And that increases the tariff of difficulty for the Quarterback. Edit: accidental double post

No I don't think it is an either / or proposition either. I wasn't meaning to suggest that. It is just about finding more guys to make those difference making plays.

This is the point. There is a debate here based on the final two offensive plays of the last two years on whether Josh was partly to blame or not at all to blame but that kind of misses the crux of this. Whichever of those camps you are in the conclusion is the same - we don't have enough guys around Josh to make those handful of clutch plays and so it always feels as though he has to be perfect in those scenarios. If you have an elite receiver maybe they catch a ball that isn't perfectly thrown. If you have an elite defender maybe they force a sack that knocks the Chiefs out of FG range rather than just a pressure that gets a stop and holds them to 3. It is ALWAYS those kinds of margins at the end of Bills - Chiefs games. And the Bills have got it done in the regular season but not the playoffs. Another elite guy or two would definitely help.

Everyone keeps saying how good the Steelers D is... I mean it was fine last year but it wasn't a dominant D. 12th in yards against. 8th in points. 17th in yards per play... they were good on 3rd down but they were very much the kind of paper tigers that the Bills D often gets accused of. Very good at keeping bad teams under 17. Not great at keeping good teams under 28. And to finish my point.... that's why I don't see Aaron adding more than maybe one win. He isn't going to out duel Burrow or Jackson or Allen or Mahomes in games that become relatively high scoring (and they actually split with the Ravens and Bengals last season which is not a given they do again) and their problem wasn't lacking a Quarterback to get them to 21 when they were holding lesser teams to scores in the teens. Wilson and Fields were doing that well enough. It feels like another season where their best outcome is a wildcard and a playoff loss.

He is worth more than $10m AAV. Clearly the Bills aren't willing to go to $15m AAV - even with a team friendly version of that contract - so the landing spot is somewhere in the middle. Cook will turn up to training camp. The way the league is set up now hold outs are really not beneficial to players. Could Cook turn up a few days late for camp, or turn up and "hold in" for a few days? Yea that's possible. But what I expect is him to maximise his leverage until his leverage runs out... and it runs out once camp gets serious and eyes start turning to actual football games. I think the likelihood at this stage is that he plays without a new deal this year, but equally there is still a chance that when he starts practicing there is something of a meeting of minds that gives Cook some injury security and allows the Bills some flexibility.... (something that for example is a 3 year deal that's really a one year deal with a big option that activates after the season - think the type of deal they did with Tyrod coming out of 2015).

I think this is right

It was Deshone Kizer in Cleveland. The kid out of ND. San Fran was the first year of Shanahan..... they started Hoyer and then benched him and they traded for Jimmy G in season but I think he probably ended up with like 8 or 9 starts so him?

No doubt. But in my original post I was talking about the Bills on the road scouts which was the subject of the thread and while clearly they have a role on day 1 and 2 picks where you really differentiate how good a team's road scouts are compared to the rest of the NFL is day 3 and UDFAs. I have been pretty vocal on the personnel staff needing to do a better job finding stars.

Okay there isn't the contact that there was in my memory but he doesn't clear from Justin Reid quickly enough. He just wasn't precise enough in his cut. He is late to the spot.

Yea he would. I have said since that play any one of three things happens and the play works. Josh slides a couple of inches, ge can make the throw. Dion holds his block a split second longer, Josh can make the throw. Khalil clears the coverage a split second sooner (he gets kinda tangled with the safety you can see in that shot) and he makes the play. Any of those 3 things happen it's a touchdown. Which is why I don't hate the decision as much as some... the execution was off in 3 small ways that sink the play. They are the margins in the post season. I think Brady actually would have had the ball out underneath before he needed to slide, but if he did decide to take the shot agree he manipulated the pocket better than any QB in history to find those split seconds that make all the difference.

Agree, although Cam is a proven NFL gunner too (he isn't peak Taiwan Jones and Siran Neal but he is solid) which might factor in. Sort of remains to be seen whether teams still value those things at cutdown in the new ST rules era.... but historically a LOT of the guys who get picked off at waiver time by other teams are guys to help at the bottom of the roster on special teams.

Yea. I don't mind them trying to find serviceable Quarterback play with Aaron. He is no better than serviceable at this stage. But the rest of their offseason around it confuses the hell out of me. They are constantly middling it strategy wise and as a result getting constantly middling results.

Yep. This is the line of the entire thread. If anyone wants to make the comparison argument on that play the ball WOULD have been gone a second before Dion gets pushed back if that was Brady and Diggs would have the first down, clock still moving. Bills in position to win the game. I am not quite as harsh as some on the decision to take a shot there. But if you want to pull the what would Tom Brady have done (hell even what would Mahomes have done) the ball would be with Diggs wide open underneath because the KC defense had backed right off into soft zones and it would have been a first down.

Days 1 and 2 are the execs days. They are the guys your GM, your Assistant GM, your Director of Player Personnel, your College Scouting Director and (particularly round 1) your HC and coordinators have looked at in significant detail. The guys on day 3 - by and large - have not had that same level of senior time and attention. The top brass will have watched some tape, but the area scouts and the national scouts carry a lot more weight with those prospects. That is why day 3 of the draft is often referred to as "the scouts day" because it is the day when their evaluations make up a bigger part of the puzzle. And the Bills have had some success there. That usually tells you the guys at that level know what they are doing.

Sure, it is easier for him to make it there..... if the Bills think he can play there. But they are not going to keep him as a safety if all they want to put on his plate in year 1 is nickel duty. If you are making it as one of the 4 safeties on the roster the Bills better be comfortable you being out there as a safety. We know they are with Lewis. Maybe they will be with Hancock. Backup safety spots are one of the areas where I think there is a genuine camp battle, especially if Bishop can prove himself a starter.

I think Hancock is a lock. Don't think it is a lock that it is one of the 4 nominal safety spots that he accounts for. If Hancock and Lewis BOTH make it then sure, one of the is being counted as a safety. But that is a 50/50 proposition IMO.

It was also Shakir. He gets held up in coverage and was late to the spot which makes Josh hold the ball a split second longer.

The reason you are wrong is success behind average olines isn't about power. It is about vision. And that is literally Cook's best trait. The exact same holes that Devin Singletary was missing and getting tackled for a loss Cook is spotting and making 3 or 4 yards. That isn't to say the oline hasn't got better.... clearly it has. But what makes Cook special is vision. Ray Davis does not have that same ability. And as such he is not better suited to this, or any, offense. Cook is just a better player. 100% this. Cook is going to play even if he doesn't get a new deal. But he is going to use every bit of leverage he can to try and get that deal before it comes to that. And so he should.

The Bills have a very good scouting department - partly because Pegs is willing to spend on it. That is why we do so well comparatively on day 3 of the draft.... aka - The Scouts Day.

I think pre injury Cordy Glenn was generally underrated by the league certainly and even by some in our own fanbase. His first four or five years here he was really good. When the health issues started he did drop off, and using him in trade bait as one of the moves to land Josh was inspired, especially given we replaced him with Dion. But he was a good player marooned on an average team in the early part of the last decade.

I thought my record of one missed game since 2008 was good for a non-US based fan. But you have me beat.

Bengals

I think it is beyond question at this point that Josh's personal life spilled out onto the field at the end of the 2022 season and into the early weeks of the 2023 season. He looked and played like a guy whose mind was cluttered and he sounded vacant in press conferences - who can forget his "same sh*t different day" reaction to his meltdown at the Jets week 1 of 2023? It is clear to me that his relationship with Hailee has been a stabilising and settling influence on him and he played in 2024 as focussed as I have ever seen him - it showed in the decision making. We have a tendency to think of football players as robots, unaffected the things that affect us mere mortals in our daily lives. Or to think that money buys happiness and therefore they have no right to be affected by personal / relationship concerns. Neither of those views are true or indeed fair.

While it is definitely a crowded room I think he has a shot. All UDFAs face an uphill battle to make rosters but there is only Rapp and Bishop of all the safeties the Bills have that I think are roster LOCKS. There is a lot of traffic between Owens and one of those other spots and the odds are against him, but he has a chance.