GunnerBill

Other than spending a 2nd I agree with this. I don't think Davis is near Cook's level personally. If you trade Cook you have to draft someone.

I don't think you can accuse Cook of not stepping up when it matters. I am not lobbying to pay him, but he was the Bills best player in the AFCCG. Don't disrespect that.

When the "trade Cook" thread happened last summer I said you are mad to trade a high end running back on a late 2nd round rookie deal while he is still cheap and has two years left but with a year to go the equation changes. Here we now are with a year to go. think you enter into discussions with his side but if you can see you are a distance apart, you absolutely explore what his trade market is. He won't get $20m on the open market so if we wait a year and he walks next year we'd probably be looking at best at a 4th round comp pick in the 2027 draft. If I can bring that pick forward two years and likely upgrade it to a 3rd (which I think is absolutely possible this spring give the last two seasons he had) then I am doing it if he is even thinking about a hold out.

I like it a lot as an idea for Pittsburgh. Makes way more sense than Aaron Rodgers. Don't understand why Jacksonville woule be interested though.

Meh I don't think he has ever been great in coverage. He had a career year generally in 2022 but otherwise he has been pretty mid IMO and struggles in coverage at the NFL level.

Probably get more wins too.

I think what sort of hampered the Bills a bit (not crying about it but it is just a reality) is just as they hit the point to do that on Allen roster 1.0 (coming out of the 2020 season and the AFCCG) the covid impact on the cap happened and the cap went down and suddenly a team like the Bills, loaded up and right on the precipice was suddenly having to use void years purely as a means of standing still i.e. keeping their own guys and remaining cap compliant. They then had a chance to take one big swing coming out of 2021 (whereas without the covid cap impact I think they could have taken at least 2 or 3) but they took it on Von and for reasons I won't rehearse again it hasn't worked out.

I mean I didn't like Coleman as an idea for the Bills because I think, like McConkey, his best fit in the NFL is as a slot receiver (different type of slot receiver but a slot receiver all the same). I understand the "they should just have drafted Ladd because he was better than the alternatives" argument but I'd only apply that rationale to premium positions personally. And to be a premium position player he'd need to be an outside receiver. And he isn't. He is a slot guy who can play some snaps for you outside. The fact that the Chargers, with the worst outside receiver situation in the entire league, kept Ladd primarily in the slot tells you all you need to know. And they used him less outside as the year went on. He had 4 targets lined up outside in the playoff game. That was only the second time he had more than 2 targets outside since week 8 (he had 0 or 1 six times from week 9 onward) and he still did most of his damage inside (149 of his 197 yards were v safeties, linebackers or the nickel). The Bills had backed themselves into a corner by that point because their only proven hold over was Shakir, who is a strict slot only, and their big FA acquisition was a guy in Samuel, who usage wise is very similar to Ladd - you can use him outside some but his best work is going to come in the slot. At that point the only guy on the roster who could play outside receiver on anything approaching a regular basis was Mack Hollins. What they got wrong was Keon's ability to do that (I think they got the Keon evaluation wrong generally tbh). But I don't regret them passing on McConkey. There were a ton of teams where he made sense - the Bills were not one of them.

Correct. Bills linebackers have to cover. Pratt couldn't cover his bar tab.

888 of his 1149 yards this year came inside vs slot corners, safeties or linebackers. Of those a staggering 451 yards came on 28 receptions from 31 targets when matched up on a linebacker. Ever likely his man coverage win % is so high. He is running routes against linebackers. It's a mismatch. Ladd can play on the boundary. He isn't Khalil Shakir who can't. He just isn't special on the boundary. He played 30% out there (and had about 23% of his production out there). The place where he is special is in the slot where you can use him as a mismatch piece against safeties, nickels and linebackers. I am not a hater on Ladd McConkey. I had a solid grade on him, I was definitely higher on him than I was on Keon Coleman put it that way. But anyone who thinks the Bills drafting him would have solved their boundary receiver issue is barking so far up the wrong tree they might as well be a cat.

It is why cash rich owners matter in the NFL.

I said in the game thread Reid was having a shocking day calling plays. It is as bad as I have ever seen him in KC. That was Philadelphia big game Andy Reid. Mahomes didn't play well either. When he feels stress his fundamentals break back down to the mess they were at Texas Tech. His feet were a shambles on Sunday. But I do give Philly credit. You don't beat Mahomes with fancy scheming. You beat him with a simple plan that is executable and really good solid fundamentals. Fangio beat him not blitzing. The last DC to do that was Leslie Frazier of the Buffalo Bills. I agree eith Happy Days that one more high level player on the D line and one more in the secondary. We could with Reid turning into playoff pumkin once against us too.... I swear it feels like he is the most afraid of Buffalo and saves his best stuff for us.

Yea interior OL day 3 is possible.

I don't think he has either the explosiveness or the power that Jerry had. Although Jerry came out before I was getting stuck into trying to evaluate draft prospects so I might be unfairly comparing league vet Jerry Hughes with rookie prospect Ezeiruaku.

No, but it is also not that the Bills never do it. I think they need better corners than Douglas and Elam to make any coverage plan work tbh.

Yea I don't think he is worth #30.No way.

Corner is a spot where I would be wary of medicals more than some others. I feel like it's a spot where those risks generally don't pay off... Caleb Farley and Andrew Booth spring to mind... but he might just be worth the shot.

If Morrison gets that far it is because his medicals are BAD and if that's the case, based on history, this regime would pass. I have a later 2nd on Ezeiruaku. I need to go back to his film. As I was saying to someone the other day, I can't decide whether he is a swiss army knife, versatile usage, havoc causing DL or a bit of jack of all trades, master of none.

I didn't like the way they approached safety last offseason particularly. I think I said in August during camp I was really worried that having spent a 1st and 2nd on a wide receiver and safety I could see us coming out of the season with the biggest holes on the roster being a boundary receiver and a safety.

We did suck in coverage. But Bishop was busting coverages, playing his assignments badly and being in the wrong place all the time. We did get him on the field. He didn't improve. He made the exact same mistake on the JuJu seam play first drive of the AFCCG that he made on the Nico Collins touchdown 3 months prior. He has a lot of improvement to do going into year 2 and he needs to show it in camp and pre-season if he wants to start.

And the run with McD, Frazier, Daboll was at the time equalled only by the 49ers and the Saints for continuity at HC-DC-OC. Four seasons with the same three guys is pretty rare in the NFL these days.

He is definitely not the passer that Tua is but obviously he is more mobile and, critically, I think he is better mentally. That is his strength. He is better pre-snap, better with protections at the line, a great leader, resilient and just the hardest worker you could meet by all accounts. Would he work on a worse team? Not to this extent, no. But I still think his knowledge of the game and mental resilience would make him serviceable. When he went to Oklahoma after the disappointment of losing his job to Tua in 'Bama and got better I thought he proved a lot to people. I liked Hurts more than most coming out as a result but even I am surprised he has gone on to be a top 10 Quarterback. Just shows if you are willing to work and prepare and can respond to adversity you can go further than it appears your talent can take you.

Yep. Guys have to earn their place on the field. That's the NFL. The Bills have never been to scared to play rookies who deserve to play. Tre White started week 1, Zay Jones started week 1, Dion Dawkins and Matt Milano started by the middle of their rookie seasons. Tremaine Edmunds started week 1, Josh started week 2. Ed Oliver started week 2. Devin Singletary started week 1. Dawson Knox started by week 4 his rookie year. Gregory Rousseau started week 1, Spencer Brown started by week 4. Christian Benford (as a 6th round pick) started week 1. Dalton Kincaid and O'Cyrus Torrence started week 1. Guys who didn't start as rookies and then came on to become starters later it is Cook, Bernard, Shakir from that 2022 class and then Gabe Davis and AJ Epenesa. Of those only Epenesa was not the starter by the middle of year 2. He only really became a starter this past year in year 5. Maybe Bishop will come on in 2025 and end up on this list. It is still possible, it is my hope. But it is equally possible he joins Cody Ford, Boogie Basham, Kaiir Elam and Zack Moss as early picks that never earn a starting spot.

I am not throwing him to the curb. I am saying he wasn't out there because he was clearly a liability in coverage. The idea that just gets better if you stick him out there more.... well it didn't. He might just be a bad pick. He might turn it around. You get more opportunities as a 2nd round pick than if you were a 5th or 6th rounder. So Bishop is going to get more shots but he is already in a spot where he really needs to start taking them. If he does not win the job in camp next year (and I think he is competing with Rapp not Hamlin or whoever replaces Hamlin anyway... he is a box safety not a center fielder) then the prognosis does not look good.

Lower priority than what? I think it was by far the weakest spot on the Bills in 2024 and if you want a "you can win with a weakness in the regular season but it will get exposed against better teams in the playoffs" example then the Bills 2024 safety room is a textbook case. They either need to upgrade 3 spots (and that is on the basis Benford is fine to return) or they need to significant, sure thing, upgrades at FS and boundary corner and then let Rapp and Bishop compete for the SS job.