LEBills

I believe it’s been 3, though Davis was a 4th rounder. Personally I’d rather keep Cook and spend a 2nd or 3rd rounder on a position that gets paid more on their second contract. Especially since I think Cook has been the only really good RB we have hit on in those 3 or 4 picks so far.

I agree with your OP and this. James Cook should be paid the 15 mil AAV he is looking for by the Bills. there absolutely is an inefficiency at RB for top running backs, which Cook is one. He accounted for over 20% of our total yards last year and more than 29% of our playoff yardage. At 15 million he would only account for 5.4% of the cap. In addition to being an exceptional producer, he also was very efficient. He averaged the 6th highest ypc in the league for RBs with the only non-rookie contract players ahead of him being Barkley and Henry. He also is underutilized as a pass catcher, where he ranked 12 overall among running backs in yards per route run (1.86) which was higher than Ty Johnson (1.73). Add to that being very young and having very low use age compared to most of these top backs, I think a second contract for him will be pretty safe and profitable. The argument that you can easily replace running back production I do think is accurate if you have a low end starter. The other aspect to remember is that getting that replacement does cost either cap space or likely draft capital. Beane has shown a willingness to spend day 2 picks on running backs and we had to spend thirds on Singletary and Moss before finally hitting on a good player in Cook in the second round. Signing cook prevents Beane from likely using another premium pick on a replacement running back who likey won’t be as good. As this relates to WR, the market is still very strong with 5 of the top 10 non-QB contracts being WRs. This high end has certainly caused the middle class WRs be getting more than they are worth. Shakir is an amazing contract for us that was a great job by Beane. But it is very unlikely Josh Palmer is going to live up to the 12 million/year in the fans eyes imo (the coaching staff may feel different like they did with Gabe). WRs switching teams via FA rarely do better than they did in their first stop in the modern NFL. I do think we will see (and are starting to see) a running back-ification of the WR position. There are just so many good WRs in each draft with how much passing has taken over college football that the replaceability of mid tier WRs is easier. Teams like the Packers and Chiefs have already started the process of getting rid of their top WRs and just filling the room with highly drafted rookies. I hope we take adding draft picks to the WR room seriously going forward because that is a multi-year project to stay ahead of this curve. Probably need to draft a top 4 round WR each year going forward since I agree that we likely won’t spend a top tier contract on a WR in the foreseeable future.

I don’t really rewatch any games, but definitely none of the playoff loses.

It’s not too surprising. The TE position is usually not as talent-laden as other positions. And despite the production not being great, Kincaid’s advanced metrics were improved on from his rookie year and pretty solid against his peers. Being on the field is the main issue, health is part of it, the offense is part of it, and his blocking is part of it as he was out snapped by Knox. In addition to that, he is much better at creating separation vs zone than vs man, and we faced the highest rate of man coverage in the league last year. If our outside receivers can punish man coverage this year, Kincaid will shine more.

I think Keon is probably our best X at the moment. Though I am not a big fan of Palmer and so am a bit biased. He would definitely be better in the slot I agree, but right now I think he is just going to be a very streaky player for the Bills out wide. Like a springier Gabe Davis. Maybe one day we will have enough outside talent to let him play inside and off the line more.

Yes I think there are two camps. One that thinks we can recreate the same offense as last year and that is good enough, and one that thinks we need EITHER a top end WR1 or a wide receiver room with several good WRs. Beane clearly is in the former group. What gets many people upset is that to build a strong WR room, good draft capital has to be used and so it takes several years to develop a strong stable. I do think Allen/Cook/Shakir is a good enough top 3 to get a Super Bowl. But I’ll also add that anyone who believes that should be banging the table to get a deal done for Cook (I am one of those people). I look at efficiency metrics when comparing the FAs leaving - Cooper and Hollins to the FAs coming in - Palmer and Moore because circumstance does affect volume numbers. We are taking a big hit on touchdown percentage going from Cooper (9.1%) and Hollins (16.1%) to Palmer (2.6%) and Moore (1.6%). In addition to basically a wash on yprr, Cooper (1.48) and Hollins (1.08) to Palmer (1.71) and Moore (0.93). And just scheme wise, Palmer will be a fine enough replacement for Cooper but Moore is essentially a backup for Shakir in the slot. Im serious when I say we played mistake free football last year. Yes Josh is great, has matured and the scheme does not need him to make as many risky throws. But we also had only 2 fumbles lost and a historic low sack percentage (again thanks to Josh and the OLine). All together the 2024 Bills had the lowest negative plays (interceptions/fumbles/sacks) in the Super Bowl era. Even with how great Josh is, that simply will regress to the mean. The Eagles, the team that won the Super Bowl, are stacked across all offensive units. Even Jalen Hurts is probably a top 10 QB when you include the rushing ability. It can be done, but it takes investment in the offense which the Bills have done in many ways, but needed to do more over the past several years at WR imo. I do think that this team is good enough to win a Super Bowl because Josh is otherworldly. But I can’t say the offense got better over this offseason. My gripe will always be not adding WRs to the pipeline to develop via the draft (Keon is literally the only day 1 or 2 pick of Beane’s career) a truly deep above average WR room and instead filling the holes with mediocre to bad free agents. Kincaid and Cook are going to be the key. If Kincaid can be a functional blocker, he can hopefully improve his touchdown percentage which sits as 25th in the league. TDs is basically what separates him from Laporta. Similarly, if Cook can improve as a pass blocker he can be used more on third down where he is our most efficient running back pass catcher (yes better than Ty Johnson). If Kincaid can hit 750 yards and 8 touchdowns and Cook keep his rushing but produce his 2023 receiving stats (basically 500 more receiving yards from the two of them), then that should be enough to make up for our WR room. If Keon can be more consistent, that would help too. We can do it, but the margins are razor thin imo

the reason our rushing stats were so good in 21 and 22 was Josh. He had over 760 yards each season and averaged over 6 yards per run. The reason people complain about weapons is because we don’t have a top end player. And even when you look at the efficiency stats, the receiving corp is middling. I’m not here to argue for an upgrade this year because our team is set. But if you look at our current weapons and their yprr (efficiency rather than volume stats). Shakir is by far our best player ranked 16th of all WR (just ahead of ARSB) in 2024. Keon was 43rd, Palmer was 63rd (compared to Cooper at 67th - and Coopers 1.71 yprr with the Bills were equal to Palmers 1.71 year long yprr with the Chargers in 2024), Samuel was 84th, Moore was 110th (compared to Hollins at 90th) Kincaid was 12th and Knox 37th out of all tight ends. So the reason people are down on the group is that we did not really improve the weapons much. Just kinda swapped players that left for similar players. Anyone hoping that Palmer or Moore are going to take the team to a different level are going to be disappointed in my opinion. The real hope for the offense will be with Shakir, Keon and Kincaid. As well as Keon did for yprr for the season. He was worse than Mack Hollins yprr when he returned from injury. So you hope he can improve but it was a very disappointing end to his rookie season. Kincaid is our best hope imo as his efficiency actually improved from year one to year two. If he can stay healthy and figure out things with Josh, that is our most likely route to improvement. And the reason people want to see improvement from pass catchers is because despite our historic offense last year, we are skeptical we can be as meticulous and mistake free as 2024 and want better talent for Josh to make up any regression to the mean there.

Hard Knocks is great, it will be better with it being the Bills. I’m excited!

Last year under Roman was Palmers second most efficient season. The year before being his best. The lower volume role that he took on in 2023 and continued in 2024 let him be more of a down field target so you saw his aDot and YPC increase by like 50% over his first two years. He will be serviceable in the Amari Cooper/MVS role. I don’t think he is going to unlock another gear and be a top 40 receiver in yardage though.

Two things, Puka is a great route runner. McVay puts Puka in positions to succeed.

Mailata was second team All pro last year, so top 4 tackle by that standard

We will see, I think he will continue to have good moments but I think he will be a streaky player. Contributor but not a star, which is fine.

https://receptionperception.com/introduction-to-reception-perception-and-its-new-home/ ”A success is charted when a receiver “gets open” against the coverage. Creating separation, enough for the quarterback to have a reasonable target, is marked as a success. The only plays that are automatically given as success to the receiver are instances where a receiver is obviously held or interfered with (called or not). These plays make a big difference to an offense, and signify a receiver winning yards for his team by forcing the defensive back to hold him.” It is subjective. Though using his stuff for a lot of years now I think he is pretty good at making that judgement.

I don’t think he has done his RP yet but he probably will as the season gets closer. He discusses the signing a bit here at 19:20: And a bit more optimistically here (fast forward past the ads to 1:45) https://www.audacy.com/podcast/reception-perception-the-show-7c7c8/episodes/rp-clips-josh-palmer-adds-a-dimension-to-the-bills-53fe5?action=AUTOPLAY_FULL&actionContentId=201-932b3569-ec9e-4796-a3d6-9d8f9ef43a18 This is him talking about Palmer’s career highest yardage 2022 season:

The Chiefs have such a type at WR. All the WRs they have drafted over the past 4 years have run a sub 1.5 10 yard split according to their nfl.com combine results (which is elite explosion for the position). Royals isn’t a finished product yet but as a WR3 he could be very dangerous. Would have preferred a different team to draft him.