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.

Reception perception looks at each route run by the player and decides when the route is “won” due to separation on all routes ran rather than completion percentage on when a player was targeted. Doubling the routes gives you a greater sample size but isn’t really needed for a comparison. Also, these RPs are from their last year in college when Keon ran 404 routes vs McConkey who only ran 150 due to injury. It is true that they are different players. McConkey game is geared more towards separation than Keon who is more about physicality. That’s why McConkeys score is much higher in the RP at most routes. McConkey did have an 86 yard touchdown in their playoff game. IMO, unless Coleman can become a better route runner to generate separation he will just be a very streaky player. His biggest plays last year were a slant where he broke a tackle and had a lot of free space to run or some scramble drill work. He has a role in an offense that way and as a weapon in the red zone, but that would be more of a WR3 type role than a leading WR.

In today’s NFL WRs by the end of year two now you know if they are going to be good or not, either by production or efficiency stats. For example, Shakir 2nd year he had a yprr over 2 which is very good. So he was a good player and then year 3 he just got more volume.

Yea I doubt that. But at least we didn’t get a video this year of Beane getting excited after a WR ran a slow 40 like we got for Keon and Gabe. I’ll call that progress.

To be fair to Beane, he wanted to draft a player who could be a X Receiver and who could deal with the physicality in the playoffs that seemed to stymie Diggs. McConkey is great and would have been a better pick but he did play almost 65% of his snaps in the slot this past year (where Shakir and Kincaid would normally play). Funny enough tho, Matt Harmon’s recommendation to get more out of Coleman is to let him line up in the slot more.

Basically exactly what there college RP was:

They may have been. I used pro football reference for all teams which only listed the AP1s

compare those names to Travis Kelce, Chris Jones and Tyreek Hill for a few seasons among other high tier players. He had some players but none of them will be Hall of famers like the team that keeps knocking us out has/had. But don’t get me wrong, I’m one of Beane’s biggest critics, Beane has to do much better than he has.

There is a degree of subjectivity to who has drafted the best. And of course the actual picks are only a small portion of talent management. For example, the Eagles were only in position to draft Jalen Carter because they had traded two 2022 first round picks to the Saints for a 2023 first round pick and an assortment of picks in 2022-2024. They did the 2022 trade because they had 3 first rounders that year (their own, one from the Wentz trade and one from trading down with the Dolphins when they picked Waddle). In addition to the drafting, they made great trades (AJ Brown) and free agent signings (Saquon). If we want to decide ONLY who drafts the most top tier players: Beane’s Bills (drafted players from 2018 on) - 0 All pros - Pro Bowlers: Josh Allen 4x, Tremaine 2x, James Cook 2x, Dawson Knox 1x Eagles (2018 draftees on) - 0 All Pros - Pro Bowlers: Landon Dickerson 3x, Jalen Hurts 2x, Jalen Carter 1x, Cam Jurgens 1x, Josh Sweat 1x 49ers (2018 draftees on) - All Pros: Fred Warner 4x, Nick Bosa 1x, Deebo 1x, Talanoa Hufanga 1x - Pro Bowlers: all the above, Brock Purdy 1x Chiefs (2018 draftees on) - All Pro: Creed Humphrey 1x, Trent McDuffie 1x - Pro Bowlers: All the above, Trey Smith 1x The 49ers have been the best at drafting talent which has helped them compete without having a great QB (tho he was a pro bowler!). The Chiefs and Eagles are closer to the Bills in terms of top tier talent added over this span. One thing to remember though is that the Chiefs already had hall of farmers Travis Kelce, Chris Jones and Patrick Mahomes on the roster and had made the playoffs every year since 2015. The Eagles had just come off of a Super Bowl win in 2017. So though the Bills have kind of kept up with them drafting since 2018, the Bills had started from so far back (17 consecutive playoff less seasons) that we did need to hit more on top tier talent than we have in order to lap the Chiefs or even the Eagles. The few opportunities we have had to add a top tier talent outside of Josh Allen has been Diggs (huge hit!), Ed Oliver (just a good player), and Von Miller in free agency (a miss with the injury qualifier). Hasn’t been a good enough difference maker hit rate with those. So though we have been ok drafting, Beane does have to be better in order to catch up to the talent level that was already on these other team’s rosters.

Yea being an NFL GM is three parts I think. Media interactions, managing the cap and talent evaluation. I think Beane is one of the best in the NFL at the first two parts. Beane and his team are ok at talent evaluation too. Like you alluded to, and this kinda ties into his cap management, he does try to fill needs early in the draft that he couldn’t address under the cap with free agents. There have been many good players that have come out of the draft along with the misses. But I would definitely consider this the weaker part of Beane’s skill set as a whole, though he did hit on the most important pick ever.

Bills Bengals SNF Week 1 is my guess