LEBills

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

This is a fantasy football website but if you scroll down to the final row you will see his work vs man and vs zone and you can adjust the year at the top. https://www.playerprofiler.com/nfl/josh-palmer/

Yea I can’t speak to the cumulative stats, I don’t focus on them much because as you have stated offenses are usually very different in college. His efficiency stats just were not very good in college. A sub 2.0 yprr for his college career. And he was a later breakout player not leading his team in receiving until his age 21 season. Both buckets basically put you in a large cohort of players that have not succeeded in the NFL outside of DK Metcalf, Brian Thomas Jr and Terry McLaurin. Which Palmer is not exactly the physical specimens they are. From an NFL efficiency standpoint and just as someone who has watched a lot of Palmer after having him on my fantasy team it seems every year when my main guys get hurt, I think others guys will have a better time contributing. I hope I’m wrong.

pay the man!

I will preface this by saying I hope I am wrong on Palmer and he is great. But he has been the definition of mid for 4 years, 8 if you include college. I remember when he lit up the senior bowl because he is a good route runner. That propelled him all the way to a third round pick despite middling stats in Tennessee. With the Chargers, he was given many opportunities in his first three years due to injuries to Keenan Allen and Mike Williams. He was an ok fill in for them but his yprr and win rate were substandard. He then entered this last year as the most seasoned WR on the Chargers and was easily displaced by Ladd and QJ. Basically, he is a WR3 level player at best imo. He is able to get separation and make some vertical plays. He is not someone who is going to create a ton after the catch. And I think his route running ability gets minimized as the field condenses which is why he doesn’t score many touchdowns. I have him ranked basically as a Mack Hollins replacement which, if Samuel was healthy last year, would have been the 5th most targeted player on the Bills last year. Maybe he winds up as #4 but I don’t think he will especially if injuries get him again this year. Keon had an up and down year last year. But he has upside I don’t think Palmer has. If the Bills let him operate from the slot a bit more I think that will help his production. Even if they force him into the X-role a lot, I think he will make a few more downfield plays in year two.

Shakir……….Kincaid, Keon…Samuel…Palmer, Knox, Moore

Could have been CJ West 😢

When Gave was a WR4 back in 2020 he did well. If he accepted that role, he would at least be someone who could play outside for us. Won’t love it or hate it if he is back on a cheap 1 year deal.

Let’s hope poor Matt Milano doesn’t see this. He will feel like Leo DiCaprio’s girlfriend on their 25th birthday.

No they should just do what the Chiefs and Packers have done and keep drafting receivers relatively early. Keep the room cheap but talented. Based on Beane’s draft history, I don’t think you are going to have to worry about that lol. Our first four rounds were great. Would have liked to see them trade up again on day 3 to secure Horton, Royals or Ayomanor. Early day 3 was the value part of this draft for WRs imo.

Makes sense for the Steelers to trade him. Final year of his contract. If the Cowboys got him for cheap and don’t give him a new deal, it’s a good low risk trade for them. Pickens is talented just kooky.

Let’s assume you are right. It would be the wrong approach by the Bills to limit their offense that way. It doesn’t have to be a vertical passing attack like Dorsey ran, but you have to at least have that option in your bag or, as others have stated before, defenses will compress the middle of the field and make it even harder for your pass catchers to get open and space for your running backs to run. So regardless, I am going to say we need to try to draft receivers going forward.

Yea what they accomplished last year was historic and will be very hard to replicate. I think Josh in Brady’s system has turned the corner on negative plays and will limit a lot of mistakes going forward, but that rate and the rate with which we got turnovers will regress from the historic levels. That’s why I wish we had started adding to the WR room more this year and past years. Keon is the only WR Beane has drafted in the first three rounds. Back in 2021 when he signed Emmanuel Sanders, Beane stated he did it because he didn’t want to lose their fastball. But since that statement, we did. When the Diggs relationship soured and he was traded, which Beane obviously wasn’t expecting, there was only one WR left that had caught a pass from Josh (Shakir)! The Josh/Brady/Oline/James Cook combination made it work to most peoples’ surprise. And will probably be formidable again this year. But Josh’s time to throw and scramble rate were both the highest they have been since 2020 which to me is a stat that reflects pass catchers not getting quick separation. Combine that with the likely regression of negative plays and I worry that the offensive highs we saw last year are going to be much harder to match than people expect. The best way to counteract that will be to add talent to WR so Josh has good targets to throw to and the passing game becomes more explosive. Maybe Palmer and Moore improve that talent level, I believe it is going to be pretty marginal at best. In the end, this is where the WR train argument comes from, bring back the occasional fast ball to pair with the methodical offense we have built.

Yea it will be interesting to see how the new rule affects what teams do. One of the podcasts I listen to (can’t remember which one) talked about the 30 yard line start and, like how you outlined it, how it supercharged offenses. One other thing they added is that the teams with the best QBs were the teams that benefitted the most from it. Which makes sense, feels like Josh, Mahomes, etc can gain 30 yards in their sleep most games.

Yea that turnover differential really masked a lot of problems. In the Bills Ravens game pre game thread I did a preview of the game. My conclusion was that the Ravens were going to be a really difficult game to win because they were better on offense and defense. The one area that we had a stark advantage was we created a lot of turnovers and the Ravens didn’t and gave up a good amount of turnovers. Voila we won because of timely turnovers. We are always a good turnover team under McDermott but we won’t be as good as 2024 in 2025. Hopefully we added enough talent this off-season to balance that the likely regression to the mean.

If you say so. I’ve seen a lot of Palmer and Moore these last few years. Whether it is stats or just filling a role, I have low expectations. Shakir is a stud. Sign James Cook. Draft some receivers next year Beane.

I’ll be rooting for him but I expect very little. He really is a slot player so we will see if Brady can use him Shakir, Samuel and Kincaid all together when they all operate in the middle of the field.

If you are excited for Moore and Palmer, I’m excited for you. I have very low expectations. History shows that most unrestricted free agents don’t improve on their best seasons in their first contract when going to a new team. So I’m hoping Shakir, Keon, and Kincaid can improve on last year as I think they have the best likelihood. Just wish we had more of those lottery tickets over the past few years. But it’s all spilled milk at this point, just hope it gets prioritized in the future by Beane.

Haha I said that first paragraph because of how silly your last response was about the 2021 defense. I remember the Ravens and Chiefs game being a slog on offense. Your claim of people running wild and free I will take your word on as I have not gone back to watch them. You draft WRs to put in the pipeline because it is a very expensive position to fill and good ones don’t really hit the FA market. Not that it is going to doom us this year in particular. That is the point people are making, actually invest in the WR position which has not been done to the same degree as other positions Josh’s entire career. But hey we all are entitled to our opinion, and because football is an imperfect game we are all potentially right.

Ok I’m not sure we had an offense last year everyone thought was truly a “top offense”😂. It’s also a good idea not to live in the past and assume our offense will be as good this year as it was last year without more talent. There are lots of ways to win a championship. Some of us think adding to the offense is better, some of us think adding to the defense is better. Like I said before, most of us were happy with the first three picks because we know the defense can improve. I’d say the biggest argument in this thread is Beane could have managed the later part of the draft different to get some young talent added to the skill positions for Josh both for this year and for years down the road.

It’s because even when the Bills have had a top defense, they still lost in the playoffs. In 2021, the Bills defense was #1 in total defense, yards per play, passing yards allowed, passing yards per play, first downs allowed per game, third down conversion rate, and points per game. We know how that season ended. So the people asking for more help for Josh still just think he can make better use of talent than the defensive coaches. And even still, most people are happy with how the first two days of the draft panned out and just wanted the Bills to try and add a weapon for Josh early on day 3 of the draft. To add someone to develop into a weapon for Josh in a year or two so we don’t have to keep signing mediocre FA at WR.

I’m going to be honest. I tried reading through and responding to stuff but it was so long I probably missed things so I apologize in advance. Yes Josh is great but last year he was special including the lowest percentage of plays with a sack, interception or fumble since the NFL merger. Which is why he won the MVP instead of being a runner up. On top of that we had the best turnover differential since 2013. Both of those will regress to the mean and giving the ball up more and getting it back less will reduce our scoring. So I really wanted the Bills to try to upgrade the WR room this year and in the future by drafting some WRs that may develop into good players for us to even things out. Josh averaged his highest scramble rate and time to throw since at least 2020. Those both are because he had to get more done with a cast of blah skill position players that were not getting separation well. I also think If anything we have had to overpay for WRs in trades for Cooper and in free agency for marginal players in Samuel and now Palmer because we have not added young WRs to the team. So to circle back to the topic of this thread. Start drafting WRs starting next year. It’s good business. I hope everything works out this year with the improved defense.