Let me articulate my problem better. It's another re-signing of a guy they are familiar with. If this were the only one, or one of a couple, fine, whatever. It has always been part of what Beane and McDermott do. We make fun of it with the Carolina thing and that has now continued with former Bills coming back. It's evidence that they have a fairly closed circle of people they are willing to give opportunities to. Brian Gaine gets fired in Houston and where does he end up? When Joe Schoen gets fired in NY in December is there any doubt that he will come back to Buffalo? Signing Dane Jackson this spring was inexpensive, but it cost them the opportunity to explore a different and potentially better player, and keeping him on the practice squad now does the same thing. The pro scouting department couldn't find a single CB in the league that they rated more highly than Dane Jackson? He was the easy go-to because they know him. Same with Jordan Phillips. There were dozens of defensive tackles available and they reached for a guy who is pretty close to done, but is someone they know. Tre White seems like a great guy, it also seems like he's pretty close to physically done, but he was brought back. Cole Beasley was done but was brought back, ditto John Brown. AJ Klein was brought back after he was done, had to play in a key spot, and cost them big time. There was nobody else?
These back of the roster guys seem unimportant and they are, until they have to play. The NFL has injuries. That isn't going to stop. The point of the PS for teams is to keep guys around and keep them prepared to play in an unexpected situation. They can choose to keep up to 6 veterans on the PS. These are the guys who would be the most likely to see action. The Bills are effectively choosing to only keep 5. Franklin, Feeney, Jackson, Wilkerson, and Phillips. The 6th is Poyer who as we saw the last 2 years, is done physically. Will that matter? Hopefully not. Rather than keeping a safety who can actually play safety that they can take the time to teach the defense if they need to play them (because apparently it's very difficult for a safety to learn) they kept a ST guy that the ST coach knows and the withered husk of another guy they know.
Obviously they don't do this with every hire and they've brought plenty of people in from the outside over the years, but they do it enough and over a long enough period of time that it gives me questions. Are they really open to all the potential solutions out there? Are they really listening to pro scouting or have they molded pro scouting into only giving them the answer they want to hear?
When your default choice is to go with what you know or who you know you aren't opening yourself up to other opportunities and you're locking yourself into a set of outcomes. Think of it this way, if you had a group of players who weren't able to get it done when they were younger, healthier and better, why do you want to lock yourself into having those people back when they are older, more broken, and worse? Does it make your organization the best it can be or is it comfortable? Is Tre White here because he's the best option at CB2/3 or is it because you know he's good in the locker room and won't be a problem? Keep in mind, that doesn't mean that someone else you bring in to be that CB2/3 will necessarily be an issue, it's that you don't know. Tre White doesn't have an upside to his development curve, the best he's going to be is what he is today and he will only get worse from here. Same with Dane Jackson, Jordan Phillips, Jordan Poyer etc. There isn't an upside to win. There is downside risk though. These guys are actually being counted on to provide key depth. When they are called on and can't deliver you've hurt yourself by keeping them around past their expiration dates. If you have to bring in Jordan Poyer to coach your safeties, maybe it's that your actual coach isn't getting it done. If you need to bring those guys back to teach the younger players your culture, you don't actually have a culture.
I'm sure this will get downvoted to hell. Whatever. When a safety gets hurt and the "Will Jordan Poyer play?" thread starts just remember why he's here and it's not because he was the best choice.
