HappyDays

His role is much more difficult to fill than you make it out to be. He's basically playing hybrid LB/CB depending on the play call. He's constantly put in vulnerable situations because McDermott knows he can handle it. Once you remove him, you get the same problem we got when Tre White went down - McDermott has to compromise other parts of his defense to cover the area that the missing player is usually covering.

Clumsy football player. No way this guy will ever react fast enough to intercept the ball.

I mean we at least need a starting caliber safety, ideally two. Right now we have zero on the roster. The hope is that Blackmon's injury history means we get a young safety with high upside signed to a lowball deal, just like we did with Poyer and Hyde.

Medicals are going to be the biggest thing. I'm sure that's why they're bringing him in for a visit. The safety market has dried up a bit so they are looking at options they wouldn't have otherwise considered.

He is a good player but had a torn achilles in 2021 and missed the tail end of last season with a shoulder injury.

A fair deal for a great player and almost certainly frees up cap space this year. No notes, perfectly done.

Watching this video, I fell in love with him all over again. I'm inclined to just throw out the combine performance. The film doesn't lie. In addition to the route running, the release, and the vertical speed, two other things jump out on tape: 1) YAC instincts. This is an underrated trait that I think you either have or you don't. When he catches a pass on any kind of stop route facing the QB, he has a natural feel for coming back a bit and then turning to get around the waiting DB. Too many WRs on these plays are instantly tackled because they lack that natural feel. Khalil Shakir has this same trait. That trait with Franklin's speed is a lethal combination. 2) Competitiveness. He is constantly fighting through contact to pick up extra yards. When he catches the ball he is looking for ways to be creative to maximize YAC instead of just letting a soft tackle bring him down. He looks like he genuinely loves playing football which means he will work hard at it.

I don't agree that he's only a deep threat. That's my concern with Brian Thomas. Franklin I think can run a full route tree. He has quick footwork and overall good technical route running. His size and hands do concern me a bit though, I'll admit.

The argument is that as Allen's cap hits grow larger, every bit of cap savings is welcome. Phasing out players like Rapp and Lewis and Hollins for day three rookie contracts is a lot more valuable than it gets credit for. All those special teams specialists that we pay decent money to, try and find those types of players late in the draft. The cap savings adds up and suddenly we can afford Curtis Samuel AND Arik Armstead instead of choosing between them.

Really won't be necessary to move up for a WR in this class. There are going to be 4-5 guys available at #28 that are 1st round talents or at least borderline 1st round talents. If there was one that stuck out as an obvious perfect fit in a relatively weak class then I would agree that trading up should be strongly considered, but as it stands we have a golden opportunity to just let the draft come to us and still come away with a possible stud. I would actually be taking offers to move down if anything, ideally no later than #36. Try and get our 3rd round pick back. WR is the biggest priority but the rest of the roster from top to bottom also needs a big influx of young talent, and using as many picks as possible in this draft can prevent us from having to sign the Mack Hollins and Nicholas Morrows of the world in week one of FA.

Still a lot of safeties on the market. I'd give it another week and sign the best remaining one to a low deal.

Not exactly a top 30 visit, but worth noting:

I didn't see the report until you mentioned it just now but it makes sense. I'm sure we are fully scouting and vetting every WR likely to go between picks 20 and 40. I'll admit I'm not as high on Franklin as I was when I first looked into the WR class. His size does concern me a bit, especially since our WRs have had annual issues winning against physical coverage in the playoffs. So I think I have decided I would prefer Coleman or Leggette over him. But it is a slight preference. Franklin's play speed and route running still excite me. And those are my top 3 WR choices for sure, I don't see my opinion on that changing between now and draft day. Any WR we take besides those 3 I will be somewhat less excited about, although still satisfied that we drafted a WR.

Not exactly a mock draft, but I've been playing around with scenarios to get us a 3rd round pick back, using the DraftTek trade value chart. Here's two I've come up with: Scenario #1: Trade back from #28 to #36 with Washington. This makes sense for Washington because they also have pick #40, so I could see them wanting to get back into the 1st round rather than making two 2nd round picks in a row. In exchange we would get #100 from them (the last pick of the 3rd round), and a favorable late round swap - our #189 for their #139. Total trade value is 215 points given up for us, 216 points for them. Perfect. In this scenario our picks would look like this: R2 #4 R2 #28 - R3 #36 - R4 #28 R4 #34 - R5 #4 R5 #9 R5 #25 R5 #28 - R6 #24 R6 #28 - R7 #28 Knowing Beane, he would use a couple of those 5th rounders to trade up higher in R3 or R4, or perhaps one of the 4th rounders to move up higher in R2. This is my preferred scenario. I think at least one of the 1st round caliber WRs will still be on the board at #36 because of how strong the class is. But perhaps Beane really loves a WR on the board at #28 and doesn't want to risk losing them, which I could forgive. In that case... Scenario #2: Trade back from #60 to #66 with Arizona. Once again this makes sense for Arizona because they still have two other picks in the 3rd round. They would end up with two 1sts, two 2nds, and two 3rds with this trade. Good haul for a rebuilding team. In exchange we get their #104 for our #128. Total trade value is 107 points given up for us, 109 points given up for them. Again, pretty much perfect. This scenario would also feature a trade up back into the 3rd round with a different team, using #104 that we got from Arizona. I look at Tampa Bay as a good option because they have minimal day three picks, zero in the 5th round actually. We get #92 in exchange for #104 and #163. This is an equal trade value of 43 points for both sides. In this scenario our picks would look like this: R1 #28 - R3 #2 R3 #28 - R4 #34 - R5 #9 R5 #25 - R6 #13 R6 #24 R6 #28 - R7 #28 Also while doing this exercise I discovered that I have way too much free time.

It's crazy how he keeps finding himself in these situations. Must be the unluckiest guy that ever lived.

The problem is we have constantly thrown ample resources at the defense, and they still fall apart in the playoffs year after year. I agree that championship teams typically have better defensive showings than what the Bills have fielded in the playoffs. But it's getting to a point where you have to look beyond the players. We keep switching out the players on defense but the result is always the same. Against the Chiefs this year the defense arguably turned in its worst playoff performance of the McDermott era when accounting for the caliber of the opponent. So it is getting worse, not better. I hope McDermott is taking a long hard look at himself this offseason. That's where the big defensive improvement is going to come from, not from further imbalancing the defense vs offense resource investment. On offense I have felt that the problem is the exact opposite of what I just described. The offense under Allen regularly shows up in the playoffs and performs above its regular season standard. I haven't had many qualms with offensive coaching in those games. Instead I have observed that a few critical plays a game are swung in our opponent's direction because of player error. A dropped pass here, an OL breakdown there. And every one of these player mistakes is magnified because the offense is being forced into a shootout due to the aforementioned defensive failures. So I don't believe adding more defensive players is going to solve our fundamental problem on that side of the ball, whereas adding more offensive players will solve our fundamental problem on that side of the ball. Kincaid came in as a rookie and had an immediate positive impact, breaking a couple franchise records along the way and scoring a TD in the playoffs. I'm still waiting for a highly drafted defensive player to have that kind of impact. At this point the Bills should just focus on making a move that they know will have a measurable positive impact on the team, and drafting a WR high in a WR-rich draft is too obvious an answer not to do it.

Wouldn't call it a 1 year deal. It's a $6M dead cap hit to cut him next offseason, only saving $3M according to Spotrac. OTC has it even worse: https://overthecap.com/player/daquan-jones/3051 They are saying it would be a $7.25M dead cap hit to cut him in 2025. Not sure which report is correct.

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/daquan-jones-14523/ $4.5M cap hit this year, $9M in 2025, then two void years. This is an overpay IMO.

Why did we give him $2.6M?? This is an awful signing if that number is true, and apparently it may cost us a comp pick. We need to stop being obsessed with special teams players.

Probably both. More on the field play if I had to guess. The wall comes fast for WRs. Beane is smart to let it play out and make sure Diggs hasn't fallen off a cliff before tying us to him for another several years.

Only thing I'll say about the latest Diggs controversy is I don't expect the Bills to offload him this year, but I also don't think he is in their long term plans. Beane had a chance to save $13.1M off the cap this year with a simple restructure of his contract. He chose not to touch it. IMO that spells the beginning of the end.

Samuel as of right now is a better player than Shakir. This post screams "I only watch the Bills." If Shakir hit the market right now he wouldn't be getting $8M AAV with $15M guaranteed. He isn't the caliber of player that stops you from trying to improve the position when a good opportunity presents itself. I appreciate Shakir's toughness and natural instincts after the catch but he was not an answer for our man coverage woes last year. Samuel is genuinely very good against man. And unlike Shakir he can actually play outside. I suspect for example all of the perimeter screens that went to Diggs last year with minimal success will now go to Samuel. So he raises our floor in a number of ways. Some people are getting way too caught up in worrying about his best spot in the formation. The #1 and only priority this offseason was adding legit starting caliber talent to the WR room. It's laughable that now the complaint is "the Bills are going to have TOO MANY receivers." There will be injuries, rotation, varying game plans focusing on different skillsets to beat different matchups. This is a regime that has regularly spent a lot of money on players 2-3 deep at every single spot on the DL. But for some fans doing the same at WR is an unspeakable sin. I can guarantee you right now the effect of Curtis Samuel on the roster will be much more than the combined effect of Jordan Phillips and Tim Settle on the roster. Beane's only mistake is that he waited this long to make the philosophical change. If Beane next does the easy and obvious move and selects the best WR remaining with his 1st pick we will finally have the long awaited influx of talent that this group has desperately needed. If that leads to a player like Shakir getting less attention, all that means is he will also face more favorable matchups which can only a good thing.