HappyDays

This gave me goosebumps. Bills football is almost back.

I skimmed the last several Joe Buscaglia training camp reports. He mentions Ford getting a chance with the 1s several times. On the day that Tommy Doyle got injured he says the Bills "worked in" Van Roten at guard and that is the only time I see him mentioned. So based on that admittedly scant evidence it looks like Ford is ahead of him. And for the Bills to keep the veteran contract over the cost controlled rookie contract I think that Van Roten would have to beat him handily. I think they will give Ford one final shot at redemption this year.

I think Ford will make it. They'll likely keep at least 9 OL. Dawkins, Morse, Saffold, Bates, Brown, Doyle, and Quessenberry are all locks. Mancz and Ford will round out that group. Who is going to beat him out, Van Roten?

Yep this is exactly what I expected. The arbitrator decided it is more likely than not that the accusations against Watson are true. The NFL is going to take that decision and run with it. Hard to see how the NFLPA can win this one even if it ends up in federal court.

I don't understand what indefinite means in this context. He has settled all but one of the cases.

Can't wait to see what the defensive scheme looks like this year And yet... they play him on an island all the time.

Yeah he was already poached by the Bengals last year, we were lucky to get him back. I just have trouble finding a spot for him. It feels like it's between him and Benford for the last spot as a depth CB who can play safety in a pinch, and my hunch is they'll stick with their draft pick from this year if it's a tie. They may be able to get away with stowing Benford on the PS - they managed to do it with Dane Jackson in his rookie season. But I wonder if Beane is wary after losing players like McCloud and Wildgoose and Jack Anderson in the past couple years. It would be hard to stash a 6th round pick that has been making positive headlines in training camp and has been specifically mentioned in pressers by the DC. I'm sure other teams pay attention to that stuff.

See the problem with your argument... is that I watched the Bills play last year. I watched the secondary alignments change because our island CB was no longer available and I watched that impact our ability to scheme against elite pass catchers. McDermott and Beane have admitted as much throughout the offseason. I'm not just talking about the AFCCG where I agree the pass rush was the biggest issue. I'm talking about an overall philosophical shift in the secondary when the likes of Levi Wallace and Dane Jackson are our only options. They took Elam to make sure they never lose that versatility again. But can I be honest? I am so over this whole discussion. I think I've posted almost exactly the above paragraph word for word several times this offseason. I'm done arguing over whether losing one of the three elite players on our team impacted our ability to win games, or whether limited players create limited schemes. I'm more interested in discussing what our secondary depth chart will look like this year and how the secondary as currently constructed will look on this defense in this season.

They can, but only by sacrificing other areas of the defense as we saw after White went down. And that leads to a one dimensional defense which is vulnerable to elite offenses. McDermott has proven he can take pretty much any off-the-street cerebral CB and make him a competent player in this scheme. They drafted Elam because they're aspiring for more than just competence. More to the point, I think Benford/McCloud looking good in camp underlines why we let another team pay Levi Wallace. We can replicate Wallace's level of play with 6th rounders-UDFAs until the end of time as long as McDermott is here. For that reason I don't think Dane Jackson will be on the team in 2023. This year we essentially have too much depth in the secondary. Maybe they'll flip McCloud for a late round pick and let Taiwan Jones go to make room for Benford.

I think an interesting storyline to watch is the bottom of the secondary depth chart. By all accounts Benford has recently picked up his level of play, but McCloud has also reportedly had a very strong comp. Last year we kept 5 CBs and 4 safeties. White, Elam, Neal, Jackson, and Taron Johnson are all locks. On safety I imagine it will be the same as last year - Hyde, Poyer, Hamlin, and Jaquan Johnson. Where does that leave room for Benford or McCloud, let alone both?

Joe Buscaglia said Elam, Benford, and Jackson all took turns taking reps on the 1st team defense. So I don't think he took reps from either one specifically, they just rotated him in to see how he looked.

Sounds like very worst case scenario he'd be out for September.

That's because the DL depth are rotational starters, not backups. The backup to Dion Dawkins is only going to see the field if Dawkins gets injured. Settle and Phillips are going to see something like 30% of the snaps. Every team in the league rotates their DL, it isn't McDermott specific. So of course the DL depth will always look better than other positions' depth.