HappyDays

With 50 voters Mahomes and Burrow were the only unanimous Tier 1 QBs. I was wondering how Allen and Lamar got 3 votes and 4 votes respectively that placed them outside of Tier 1. Then I saw that 6 of the voters were former GMs and it clicked.

Oliver was very good and very disruptive in his limited snaps on Saturday. There have been good reports on him coming out of training camp too. I was the first to criticize him last year for looking unmotivated and playing soft. I'm hoping he came into this offseason with a better mindset and will play a lot better early on.

There's another rep in this clip: Yeah he looks as advertised. If he can just become a functional pass catcher he'll be a perfect TE3.

I'm not going to declare him a bust this early but that was as bad a debut as I've ever seen from a top 100 Bills pick. A player that Beane openly admitted he would have picked at #62 if we had kept that pick. He barely looked like a functional football player and he had a dumb mental mistake that cost his fellow rookie an interception. Admittedly I was never as high on him in the draft as a lot of other fans. I am big on movement skills when evaluating prospects. Stiff straight line athletes are not usually successful in the NFL. Size and strength can go a long way but he needs to develop some kind of pass rush repertoire or he will be out of the league in 2 years. Awful start but plenty of time to improve. I expect him to be a healthy scratch once Hoecht returns from suspension.

This is every pass rush snap from Walker/Sanders: Considering it is pretty much all quick passes which makes it difficult to have an impact, I thought they showed well.

You're over selling this narrative. A lot of those snaps were when players like Casey Rogers and Zion Logue were on the field. The top 4 DTs and top 4 EDGEs are what actually matter. I would bet by the time the season starts that will be Oliver/Jones/Sanders/Walker and Rousseau/Bosa/Epenesa/Hoecht (probably Solomon until Hoecht comes back which will be a notable weak link). Those players as a whole performed very well yesterday. I do remain concerned that the coverage will not be good enough for the pass rush to matter, and that includes the coverage scheme and play calling as much as it does coverage talent, but that's a different conversation. On the whole I feel really good about the talent Beane added to the DL this season. A lot of it will depend on Bosa staying healthy.

Hawes is ahead of him because of his blocking. That will be the TE3's primary job this year. His drop yesterday was brutal but he also had several blocking reps that looked like this: Davidson needed to catch every pass in his vicinity to have even a small of chance of making the roster.

There we were a few clean pass rush wins, the passes on those plays unfortunately just got off too quickly for the wins to matter. Here's 3 quick individual wins from Sanders and Walker: Bosa had a couple early on as well. My concern has been and continues to be coverage. Pass rush wins don't matter if the QB finds an open man within 2 seconds.

Hoecht isn't getting cut, he's on a 3 year deal and the team knew about the suspension before they signed him. Ogunjobi I wonder about though. The team didn't know about his suspension until after signing him and it's just a 1 year deal so easier to get out of. They kept 4 DTs last year and 5 DTs in 2023. Oliver, Jones, Walker, Sanders, Carter, Ogunjobi makes 6 so there has to be an odd man out there. Ogunjobi has barely been mentioned in training camp reports and today there was a noticeable decline in interior pass rush when he replaced Sanders. So what is his path to the roster? Either we surprise cut or trade Carter, or there is an injury in the room before Ogunjobi's suspension is up. If neither of those things happen I think we might just cut him after his suspension ends and he'll have no one to blame but himself.

Man I don't know. That comeback he gave up to Wandale Robinson was scary. My worry with him has been that he just no longer has the athletic ability to transition and close on plays like that. If opposing offenses catch on they're going to eat him alive. This scheme has made the likes of Levi Wallace and Dane Jackson function at CB2 but we had prime Hyde and Poyer there to cover for them. The secondary as a whole right now remains a big concern for me. We don't even know how Bishop looks, him and Rapp can't stay healthy, Hamlin still has major athletic limitations that showed up again today, and CB2 remains a weakness unless Hairston comes back strong. It is Benford and a lot of unknowns. Hopefully the pass rush is as good as I think it can be to make up for the coverage.

I'm actually expecting some changes this year in that regard. Which is why I'm really not fretting over the drive results or the 3rd down conversion percentage from this game. The coaching additions we made this year combined with some of the training camp reports heavily imply that we'll be moving to more 5 man fronts and run more stunts. Today we saw none of that but I'm sure that's intentional - no reason to put new schematic wrinkles on tape in August.

I hate to say it but Tre White is a big arrow down. I'm rooting for him but today's performance made me revert to my original thought that he is unfortunately just washed. He cannot be trusted to cover quick WRs 1v1. Giants picked on him repeatedly. Not that Dane Jackson was any better. I hope Hairston gets back healthy soon and can figure things out quickly because I fear CB2 will be a major weakness for us this year unless he saves the day. As others have mentioned the primary DL players impressed me, most notably Bosa, Walker, and Sanders. Bosa's potential in this defense if he can stay healthy is tantalizing. He's flown under the radar but today showed flashes of his old self and at his best he was an elite EDGE. We may have gotten a steal there. Knock on wood.

I think he's looked pretty fast out there. He hasn't popped out in a bad way at least.

Hancock has been playing everywhere in the secondary

All Frank Gore Jr does is make plays. Same as last year's preseason.

Agreed. On one hand I get it, it's like no one really trusts him to be consistently healthy so it's hard to get overly excited. But on pure talent he is our most talented DL. Like it's possible we added a top 10 EDGE and no one is really talking about it. Early returns in this game were great. Just stay healthy.

Yeah Landon Jackson is having a brutal game. Very long way to go. And the fact he is still out there when his fellow rookies Sanders and Walker are on the bench is telling.

The army captain Ciarlo has made more plays than any depth player in this half.

Lol Mike White

Frank Gore Jr has better vision than Ray Davis

Solomon had the batted pass

Another good pass rush win from Sanders there, didn't really impact the play but he won his rep.

DL out there is Solomon, Sanders, Walker, Jackson. That's what I'll be watching.