HappyDays

Whelp I probably should have added that one caveat...

I don't think Beane's miss rate is bad compared to the rest of the league, if anything I'd wager it's better than most because of the number of starting caliber players he's found in the mid and late rounds of the draft. His problem is that he hasn't drafted a truly great player yet, a game changer. That's where the other top GMs in the league have him beat one and all.

They'll bring the cart out for anything at practice, no point in risking it.

Hairston just needs to be a hit this year, we can't afford for him to struggle or be injured all year. And honestly I've been thinking that would need to be the case even before Tre's injury today. Obviously hoping for good news but it was always likely he would get hurt or not be able to perform. As much as the DL got all the attention last year, my take was that the secondary was the bigger problem. My concern is that if Hairston isn't ready the secondary hasn't improved at all. That will make it harder for the DL to have an impact. I loved Hairston as a prospect but he needs to get back out there soon so we can see where he's at. If he isn't ready and Tre's injury is bad then I would begrudgingly welcome Rasul Douglas back because he at least gives us a baseline.

Probably nothing but worth keeping an eye on:

Best case scenario early in the year is Sanders and Walker at least make an impact on 3rd downs. That alone would represent a huge improvement from last year. On the whole our defense last year was about average if you mix a few different metrics together. The one factor that really dragged the performance down was 3rd down conversion where we ranked 30th at 44.5%... And I'm sure we all remember the numerous 3rd downs where the QB was sitting back comfortable with plenty of time to find an open man. Sanders and Walker both have looked good when they've been able to pin their ears back and penetrate and get after the QB. So neither of them are going to blow up the stat sheet this year but I could see them having a sneaky big impact in that one critical area. Landon Jackson doesn't look like he'll contribute much if anything this year. He looks to be on the DeWayne Carter track of not dressing on gamedays and then you just hope he develops next offseason. Hairston's impact will entirely depend on how White performs. His problem will be that the staff trusts White and it's not like Hairston was seizing the job during training camp, so it would probably take some combination of White looking like a liability and Hairston quickly progressing in practice for him to get on the field in the back half of the season.

From what I've heard any team that signs him now would have to put him on IR right away... Physically he isn't ready yet. If he wants to hang out in Buffalo and use our renowned training facilities and be there as our break glass in case of emergency option, I'd have no problem with that.

So Bishop is still getting the 1st team reps in practice at least.

Trust me I know it's not a popular opinion, but it's how I've felt for a while. Safety to me is a position that shouldn't be drafted in the first 2 rounds, and if you do draft one they better be a total stud. To me the first 2 rounds are about premium positions with high end athletic traits. Safety is not a position where I care as much about athleticism. Obviously I'd prefer to have better than Hamlin out there but I'm also not panicking over it. Agree to disagree on this one Alpha.

On the all-22 watch Hancock to my eyes had a few mistakes that led to coverage busts. Hard to know for sure without knowing the play call but that's how it looked. He also gave up a TD because he didn't get enough depth in the endzone. I will say though those issues are all fixable with experience and time in the film room. My growing concern with Bishop on the other hand is that he just isn't a natural football player. That position requires an instinctive feel for what's going on around you in real time, and every time I watch him play it looks very robotic like he's thinking instead of just reacting. NFL history is littered with busts who failed for that exact reason. Hancock doesn't look robotic to me, he just looks like he needs time.

Guys like Hamilton and Reed are rare talents where the cerebral traits match the athletic traits, which is what made them 1st round picks. Starks was known for his instincts too, of course it remains to be seen how good he is in the NFL. Hyde and Poyer were not premium talents but they gave us elite safety play. That was my point.

I think it was a mistake to ever draft one high. These days, and especially in McDermott's scheme, the safety position is mostly about cerebral traits. All else being equal you'd prefer to have a high end athletic talent there of course, but that's not as important as the safety understanding their responsibilities and hitting their landmarks. That's where Hamlin despite his athletic limitations still beats out Bishop. Hyde and Poyer were 5th and 7th round picks respectively. Hyde had a 4.73 RAS score, Poyer had a 5.32. I don't know why this regime decided a top 64 pick with athletic traits but under-developed instincts and technique was the direction we needed to go.

Yeah I don't expect them to sign someone else. It is going to be Bishop or Hamlin almost certainly. The takeaway is that after an entire offseason where Bishop seemed locked in as the starter, he has fallen out of favor and is now in an open competition. You can't just live with mental mistakes that directly lead to TDs. They've given him every chance and he hasn't seized the opportunity.

Bad sign for Bishop:

Wow. You so callously spit on Grant DuBose's hopes and dreams?

I don't know if he's even healthy enough to play yet. When he visited Pittsburgh earlier this year he didn't pass their medical checks. I hope we are bringing him in just to do our due diligence in case we need him in an emergency situation later in the year. The offense immediately became more efficient and less mistake prone when Brady took over and started diverting targets away from Davis. I have very little interest in bringing his high variance play style back into the fold. I guess if he's used in a very very limited role I'd be okay with it.

The only time KC "targeted" him in the AFCCG was when we foolishly had him in 1v1 man coverage on Xavier Worthy out of the slot. Easy TD. That isn't a Hamlin issue though, that is a scheme issue. Other than that KC was moving the ball at will for many many reasons that had nothing to do with Hamlin's performance. Every defense has at least one player they are trying to hide, it's simply not possible to have 11 above average starters. Having that one player be a safety is about as good an outcome as you could hope for. There's almost no scenario I can envision this year where Hamlin is the reason our defense underperforms. If everything else is working the way it's supposed to, our defense heavy coaching staff should easily be able to work around his limitations. If they can't, that's a larger conversation that I really hope we don't need to have this year.

I'm going to be the only Bills fan totally unconcerned about the safety position when the season starts. I will die on this hill. It's the easiest position on the defense to hide which is why I never liked the idea of drafting one high last year. If Bishop continues to be a liability, they'll put Hamlin out there and we'll be fine. He's slow and he's a mediocre tackler but he goes where he's supposed to and that's 80% of the job. KC had an elite defense last year with Bryan Cook as one of their starters and he wasn't any better than Hamlin. We need our DL to be a lot better than last year, we need our CB2 to be an improvement on Rasul Douglas, and we need Milano to stay healthy. If all of those things happen Hamlin will be functional and we'll barely notice that he's out there.

According to Pats fans he suffered an ankle injury last year and it cost him all of his explosiveness. No chance he gets traded with that contract either, he will be cut and probably pass waivers and then sign a 1 year prove it deal somewhere. If his injury diminished his skills as much as they say I'd pass.

Man I thought I was negative about McDermott's defense, but even I'm not making sweeping judgments about the 2025 scheme based on a preseason game. Yeah you can judge individual performances, but judging the scheme is ludicrous. There are a lot of signs that point to the defense trying some new things this year. It still has to come together especially when it counts in the playoffs but they are not going to put those wrinkles on tape now. They've been very intentional about putting young and/or roster bubble players on islands and seeing how they perform mano a mano. You might as well watch 1v1 drills and criticize the route sequencing.

Yeah Hancock wasn't as good as I thought watching it live. Always tough to judge secondary play on the broadcast. There were a few plays where it looked like he covered the wrong part of the field. He was at least partly responsible for the TD thrown in the corner of the endzone too, he didn't get enough depth which left an easy throwing window. If one of our safeties gets injured Hamlin will definitely be the next man in, fans won't like it but Hancock won't get on the field until he gets his responsibilities down pat and cleans up the coverage busts. My biggest takeaway from this preseason so far is that as much I appreciated Hyde and Poyer, I didn't appreciate them enough. Nothing we put on the field this year will come close to matching their ability as a tandem, and we'll just have to live with that.

Shavers has developed a great release which has shown up in preseason. I did notice a couple reps yesterday where it looked like the QB was expecting him to be hot off a blitz but Shavers never turned around. Hard to know for sure if it's his fault without knowing the play call and reads but worth keeping an eye on.

I think Walker will be good as a situational 3rd down pass rusher. He is much better moving forward from the snap and using his raw power to penetrate. That's what you saw on his rush at the end of the half. When he has to hold blocks or read the play before moving he gets pushed around. Having watched some all-22 clips now I'll say Sanders was better as a run defender last night than I gave him credit for. His pass rush snaps though were almost completely ineffective as I thought on my first watch. I'd like to see him on 3rd downs next to Oliver when defenses have to choose which one to double.

Bad night for the young defensive linemen. Really all of them - Sanders, Walker, Jackson, Solomon, Carter. Sanders and Walker in particular I was hoping to see them build off a good showing last week and instead they mostly laid an egg. Disappointing to see them struggle when the Bears had their starting OL out there, more disappointing when it continued even when their 2nd and 3rd stringers got on the field. Walker had that one really good pass rush at the end of the 1st half, other than that I saw him get out leveraged all night. Sanders was getting blown off the ball on combo blocks and in general was just totally ineffective pushing the pocket. Oh well. I was probably getting my expectations too high after their performance last week. I expect both to look better when they are used situationally and with established players next to them instead of fellow rookies. Carter continues to look like a complete bust. If you watched the game blind and didn't know he was a 3rd round pick last year you wouldn't think he was going to make the roster. This is a guy they are hoping to be their backup 1T this season presumably with an ability to take on doubles and shed blocks, and instead he is getting stonewalled by a 3rd string RG as the RB runs right past him for their 5th TD of the night. Solomon I didn't watch as closely as the DTs but when I did see him he was getting walled off and was getting no push. I saw one good rep where he at least walked the RT back but I'd hoped to see more from a player that reportedly had a good training camp. Landon Jackson I'll say it at least wasn't as abysmal a performance as he had last week, so baby steps and all that, but still doesn't look like a player that deserves to dress on game days and that is a poor outcome for a high 3rd round pick. The young DL was the primary thing, maybe the only thing, I really cared about last night and I came away disappointed to say the least. None of these guys are starters but they are all supposed to play important roles this season so I wanted to see more flashes.