schoolhouserock

I am all aboard the Zay Flowers at #27 bandwagon. That said, if the Bills wait until the later rounds to draft a WR, I like Charlie Jones as a target. Has enough speed and agility to compete and was always a heady player. Very underutilized at Iowa and has himself a breakout season when featured at Purdue.

The Bills should 100 percent make this happen.

If the draft were today, I’d be crossing my fingers for Zay Flowers to drop. He is a receiver in the Antonio Brown mold and could eventually become a WR1. Exactly the kind of WR these Bills seek.

10 pages on something the OP claims is “inarguable”.

Let’s say Beane makes several moves. How long until we start seeing the complaints about not receiving a compensatory pick for Edmunds departure?

Really looking forward to seeing how the WRs and TEs test.

I think your repeated Marty Schottenheimer comparisons are worthless. However, let’s humor the idea and suppose that McD is a true comp to Marty and that their professional careers will be mirrors of one another. Marty was the head coach for four franchises: the Browns, Chiefs, Redskins, and Chargers. His stint in Washington was brief - only a single season (2001: 8-8 record) In his three other stretches, he took each of his teams to the playoffs with regularity. He took over the Browns mid-season in ‘84 and proceeded to get them into the playoffs in 85, 86, 87, and 88. After Marty left, the Browns managed the playoffs in ‘89, but were 3-13 the following season. They would have a four year drought before tasting the playoffs again. The Browns have won no super bowls since parting with Marty. Marty next went to the Chiefs. The Chiefs had been 4-11 the two prior seasons. In his 10 seasons in KC, he coached them into the playoffs 7 times. After parting with Marty, the Chiefs had a four season playoff drought. It would be 21 years post-Marty before the Chiefs won a Super Bowl. His final NFL HC stop was in San Diego, gaining 2 playoff appearances in five seasons. After parting with Marty, the Chargers still managed three consecutive playoff appearances before entering a period where they had one playoff appearance in eight seasons. The Chargers have won no super bowls since parting with Marty. Even if one humors such a worthless comparison, it would still not argue in favor of making a change at HC.

The amount of Bills fans who blindly think a change at HC will magically get them to the promised land is surprising. It’s drought-era logic. “Terry, get me a new head coach every year or so because I like the excitement of the churn more than a real chance to compete.” Have fun with another 20 year drought. Call me when it’s over.

We saw it with Andy Reid. One championship completely flips the narrative. McD is already flying up the leaderboard with respect to coaching statistics. He wins one championship and we likely have a future HOF coach leading the Bills. The willingness to toss him overboard very much feels like drought-era logic to me. A seemingly never-ending, grass is always greener churn resulting in prolonged mediocrity. These Bills are NOT mediocre. They are a very, very good football team.

Can you please name said coaches?

McDermott “hovers over” BB’s shoulder and then doesn’t play his apparently hand picked rookies? It’s teamwork like anything else.

It would be cool to see how this falls for other teams, head coaches, and GMs. For example, there are only so many TEs on any roster, right? It is also a position that has become difficult to develop in the NFL. GM’s might prefer a vet over a cost controlled rookie at such a position. So what is a reasonable percent to allocate to that position? Is Buffalo an outlier? Very neat analysis and would be great to see it set in a broader context.

I completely agree that the Bills should be thinking about their future WR1. Currently, I am not sold on any of the draft-eligible WRs as being capable of dominating in the way a WR1 should. There are some intriguing guys. Like Addison, for example, who has shown the ability to fit into multiple offensive schemes and to have great seasons with minimal “learning curves”. That is very attractive. He also appears to have an excellent feel for off-schedule plays, making him a great match for Josh. He has a very smooth way of running. So smooth is his running, that I find a nagging suspicion in my mind that he may lack the suddenness and/or speed to win consistently at the next level (same feel as JSN). Really want to see the measurements and speed / agility times from a whole host of these receivers. I guess what I am saying is that, if the Bills are to use their first round draft choice on the best player available (hopefully best offensive player available), it may not be a WR. It may very well be an RB, should Bijan still be there. He may be the best shot at a talent projected to be truly elite. I have come to grips with the idea of yet another premium pick used on a now non-premium position because the dude could very well be the real deal.

There is only one team each year that doesn’t “fizzle out”.

Coach McD is currently ranked 52nd among NFL head coaches in number of playoff wins all time. Coach McD is currently ranked 65th all time in playoff win percentage. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/coaches/ Let’s say the Bills have a great year next year and win it all. (3-0 in next season’s playoffs). That would put him top 31 in both categories - ahead of multiple hall of famers. The Bills and coach McD are literally one great season from such lofty heights. That’s what we have here, folks. Making a change and expecting something better is ‘pie in the sky’ thinking.

This is the possibility that has me concerned. Lateral move of a well-regarded coach. There are a handful of possible reasons behind the move and Dorsey discontent is certainly one of the possibilities.

Holcomb has been a DC before - on two different teams. This is the exact opposite of desperation. It is forward thinking/contingency planning. Frazier won’t be here for forever. I don’t see how folks think this is a bad hiring.

Houston had good safety play this past season. Jalen Pitre had himself a great rookie season. I think Houston also ran a lot of nickel defense… though I think they started going more true Tampa 2 later in the season (if memory serves) Mixing threads… I’m still trying to figure out the Bernard pick! Maybe the Bills go bigger at the nickel spot and this defense starts to look more like a traditional Tampa 2? Put Taron at safety and pair him with Micah in 2023? That could get Bernard on the field. Maybe a similar transition occurred in Houston this season? Pitre definitely started more as a nickel safety but ended up deeper as the year wore on. Anyways, just speculation. This hire fits the current system or some minor variation of it. Bills are definitely running it back.

Campbell really is a stud. It is not an overstatement to say that he could replace Tremaine.

That Iowa defense was fantastic this past season. Almost made it to the B1G championship game with a historically bad offense. And by historically bad, I mean that offensive unit was one of the worst offenses in over 100 years of B1G football. At one point in the season, I believe Iowa had the #1 scoring defense combined with the last place scoring offense. If not, it was very close to being the case. Unreal. Van Ness was definitely a solid contributor to that defense. It was a surprise to most Hawkeye fans that he went ahead and declared for the NFL draft. He just finished his redshirt sophomore season so most folks figured they’d have him around for at least one more season. Seeing him projected to the first round, however, makes it a little less surprising. Even as a Hawkeye fan, I am not sure I understand how pundits are so high on Van Ness. For my eyes, I saw AJE as a more dominant defensive lineman during his Iowa days. Perhaps Van Ness projects better to the NFL? I don’t know.

“Painted themselves into a corner” LOL… good way to describe the first round of the ‘22 Draft.

So for offensive linemen picked in the first five rounds, 3/4 have started a meaningful number of games. Keep taking shots.

Have to hang onto Morse. Don’t create any new holes. He’s the perfect guy to have in the O-line room when the Bills (hopefully) invest multiple draft picks into the O-line.

Ha! And we can certainly speculate something that isn’t the worst case scenario.

First, I 100% agree. However, my mind goes back to things we heard frequently when players like P Manning and A Rodgers were in their prime. We always heard about how they “wanted” to add the running game as a larger component to their offense. I’m not sure that ever materialized for any of them - at least not in the way that fans interpreted those statements. We have heard McD comment on having the “threat” of a running game. There were a few games this season where we saw this. The Bills will still drop back and throw as many times as anyone else in the league. When they run - however seldom - they hit it for 7, 8, 10+ yards. The Bills actually had decent rushing performances this season (thank you Josh Allen). I guess what I am trying to say is that, while I would love a dedicated rushing attack, I am not going to hold my breath. I think the shortest path is to improve the Bills’ interior O-line. At the end of the season, teams were able to take away a massive chunk of the Bills’ run game by simply speed rushing the edges and then shedding interior blocks as Allen tried to escape. Lots and lots of yards and first downs were left on the field - especially during the Bengals game. There were several times when the Bengals LBs and DBs immediately dropped, Allen started to run (good decision), but the DT was easily able to shed his block and get contact on Josh (bad execution). Those runs would have been back breakers for the Bengals’ approach.