Logic

Based on the contract he just signed, Ryan Bates will be one of the starting five. The Bills didn't lock him in at $8M+ guaranteed over two years just to have him on the bench. The starting line is Dawkins - Saffold - Morse - Bates - Brown. I assume they'll draft a youngster to groom behind Saffold, or to groom at RG if the plan is to switch Bates back to LG next year. Either way, make no mistake, Ryan Bates is getting paid starter money and will be one of the starting five.

So Josh will be 30 when it opens? Plenty of time to add a few more championship seasons from within the confines of the new stadium.

Will Smith should have been ejected from the ceremony as soon as that happened. That was assault, plain and simple. The fact that he was allowed to return to his seat after assaulting a presenter -- regardless of the comment that presenter made -- is ridiculous. Then he got to give a weepy acceptance speech about how he wants to be a "vessel for positivity"? WTF?! I have to think that Mr Smith will be full of regret and shame after the fact. His first Oscar win ever, and his unhinged antics are all anyone will remember, not to mention the fact that they completely overshadowed the movie itself, the Williams family, etc. Unhinged, bush league move by Will Smith. Chris Rock handled it like a champ, though.

See: downfall of Cam Newton.

It's a simple question for teams in the 2022 NFL: Do you have a no-doubt-about-it, bona fide franchise QB that you're paying big money to? If not, feel free to keep your playmaking WRs around. Sign or re-sign them to a large contract. Hope that they can elevate your QB to the next level or make up for his deficiencies with their elite abilities. Maybe even trade for one if you don't have one (see: Adams, Hill). If so, don't pay giant contracts to WRs. Let them walk when their contracts are up, confident that you can replenish your WR depth chart through the ample (and ever increasing) amount of talented WRs coming out in the draft. Use the money you save to retain talent at other, more important positions instead. Trust that your next level QB will elevate the WRs around him. Re-signing young WRs when their rookie deals are up may be okay, depending on what type of AAV they command. Once they hit that $20M+ stratosphere, it's time to move on. That's the new NFL, to me. WRs are trending toward being as replaceable as running backs. So yeah, I love Diggs. But no, I'm not paying him $22M+ per year as he enters his 30s. It's one of the reasons I'd like to see the Bills draft a couple talented young WRs THIS YEAR, so that when it IS time for Diggs to walk, Gabe Davis and the youngsters will be ready to take over.

I disagree. I don't think we can rule it out at all. I don't think Johnson OR Moss are roster locks. Johnson is a one year deal, basically vet minimum. Not someone you avoid drafting a running back over. Moss being traded or released would surprise me more, since he's only a third year, third round pick. Singletary is also on the last year of his contract and is not likely to be re-signed, in my opinion. Drafting a running back is absolutely on the table, in my opinion, and the Bills have met with several.

Thanks for the input. To me, Taylor-Britt and Bryant BOTH look like guys that can start outside in our defense and have success. To be able to get a playmaker like Olave, a starting level guard, and STILL get two corners this talented would be a big win for me. Thornton in the sixth is too good to pass up, as he posted a 4.29 40. I do want a linebacker, but gotta follow the board. Plus we have Dodsen, Smith, Matakevich, and Giles-Harris as depth already.

Welp. I hit on the perfect draft. There is no reason for me to do another single one of these things, because this one can’t be beat.

Up until the acquisition of Watson, I rooted for the Browns a bit. I viewed them as our brothers in misery. Our fellow Lake Erie compadres with a proud history but a tortured past. No longer. I knew the Haslams were clowns who have no idea how to run a team. Now I know that they're morally bankrupt, too, happily selling their souls and the dignity of their proud franchise for a shot at gridiron glory. And as I said before, the fact that they refused to at least attend the introductory press conference speaks to their cowardice and to a consciousness of guilt. Lastly, I noticed that neither Andrew Berry nor the Haslams said today that they believe Deshaun Watson is innocent of the chargers of which he is accused. Berry refused to answer that question, instead saying "we believe in Deshaun the person". The Haslams refused to answer it, too, instead saying "we trust the legal system". They should've both just said what they meant: "Yes, we think there's a good chance he did it, but no, we don't care, because he's good at playing football".

Yeah. The thing I seem to keep reading from scouts about McDuffie is that no one expects him to be elite or a perennial All-Pro, but everyone expects him to play 10 years and to have a really safe floor due to his technical proficiency and football IQ. Just a solid, pro's pro type who will stick around the league a long time.

I absolutely think that the fact that two of Beane's draft picks got poached off the practice squad last year burns him up. He loves his draft picks, and for two of them -- at the very positions at which the Bills are currently deficient -- to get taken away surely pisses him off. With this fresh in mind, I do not expect him to draft 8 players. I expect him to move around the draft and select 5 or 6.

That press conference was super cringey. The fact that Jimmy and Dee Haslam weren't there is indefensible and looks REALLY bad for them and for the Browns. The Cleveland media did a great job asking tough questions. Andrew Berry and Deshaun Watson did a terrible job answering them. If this press conference was supposed to make anyone feel better about the Browns acquiring Watson or about Watson's supposed innocence, it didn't do the trick AT ALL. Just a really gross display from every angle, and that seems to be the consensus from just about everyone who witnessed it. Yuck.

I haven't read through this entire thread. Maybe this has already been said, but... To me, it's simple. When people talk about Josh's "bad first two years", they tend to forget two key things: 1.) Josh was sushi raw coming out. Didn't get much QB coaching at Wyoming. Had tons of mechanical flaws. Never did the 7-on-7 camps or had the private QB tutors. This fact alone gets overlooked by so many who want to compare their young QB's first two years to Josh's first two years. Take Tua, for instance. Tua DID have all the 7-on-7 camps, the tutors, the great coaching at a big time school, etc. He -- and most other young QBs that get drafted highly -- were much closer to finished products than Josh Allen. Not NEARLY as raw as Josh. The sheer amount of growth and improvement he needed coming into the league was pretty rare for a 1st round pick. 2.) In both his 1st and 2nd seasons, Josh showed flashes of transcendent physical talent and will/leadership that couldn't necessarily be quantified in statistics. People like to look at Josh's stats his first two years vs the stats of their young QB and make a direct comparison. It wasn't ABOUT stats with Josh, though. We KNOW a lot of his stats (completion %, for instance) stunk. It was about the throws he made. The runs he made. The plays he made that made you jump out of your seat because you couldn't believe what you had just seen. The leadership and will and grit he showed on numerous occasions. You saw flashes where you went "wow...if he can round off the rough edges and make those good plays more routinely, he'll be an all-time great". So my questions to people who are touting their young third year QBs, Tua or whomever, are as follows: Can you honestly say that your guy has as high a physical ceiling as Josh Allen? That he came into the league needing as much refinement as Josh? And more importantly, this: Forget the statistics. Did you see, with your own eyes, specific plays throughout the first two years that give you hope that this guy can be THE guy? Josh was an extremely rare case at QB. An absolute anomaly. But to the surprise of just about no one, he has become the case that everyone looks to in order to justify their faith in their own young QB. Lots and lots of teams are going to get burned expecting Allen-like progression. Dude's a unicorn.

The key to the "running back in the 1st" discussion is really the fifth year option. The thinking goes that it is no longer wise to pay running backs a second contract. As such, locking up cheap running back labor for five years -- and having that cheap labor theoretically be an explosive playmaker -- gives you a five year window to spend on other positions and to not have to use other draft capital or free agency dollars on running backs, since you already have a bellcow playmaker at the position. Then, once the five years is up, rinse and repeat. The fifth year option for running backs is one of the cheapest of all positions, so you get to lock an offensive playmaker in for the prime of his career for cheap, run the wheels off, then let him walk. Specifically, taking a running back at the END of the first round is where the sweet spot seems to be. People say "take a position of greater value in the 1st, and wait until the 2nd or 3rd or 4th to take a running back!". The problem there is that you're not getting that fifth year option. Is one extra year really worth it? I don't know. I'm just talking about what Joe B seems to be pointing to with his Breece Hall idea.

It depends on what you mean by "worth it". Brandon Beane, for one, seems to think they have some worth. He's spoken numerous times about how he assigns his staff each a team (or several) to pretend to be, has them thoroughly study each team's needs, contracts, etc, and then they go through multiple mock draft simulations. After 20 or 30 of them or whatever, they start to see patterns emerging. Perhaps a certain corner is always gone by pick 20, or a certain WR never makes it out of round 1, whatever. So as an exercise to game out different possibilities and to gather an aggregate of predictions and projections to help prognosticate how early or late guys may go...sure, it seems to have some value. Our own GM thinks so, anyway. It also has value as pure FUN! One of my favorite parts of following the NFL is the roster building part of it. Maybe it's from growing up playing Tecmo Bowl and Madden, but I love doing mock offseasons, free agency signings, drafts, etc. It's just a really fun exercise that I do, well...just for fun. I don't fool myself into thinking I'll be "correct" -- even the best mock drafters rarely have a high hit rate. It's just a fun way to pass the time, exercise my brain, and get to know the draft prospects.

I don't really disagree with any of the nits you picked. Though Flowers -- a notorious bust at OT -- has apparently been pretty decent at guard, improving every season he's been there. Apparently a weaker run blocker than pass blocker, but not the tire fire that hew as at OT. Don't get me wrong, I'm not stumping for him or anything, but if it's a vet minimum, "compete for your spot" type thing, well...

I'm curious what makes you say he was mismanaged. I'm not disagreeing, because I don't know. Just wondering if you have some insight you can share. The article below from a Giants blog points out that he's done a ton to try to improve, and it just hasn't happened. Sounds like their version of Cody Ford. https://www.bigblueview.com/2022/2/18/22933335/giants-2022-free-agency-g-will-hernandez "He just hasn’t played well enough. Hernandez showed promise as a rookie, but the PFF grades he posted in 2018 (62.9 run blocking, 73.1 pass blocking and 67.9 overall) ended up as the best of his four seasons. His run blocking has never met expectations. His pass blocking seems to have gotten worse instead of better. Despite playing more than 3,600 NFL snaps, he still struggles to read and react to basic defensive line stunts. Hernandez switched positions from left guard to right guard in 2021. He also spent part of last offseason training with highly-regarded offensive line expert and founder/creator of OL Masterminds Duke Manyweather. The pair watched tons of film and worked on Hernandez’s movement skills. Hernandez also dropped considerable weight. It didn’t help. Hernandez surrendered career-worsts in sacks (7), quarterback hits (7), committed a career-worst 8 penalties (after committing 7 in three seasons) and posted the worst PFF score (55.9) of his career. The Giants have now tried Hernandez at two positions. He has worked with Manyweather, considered the best in the business. Four offensive line coaches — Hal Hunter, Marc Colombo, Dave DeGuglielmo, Rob Sale — have tried to reach him."

I will agree that Austin in round two seems.....unwise. He's Roscoe Parrish. His NFL.com draft profile gives him a player comparison of....Isaiah McKenzie. I'm not necessarily opposed to going RB-WR in rounds one and two, but there have to be more viable options for round two than a guy as small and slight as Austin. I could much more easily get behind packaging a later pick to move up in round two and take Jahan Dotson.

I tend to agree....UNLESS they bring in a viable veteran. Then I could see them drafting a CB in rounds 3-5. Lord knows McDermott can coach up a mid round CB. Starting the season with, say Joe Haden or James Bradberry at CB1, and Dane Jackson competing with a 3rd round rookie at CB2, knowing that White will be back by October....I could see it. Not saying it's IDEAL, but it wouldn't shock me.

With Duke Johnson and Taiwan Jones both in the fold, we are fully equipped to re-enact the Texans' 2019 game winning drive. 🤢

Yep. He said he thinks that, in reality, Araiza will be long gone by the 6th round, where he picked Stout. I tend to agree. Some dumb GM will draft him in the third.

It's a long 34 days between now and the draft. You could always go for a jog instead.

Buscaglia's 7 round Bills mock draft from today. While I am not generally "Team Round 1 Running Back!", his reasoning for taking Hall does make some sense to me. https://theathletic.com/3205471/2022/03/24/bills-7-round-post-free-agency-mock-draft-a-running-back-before-a-wide-receiver-or-cornerback/ Round 1, No. 25: Breece Hall, RB, Iowa State When most think about adding firepower to the Bills offense, the first impulse is to go with a receiver. That does make sense, though there may not be a better short-term and long-term fit for an offensive playmaker than Breece Hall. Wide receivers Stefon Diggs and Gabriel Davis have two years remaining on their contracts, which makes it less of a need. But running back Devin Singletary is in the final year of his rookie deal. Singletary stepped up late last season, but he doesn’t have the complete, dynamic skill set the Bills may covet. And they’ll have to pay Singletary pretty well to stick around in 2023. With dwindling cap space for next season and key players coming up on free agency, Tremaine Edmunds, Dawson Knox and Jordan Poyer, Singletary might not fit into their plans. The Bills also tried to sign J.D. McKissic this offseason, which shows they’re not settled at the position. With Hall, the Bills would be getting a potential three-down threat who would pair with Singletary in the first year and then take over the backfield in 2023. If he hits, Hall would give them the total running back package, which is a lot harder to find in this draft than a quality receiver. “Hall is an easy running back to like because he doesn’t really have a fatal flaw. He runs with patience, power and agility. He grades very well in the position-specific areas,” The Athletic draft expert Dane Brugler wrote in December. “Coaches will love his ball skill as a pass catcher, showing the body control and hands to adjust to off-target throws. His consistent production and toughness make him one of the more reliable backs in this class.” The ability to make something out of nothing as a pass catcher is a trait worth chasing. And if the Bills are shifting to more of a zone running scheme, his skills would work perfectly within that. The only question left on Hall was his burst and being able to punish a defense with a home run, and he tested out with elite levels of explosiveness on his 10-yard split, broad jump and vertical at the combine, and he showed a sustained speed with a 4.39-second 40-yard dash. Hall only turns 21 at the end of May, which means the high-level production window is open that much longer because he has fewer miles on the tires. And his best comparable NFL player based on advanced metrics and workout scores? Jonathan Taylor, according to Player Profiler. I’ve generally been against the notion of drafting a running back in the first round. But, after seeing how 2021 unfolded, I believe the value of a young running back on a rookie deal is increasing. Finding a versatile, three-down back who can be more than just a dump-off option in the passing game and break a run wide open gives a team an immense advantage. With all the great quarterback and receiver play across the league, defenses shifted to an increasing amount of two-high-safety looks. The premise is simple: to prevent a premier passing attack from looking for a deep-field shot. And the strategy worked — a lot. The Bills weren’t at their best offensively down the stretch until they started mixing in more two-tight-end looks and presented a threat to run, which explained the emphasis of adding tight end O.J. Howard in the offseason. It also slightly devalues the slot receiver, making an early receiver pick less of a slam dunk given the Bills’ current roster construction. Having the right running back who can do it all is the perfect counter to opposing defenses hoping to take away the pass. The one thing that remains unchanged is that, in most cases, paying a running back with a big second contract is usually not the way to go. The prime of a running back’s career is much earlier than most positions, and the threat of injuries and production dips during that second contract is very real because of how many hits a back takes. So before you know it, that once great running back could become an albatross of a contract and hold a team’s cap space back. By investing in a running back late in the first round, they get a fixed-cost deal and the lowest-costing fifth-year option in the NFL. The running back fifth-year option for the 2019 draft class was the lowest of any position by more than $1 million, and at other positions, the fifth-year option comes close to tripling the running back option. Running back was also the only position not to go over $10 million on a fifth-year option for players who made multiple Pro Bowls. And after that fifth year is when teams start wondering how many more years of top-end production the running back could have, giving a team a natural place to move on without incurring long-term cap problems. The league has been devaluing running backs for a long time, and the salaries reflect that to drive that fifth-year option down, so it would be wise to exploit that. The Bills would be quite savvy to get ahead of the curve of where the NFL is shifting. And for those wondering, no, Alabama wide receiver Jameson Williams was not available. Round 2, No. 57: Calvin Austin III, WR, Memphis All of you “wide receiver or bust” fans can rest easy with this selection, which I think is a perfect fit for what the Bills could be looking for to help their offense. Austin is a home run threat with incredible speed, which is something the Bills do not have, and he can develop into a long-term slot receiver in the offense. With Isaiah McKenzie guaranteed only one year on his deal and Jamison Crowder on a one-year contract, it makes sense to draft a long-term slot prospect and develop that player in 2022. Austin would also provide the Bills the pre-snap motion elements they’ve employed for years with McKenzie. Austin could factor into the return game as well. With the top-two pairing of Hall and Austin, the Bills offense is looking a lot scarier to opponents. Round 3, No. 89: Josh Williams, CB, Fayetteville State Round 4, No. 130: Terrel Bernard, LB, Baylor Round 5, No. 168: Cam Jurgens, IOL, Nebraska Round 6, No. 185: Reed Blankenship, S, Middle Tennessee Round 6, No. 203: Jordan Stout, P, Penn State Round 7, No. 231: Jeremiah Moon, DE, Florida

The NFL is at a crossroads when it comes to WRs. On the one hand, they’re getting paid more than ever because of their importance to a successful passing game, which is THE thing that an NFL team needs to have to be successful. On the other hand, due to the proliferation of 7 on 7 leagues and spread offenses and such, more and more of them are coming out every year. Super talented guys who are ready right out of the box. This, in turn, will lead to a DE-valuation of WRs, which we’re already seeing this offseason. So here’s what generally seems to be happening: teams hoping to take the next step on offense are shelling out big bucks for good WRs, trading for them, giving them mega contracts, whatever. Teams who already have a good offense and, most especially, already have a franchise QB (and the financial implications that go with paying one) are saying “we can replace the WR. Our QB and our system will still succeed”. See: Mahomes and Rodgers. So…since the Bills have (and have to pay) Josh Allen, since they’ll need to keep a good team around him and allocate money to more important and less replaceable positions, and since more and more ready, high quality WRs are coming into the league than ever… As much as I love Diggs, I say you draft a couple youngsters to pair with Davis, let him play out his contract (if he will do so without complaint) and then trade him or let him walk. This is the new NFL. WRs are slowly going the way of RBs with regard to replaceability.