Logic

I agree with all of this. I especially second your notion of not yet counting out Wyatt Teller. I think the staff likes him a lot. The REALLY interesting thing is what happens if Nsekhe wins the starting LT job. You want your best five guys out there, right? So does Dawkins kick inside to LG in that case? It's hard to envision him falling out of the lineup entirely. When the dust settles, I'm guessing it's Dawkins - Teller - Morse - Long - Ford as the starting unit. Teller beating out Spain being the boldest prediction in that grouping.

I was just thinking about this. Brad Butler was arguably just SLIGHTLY above average. But when was the last time the Bills had a no-doubt-about-it, upper echelon RT? It's been quite a while. I'm honestly drawing a blank. Anyone? Anyone? It just seems like one of those positions that the Bills have been trying (and failing) to fill for at least a decade now.

I am officially in the "watch every highlight of Bills draft picks I can get my hands on" part of the offseason. I wondered about Cody Ford's pass blocking, which I have read is elite. He played in the Big 12, and lots of fans will tell you that that means he wasn't tested often against great pass rushers. Well, here's a an entire game of his against the best defense in college football. He's playing against a few guys that will likely be NFL players rather than grocery baggers. How does he do? Well...as to this game...the Sooners get down early in this one and have to pass almost exclusively. As such, there aren't a lot of run blocking reps to watch. But the pass blocking? Wow. Ford makes it look effortless. I counted maybe 3 or 4 instances of Ford getting beat by his man in this entire video. The rest of the time? He pretty much just makes it look easy. He takes great angles, manipulates defenders easily, uses his hands well, rarely gets beat around the edge, doesn't often get bull-rushed, and what I've read seems true: If he gets his hands squarely on you, school's out. This was a treat to watch, and really made me feel good about what should be vastly improved protection in front of Allen. The Bills haven't had a truly good right tackle in what seems like forever. Ford looks like he may finally be that guy.

People sure choose weird times to take moral stands about harmless charitable efforts. Sheesh.

$8 from every sale ($26) goes to the family. I do understand the company's need to pay the artists that create the shirt, pay for the materials to create the shirt, and to upkeep the website. 26Shirts.com always does this. It's what they are as a company. The create highly specific shirts for certain sports cities (Buffalo among them), and donate part of the proceeds of each sale to various worthy causes. If people want to say they should give the whole amount to the family, I'd point both to the above mentioned costs as well as the fact that numerous apparel companies out there don't donate a single DIME to any worthy causes. The company makes great shirts that are quite popular, and they'd likely sell quite well even if the company didn't give any money to charitable causes, so I find it awesome that they choose to do so at all.

Does it make you feel any better to know that dozens of donations came into the Roswell Park cancer treatment facility in Ezra's name today? I see no problem with fellow Bills fans, in an outpouring of love and appreciation, donating money to cancer research and to Ezra's family to help them re-coup medical costs. Maybe I'm crazy.

Because he passed away? Because it is incredibly expensive to fight cancer and they need to re-coup medical expenses? To help a family that is in a time of need? Because Bills fans are good and charitable people? I'm not sure I really understand your question.

Fair enough. Just so you know, the shirt was an older design from 26shirts. It was brought back today by popular demand in light of Pancho passing away. They didn't make the design specifically to capitalize on the tragedy or anything.

I realize there is already a thread about Pancho Billa, but I figured this would get buried, and this was a better way for everyone to see it. Maybe we can get a pin for a day or two? A portion of every sale of this shirt go to Pancho Billa's family. Available 5 days only. I am not affiliated with 26shirts, I just thought this was a cool thing to share. This shirt design was an older one that has been around for a bit, but they brought it back by popular demand today after being flooded with requests by Bills fans.

These awesome shirts are back on sale for 5 days only at the link below. Proceeds go to Pancho's family, as I understand it. I ordered mine and will be wearing at proudly at the Bills' home opener this year. RIP Pancho. You represented everything good about #BillsMafia https://26shirts.com/collections/buffalo/products/buffalo-comeback-pancho-power-may2019

Numbers wise? Completion percentage around 59% 3,200 yards 19 TDs 15 INTs 500 yards rushing 10 TDs Bills have 11-5 record.

head scratching post.

It makes sense. They're ALREADY breaking in THREE rookies at the position, not to mention continuing the position transition for Jason Croom. To have ALSO had a guy in the room who was trying to convert from tackle might have been a bit much. To instead replace said player with an already accomplished blocking specialist, great locker room presence, and veteran on whom all the youngsters can lean seems like another well thought out, logical Beane/McDermott move.

I dug that episode. Game of Thrones has always been about moral ambiguity and shades of grey. There didn't used to be just "good guys" and "bad guys". The books (and earlier seasons of the show) delighted in skillfully showing you that no one is either all good or all bad. As the show surpassed the books, they sort of moved away from this and into black vs white, good guy vs bad guy storytelling. Well, last night's episode was a return to form when it comes to moral ambiguity in the lead characters. We all wanted to see justice finally served to Cersei on a wicked platter of some sort, a violent and memorable death. Instead we got her being held by the love of her life, with the audience left to feel only pity and sympathy for her. We all wanted to see Dany be the conquering, moral hero we've all been rooting for. Instead we treated to shot after shot after shot of the relentlessly gory and horrifying fates of the innocent people upon whom she was wreaking havoc. Jon Snow obviously was a poster child of sorts for this moral ambiguity. We saw him decide in real time what he was and wasn't loyal to, what he was and wasn't willing to do, who he really was as a person, etc. I've been critical of some episodes this season, and I share some of the concerns about the breakneck pace at which they've chosen to end this story. Last night's episode, though, I really liked. It achieved a nearly Shakespearean level of tragedy, heartbreak, and tension. Well done by Benioff and Weiss.

I'm sad to see Jake Fisher go, but I get it: In the absolute BEST CASE SCENARIO, Fisher would've become Lee Smith. Lee Smith is ALREADY Lee Smith. I also think this front office and coaching staff highly value the idea of having at least one veteran, lead-by-example guy in each position room. Not that Kroft couldn't have been that guy. But boy, having Lee Smith as a learning resource for the two rookie tight ends should sure speed up their learning arc when it comes to blocking.

Like others have said, you're adding leadership by example to the tight end room. You're also adding a guy who can show these youngsters (Knox, Sweeney, Moral) a thing or two about being an effective blocker. Blocking Tight Ends are obviously not most football fans' favorite players, but they are quite valuable to both the run and the pass game. Lee Smith is a top 3 blocking tight end in the NFL. He may be the BEST blocking tight end in the NFL. I see the final roster shaking out at that position thusly: Kroft Knox Smith Sweeney It's not out of the realm of possibilities that Croom makes the roster and Sweeney goes to the practice squad.

I wouldn't say "all", but then again, you're ScottLaw, so I'm not surprised that you would. If you're going to ding them for their failures (KB, Peterman, Vlad Ducasse, Anquan Boldin), its only fair to also give them props for their successes. That's called objectivity. And you know what ? Their offenses have been generally poor overall in season 1 and season 2. Let's just put that right out front. It still seems only fair/reasonable, though, to weigh the hits with the misses. Dion Dawkins is a pretty good tackle. Not elite, but pretty darn good. And after they saw that Andre Holmes and KB weren't working out at WR, and that Allen functioned better with WRs who got better separation, they quickly course corrected and brought up Robert Foster and brought in Ian McKenzie. Now they've also brought in John Brown and Cole Beasley, and while the jury is still out on those two, the odds of them being "flops" seems low, since they're already proven as worthy contributors in this league. Mitch Morse looks unlikely to be a flop, too. And as you stated, Josh Allen seems so far to have been a good decision. While this staff has made mistakes, they have also been quick to own those mistakes and fix them. Rick Dennison? Not so good, gone after one year. KB and Holmes? Not getting it done, gone and replaced with younger, speedier options. The o-line? Wasn't cutting it, so they signed 6,000 o-linemen (including the best center on the market) and drafted a 1st round caliber offensive tackle. Robert Foster's a big one that they should get credit for, too, by the way. They basically got #1 or, at worst, #2 WR production out of a rookie UDFA receiver. They found him, acquired him, coached him up on the practice squad, and brought him up to the main roster. He was a game changer down the stretch. That's big. The ability to find that type of game breaking talent in undrafted free agency should count for something. If you're going to bring up the bad, you should bring up the good, too. Otherwise you're just being a real ScottLaw.

I just disagree with pretty much everything you said, especially the bolded. McDermott has literally said that he realizes it's a passing league, and that you need to be able to pass the ball well to win consistently. He's also stated that he realizes that you need to be able to consistently score a lot of points to win. In my opinion, the only reason his Bills teams have had to "play it safe" and concentrate on field position and ball control is that they were vastly outmanned in terms of offensive personnel, and he knew it. When you have bad offensive personnel and great defensive personnel, the only logical thing to do is to play ball control offense, shorten the game, and hope to eke out close victories. McDermott stated specifically that he does NOT want to win games 10-7 every week. He acknowledged that that's not a sustainable way to win consistently. He knows this. Once Josh Allen returned from injury last year and showed that he could handle an increased volume of playcalls, the playbook and the passing game began to open up. By the end of the year, Daboll was calling multiple personnel groupings and passing concepts that were taken straight from the best passing offenses in the league, like the Chiefs, Rams, and Patriots. Motions, jet sweeps, orbit actions, mesh concepts, dagger concepts, you name it. He was also employing full-on 5 WR sets and Air Raid and spread passing concepts. Personally, I'll wait to see what the Bills offense does this year now that they have vastly improved talent at the WR and OL positions and a quarterback they believe in and who has a whole offseason and preseason of starting reps. I'm not ready to say what McDermott does or does not believe in (even though, as I said, he specifically SAID he knows you have to pass the ball well and that he DOESN'T want to win close games), because I know his gameplans have been limited by inferior personnel.

"You need to be able to run it when they know you're going to run it and throw it when they know you're going to throw it" - Sean McDermott Just look at who our offensive coordinator is and where he came from. I believe the Bills want to get to the point where their offense can be that multiple from week to week, just like the Patriots. Some weeks they'll be a run-first attack. Some weeks they'll go 5-wide all game and spread the defense out. Depends on the opponent. This is the best way to have consistent offensive success in the NFL, as the Patriots have shown.

Lee Smith is one of the top 3 or 4 blocking tight ends in the NFL. Seriously. I know he became sort of a running joke around here because of his one dimensional play and his complete inability to be a receiving threat, but if you need a blocking tight end, you can do a lot worse than Lee Smith. That said, I'm surprised they're still adding to the position. I know you need a certain number of guys for camp, but sheesh, they already have 5 TEs on the roster.

If I had been asked to bet $10,000 on which poster I thought would be most likely to come in and defend that guy, your name would have come out of my mouth faster than you can say "Debbie Downer".

I'm a big old optimistic homer, but I don't understand why the Bills would have any interest in this dude. Kroft, Knox, Croom, Sweeney, Fisher. That's plenty.

You must be a ball at parties.

Seems like that would have been a worthwhile investment for Buffalo, my feelings about Ansah notwithstanding. On the other hand, it's not always just about money. Maybe Ziggy felt the Seahawks offered a better path to playing time. Maybe he got along better with their coaching staff. Maybe he prefers fresh seafood to buffalo wings. Who knows.