Logic

Thanks for the kind words, and for contributing your own thoughts on the class. I particularly think what you say about Bishop and Carter being pushed down the board (to the Bills' benefit) is true. I also think the drafting of Ulofoshio and signing of Deion Jones portends that maybe Matt Milano's road to being the player he once was isn't as clear cut as fans might like to hope. You bring up an interesting point about Hardy: I viewed him only as a kick returner, which is still where I think his primary value lies. Particularly with the new kickoff rules, I think having a good returner will be valuable once again. HOWEVER...if this guy can make the roster for his return role, but then learn to be a viable pro level nickel corner in the background...that would be huge. "Depth at nickel" isn't something I think about much, but it's true that Taron Johnson is one awkward landing or collision away from unavailability, just like any other player, so having a decent backup in place (particularly for a defense that plays as much nickel as the Bills) would be a great thing. And lastly, the Travis Clayton as Happy Gilmore line made me laugh. Thanks for that.

The players that are listed are gross. There are only two ways for the Bills to materially improve the WR position at this point. The first would be to acquire someone via trade, which -- unless things change, and they may -- Beane has indicated is not something that's forthcoming. The second would be to hope that someone of worth gets cut from another roster in the weeks to come. This is why I consider it roster malpractice not to have double-dipped in such a deep WR draft. But if Beane, for whatever bizarre reason, was dead set on not doing that, then the only guys remaining after the draft that would've presented any kind of value to the roster have already been signed by other teams in recent days. So now, barring scenario one or scenario two taking place, we're stuck hoping that Mack Hollins or Quintez Cephus or special teams guys Justin Shorter or Tyrell Shavers somehow become viable NFL wide receivers -- which is an objectively gross sentence to have to type in the middle of Josh Allen's prime.

All of that is fine, and I generally agree with it. My quote was specifically about the speed around Josh Allen compared to that around Mahomes, and it remains true that the latter has more than the former. As I said, that doesn't necessarily mean the Chiefs offense will be better, it just means that it is unequivocally faster. The Bills are not faster than your average NFL offense. They have pretty average team speed on offense. And that's all I was talking about -- the Bills' speed on offense. It's average.

Well...for one thing, you only listed two fast players: Shakir and Samuel. Kincaid you listed as "a mismatch", Cook as "explosive", and Coleman "may not be home run fast". All of those sound like words other than "fast". And 4.43 is good speed for the NFL, no doubt, but it's not elite speed. The statement you quoted and replied to -- "there is now a big difference in the amount of speed around Mahomes and the amount of speed around Josh Allen" -- seems true to me. Hollywood Brown is a 4.27 guy. Worthy ran a 4.21. Isiah Pacheco ran a 4.37. The Chiefs are faster on offense than the Bills. It doesn't necessarily mean they'll be better -- though I'd bet they will, at least in 2024 -- but they're faster.

Yeesh. Tough crowd.

One interesting thing I read today is that, because of the way compensatory picks are calculated, the Bills may want to limit the snaps of Mike Edwards and Mack Hollins this year, because if they exceed a certain amount, it jeopardizes the two picks the Bills are scheduled to receive. Similarly, to ensure the best chance at receiving the picks they think they'll be getting, the Bills have to hope that Tim Settle plays a lot of snaps for Houston -- but Houston is surely aware of this, too, and may limit Settle's snaps for their own compensatory pick reasons. Just a fascinating aspect of the minutiae that goes into calculating compensatory picks. I have no idea whether or not the Bills care enough to actually limit Edwards and Hollin's snaps. To be honest, I bet they do.

Fairly certain the army of doctors that examined and cleared Hamlin are in a better place to look out for his best interest than fans are. Hamlin's also an adult capable of making his own decisions. People's hearts may be in the right place, but they shouldn't mistake what makes them personally feel more comfortable -- not having to see a player on the field who reminds them of the danger of the game of football -- with what's best for the player.

I think the "Bills only keep Hamlin on the roster for PR reasons" notion is the dumbest thing in forever. Hamlin is, was, and has always been a bottom-of-the-roster, depth and special teams guy. He has remained on the Bills roster because no one more worthy of a roster spot has yet taken one from him. If and when it happens -- and it may very well be this year -- then he'll be cut. Every team in the NFL has players like this. Unfortunately, because of Hamlin's traumatic medical event, the weekly "will he be active on game day or won't he?" Tweet would get posted on Twitter, it would be treated as some sort of big deal when he wasn't active, and then everyone would jump in and talk about crazy conspiracy theories, how Hamlin was only on the Bills roster because it would look bad if he was cut, blah blah blah. To add to all of that, you have the Bills fans who are like "Gosh I wish he'd just stop playing for his own good", as if the man can't make his own decisions, and as if he didn't consult with numerous medical professionals. I wish nothing but the best for Hamlin for the rest of his career and his life, be it here or elsewhere. But all of the discourse surrounding him from Bills fans and NFL fans in general is beyond ridiculous and eyeroll-inducing.

The whole thing was a hoot. Jeff Ross, Nikki Glazer, and Tony Hinchcliffe were the best among the comedians. As for the football people, I thought Belichick did a good job, and it was cool of him to show up and do some roasting. Julian Edelman was particularly funny. Whoever wrote his jokes did a great job. Gronk was...not great. All in all, I enjoyed it quite a lot. For those saying they didn't watch the roast because they don't like Brady: Ummm...I think you might wanna look up what a "roast" is. It was literally two and a half hours of people ripping Tom Brady apart and talking about what weirdo and an ####### he is. Yeah, it's held in his honor, but so what? The whole point of the whole thing was to rip the dude apart, and everyone obliged. It was entertaining.

I would not get ANYONE'S autograph, because I'm an adult. I think it's cool to meet athletes and celebrities. To shake their hand, have a quick chat with them, thank them for their work, whatever. But...their signature on a piece of paper? Does nothing for me. What am I even supposed to do with it? Put it on a shelf? Walk by it and look at it admiringly and say "Burt Reynolds actually wrote on this. That's his actual hand writing!" ? To each their own. If autographs make people happy, then God bless 'em. I'm team "let people like things". But for me personally... I just don't get the appeal.

The comment that Bills fans are "sleeping on" 7th year receiver Mack Hollins -- whose career high in single season receiving yards was 690 but who has had 250 yards or less in every other season of his career -- is kind of this debate in a nutshell. There's objective reality: Mack Hollins has been a very average, replacement level receiver his whole career, and has exceeded 300 yards in a season just once. Then there's hopium: Y'all are sleeping on him! Watch what he does with a real QB! It's the same with Hamler, with Claypool, Cephus, etc, etc. After two straight years of "we need to get Josh more weapons", the Bills have gotten WORSE at WR. It's telling that any time someone wants to argue that the Bills offense is in good shape personnel wise, they immediately start talking about tight ends and running backs. Why? Because the wide receiver room isn't good enough. The strategy at WR beyond "hope Coleman gets up to speed quickly", "hope Shakir breaks out", "Hope Curtis Samuel posts a career high in receiving yards" -- you'll notice the common denominator with the top three receivers is "hope", already not a promising start -- seems to be "hope that one of the average JAGs we sign exceeds expectations and suddenly plays good football". There again, a big dose of "let's hope". Hope is not a strategy. And all of this is even assuming that the top three guys stay healthy. If Coleman or Samuel suffers any kind of long term injury, God help us. Hope you're ready to see Mack Hollins or Quintez Cephus be our WR2 in a pivotal divisional matchup. Look...some of the most consistently optimistic, kool-aid drinking members on this forum -- myself included -- feel super down about the WR room right now. Why do you think that is? Did we all suddenly turn into negative Nellie curmudgeons over night? Or could it be that we're reading the tea leaves and recognizing that our front. office seems to be in Groundhog Day mode, YET AGAIN failing to give our franchise QB adequate help?

@BADOLBILZ I can send probably like $36 or so to One Bills Drive for Beane to put towards signing a legitimate receiver. Might you consider matching my donation? Or like...can YOU play receiver? Do you KNOW anyone that can play receiver? I've heard we're pivoting to big guys who are a load in the run game, so...Is your refrigerator fast when it's running? This is getting dire. We signed QUINTEZ CEPHUS. I had to look that up to make sure it was a real human person. Then we signed a receiver from Canada. CANADA, Badol. I feel like I'm being pranked and the reveal just hasn't happened yet.

What's weird to me is that the Chiefs continue to roll out turbo-boosted smurfs at WR, and yet they somehow continue to produce at a high level in the playoffs. They doubled down on the strategy this offseason, signing Hollywood Brown and drafting Xavier Worthy. Why is it that all they have to do is press our guys and play really physical with them, and it makes us change our whole team philosophy at WR, but we -- with our defense-minded head coach and frequent top five regular season defensive rankings -- somehow haven't figured out after four years of playoff battles how to slow THEIR small fast guys down?

1. Get bigger and slower at WR 2. Take the ball out of Josh Allen's hands more Perfect offseason so far.

OBJ off the board now, too. Beane emphatically stating that no trade for a WR is forthcoming. Bills further adding to their depth chart with Quintez Cephus and Chase Claypool. With each passing day, Mack Hollins grows closer to the starting lineup. Do margaritas still taste good if you put four shots in them? I'm gonna try it.

That's kind of the problem in a nutshell. You ran out of receivers to list after the first three, and had to start bringing up tight ends and running backs. Unfortunately, good NFL offenses require more than three capable receivers -- if for no other reason than depth in case of injury -- and the Bills currently don't have any. They're throwing a bunch of a vet minimum and special teams guys at the wall to see what sticks, hence my camp battle comments. I disagree that "we fine". I think we lack any capable receivers past the first three you listed (one of whom is a rookie and hasn't even proven to be capable yet), and Beane's strategy for solving that issue is to scrape the bottom of the barrel and to cross fingers and hope. But as I've said before: Hope is not a strategy.

Obviously correlation does not equal causation, but...

It's really a $3M deal. And yes, I would've done that. Ah well. Cephus/Hamler/Claypool/Shaver/Shorter camp battle, here we come!

Fair. Now if only there had been a way to find some cheap WR labor with actual talent and upside...Some kind of way where the Bills could have, say, 11 opportunities to add cost-controlled players, and could use two or three of those opportunities to add receivers. If only.

"Alright, my friend. Lesson 1: When the ongoing problem with your team is that its star quarterback isn't surrounded with enough offensive talent, the best way to attack the problem is to sign a bunch of veteran minimum guys and hope one breaks out!"

That's one way to describe what the Bills are doing, sure...

DJ Chark signs with the Chargers. Tyler Boyd signs with a team that already employs Calvin Ridley and DeAndre Hopkins. Odell Beckham Jr signs with a team that already employs Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle, Braxton Berrios, and just drafted Malik Washington. The Bills sign...Chase Claypool and Quintez Cephus. I'm sure I'll get a few thumbs down and eyeroll emojis for pointing out the wildly uninspiring way in which the Bills are approaching the wide receiver position. Whatever. Pour me a ***** shot.

If the Bills plan on being a "run heavy" team going forward, I'm moving to Australia and following rugby instead. It's two-thousand-twenty-four and the Buffalo Bills employ Joshua Patrick Allen at quarterback. RUN HEAVY?!